This Week in Christian History: Fanny Crosby Dies, Vatican City Recognized

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, February 11, 2018

Italy Recognizes Vatican City as Sovereign State - February 11, 1929

Saint Peter's Basilica is pictured at the Vatican March 7, 2013. | (Photo: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini)

This week marks the anniversary of when the modern nation of Italy officially recognized Vatican City as a sovereign state in an agreement known as the Lateran Treaty.

Also called the Lateran Pact of 1929, the treaty resolved a decades-long dispute over the independence of the pope amid the annexation of Rome by the Kingdom of Italy in 1870.

The treaty was brokered between then head of state and prime minister Benito Mussolini and papal secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Gasparri.

"Italy recognizes the full ownership and the exclusive and absolute power and jurisdiction of the Holy See over the Vatican as it is presently constituted, together with all its appurtenances and endowments, creating in this manner Vatican City for the special purposes and under the conditions given in this Treaty," read the treaty in part.

"The sovereignty and exclusive jurisdiction over Vatican City which Italy recognizes as pertaining to the Holy See means that within the same City there cannot be any interference on the part of the Italian Government and that there is no other authority there than that of the Holy See."