Note (Back) — Chapter XXI

427. The Law of Papal Guarantees, 1871: Papal Prerogatives.—This important measure, which remains to this day unchanged, falls into two principal parts. The first is concerned with the prerogatives of the Supreme Pontiff and of the Holy See; the second regulates the legal relations of church and state within the kingdom. In a series of thirteen articles there is enumerated a sum total of papal privileges which constitutes the Vatican an essentially sovereign and independent power. First of all, the Pope is declared sacred and inviolable, and any offense against his person is made punishable with the same penalty as a similar offense against the person of the king. In the second place, the Italian Government "grants to the Supreme Pontiff, within the kingdom, sovereign honors, and guarantees to him the pre-eminence customarily accorded to him by Catholic sovereigns."[565] Diplomatic agents accredited to him, and envoys whom he may send to foreign states, are entitled to all the prerogatives and immunities which international law accords to diplomatic agents generally. In lieu of the revenues which were cut off by the loss of the temporal dominion there is settled upon the Pope a permanent income to be paid from the treasury of the state. For the uses of the Holy See—the preservation and custody of the apostolic palaces, compensation and pensions for guards and attachés, the keeping of the Vatican museums and library, and any other needful purposes—there is reserved the sum of 3,225,000 lire ($645,000) annually, to be "entered in the great book of the public debt as a perpetual and inalienable income of the Holy See."[566] The obligation thus assumed by the state may never be repudiated, nor may the amount stipulated be reduced. Permanent possession, furthermore, of the Vatican and Lateran palaces, with all buildings, museums, libraries, gardens, and lands appertaining thereto (including the church of St. Peter's), together with the villa at Castel Gandolfo, is expressly guaranteed, and it is stipulated, not only that these properties shall be exempt from all taxation and charges and from seizure for public purposes, but that, except with papal permission, no public official or agent in the performance of his public duties shall so much as enter the papal palaces or grounds, or any place where there may be in session at any time a conclave or ecumenical council. During a vacancy of the pontifical chair no judicial or political functionary may, on any pretext, invade the personal liberty of the cardinals, and the Government engages specifically to see to it that conclaves and ecumenical councils shall not be molested by external disorder.