Ratification of the Lateran Treaty

The Parliament of Italy ratified the Lateran Treaty, which had been signed on February 11 at the Lateran Palace, on June 7, 1929. This Treaty created the Vatican City-State, the sovereignty of the Holy See, recognized buildings belonging to the Vatican outside the small territory pictured on the map at left, including the Lateran Basilica (the Cathedral of the Pope as the Bishop of Rome), other major basilicas, educational institutions, headquarters of several congregations, and the Bambino Gesu hospital. All these properties are in Rome; certain properties outside Rome, like Castel Gandolfo, were also included in the Treaty. The Pope was recognized as the head of the Vatican City-State.

D.D. Emmons explains the background to this treaty in an Our Sunday Visitor article from July last year:

Beginning in 1850, King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia started his quest to consolidate all of Italy under one government and become the king of a unified Italy. The largest of the many independent Italian states were those controlled by the pope, who at the time was Pius IX (r. 1846-78), a serious stumbling block to Italian unification. The king, either through negotiations or threat of force, began annexing areas of Italy under a new national government. Pope Pius refused to relinquish any of his holdings, but the king occupied one Papal State after another, until by 1860 he had seized all the papal holdings except for the city of Rome. The new central government wanted Rome as the nation’s capital city, but the pope would have none of it. Protected by a French garrison, Pius refused to recognize Victor Emmanuel’s government and decried what he considered to be the robbery of the Papal States: the seizure of Church property belonging to all Catholics. . . .

On September 20, 1870, after the French garrison protecting the pope departed to fight in the Franco-Prussian war, King Victor’s army forcibly occupied Rome. The papal domain, once over 16,000 square miles, was reduced to the Vatican’s one-sixth of a square mile. Victor, by now king of all of Italy, offered considerable concessions to Pope Pius IX if he would acknowledge the new government and the annexation of the Papal States. These concessions, called the Law of Guarantees, recognized the pope as the head of the Catholic Church in Italy, accorded the pope all the rights of a sovereign monarch and provided compensation to the Church for the Papal States. The pope adamantly declined, believing that such agreement would be tantamount to placing the papacy under the rule of and subject to the king of Italy. . . .

From 1870 to 1929, Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI had considered themselves "Prisoners of the Vatican" until Pope Pius XI agreed to negotiations with the Italian Government, led by Benito Mussolini, Victor-Emmanuel's prime minister. Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, represented the Pope. 

Negotiations took a few years, starting in 1926.

D.D. Emmons outlines other matters agreed to in the Treaty:

Among the treaty agreements, the Holy See acknowledged the legitimacy of the Italian government and its right to the Papal States; the Vatican was, in turn, financially compensated; and Vatican City was created and designated a sovereign nation, independent of Italy, with the pope as head of state. Catholicism became the religion of Italy; marriage laws were placed under the rule of the Church, and Catholic religious training was included in every school. The Italian government provided Vatican City with a train station, a telephone and telegraph office, a post office and a radio station. The pope was once again ruler of a sovereign nation and in no way subject to an earthly potentate. . . .

Please read the rest there. 

When my late husband and I went to Rome in November 2002 with our former chaplain at the WSU Newman Center, Father Carr, we noted each time we left Italy and entered Vatican City, and vice versa, crossing the border with ease!

Image credit (public domain): Boundary map of Vatican City, taken from the annex of the Lateran Treaty