Temporal power
The
temporal power of the
Popes is the political and governmental activity of the
Popes of the
Roman Catholic Church, as distinguished from their spiritual and pastoral activity (also called
eternal power).
This activity brought the
Papal States into being as a country on a par with other countries of the world (some authors define it as a
theocracy, but this indication is often contested), with a regular army and an intense international political life. Some historians identify the crowning of
Charlemagne in 800 as the moment in which the Church started having an international importance in a modern sense, although the
temporal power can be traced to the earlier
Donation of Pepin in 756. Others prefer to see its birth as earlier, at the age of the Byzantine domain on Rome, where the Church already had power and wealth enough to contrast it.
Charlemagne's crowning, however, was perhaps the first moment in which the Church was generally granted a
power of control of the imperial dignity, thus demonstrating a sort on power of international
veto.
The temporal power has been often discussed in politics, in philosophy and in theology, mainly given that its practical effects were often very far from the official religious doctrine. The same story with the
inquisition, quite commonly considered as a mere instrument of the temporal power (therefore with no accepted religious meaning); it is perhaps the moment of the greatest distance between the
Gospel and the
Roman curia. The common reply to critics usually considers that the final goal of spreading the Good News (working for the diffusion of the Catholic faith), was so important that some "unavoidable" passages had to be crossed, practising at times some of
Machiavelli's political lessons.
For practical purposes, the temporal power of the popes ended on 20 September 1870, when the Italian Army entered Rome and completed the
Risorgimento.
Formally, the temporal power ended in
1929 with the treaty between the Vatican State and
Italy (
Concordat), when the
papacy accepted to have no more interests on Italy, its closest neighbour, and therefore on any other country. Of course, the influence of the Vatican still is relevant and evident, even if now it is mostly considered as a merely spiritual voice.
Some small degree of temporal power persists in the formal government of the
Vatican City as an independent state.
