The Lateran Treaty Creates Vatican City

The treaty’s preamble names the dispute it was made to end: the “Roman question”, which arose in 1870 when Rome was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. To give the Holy See an independence that could be seen, it says, a sovereignty beyond dispute had to be guaranteed, and for that purpose Vatican City was to be constituted (Lateran Pacts (1929), Treaty, preamble). The plenipotentiaries were Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Secretary of State, for Pius XI, and Benito Mussolini, prime minister and head of the government, for King Victor Emmanuel III (Lateran Pacts (1929), Treaty, preamble). They signed on 11 February 1929 in the Lateran Palace, while the pope was telling the parish priests of Rome what was being done (Pius XI, Address of 11 February 1929).

By the treaty Italy reaffirmed that the Catholic religion is the only religion of the state, recognised the sovereignty of the Holy See in the international field, and recognised its full ownership of and exclusive sovereign jurisdiction over the Vatican, so creating Vatican City, in which the Italian government would not interfere (Lateran Pacts (1929), Treaty, arts. 1–4). The Holy See declared that it would stay outside the temporal rivalries of other states unless the parties appealed together to its mission of peace, and Vatican City was to be neutral and inviolable territory (Lateran Pacts (1929), Treaty, art. 24). The Holy See declared the Roman question settled finally and irrevocably and recognised the Kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy with Rome as its capital; Italy recognised the State of Vatican City under the sovereignty of the pope (Lateran Pacts (1929), Treaty, arts. 26–27). A financial convention bound Italy to pay 750 million lire and to hand over state bonds with a face value of one thousand million, which the Holy See accepted as the final settlement of its claims arising from 1870 (Lateran Pacts (1929), Financial Convention, arts. 1–2).

The concordat signed with the treaty assured the church the free exercise of spiritual power and of public worship (Lateran Pacts (1929), Concordat, art. 1). The choice of bishops belonged to the Holy See, which would first tell the government the name so that it could raise any political objection, and bishops were to swear loyalty to the Italian state (Lateran Pacts (1929), Concordat, arts. 19–20). The state gave civil effect to marriage celebrated under canon law and called Catholic teaching the foundation and crown of public instruction (Lateran Pacts (1929), Concordat, arts. 34 and 36). It recognised the organisations of Catholic Action so far as they worked outside every political party, and the Holy See renewed its ban on clergy joining any party (Lateran Pacts (1929), Concordat, art. 43).

Pius XI said that he had wanted the concordat from the first to be bound up with the treaty (Pius XI, Address of 11 February 1929). Two days after the signing he said that it had perhaps needed a man such as Providence had caused him to meet, one without the preoccupations of the liberal school, and that he believed he had with the concordat given God back to Italy and Italy to God (Pius XI, Address of 13 February 1929). The treaty came into force when the ratifications were exchanged, which it required within four months (Lateran Pacts (1929), Treaty, arts. 26–27).