Rome, See and Church of

Abstract

For many centuries until Pins IX’s reign, with some comparatively short breaks, the Popes or Roman Pontiffs bore temporal swayover a territory stretching across Mid-Italy from sea to sea and comprising an area of some 16,000 square miles, with a population finally of some 3,125,000 souls. Of this dominion the whole has been incorporated with the Italian Kingdom. Furthermore, by an Italian law dated May 13, 1871, there was guaranteed to His Holiness and his successors for ever, besides the use of the Vatican and Lateran palaces and the villa of Castel Gandolfo, a yearly income of 3,225,000 lire, but this allowance remained unclaimed and unpaid until February 11, 1929, when a settlement of the ‘Roman question’ was arrived at by three treaties between the Italian Government and the Vatican. On that day there was signed (1) a Political Treaty, which recognized the full and independent sovereignty of the Holy See in the city of the Vatican ; (2) a Concordat, to regulate the condition of religion and of the Church in Italy ; and (3) a Financial Convention, in accordance with which the Holy See shall receive 750,000,000 lire in cash and 1,000,000,000 lire in Italian 5 per cent. State bonds. This sum is to be a definitive settlement of all the financial claims of the Holy See against Italy in consequence of the loss of its temporal power in 1870. The treaty and concordat were ratified and the sum of 750,000,000 lire paid on June 7, 1929.