ROMAN QUESTION. — This is the designation that came into use to indicate the intricate and bitter political-religious dispute that opened, on the national and international stage, between the Papacy and the new Kingdom of Italy, with the proclamation of Rome as capital of the unified Peninsula (1861) and the military occupation of the city itself on 20 Sept. 1870.
Having established itself in Rome, the Italian government hastened to reassure the Catholic powers regarding the future fate reserved for the Supreme Pontiff. Law of Guarantees (v.) assured the pope spiritual independence (arts. 9 and 12) and the freedom to maintain nuncios in foreign nations (art. 11). Diplomatic agents accredited to the Holy See were to enjoy the immunities and privileges provided for by international law (art. 11). The pope retained only the usufruct of the Apostolic Palaces, the Vatican and the Lateran, as well as of the villa at Castel Gandolfo “with all its appurtenances and dependencies” (art. 5). In compensation, moreover, for the deprivation of his States, he was to receive an annual income of 3,225,000 lire, exempt from taxation (art. 4). As regards relations between Church and State, these were established arbitrarily: on a provisional basis, until a new law should intervene, the exequatur (v.) and the royal placet continued to apply with regard to the assignment of ecclesiastical property and the collation of major and minor benefices, except those of the city of Rome and of the suburbicarian sees (cf. F. Scaduto, Guarentigie pontificie e relazioni fra Stato e Chiesa. Storia, esposizione, critica, documenti, bibliografia, 2nd ed., Turin 1889, pp. 240–45).
Unilateral as it was, the Law of Guarantees was solemnly declared unacceptable by Pius IX on 15 May 1871 (Archives diplomatiques. Recueil de diplomatie et d'histoire, II, Paris 1874, p. 231). The Pope voluntarily constituted himself a prisoner in the Vatican, refused the endowment granted to him, and avoided every act that might imply any assent whatsoever to the spoliation of his States. Leo XIII and his successors maintained the same attitude of firm intransigence.
The R. Q., far from being resolved by the Italian Parliament, became even more intractable. The prohibition imposed on Catholics against taking part in elections of any kind (v. NON EXPEDIT) placed the Italian government at the mercy of left-wing elements. Moreover, the aggressive hostility displayed toward Catholicism by certain ministers, especially F. Crispi, whether sincere or feigned, with the aim of compelling the Holy See to reach an accommodation, produced a deplorable effect abroad and prompted protests, albeit in a friendly tone, from the British and Austrian chanceries. But instead of harming the Holy See, all the intrigues of the Italian ministers, the deplorable incidents that occurred in 1881 during the transfer of Pius IX’s ashes to S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, the insults hurled by the mob against Leo XIII in the same year, the publication of the Zanardelli code in 1888, and the unbecoming demonstrations of 17 June had no other effect than to win it universal sympathy.
Thus, on balance, the loss of temporal power led to an almost paradoxical result, namely, the development of the centralization and international power of the Roman Church. So much so that a man of genius such as Leo XIII was soon able personally, and for many years, to bring ecclesiastical policy back onto a worldwide plane, decisively improving the fortunes of the papacy and of Christendom; and his prestige became so great that in 1885 Bismarck accepted his arbitration in the conflict with Spain over the Caroline and Palaos Islands.
Although from 1878 to 1889 Leo XIII officially protested as many as sixty-two times against the deprivation of his “civil principality,” it must also be said that he desired a reconciliation. Thus he lifted the prohibition against participating in provincial and municipal elections (30 May 1878), and in the address delivered for the Consistory of 23 May 1887 he expressed the hope that “the minds of all Italians may attain security and tranquillity, and that the disastrous dissension with the Roman Pontiff may finally be removed, while the claims of justice and the dignity of the Holy See are always safeguarded” (Leonis XIII Acta, VII, Rome 1888, p. 115). Attempts at rapprochement took place in 1887 through the Cassinese abbot L. Tosti (La conciliazione. Dialogo fra due vescovi, Rome 1887), in 1889 through Cardinal G. A. Hohenlohe, and in 1894 on the occasion of the exequatur for Msgr. G. Sarto, designated patriarch of Venice. But nothing was concluded. The pamphlet by the bishop of Cremona, G. Bonomelli (Roma, l'Italia e la realtà delle cose, Florence 1889), which suggested accepting the fait accompli and creating a “miniature State” that would communicate with the sea through a small strip of land and would impose “neither public offices nor garrisons,” caused a scandal and was placed on the Index on 13 Apr. 1889. Opinion was not yet mature enough to accept the idea of a reconciliation, especially in Belgium, Spain, and France, whose sons had fallen alongside so many Italian Catholic volunteers on the battlefields of Castelfidardo and Mentana and along the walls of Rome.
The rupture of diplomatic relations with the French Republic (29 July 1904), the abrogation of the Concordat, and the promulgation of the law of separation between Church and State (9 Dec. 1904) induced Pius X to draw somewhat closer to the Quirinal. Members of the royal court, parliamentarians, and public officials appeared at papal audiences, contrary to the practice maintained until then. An even more significant fact was that the Pope, disturbed by the increase in the number of deputies of the extreme left, authorized (11 June 1905) the legislative vote of Italian Catholics, but only in particular cases, when its strict necessity for the good of souls and the supreme interests of the individual dioceses had been recognized (encyclical Il fermo proposito, in Pii X Acta, II, Rome 1907, pp. 112–32).
