Nuncio
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( n.) A messenger.
(2): ( n.) The permanent official representative of the pope at a foreign court or seat of government. Distinguished from a legate a latere, whose mission is temporary in its nature, or for some special purpose. Nuncios are of higher rank than internuncios.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
is the term designating an ambassador from the pope to some prince or state; or a person who attends on the pope's behalf at a congress, or at an assembly of several ambassadors. A nuncio, in fact, is the pope's ambassador, as the internuncio is his envoy extraordinary. A nuncio has ajurisdiction, and may delegate judges in all the states where he resides, except in France, where he has no authority beyond that of a simple ambassador. Sometimes a nuncio is invested with the functions of a legatus satus. (See Legates). During the temporal power of the pope, nuncios or papal ambassadors were sustained at all the courts of the Continent in the. interest of the Roman hierarchy for intercourse with other temporal powers; since the dethronement of the pope as temporal sovereign these have been obstinately continued, and are gradually being turned into focal points of Jesuitical propagandism. In Germany, in the present conflict with the papacy, the nuncio maintained at the court of Bavaria is believed to be the head of the Ultramontane movement in all Germany. (See Papacy); (See Ultramontanism). The ambassador to a republic or to the court of a minor sovereign is called INTERNUNCIO or INTERNUNTIUS.
