The Lateran Treaty

The Lateran Treaty, also called Lateran Pact was signed on February 11, in the year 1929 between the Holy See and Italy. It was made during the Fascist government and had three documents or sections:

-     The Treaty of Conciliation: made the Vatican City as a state, and accepted the sovereignty of the Pope. It contained 27 articles.

-     The Financial Convention: financial agreement that compensated the loss the Vatican had had of some territories. It contained 3 articles.

-     The Concordat: It regulated the relationship between the Catholic Church with Italy. It contained 45 articles.

This pact solved the “Roman Question”, which was a political conflict between the Vatican and Italy, and during this time, especially after the capture of Rome, the Pope was like a prisoner of the Vatican, because he couldn’t visit any other Italian territories.

The ones who signed the Lateran Treaty were Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy for the king of Italy who did it for King Victor Emmanuel III, and leader of the Fascist Party of the country; and Pietro Gasparri, the Cardinal Secretary of State, who did it for Pope Pius XI.

But the Pope also had some agreements to follow: he had to have neutrality in international relations and couldn’t participate much in a controversy, unless all the parties involved asked for it. This Treaty established Catholicism as the official religion of Italy.

The Church received a sum of money, but it was less than what they had declared in 1871 by the Law of Guarantees, which said that the Pope Pius IX could use the Vatican Palaces (without having sovereignty over them), and would receive a sum of money every year. But the Pope rejected to accept this settlement and was considered prisoner of the Vatican until the Lateran Treaty.

Mussolini made the “Via della Conciliazione” as a shown of how good the agreements had been. This Road of the Conciliation linked the Vatican State with the Center of Rome.

The agreements of the Lateran Treaty were added to the Constitution of Italy in 1948, 19 years after signing it.

The Treaty lasted only until 1985, when there was the “concordat of 1985” through which Roman Catholicism was no longer the official religion of Italy. This brought a lot of changes to Italian society, some as the radical end of religion topics and religious education in public schools and other organizations or institutions.

The Treaty was violated several times, for example when in 1938, marriages between Jews and non-Jews were prohibited, including Catholics. The Vatican saw this as a violation, so with the right of the Pope they regulated marriages.

But as long as it was effective, it helped the Vatican in the sense that the Pope was again free and could recover his liberty and independence, having the Vatican City as a State of 44 hectares.