The formation of a Catholic party was not yet permitted, however. The conclusion of the Gentiloni Pact (v.) won Giolitti, thanks to the support of Catholic votes and candidates, an electoral triumph in 1913 and brought with it important consequences. At the Social Week held in Milan from 30 Nov. to 6 Dec. 1913, the archbishop of Udine, A. Rossi, asked in his opening address whether “the present condition of society, which had become atheistic and pagan, could still permit a civil principality of the popes, which Providence had established as a guarantee of the Church’s freedom.” And, observing that this situation was wholly inadequate to the mission of the Holy See, he nevertheless insisted that it remained necessary for the pope’s freedom not to be precarious but stable and inviolable, “supported solely by a guarantee or pledge of an international character, since this freedom concerns Catholics of all nations.” In the closing address, Count Giuseppe Dalla Torre expressed the hope that the Roman Question might be resolved “through the constitutional will of the country, on the part of the State,” but without compromising the principle of the sovereignty of the Holy See.
L'Osservatore Romano of 20 Dec. raised no objection to these words and, while warning that they concerned studies, allowed the discussion of the manner of the guarantee to proceed. It was anticipated that Pius X would not show himself intransigent except on the question of principle. In the meantime, the world war of 1914 broke out.
The inadequacy of the Law of Guarantees became evident when Italy joined the Allies (24
May 1915). The presence in Rome of the ambassadors of the Central Powers presented serious difficulties. The diplomats moved to Lugano; Benedict XV therefore found himself in serious difficulties in his relations with the Catholic world. Nevertheless, he did not accept the hospitality graciously offered him by the King of Spain, hoping that the conclusion of the peace treaty, which would inevitably bring the period of war to an end, would provide him with the opportunity to settle the Roman Question with the sanction of Europe. The imprudently tendentious press campaign that immediately opened in Germany, Austria, and Bavaria in favor of the restoration of temporal power came close to compromising the Holy See. Benedict XV had to intervene through his Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri, who in an interview of 28 June 1915 declared that the Holy See awaited “the suitable settlement of its situation not from foreign arms, but from the triumph of those sentiments of justice which it hopes will spread ever more widely among the Italian people in accordance with their true interests” (Corriere d'Italia, 28 June 1915). This does not alter the fact that a commission of cardinals charged with studying the solution of so complex a problem unanimously recognized the absolute necessity of a definitive international sanction (Mercure de France, 1 December 1923, pp. 394–406). Now, precisely at Italy’s request, Article 15 of the secret treaty signed in London by the Allies on 26 April 1915 excluded the Pope from future peace negotiations (Nouvelles religieuses, 15 March 1918, pp. 168–71; 15 June 1918, pp. 375–58; 1 April 1920, p. 153).
Italy, however, had no reason to complain of the Holy See. Had not Filippo Meda, leader of the “Catholic deputies,” accepted the Finance portfolio in a ministry of national concentration formed by Paolo Roselli on 19 June 1916? And was it not Meda himself who, on behalf of the Italian government, took possession of the Palazzo Venezia, seat of the Austrian embassy to the Vatican—a taking of possession that provoked a papal protest as further proof of the untenable situation imposed upon the Holy See by the Law of Guarantees, a protest which, it was immediately noted, was strikingly mild? And had not the Holy Penitentiary also abrogated the famous Non expedit? Don Luigi Sturzo had moreover founded the Popular Party in 1919, with the tacit assent of the Holy See. On 23 May 1920 the encyclical Pacem Dei munus appeared; it permitted Catholic sovereigns to visit Rome because this would contribute to the brotherhood of peoples. This document of capital importance nevertheless abrogated none of the protests issued by Benedict XV’s predecessors concerning the loss of temporal power (AAS, 12 [1920], p. 215).
But on the other side as well, once the war was over, there was no lack of governmental manifestations attesting to an approaching and radical change of climate. The liquidation of the property of the German Catholic missions gave Msgr. B. Cerretti, secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, the opportunity to approach various representatives of the Great Powers in Paris, converse amicably with them, and win their sympathy. The well-known contacts with President Orlando then took place (May 1919), as did his serious consideration of a very carefully prepared project by Cardinal Gasparri for the solution of the Roman Question. This project granted the Vatican precinct the character of a state, with independence and international sovereignty, and alluded to a consequent concordat intended to regulate ecclesiastical-law relations with the kingdom. The resignation of the Orlando cabinet (June 1919) brought the significant unofficial negotiation to an end. Meanwhile, however, the Catholics Nava and Rodinò entered into the successive ministerial combinations. In the autumn of that same year Cardinal Filippo Giustini, papal legate to Jerusalem, traveled there, embarking on the cruiser Quarto with royal honors. In the spring of 1921 there was so much talk of Conciliation that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a special summary of the related press debates.
In truth, France’s return to regular diplomatic relations with the Holy See (16 May 1921), by accentuating among the large diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican the absence—and hence Italy’s sense of isolation—there, where the world’s highest spiritual affairs were dealt with, also helped to impose the urgent necessity of a final and equitable settlement. This was strongly favored by the most responsible and healthy part of public opinion itself, grateful to the Holy See and to the Catholics for the noble line of conduct they had maintained toward the country during the conflict. Thus Minister Rocco expressed his sentiments in full Parliament (21 June 1921) in terms that were approved by a multitude of Italians: “It does not seem impossible to me to find a point of agreement that would reconcile the Holy See’s need for a situation of complete independence with the internal and international necessities of the Italian State” (E. Devoghel, La question romaine sous Pie XI et Mussolini, Paris n.d., p. 32).
Thus even the official mourning proclaimed for the first time in similar circumstances by the Italian government (the Bonomi cabinet) on the occasion of the death of Benedict XV (22 January 1922) demonstrates that the time was by then more than ripe for achieving the long-awaited and much-desired Conciliation (v. PATTI LATERANENSI).