Law of Guarantees

After the occupation of the Papal States in 1870, Italy's Law of Guarantees accorded the Pope certain honors and privileges similar to those enjoyed by the King of Italy, including the right to send and receive ambassadors who would have full diplomatic immunity, just as if he still had temporal power as ruler of a state. The papacy would thus have been subject to a law that the Italian parliament could modify or abrogate at any time. The law was passed by the senate and chamber of the Italian parliament on 13 May 1871.

Pope Pius IX and his successors refused to recognize the right of the Italian king to reign over what had formerly been the Papal States, or the right of the Italian government to decide his prerogatives and make laws for him. They instead considered themselves prisoners of the Vatican, refusing to set foot outside the walls of the Vatican and thereby put themselves under the protection of the Italian forces of law and order, until the Lateran Treaty of 1929 settled the Roman Question by establishing Vatican City as an independent state and paying compensation to the Holy See for the loss of the Papal States.

By the Lateran Treaty, the Holy See limited its request for indemnity for the loss of the Papal States and of ecclesiastical property confiscated by the Italian State to much less than would have been due to it under the Law of Guarantees.

External links

• Vatican City as a Free Society, by Carlo Lottieri