Lateran Treaty

The Lateran Treaty was the political treaty at the center of the Lateran Pacts, the 1929 settlement between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See that ended the long dispute known as the Roman question. Signed at the Lateran Palace on 11 February 1929 for King Victor Emmanuel III by Benito Mussolini and for Pope Pius XI by his Cardinal Secretary of State, it recognised Vatican City as an independent state under the sovereignty of the Holy See. A financial convention gave the Church compensation for the loss of the Papal States, and a separate concordat regulated relations between the Catholic Church and the Italian state. The Italian Parliament ratified the pacts on 7 June 1929, and the Constitution of Italy of 1948 recognised the treaty as governing relations between the Republic and the Church. A 1984 revision of the concordat ended the status of Catholicism as the sole state religion of Italy, while the sovereignty of the Vatican has continued to the present day.