The Law of Guarantees (), sometimes also called the Law of Papal Guarantees, was the name given to the law passed by the senate and chamber of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy, 13 May 1871, concerning the prerogatives of the Holy See, and the relations between state and church in the Kingdom of Italy. It guaranteed sovereign prerogatives to the pope, who had been deprived of the territory of the Papal States. The popes refused to accept the law, as it was enacted by a foreign government and could therefore be revoked at will, leaving the popes without a full claim to sovereign status. In response, the popes declared themselves prisoners of the Vatican. The ensuing Roman Question was not resolved until the Lateran Pacts of 1929.
Origins of the law
For a time, the most serious question that confronted Italy after 1870 was the hostility between Church and State. The Italian government, which had declared that it entered Rome to safeguard the person of the Holy Father, and which, in the very act of invading pontifical territory, had assured the people that the independence of the Holy See would remain inviolate, felt obliged to secure in a legal and solemn way the executions of its aforesaid intention. It owed no less to its own Catholic subjects, and to Catholics the world over. Two ways were open to it for keeping its promise. It might call an international congress of all nations having a very large Catholic population, or it might pass a domestic Italian law.
A circular of the minister Emilio Visconti Venosta, addressed to all the powers, hinted at the former solution. But the lack of reaction by foreign Catholic governments to the occupation of Rome put an end to all thought of consulting them; and so a domestic law was passed. Before its adoption, however, Pope Pius IX, by a letter of his cardinal vicar, dated 2 March 1871, protested against the law "in which", he said, "it was no easy task to decide whether absurdity, cunning, or contempt played the largest part".
Provisions
Parliament passed in 1871 the famous Law of Papal Guarantees, which proposed to solve the question on Cavour's principle of a free church in a free state. The pope was declared an independent sovereign and, as such, was entitled to receive and to send ambassadors and to conduct diplomatic affairs without any interference from the Italian government. His territory, however, was limited to the district in Rome known as the "Leonine City", over which floated the Papal flag, and into which no Italian officer could enter without permission from the Papal authorities. The palaces, churches, museums, offices, villas, and gardens in the Leonine City were to be exempt from taxation, and the Papal government was to have free use of the Italian railway, postal, and telegraph systems. The church was guaranteed full freedom of self-government, and the old interference by the state in church affairs was declared terminated.
The principal stipulations of the law may be summed up as follows: