• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Kingdom of Italy - Church and State

The new state at the start was surrounded by peculiar difficulties and dangers. Foremost were those arising from the religious question. The Pope was not merely a dispossessed temporal prince, but the spiritual head of Catholic Christendom. He was bitterly opposed to everything in the new order. He would tolerate no suggestions of compromise. Against the excommunicated government of Victor Emmanuel he threw the whole influence of the Catholic priesthood and appealed for help to the Catholic powers of Europe. The country was covered with monasteries and churches, which had absorbed the material wealth, while the people were stricken with poverty. To touch a convent or a priest was denounced as sacrilege.

The ideal which the statesmen of the Italian kingdom sought to realize was "a free church Church and a free state". It was an ideal derived from Liberalism but difficult of attainment because of the development of the Anti-Clericalism common to all Continental countries, and because of the peculiar position which the papacy occupied in Italy. Church and state were not separated: the Italian government continued to pay the salaries of the clergy and to pass upon the appointment of bishops; religious instruction was still given normally in the public schools; divorce was not sanctioned by the state. But following Cavour's example in Piedmont the number of monastic establishments throughout the whole kingdom was gradually reduced and the property of the Church was repeatedly subjected to complete or partial confiscation.

Although the papal possessions were declared a part of the kingdom of Italy, a law was passed which guaranteed to the Pope the rank and privileges of a sovereign prince. As head of the Church the Pope was to be entirely independent of the king of Italy. A sum of over six hundred thousand dollars annually was also appropriated to aid the Pope in defraying his expenses. He, however, refused to recognize the arrangement, regarding himself as a prisoner and the Italian government as a usurper who had robbed him of his possessions.

By the guarantee law of May, 1871, they endeavored to regulate the relations of the papal and royal courts. They declared the person of the sovereign pontiff inviolable, decreed him sovereign honors and a military guard, assigned him an annual income of 3,225,000 francs, the possession of the Vatican, of St. John Lateranus and the villa of Castel-Gandolfo and their dependencies. They carefully left him perfect liberty in the exercise of his spiritual functions, while reaffirming that his temporal sovereignty had departed. But the Pope was willing to accept nothing from a government which he considered irreligious and anti-Christian, and once more protested solemnly against all the measures taken.

Pius IX obstinately forbade any Italian Catholic to vote or to hold office under the royal government (the so-called non expedit). In Italy a sharp line was drawn between loyal patriots and faithful Catholics, with unfortunate results both for state and for church. The conscientious abstention of many good and honest people from politics left the Italian government in the hands of men indifferent, if not opposed, to religion, and weakened the state. Only slight improvement was registered by Leo XIII (1878-1903), and it was not until the practical abolition of the non expedit for parliamentary elections by Pius X in 1905 that an effective compromise seemed possible.