Stopping Concordats

Until there's more public awareness of concordats, for most politicans fear of crossing the Vatican is going to weaken any desire to protecting the rights of their own electorate.

What would have to happen for the [Polish] concordat to be renegotiated or broken?

“The Church would, for example, have to break its terms drastically, but with such a small number of obligations towards the state, it is a purely hypothetical possibility. On the state side, there would need to be a major political desire to change the legal system. There has never been such a political desire, even when leftist groups were in power.” ― Prof. Pawel Borecki, Faculty of Religious Law, University of Warsaw

The kings of the past sometimes found it easier to resist Vatican pressure than modern politicians, especially when they weren't themselves Catholic. Both the Protestant rulers of Northern Europe and the Russian Orthodox czar didn't hesitate to cancel concordats. And even the Catholic emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph I scrapped a concordat which conflicted with the new constitution.

Yet democratic governments have also done so, as when the French National Assembly cancelled the concordat by breaking off diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1904. And as recently as 2006 the Slovakian foreign minister refused to sign a concordat. Of course, there was a price to pay for defying the Vatican: the Christian Democrats then left the governing coalition, and the Slovak Government fell.

By contrast, the Czech concordat was stalled at the final stage. It had already been signed in 2002 when the folowing year the Czech Chamber of Deputies legislature rejected it. Now, however, the President who had opposed it is being courted by the Church and the outcome remains uncertain.

Meanwhile in Venezuela, President Chavez, reacting to the political opposition of the Church, has threatened to scuttle the country's 1964 concordat.

On those rare occasions where there's the political will to do so, actually getting rid of a concordat poses no problem.

	Concordat challenge quashed in Bavaria, but proceeds in Spain
	Concordats used to be politically untouchable. However, these pacts with the Vatican which have the force of international treaties have recently been challenged in court, even if not always successfully.
	Infallible blunders: Pius IX scuttles his own concordats
	Absolute monarchs have a certain social self-confidence when dealing with another absolute monarch, especially one like the pope who reigns over a pocket-sized kingdom a fraction the size of their own empires. Such was the case with both Alexander II of Russia (and Finland and Poland) and Franz Joseph I of Austria (and Hungary). They weren't afraid to cancel concordats.
	Concordats ended in Northern Europe
	The Protestant Reformation ended concordats in Northern Europe, yet some of these are still state churches and in Germany the main Protestant church even enjoys "church-state treaties" which resemble concordats without the international dimension.
	Presidential decree cancels concordat in Argentina
	In a single sentence the Argentine military bishop managed to both attack AIDS prevention by the present democratic government and even, by implication, laud the death squads of the former military junta. This revealing remark has made it politically possible to cancel a concordat — the “international treaty” by which the taxpayers provided the bishop’s salary.
	Warnings from the EU stall the Slovak concordat
	Human rights must trump Church doctrines, says report of European Union lawyers: medical professionals should not have an unlimited right to impose their beliefs on others by refusing to provide contraceptives, perform abortions, etc. — in cases where this effectively denied a patient access to a service or procedure which was allowed by law. It caused quite a stir in Slovakia when the EU experts said that this treaty with the Vatican could violate international human rights, and the concordat was put on ice.