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The Law of Guarantees ( it, Legge delle guarentigie), sometimes also called the Law of Papal Guarantees, was the name given to the law passed by the senate and chamber of the Italian parliament, 13 May, 1871, concerning the prerogatives of the
Holy See The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...
, and the relations between State and Church in the
Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
. It ''guaranteed'' sovereign prerogatives to the
Roman Pontiff Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
, who had been deprived of the territory of the
papal states The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
. The popes refused to accept the law, as it was enacted by a foreign government and could therefore be revoked at will, leaving the popes without a full claim to sovereign status. In response, the popes declared themselves prisoners of the Vatican. The ensuing Roman Question was not resolved until the
Lateran Pacts The Lateran Treaty ( it, Patti Lateranensi; la, Pacta Lateranensia) was one component of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, agreements between the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and the Holy See under Pope Pius XI to settle ...
of 1929.


Origins of the law

For a time, the most serious question that confronted Italy after 1870 was the hostility between Church and State.Schapiro, ''European History'', pg. 446. The Italian government, which had declared that it entered Rome to safeguard the person of the Holy Father,Visconti-Venosta, circular of 7 September, 1870; the autograph letter of Victor Emanuel to Pius IX, dated 29 Aug., received 10 Sept.; again the king's answer to the Roman deputation which brought him the result of the plebiscite and which, in the very act of invading pontifical territory, had assured the people that the independence of the Holy See would remain inviolate,General Cadorna's proclamation at Terni, 11 Sept. felt obliged to secure in a legal and solemn way the executions of its aforesaid intention. It owed no less to its own
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
subjects, and to Catholics the world over. Two ways were open to it for keeping its promise. It might call an international congress of all nations having a very large Catholic population, or it might pass a domestic Italian law. In the aforesaid circular of the minister Visconti-Venosta, addressed to all the powers, the former way was hinted at. But the unconcern of Catholic governments over the events that ended in the occupation of Rome put an end to all thought of consulting them; and so a domestic law was passed. Before its adoption, however,
Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...
, by a letter of his cardinal vicar, dated 2 March, 1871, protested against the law "in which", he said, "it was no easy task to decide whether absurdity, cunning, or contempt played the largest part".


Provisions

Parliament passed in 1871 the famous Law of Papal Guarantees, which proposed to solve the question on Cavour's principle of a free church in a free state. The pope was declared an independent sovereign and, as such, was entitled to receive and to send ambassadors and to conduct diplomatic affairs without any interference from the Italian government. His territory, however, was limited to the district in Rome known as the "Leonine City", over which floated the
Papal The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
flag, and into which no Italian officer could enter without permission from the Papal authorities. The palaces, churches, museums, offices, villas, and gardens in the Leonince City were to be exempt from taxation, and the Papal government was to have free use of the Italian railway, postal, and telegraph systems. The church was guaranteed full freedom of self-government, and the old interference by the state in church affairs was declared terminated.Schapiro, ''Modern History'', pg. 447. The principal stipulations of the law may be summed up as follows: * the pope's person to be sacred and inviolable;Cismas, ''Religious Actors and International Law'', pg. 162, footnote #45. * insult or injury to the pope to be treated on a par with insult or injury to the king's person; discussion of religious matters to be absolutely free; * royal honours to be paid to the pope; that he have the right to the customary guards; * as an indemnity for the loss of his domains, as an annual sum in perpetuity, the pope was voted 3,225,000 lireIn 1913, roughly US$622,425 or GB£127,933 (cf. ''Catholic Encyclopedia''). In 1921, roughly US$645,000 (cf. Schapiro, ''Modern History'', pg. 447). to cover all the needs of the Holy See ( College of Cardinals, Roman congregations, embassies, etc.) and the maintenance of church buildings; * the
Lateran 250px, Basilica and Palace - side view Lateran and Laterano are the shared names of several buildings in Rome. The properties were once owned by the Lateranus family of the Roman Empire. The Laterani lost their properties to Emperor Constantin ...
and Vatican palaces, as well as the Villa of Castel Gandolfo, to remain the property of the pope; these articles assure the pope and all engaged in the spiritual government of the Church, as well as the college of cardinals assembled in conclave, complete liberty of communication with the Catholic world, exempt them from all interference with their letters, papers, etc.; * the clergy to have freedom of assembly; * the government to renounce the "Apostolic Legation" in Sicily, and the right of nomination to major benefices, with reservation, however, of the royal patronage; the bishops are not obliged to take the oath (of allegiance) on appointment; * the Exequatur to be maintained only for the major benefices (except in Rome, and in the suburbicarian sees) and for acts affecting the disposition of ecclesiastical property; * in spiritual matters no appeal to be allowed against ecclesiastical authority; the civil courts, however, to be competent to pass judgment on the juridical effects of ecclesiastical sentences. Provision to be made, by a future law, for the reorganization, conservation, and administration of all the church property in the kingdom. * the right to active and passive legation, and immunity of envoys accredited to the Holy See within Italian territory.


