Italian anti-Jewish laws of 1938 prohibited marriages between Jews and non-Jews, including Catholics. The Vatican saw this as a violation of the Concordat, which gave the Church the exclusive right to regulate marriages with Catholics. [28] Article 34 of the Concordat also stipulated that marriages entered into by the Catholic Church were always considered valid by the civil authorities. [29] The Holy See understood that this means that this applies to all marriages in Italy celebrated by the Roman Catholic clergy, regardless of the faith of the bride and groom. [29] „A concordat was also signed to regulate the conditions of religion and the Church in Italy, also a convention that definitively systematized the financial relations between the Holy See and Italy according to the events of 1870. In 1984, an agreement was signed which revised the Concordat. Among other things, both sides declared: „The principle of the Catholic religion as the sole religion of the Italian state, which was originally referred to in the Lateran Pacts, is no longer in force.” [22] The Church`s position as the only state-backed religion in Italy has also ended and state funding has been replaced by an income tax called otto per mille, to which other religious groups, Christian and non-Christian, also have access. In 2013 [Update], there are ten other religious groups with access. The revised Concordat regulated the conditions under which Italy confers civil effects on ecclesiastical marriages and ecclesiastical declarations on the nullity of marriages. [23] The abolished articles included the recognition by the State of the titles of knight and titles of nobility conferred by the Holy See,[24] the obligation of the Holy See to confer ecclesiastical honors on persons entitled to exercise religious functions at the request of the State or the Royal House,[25] and the obligation of the Holy See to allow the Italian Government to: raise political objections to the proposal to appoint diocesan bishops. [26] „Today, at noon, in the papal hall of the Lateran Apostolic Palace, a treaty was signed between the Holy See and Italy, in which the Roman question was settled.
The Lateran Treaty (Italian: Patti Lateranensi; Latin: Pacta Lateranensia) was part of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, an agreement between the Kingdom of Italy under Benito Mussolini and the Holy See under Pope Pius XI to settle the long-standing Roman question. The treaty and related pacts were named after the Lateran Palace, where they were signed on February 11, 1929 and ratified by the Italian Parliament on June 7, 1929. The treaty recognized Vatican City as an independent state under the sovereignty of the Holy See. The Italian government also agreed to grant the Roman Catholic Church financial compensation for the loss of the Papal States. [1] In 1947, the Lateran Treaty was recognized in the Italian Constitution[2] as a regulation of relations between the State and the Catholic Church. Negotiations on the settlement of the Roman question began in 1926 between the Italian government and the Holy See and resulted in the agreements of the Lateran Pacts, which – according to the treaty – on February 11, 1929 for King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and for Pope Pius XI. were signed by Cardinal Secretary Pietro Gasparri.[17] [18] It was ratified on June 7, 1929. [19] Witnesses to the historic ceremony, as well as Prime Minister Mussolini and Cardinal Gasparri, were Bishop Borgongini-Luca of the Vatican staff; Giuseppi Pizzardo, the Pope`s Undersecretary of State, and commendatore Francesco Pacelli, a Vatican lawyer who mediated the negotiations between the Pope and Mussolini; Minister of Justice Alfredo Rocco, Undersecretary of State Dino Grandi; and Francesco Gounta, Under-Secretary of State to the Prime Minister.
Representatives of both sides met at a table in the historic St. John Lateran Palace and signed the agreement to end the dispute that had been going on since 1870. Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy, representing King Victor Emmanuel III, and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Pontifical Secretary of State, Pope Pius XI. , signed the historical documents exactly at noon.. .