Temporal power of the Holy See

Short description: Political and secular governmental activity of the popes of the Roman Catholic Church

Papal tiara of Pope Pius IX, the last pope to have reigned over the Papal States.

Template:Vatican City sidebar The Holy See exercised temporal power, as distinguished from its spiritual and pastoral activity, while the pope ruled the Papal States in central Italy. The Papal States ceased to exist following the capture of Rome in 1870 by the Royal Italian Army, after which its remaining territories were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. The Lateran Treaty of 1929 later established the Vatican City, a small city-state where the Holy See currently exercises temporal powers.

## Contents

* 1 Origins
* 1.1 Patrimony of Saint Peter
* 2 Early modern period
* 3 19th century
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 5.1 Sources
* 6 Further reading

## Origins

Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) in his papal tiara, which he claimed as signifying both his spiritual and (indirect)[1] temporal power.Papal coronation of Pope Celestine V

### Patrimony of Saint Peter

The Lateran Palace was the first significant acquisition of the Holy See, most probably a gift from Constantine the Great.[2] The example of Constantine was followed by wealthy families of the Roman nobility,[3] and the residences and estates that were acquired in turn were designated the Patrimonium Sancti Petri. After the deposition of the last Roman emperor in the West in 476, the popes were subjects, first of Odoacer, then Arian Ostrogothic kings, then of the Byzantine emperors, who ruled their Italian territories via a governor called an exarch, stationed in Ravenna.[4][5] However, the medieval Popes were unable to exercise effective sovereignty over these extensive and mountainous territories, given the recalcitrance of their vassals.[6]

For over a thousand years popes ruled as sovereign over an amalgam of territories on the Italian peninsula known as the Papal States, from the capital, Rome.[7] In 1274 the Comtat Venaissin came under Papal control, followed by Avignon in 1348.[8]

## Early modern period

Theologian Robert Bellarmine, in his 16th-century dogmatic work Disputationes, strongly affirmed the authority of the pope as the vicar of Christ. However, he reasoned that since Christ did not exercise his temporal power, neither may the pope.[9]

In 1590, Pope Sixtus V had, of his own initiative, placed the first volume of the Disputationes on a new edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for denying that the pope had direct temporal authority over the whole world. The entry concerning Bellarmin reads: "Roberti Bellarmini Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos. Nisi prius ex superioribus regulis recognitae fuerint." () Sixtus V died before he could promulgate the bull which would have made this new edition of the Index enter into force. Sixtus' successor, Urban VII, asked for an examination and after it was done Bellarmine was exonerated and the book removed from the Index.[10][11]

Concerning the pastoral and spiritual power of the pope, Bellarmine's Disputationes (1586–1593) and De potestate summi pontificis in rebus temporalibus (1610; Concerning the Power of the Supreme Pontiff in Temporal Matters) "gave definite form to the theory of papal supremacy".[12]

## 19th century

The secular revolutionary movements of the 1800s posed a serious threat to the pope's temporal power. Avignon was seized by revolutionaries during the French Revolution in 1791, ending 450 years of papal sovereignty there. Between 1798 and 1814, the revolutionary French government invaded Italy several times and annexed the Papal States (though the papacy was restored between 1800 and 1809). Napoleon Bonaparte abolished the pope's temporal power in 1809, incorporating Rome and Latium into his First French Empire. Pope Pius VII himself was even taken prisoner by Napoleon. However, the pope's temporal power was restored by the Great powers at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in the 1815 Congress of Vienna. The civil laws of the Napoleonic Code were abolished, and most civil servants were removed from office. In the coming years, rising liberal and nationalist sentiment created popular opposition to the reconstituted clerical government. This led to numerous revolts, which were suppressed by the intervention of the Austrian army.[13]

In November 1848, during the revolutions that swept Europe in that year, the assassination of his minister Pellegrino Rossi led Pope Pius IX to flee Rome. During a political rally in February 1849, a young revolutionary, the Abbé Arduini, described the temporal power of the popes as a "historical lie, a political imposture, and a religious immorality".[14]

On 9 February 1849, a revolutionary Roman Assembly proclaimed the Roman Republic. Subsequently, the Constitution of the Roman Republic abolished papal temporal power, although the independence of the pope as head of the Catholic Church was guaranteed by article 8 of the Principi fondamentali.[15] Like the other revolutionary movements of 1848, the Republic was short-lived; Rome was eventually conquered by the French Second Republic, which restored the papacy's temporal power in the region once again.[16]

In 1859-60, the Papal States were invaded by various republican forces seeking a unified Italian state, and lost the provinces of Romagna, Marche and Umbria. These regions were incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia (which thereafter became the Kingdom of Italy), and the papacy's temporal power was reduced to Rome and the region of Lazio. At this point, some ultramontane groups proposed that the temporal power be elevated into a dogma. According to Raffaele De Cesare:

> The first idea of convening an Ecumenical Council in Rome to elevate the temporal power into a dogma, originated in the third centenary of the Council of Trent, which took place in that city in December, 1863, and was attended by a number of Austrian and Hungarian prelates.[17]

