Law of Guarantees
The 13 May 1871 Italian Law of Guarantees, passed eight months after the capture of Rome, was an attempt to solve the problem by making the pope a subject of the Kingdom of Italy, not an independent sovereign, while guaranteeing him certain honors similar to those given to the king and the right to send and receive ambassadors.
The popes — Pius IX (died 1878) and his successors Leo XIII (reigned 1878–1903), St Pius X (1903–14), Benedict XV (1914–22) and (from 1922 until the issue was resolved in 1929) Pius XI — refused to accept this unilateral decision, which, they felt, could be reversed by the same power that granted it, and which did not ensure that their decisions would be clearly seen to be free from interference by a political power. They claimed that total sovereignty was needed so that a civil government would never attempt to interfere in the governance of the universal Roman Church. Therefore, even after the Law of Guarantees, Pope Pius IX and his successors up to and including Pius XI decided not to leave the Palace of the Vatican, so as not to submit to the authority of the Italian State. As a result of the crisis, Pope Pius IX excommunicated the King of Italy.
Especially in the strongly Roman Catholic rural areas of Italy, there was great tension between Church and State. The newly-unified Kingdom of Italy did not recognize the validity of Church weddings, while the Church maintained that the Kingdom was illegitimate and Church weddings were sufficient before God.
Read more about this topic: Prisoner In The Vatican
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