Papal response

The popes refused to recognized the ''
fait accompli Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engl ...
'' which was supported by the Law of Guarantees, and refused in principle to recognize in the Italian government any right to grant them prerogatives, or to make laws for them, a position that lasted until the resolution of the Roman Question in 1929.Eric O. Hanson, ''The Catholic Church in World Politics'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) 43. Pius IX indignantly refused to accept the terms of the "sub-Alpine" Government, as he termed the House of Savoy, whom he regarded as the despoiler of "God's vicar." Parliament regularly voted the annuity from 1871 onward, but the popes never accepted it, because to accept it would be to recognize the Kingdom of Italy as a legitimate government which no pope from 1871 to 1929 was willing to do. Pius IX shut himself up in his tiny domain and refused to leave it under any circumstances, regarding himself as the "Prisoner of the Vatican"; his successors to 1929 followed the policy and never set foot outside the Vatican once they were elected pope. Indeed, each of the "concessions carried with it a special servitude, while later events proved that they were not intended to be seriously observed. In the Encyclical of 15 May following, the pope declared that no guarantees could secure him the liberty and independence necessary in the exercise of his power and authority. He renewed this protest at the consistory of 27 October. And it stands to reason that a law voted by two houses of Parliament could with equal ease be abrogated by them at will. Indeed, it has ever been part of the programme of the "Left" party in the Italian Parliament to suppress the Law of Guarantees. Pius IX, moreover, was unwilling to accept formally the arrangements made concerning the relations of Church and State, especially the Exequatur and the administration of ecclesiastical property. Moreover, if, as he hoped, the occupation of Rome was to be only temporary, the acceptance of this law seemed useless. Doubtless, too, such acceptance on his part would have been interpreted as at least a tacit recognition of accomplished facts, as a renunciation of the temporal power, and the property which had been taken from the Holy See (e. g. the Quirinal Palace). The abandonment of the "Apostolic Legation" in Sicily, for eight centuries an apple of discord between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Sicily, and the endowment granted the pope, were truly but slight compensation for all that had been taken from him. Consequently neither Pius IX nor his successors ever touched the aforesaid annual endowment, preferring to depend on the offerings of the faithful throughout the Catholic world. It may be added that the endowment was not sufficient to meet the needs of the Church, nor with their multiplication could it be increased.


''Non expedit''

''Non expedit'' (
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
: "It is not expedient") were the words with which the Holy See enjoined upon Italian Catholics the policy of abstention from the polls in parliamentary elections. The encyclical also forbade Italian Catholics from holding office under the Crown of Italy. This policy was adopted after a period of uncertainty and of controversy which followed the promulgation of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy (1861), and which was intensified by laws hostile to the Church and, especially, to the religious orders (1865–66). To this uncertainty the Holy Penitentiary put an end by its decree of 29 February, 1868, in which, in the above words, it sanctioned the motto; "Neither elector nor elected". Until then there had been in the Italian Parliament a few eminent representatives of Catholic interests-Vito d'Ondes Reggio, Augusto Conti, Cesare Cantù, and others. The principal motive of this decree was that the oath taken by deputies might be interpreted as an approval of the spoliation of the Holy See, as Pius IX declared in an audience of 11 October, 1874. A practical reason for it, also, was that, in view of the electoral law of that day, by which the electorate was reduced to 650,000, and as the Government manipulated the elections to suit its own purposes, it would have been hopeless to attempt to prevent the passage of anti-Catholic laws. On the other hand, the masses seemed unprepared for parliamentary government, and as, in the greater portion of Italy (Parma, Modena, Tuscany, the Pontifical States, and the Kingdom of Naples), nearly all sincere Catholics were partizans of the dispossessed princes, they were liable to be denounced as enemies of Italy; they would also have been at variance with the Catholics of Piedmont and of the provinces wrested from Austria, and this division would have further weakened the Catholic Parliamentary group. As might be expected, this measure did not meet with universal approval; the so-called Moderates accused the Catholics of failing in their duty to society and to their country. In 1882, the suffrage having been extended, Leo XIII took into serious consideration the partial abolition of the restrictions established by the ''Non Expedit,'' but nothing was actually done (cf. "Archiv für kathol. Kirchenrecht", 1904, p. 396). On the contrary, as many people came to the conclusion that the decree ''Non Expedit'' was not intended to be absolute, but was only an admonition made to apply upon one particular occasion, the Holy Office declared (30 Dec., 1886) that the rule in question implied a grave precept, and emphasis was given to this fact on several subsequent occasions (Letter of Leo XIII to the Cardinal Secretary of State, 14 May, 1895; Congregation of Extraordinary Affairs, 27 January, 1902; Pius X, ''Motu proprio,'' 18 Dec., 1903). Later Pius X, by his encyclical "Il fermo proposito" (11 June, 1905) modified the ''Non Expedit,'' declaring that, when there was question of preventing the election of a "subversive" candidate, the bishops could ask for a suspension of the rule, and invite the Catholics to hold themselves in readiness to go to the polls.


