The team from the Vatican, headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church and of the Pope, will be led by Monsignor Melchor Sanchez De Toca Y Alameda of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

They will be observers at the Session here on Tuesday and Wednesday (February 6 and 7), Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reported. 

A delegation from the Vatican had attended the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

They had already been invited to the Opening Ceremony of Pyeongchang 2018 on Friday (February 9) and that has now been extended to attending the IOC Session. 

"It’s one more step down the road toward relations between the Holy See and the Olympic world," Monsignor Melchor told Crux , a publication which reports on the Catholic Church and Catholicism.

"Perhaps in the future we might reach a stable or permanent relationship that still has to be formally defined."

Monsignor Melchor, a Spaniard and keen sportsman in his youth, doubts, however, that we will ever see a team from the Vatican competing in the Olympics. 

The Vatican currently does not have any sports federations nor a National Olympic Committee. 

"I am not even sure that this is the significance for the presence of the Holy See," Sanchez told Crux. 

"I believe that we should aim toward another solution, for example, the Holy See’s participation at the United Nations or other international organisations."

Monsignor Melchor claimed the participation of North Korea at these games is proof that the “Olympic Truce allows us to continue to hope for a world without wars".

He plans to present IOC President Thomas Bach with a jersey from the Vatican athletics squad, made up of employees who work there.