Roman Question

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The Roman Question was a political dispute between the Italian Government and the Papacy from 1861 to 1929.

The Roman Question lingered after the annexation of Rome and the consequent cessation of temporal power over the Papal States and ended with the Lateran treaties between Mussolini's government and Pope Pius XI. During the intervening years the popes considered themselves (in the words of Pope Pius IX) "prisoners in the Vatican".

The popes maintained their status as prisoners of the Vatican even after the Lateran treaties were signed in 1929. Although they traveled privately to Castel Gandolfo, they made no public visits outside the Vatican. The only exception occurred during World War II, when Pope Pius XII made brief visits to some bombed neighborhoods of Rome. Pope John XXIII ended this charade shortly after his election, when he emerged from the Vatican bunkers and ushered in the era of the modern papacy. On 25 December 1958, he visited children suffering from polio at the Bambin Gesù hospital and then visited Santo Spirito Hospital. The next day he visited Rome's Regina Coeli prison, where he told the prisoners: "You could not come to me, so I came to you." These were the first official acts of a Pope away from Vatican territory since 1870, and they created a sensation. He wrote in his diary:

... great astonishment in the Roman, Italian and international press. I was hemmed in on all sides: authorities, photographers, prisoners, wardens ...^[1]

1 Background
2 Law of Papal Guarantees
3 Lateran treaties
4 In literature
5 See also
6 References
7 Notes
8 External links

[edit] Background

Main article: Italian unification

Rome was declared capital of Italy in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament met in Turin. However, the Italian Government could not take possession of its capital because Napoleon III of France kept a French garrison in Rome protecting Pope Pius IX.

In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. In early August, the French Emperor Napoleon III recalled his garrison from Rome and could no longer protect the Papal States. Widespread public demonstrations demanded that the Italian government take Rome. The Italian government took no direct action until the collapse of Napoleon at the battle of Sedan. King Victor Emmanuel II sent Count Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of offering protection to the pope.

The Pope’s reception of San Martino [10 September 1870] was unfriendly. Pius IX allowed violent outbursts to escape him. Throwing the King’s letter upon the table he exclaimed, "Fine loyalty! You are all a set of vipers, of whited sepulchres, and wanting in faith." He was perhaps alluding to other letters received from the King. After, growing calmer, he exclaimed: "I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet, but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!" San Martino was so mortified that he left the next day.^[2]

The Italian Army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the papal frontier on 11 September and advanced slowly toward Rome, hoping that a peaceful entry could be negotiated. The Italian Army reached the Aurelian Walls on 19 September and placed Rome under a state of siege. Pius IX remained intransigent to the bitter end and forced his Zouaves to put up a token resistance. On 20 September, after a cannonade of three hours had breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia, the Bersaglieri entered Rome and marched down Via Pia, which was subsequently renamed Via XX Settembre. 49 Italian soldiers and 19 papal Zouaves died. Rome and Latium were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy after a plebiscite.

According to Raffaele De Cesare:

"The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon's feet — that dragged him into the abyss. He never forgot, even in August 1870, a month before Sedan, that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country, that he had been made emperor, and was supported by the votes of the conservatives and the influence of the clergy; and that it was his supreme duty not to abandon the pontiff. […] For twenty years Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many friends and relations […] Without him the temporal power would never have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would have endured."^[3]

[edit] Law of Papal Guarantees

Pope Pius IX, asserting that the Holy See would maintain absolute independence from the Italian state, rejected the Law of Papal Guarantees of 1871, which offered an annual financial payment to the pope, an agreement which Pius IX perceived as reducing the pope to the "chaplain of the King of Italy."^[4]

[edit] Lateran treaties

Main article: Lateran treaties

[edit] In literature

Historical dramas such as Fabiola and Quo Vadis, based upon the Vatican Secret Archives (opened in 1883), which implicitly compared the Roman Question and the persecution of the early Catholic Church.^[5]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

De Cesare, Raffaele. (1909). The Last Days of Papal Rome. London: Archibald Constable & Co.
Hebblethwaite, Peter. (1987). Pope John XXIII: Shepherd of the Modern World. Image Books.
Pollard, John F. (2005). Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican, 1850–1950. Cambridge University Press.