Lateran treaties
The
Lateran treaties are three agreements made in
1929 between the
kingdom of Italy and the
papacy. The treaties, or
concordats, settled the question of the relationship between Italy and the
Holy See. Known as the
Roman Question, this problem had arisen in
1870 when the newly formed kingdom of Italy annexed the
Papal States. In
1871 the Italian government guaranteed to
Pope Pius IX and his successors the use of the Vatican and the
Lateran Palaces and a yearly income of 3,250,000
lire as
indemnity for the loss of
sovereignty and territory. The Church, claiming the necessity for independence of any political power in its exercise of spiritual jurisdiction, refused to accept this settlement, and the popes thereafter considered themselves
prisoners in the Vatican, a small, limited area inside Rome.
Negotiations for the settlement of the Roman Question began in
1926 between the government of Italy and the Holy See, and in
1929 they culminated in the agreements of the
Lateran Treaty, signed for King
Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by
Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and for Pope Pius XI by
Pietro Cardinal Gasparri,
Cardinal Secretary of State. The agreements included a political treaty, which created the state of the Vatican City and guaranteed full and independent sovereignty to the
Holy See. The pope was pledged to perpetual
neutrality in
international relations and to abstention from mediation to a controversy except when specifically requested by all parties. Also agreed on were a concordat establishing
Roman Catholicism as the religion of Italy, and a financial arrangement awarding money to the Holy See in settlement of all its claims against Italy arising from the loss of temporal power in
1870.
In
1984 a revised treaty was signed which, among other things, ended the Church's status as the state-supported religion of Italy.
*
Prisoner in the Vatican*
Properties of the Holy See*
Full text of the treaties
