ITALY AND THE POPE

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3904, 7 February 1929, Page 2

ITALY AND THE POPE

plan of reconciliation. The significance of the agreement which is reported to have been reached between the Italian Government and the Pope lies in the fact that the spiritual head of the See 'of Rome, a prisoner by choice within the walls of the garden of the Vatican, will end the self-imposed retirement in which the Pontiffs have live! for more than 50 years. The advocates ; of the restoration of a part of the Papal domain have been confident for some years that Italy would eventually concede a few square miles of territory to the Holy See. The first foothold of the Roman Catholic Church as an owner ,of land in Italy was gained in the fourth century. The traditions is that Constantine in 315 A.D., as Emperor, gave to the Christians the palace and garden of Pla'tius Uateranus. There was built the venerable Church of St. John Lateran, which to this day is the cathedral of the Pope as Bishop of Rome. The temporal power of the. Pope, however, may be definitely traced to the eighth century. The Roman Catholic Church had gradually assumed authority over much of midItaly and its domain became like a buffer state. It had received gifts .of vast tracts of land from old families which had become extinct, and many thousands of people placed themselves under its protection. Such was its extent and influence that the See of Rome later found itself more or less forced into becoming a civil administrator, not only in the Eternal City, but in the outlying territories. By the middle of the 18th century they comprised 17,200 square miles and stretched from the Adriatic Sea through midItaly. When Pope Pius IX, was consecrated in 1846 the States of the Church, with a population then of 3,000,000, were in a flourishing condition and their .area was practically the same as it had been -a century before. Forced to flee from Rome by the invasion of the Austrians, the Pontiff established .himself at Gaeta, just beyond the borders of the Papal. State, where he remained until he was able to. return through the. intervention of the French. The last of the Popes to rule the territory controlled by the Church for centuries, Pius IX., was maintained in power by French arms. In the great movement for the unification of Italy led by Victor Emmanuel H., and Garibaldi, the Romagna district in 1860 dropped away from the Papal States. This reduced the lands of the Church to less than half of their former area. For fully 10 years the French battalions sustained the Pope in bis dominions. When the Franeo-Prus-sian War began Napoleon 111 was obliged to withdraw his forces, and with his defeat and capture at: Sedan in 1870, the fate of the Papal States was sealed. It was felt by the revolutionary party that they stood in the way of the unifying of Italy and of the movement to change the-capital from Florence to Rome.

Under the Papal Guarantee Bill, enacted by the Italian Government jn 1871, it was reported that the Pope should continue his spiritual authority unhindered and that his person should he considered as ‘'sacred and inviolable.” It was specified that he was fo have as many guards as he thought necessary to ensure his safety and to prevent the spoliation of his palace. Under the new order the See of St. Peter lost all its lands except the square mile or so which is included in the .Vatican gardens, It, of course, retained the splendid palace, the Vatican, and its treasures of art and literature, the Latcran and the Castel ,Gondolfo, with its outbuildings, furnishings and treasures. The splendid .Palace of the Quirinal, summer palace of the Popes, was takeq over by the Government and became the residence of the King of Italy.