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Independence Day.


I don't know whether or not the Vatican celebrates its Independence Day with pyrotechnics pyrotechnics (pī'rōtĕk`nĭks, pī'rə–), technology of making and using fireworks. Gunpowder was used in fireworks by the Chinese as early as the 9th cent.  like we celebrate ours here in the U.S. every July 4, but fireworks fireworks: see pyrotechnics.
fireworks

Explosives or combustibles used for display. Of ancient Chinese origin, fireworks evidently developed out of military rockets and explosive missiles and accompanied the spread of military explosives westward to
 or not, the 11th day of February marks the anniversary of the 1929 Lateran Pacts between the Catholic Church and Italy that officially established the 109 acres of Vatican City as independent of Italy and recognized the papacy as its sovereign. Its signatories, the long-forgotten Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Cardinal Gasparri and ever-remembered Benito Mussolini, inked agreements that ended more than a half century of discord between church and state.

This agreement settled a dispute dating back to the 19th century when the Papal States, some 17,218 square miles of land across the middle of the country, and eventually the city of Rome, were seized by the troops of Victor Emmanuel II Victor Emmanuel II, 1820–78, king of Sardinia (1849–61) and first king of united Italy (1861–78). He fought in the war of 1848–49 against Austrian rule in Lombardy-Venetia and ascended the throne when his father, Charles Albert, abdicated . As the boot-shaped land moved toward national unification, the Papal States stood in the way of the Italian version of Manifest Destiny.

Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX (May 13, 1792 – February 7, 1878), born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from his election in June 16, 1846, until his death more than 31 years later in 1878. , remembered primarily for the July 18, 1870 declaration of papal infallibility, protested the seizure of the Papal States, though not infallibly. He penned a mighty strong encyclical excommunicating everyone who ordered or participated in the seizure of the Papal States. And Plus IX rejected the Italian parliament's 1871 Law of Guarantees, which would have given the papacy financial renumeration for the property but not independent-nation status.

This conflict between Italy and the Vatican became known as "The Roman Question" and remained unsettled through the pontificates of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Plus X, and Benedict XV, each choosing to be a highly symbolic but historically inaccurate "prisoner in the Vatican A prisoner in the Vatican is what Pope Pius IX claimed to be after the army of the Kingdom of Italy entered Rome (September 20 1870), as a component of Italian unification, and ending the millennial temporal rule of the popes over central Italy. ." Not one of them even ventured out to the papal spa, the Castle of Gandolfo in the nearby Alban mountains.

But Plus XI, elected pope in 1922, decided enough was enough. He began negotiations that would eventually recognize the reality that the Papal States, Rome included, no longer belonged to the church. It would also end the self-proclaimed status and behavior of popes as prisoners in the Vatican.

Unofficial negotiations began in 1926 and concluded almost three years later with the signing of three documents known as the Lateran Pacts.

Today, 75 years later, the present pope, regretfully re·gret·ful  
adj.
Full of regret; sorrowful or sorry.



re·gretful·ly adv.

re·gret
 now a prisoner in his own body, definitely has not been a prisoner in the Vatican. His globetrotting has brought the symbolism of the papacy to almost every nook and cranny Noun 1. nook and cranny - something remote; "he explored every nook and cranny of science"
nooks and crannies

detail, item, point - an isolated fact that is considered separately from the whole; "several of the details are similar"; "a point of information"
 on earth. The geography of the Papal States now seems paltry by comparison to the boundary-breaking travels we have come to expect.

This papacy has not been without its fireworks, though, from persecuted theologians to women wanting ordination, from canonization canonization (kăn'ənĭzā`shən), in the Roman Catholic Church, process by which a person is classified as a saint. It is now performed at Rome alone, although in the Middle Ages and earlier bishops elsewhere used to canonize.  of controversial saints to new orders about proper Eucharistic posture. But on February 11, Vatican Independence Day, a pyrotechnic display over St. Peter's Basilica might well be a welcome event for all those who live and work there.

PETER GILMOUR (Pgilmou@wpo.it.luc.edu) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago Beginnings and expansions
Founded in 1870 as the St Ignatius College on Chicago's West Side. In 1908 the School of Law was established as the first of the professional programs.
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Title Annotation:Odds & Ends; February 11, Vatican Independence Day
Author:Gilmour, Peter
Publication:U.S. Catholic
Article Type:Brief Article
Geographic Code:4EXVA
Date:Feb 1, 2004
Words:501
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