THE Lateran Pacts are the agreements stipulated between the Holy See and it Italian state theFebruary 11, 1929 to put an end to the so-called Roman question and regulate the position of the Church in Italy. They have this name because they were signed in the palace of St. John Lateran. They are made up of three chords: a treaty, a concordat and a financial agreement. The agreement was updated in 1984while the other two documents are still in force. One of the most important consequences of the Pacts is the birth of a new State, the Vatican Citygoverned directly by Dad. Let’s see in summary what the content of the Pacts is and why they were signed.
The Lateran Pacts and the Roman Question
The signing of the Lateran Pacts marked the end of a disagreement that had begun many years earlier. As we know, in 1861 it was the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimedwhich in 1870 occupied the city of Romeputting an end to the “temporal” power of the Popes (i.e. the “direct” government of Rome and other territories). After conquering the city, the State issued the law of “guarantees” (i.e. guarantees), recognizing the Pope’s full autonomy in his spiritual functions, but the pontiff, Pius IXdid not accept the law, did not recognize the Italian State and declared himself a “prisoner in the Vatican”. Moreover, already in 1868 the pontiff had issued the provision of do not expedit (“it is not convenient”), prohibiting Catholics from taking part in Italian political life.
Thus began the Roman questionthat is, the conflict between State and Church caused by the Italian conquest of Rome. As the years passed, relations between the two institutions underwent a gradual détente. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century Pope Pius do not expeditand in 1919 the Italian People’s Partywhich represented the Catholics and was led by a priest, Luigi Sturzo.
The relationship between fascism and the Church
In the 1922 in Italy the fascism. Mussolini, despite being personally anticlerical, realized that the Church had great influence on Italian society and intended to secure its support. He was also aware that resolving the Roman Question would be a move with exceptional propaganda value. For his part, the Pope, Pius
The fascist government cultivated relations with the ecclesiastical hierarchies from the first years after the rise to power, despite the fact that the black shirts had also committed violence against the People’s Party and against some priests, and in the mid-1920s it started negotiations to put an end to the Roman Question. The thorniest problem was that the Church did not intend to resolve the issue without also regulating the status of the Catholic religion within the Italian State. That is, he did not want the treaty without the concordat. The negotiations ended only in 1929. February 11th Mussolini and Cardinal Pietro GasparriVatican Secretary of State and representative of Pius XI, signed the Pacts in the palace of San Giovanni in Laterano.
The content of the Lateran Pacts
The Agreements are made up of three documents (therefore they are called “agreements” and not “agreement”):
- a treaty,
- a financial agreement attached to it,
- a agreed.
With the treaty, the Italian government agreed to surrender to the Holy See a portion of the territory of the city of Romeon which a new state was established, the Vatican City. The treaty recognized the new State’s exemption from taxes and duties on imported goods.
The financial agreement attached to the treaty provided for the Italian State to pay the Vatican a large sum as compensation for spoliation of ecclesiastical goods after the Unification.
Finally, the concordat regulated the conditions of the Church and the Catholic religion in the Kingdom of Italy. Among the various provisions, it recognized the Catholicism as state religionhe guaranteed tax privileges of various kinds to religious institutions, recognized the civil value of religious marriagesanctioned theteaching of religion in schools (already existing since 1923).
The Constitution of the Republic and the new Concordat of 1984
After the Second World War, the Constitution of the Republic, with article 7, explicitly recognized the Pacts. In the 1984 the concordat was replaced by a new agreementsaid of Villa Madamasigned by the prime minister Bettino Craxi and by the Vatican Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli representing Pope John Paul II.
The most important change was the establishment of the transfer of 8 x 1000 of the Irpef to the Churchreplacing previous benefits guaranteed to the clergy, and the recognition, which already occurred with the 1948 Constitution, of the secularism of the Italian state. However, the treaty was not modified and is still in force. The concordat is criticized by some political forces because it recognizes numerous privileges for the Church, especially in fiscal matters, and there is no shortage of those calling for its revision or abolition.