However, following the Austro-Prussian War, Austria was forced to recognize the newly-formed Kingdom of Italy. As a result, most clerics lost hope of a return of the former temporal power of the Bishop of Rome. Some, primarily Italian, clergy suggested an ecumenical council to dogmatically define papal infallibility as an article of faith, binding upon the consciences of all Catholic faithful. This doctrinal view, however, initially proposed by Franciscan partisans in opposition to the prerogative of popes to contradict the more favorable decrees of their predecessors, faced significant resistance outside of Italy prior to and during the First Vatican Council.[18]

For practical purposes, the temporal power of the popes ended on 20 September 1870, when the Italian Army breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia and entered Rome. This completed the Unification of Italy (Risorgimento).

## See also

* Donation of Pepin
* Duchy of Rome
* Gregorian Reform
* Hierocracy (medieval)
* Interdict (Catholic canon law)
* Investiture Controversy
* Neo-ultramontanism
* Papal deposing power
* Papal Jurisdiction Act 1560
* Papal supremacy
* Patrimony of Saint Peter
* Political theology
* Pontifex Maximus
* Primacy of the Bishop of Rome
* Prisoner in the Vatican
* Roman Question
* Sic transit gloria mundi
* Symphonia (theology)
* Theocracy
* Ultramontanism
* Unam Sanctam

## References

1. ↑ Pope Innocent III. Epistolæ, IV, 17, 13. "We do not exercise any temporal jurisdiction except indirectly". From: Jarrett, B. (1911). Papal Arbitration . In the Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
2. ↑ "The House and Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome - Palazzo Lateranense" (in en-US). Palazzo Lateranense. https://www.palazzolateranense.com/en/the-house-and-cathedral-of-the-bishop-of-rome/.
3. ↑ "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: States of the Church". https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14257a.htm.
4. ↑ Harrington, Peter (2021). The Roman Church and Papal Authority, AD 476-c.600 (PDF) (PhD thesis). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-11-09. Retrieved 2025-11-09.
5. ↑ Oman, Charles William Chadwick (1915). The Byzantine Empire. Robarts - University of Toronto. New York, Fisher Unwin. p. 119. http://archive.org/details/byzantineempire00omanuoft.
6. ↑ "Papacy - Medieval Church, Popes, Canon Law | Britannica" (in en). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/papacy/The-medieval-papacy-from-590-to-1303.
7. ↑ "Papal States | historical region, Italy | Britannica" (in en). https://www.britannica.com/place/Papal-States.
8. ↑ "Avignon papacy | Summary, History, & Facts | Britannica" (in en). https://www.britannica.com/event/Avignon-papacy.
9. ↑ Springborg, Patricia. "Thomas Hobbes and Cardinal Bellarmine: Leviathan and 'the ghost of the Roman empire'". . History of Political Thought. XVI:4 (January 1995), pp. 503–531 [516–517].
10. ↑ Blackwell, Richard J. (1991). "Chapter 2: Bellarmine's Views Before the Galileo Affair" (in en). Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 30. doi:10.2307/j.ctvpg847x. ISBN 978-0-268-15893-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=v1gFDgAAQBAJ&q=urban+vii+index+Blackwell+urban+viii&pg=PT123. "Bellarmine himself was not a stranger to theological condemnation. In August 1590 Pope Sixtus V decided to place the first volume of the Controversies on the Index because Bellarmine had argued that the pope is not the temporal ruler of the whole world and that temporal rulers do not derive their authority to rule from God through the pope but through the consent of the people governed. However Sixtus died before the revised Index was published, and the next pope, Urban VII, who reigned for only twelve days before his own death, removed Bellarmine’s book from the list during that brief period. The times were precarious."
11. ↑ Vacant, Alfred; Mangenot, Eugene; Amann, Emile (1908). "Bellarmin" (in fr). Dictionnaire de théologie catholique : contenant l'exposé des doctrines de la théologie catholique, leurs preuves et leur histoire. 2. University of Ottawa (2nd ed.). Paris: Letouzey et Ané. p. 563–564. https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedet02pt1vaca.
12. ↑ "France – Political ideology" (in en). https://www.britannica.com/place/France.
13. ↑ "Papal States – The 15th century to the French Revolution" (in en). Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Papal-States/The-15th-century-to-the-French-Revolution. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
14. ↑ Jasper Ridley, Garibaldi, Viking Press (1976) p. 268
15. ↑ "Costituzione Della Repubblica Romana, 1849". http://www.ossimoro.it/p41.htm.
16. ↑ "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic, 1848–1850" (in en). Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. https://watson.brown.edu/research/projects/roman_republic.
17. ↑ De Cesare (1909), p. 422.
18. ↑ De Cesare (1909), p. 423.

### Sources

* De Cesare, Raffaele (1909). The Last Days of Papal Rome. Archibald Constable & Co.. ISBN 9780790554624. https://archive.org/details/thelastdaysofpap00cesauoft.

## Further reading

* The Last Days of Papal Rome

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