Legal status of the Holy See under the Law of Guarantees

There was occasional controversy between writers on
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
and on Italian ecclesiastical legislation over various matters connected with this law: whether in the eyes of the Italian government the pope is a sovereign, whether he enjoys the privilege of extraterritoriality (not expressly recognized to him, though granted to foreign embassies to the Holy See), etc. As far as the Holy See was concerned, these controversies had no meaning; it had never ceased to assert its sovereign status and corresponding rights. Some writers saw the Law of Guarantees as constitutive of the legal personality of the Holy See after 1870, conferring a legal personality subject to unilateral abrogation by the Kingdom of Italy. Other writers viewed the Law of Guarantees as a declarative instrument of the extant sovereignty of the Holy See.


Civil effects in Italian law

The question arose as to whether this untouched endowment would be confiscated by the Italian treasury at the end of every five years, as is usual with other public debts of the Kingdom of Italy. The ''Civiltà Cattolica'' maintained that it could not be confiscated, but the Italian courts long ago decided differently. They reasoned that since Pius IX had not accepted the endowment, he had never come into possession of it, and therefore the funds were not actually being confiscated but still belonged to the Italian State. Pius IX expressly rejected this income on 13 November, 1872.


Resolution of the Roman Question

After the papal rejection of the Law of Guarantees, the popes existed in a self-imposed state as " Prisoner of the Vatican" in diplomatic protestation of the Kingdom of Italy's claims to the Papal States. The popes refused to leave the Vatican. At first the situation as embarrassing and even dangerous to the Italians, who feared that France or Austria might champion the cause of the Pope and compel them to evacuate Rome. But the defeat of these two Catholic nations by Prussia and, especially, the establishment of an anticlerical Republic in France, made such an event only a remote possibility, and the "Prisoner of the Vatican" became a polite fiction. As time went on there began a ''raprochement'' between the Vatican and the Quirinal,The Vatican is the palace of the pope, and the Quirinal was the palace of the king, but they are used figuratively to mean the Papacy and Italian government respectively (cf. Schapiro, ''Modern History'', p. 447 footnote 1 & p. 448 footnote 1). though, in theory, the successors of Pius IX continued to advocate the restoration of their temporal power. The situation was finally resolved in 1929 by the
Lateran Pacts The Lateran Treaty ( it, Patti Lateranensi; la, Pacta Lateranensia) was one component of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, agreements between the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and the Holy See under Pope Pius XI to settle ...
which created the
State of Vatican City Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—' * german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ') * pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—' * pt, Cidade do Vati ...
as an independent
sovereign state A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined ter ...
to guarantee the political and legal independence of the
pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
from the Italian government. There is a treaty as well as a concordat, which together form a juridical whole.Metz, ''What is Canon Law?'', pg. 131.


Legacy

Although in principle the popes refused to accept the Law of Guarantees, in practice they tacitly accepted some of its provisions.Duffy, ''Saints & Sinners'', pg. 233. They allowed clergy to accept revenues from the Italian state deriving from their
benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...
s. The popes began appointing all Italian bishops. Previously, various Italian civil authorities had had the right of presentation, but the Law of Guarantees had given the right of free conferral back to the pope. Since the Italian territories had more bishoprics than in any other part of Christendom, by 1870 Victor Emmanuel had the right to present 237 bishops for appointment, more than any other king in Christian history. Such immense powers of appointment would now be exercised by the popes directly, which changed the relationship between the papacy and the Italian episcopate and shifted views on who should appoint bishops in general. A new and growing assumption was that it was for the pope to directly appoint bishops. The loss of temporal power greatly enhanced papal control over the church in Italy.


See also

* Concordat * Foreign relations of the Holy See *
Lateran treaty The Lateran Treaty ( it, Patti Lateranensi; la, Pacta Lateranensia) was one component of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, agreements between the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and the Holy See under Pope Pius XI to settl ...
* Legal status of the Holy See * Risorgimento * Roman Question


References


Notes


Bibliography

*Cismas, Ioana. ''Religious Actors and International Law'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). *Duffy, Eamon. ''Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). *Hanson, Eric O. ''The Catholic Church in World Politics'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987). *Metz, René. ''What is Canon Law?'' (New York: Hawthorn Books/Publishers, 1960). Michael Derrick (translator of the French original). * GIOBBIO, ''Lezioni di diplomazia ecclesiastica'' (Rome, 1899), I, passim; CASTELLARI, ''La Santa Sede'' (Milan, 1903), I, 108 sqq.; II, 488–608; GEFFCKEN, ''Die völkerrechtliche Stellung des Papsttums'' (Rome, 1887), 172; ''Gazetta Ufficiale,'' series II, no. 214; ''Acta Pii IX'' (Rome, s. d.), pt. I, vol. V, 286 sqq., 306 sqq., 352 sqq.; ''Acta Sanctœ Sedis'' (Rome, 1870–1871), VI. * ''Civiltà Cattolica'' (Rome), ser. VIII, IV, 652; VI, 51; VIII, 653; VIII, 3l62; ''Questioni politico-religiose'' (Rome, 1905). * {{Risorgimento Law of Vatican City History of Vatican City 19th-century Catholicism Foreign relations of the Holy See History of the papacy Holy See–Italy relations Italian unification Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) 1870s in the Papal States History of the Papal States Legal history of Italy Legal history of Vatican City