Lateran Treaty

The Lateran Treaty (Patti Lateranensi; Pacta Lateranensia) was one component of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, agreements between the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel III (with his powerful Prime Minister Benito Mussolini) and the Holy See under Pope Pius XI to settle the long-standing Roman Question. The treaty and associated pacts were named after the Lateran Palace where they were signed on 11 February 1929, and the Italian parliament ratified them on 7 June 1929. The treaty recognized Vatican City as an independent state under the sovereignty of the Holy See. The Italian government also agreed to give the Roman Catholic Church financial compensation for the loss of the Papal States. In 1948, the Lateran Treaty was recognized in the Constitution of Italy as regulating the relations between the state and the Catholic Church. The treaty was significantly revised in 1984, ending the status of Catholicism as the sole state religion. The Lateran Pacts are often presented as three treaties: a 27-article treaty of conciliation, a three-article financial convention, and a 45-article concordat. However, the website of the Holy See presents the financial convention as an annex of the treaty of conciliation, considering the pacts as two documents: A political treaty recognising the full sovereignty of the Holy See in the State of Vatican City, which was thereby established, accompanied by four annexes: A map of the territory of Vatican City State Maps of buildings with extraterritorial privilege and exemption from expropriation and taxes (owned by the Holy See but located in Italy and not forming part of Vatican City) Maps of buildings with exemption from expropriation and taxes (but without extraterritorial privilege) A financial convention agreed on as a definitive settlement of the claims of the Holy See following the loss in 1870 of its territories and property A concordat regulating relations between the Catholic Church and the Italian state During the unification of Italy in the mid-19th century, the Papal States under Pius IX resisted incorporation into the new nation, even as almost all the other Italian countries joined it; Camillo Cavour's dream of proclaiming the Kingdom of Italy from the steps of St.