Why was it desirable or necessary for the Papal States to exist?

[HomeschoolDad]

How did the salvific mission of the Catholic Church require, or give rise to, the Pope being sovereign ruler of a large part of what is now Italy?

I can see why the Church needs a certain territorial space, the independence, and the assets, to ensure its liberty, and to ensure that it will never be the “guest” of any secular nation. I can see why it is desirable for the Church to have its own enclave, such as Vatican City is, or even for this enclave to be larger, let’s say, roughly the size of the District of Columbia or even the Australian Capital Territory. But a whole country? How does it square with the Gospel for the Vicar of Christ to be, in effect, the king of a European country? (I guess at that point, it becomes a quibble over square mileage of real estate and infrastructure. Liechtenstein and Andorra are also “European countries”, albeit tiny ones.)

I am about as “ultramontane” as it gets, and I have always had a deep personal loyalty to the Holy Father. But I have also had a hard time with understanding why the Pope should get his whole country, and everything that goes with this. If it were, in a “parallel ecclesiastical universe”, the lands around Jerusalem, I could “get” that, but for obvious geopolitical, inter-religious, and ethnic reasons, that can never happen.

 

[Genesis315]

I think at times the larger territory was necessary for maintaining that independence you see as desirable. During certain periods, a tiny enclave would be conquered in an instant whereas a larger territory would be more difficult (of course, it was eventually conquered anyway).

 

[FiveLinden]

I have always thought of the papal states as a useful experiment in the application of Catholic values to whole societies. Unfortunately apart from references to armed struggle, there seems to be little accessible about everyday life, laws, education, health provision, taxation, slavery, crime etc. Anyone know of any sources?

 

[JerryZ]

First one should read History, lots of it to fully grasp why thing happen the way they did.
The Papal states were the result of the vacuum of power that existed after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The problem arises when temporal rulers collide with the “temporal ruler of the Church”. Many kings and monarchs tried to influence the Church. They would like to have their will imposed on it but thanks be to GOD, Jesus protects it from nefarious influences from outside and from within. Remember someone is not pleased with the outcome of Calvary. Death was defeated and the human race has the possibility of redemption. He does not like that, we are inferior to him how could we aspire to enter Heaven?
The Vatican is the last remnant of the Papal States. It secures some independence from the undue political strife that goes on in the rest of the world.
Why this is so? Perhaps it was designed to be so, it has survived 1986 years and I trust Jesus words when HE said HE would be with Her till the end of the age.
Therefore I would say that it arose out of necessity.

 

[poche]

Prior to the existence of the Papal States, the Pope was a citizen of the Roman Empire, whose headquarters was in Constantinople. There was a problem of invasions of the Lombards. The problem was that the Roman administration was apathetic to these incursions. France would intervene to rescue the Pope and the Roman population. There reached a certain point where the French government got tired of doing what the Roman officials should have been doing and as a solution they looked at the most logical authority figure that was available at the time, the Pope, hence the birth of the Papal States.

 

[BartholomewB]

First, an apology. I can’t even begin to answer your question of why it was desirable or necessary. However, with your permission, I would like to take this opportunity to recommend a work of fiction that gives a remarkable insight into what it was like to live and work in the Papal State, both for the Pope himself and for his subjects, in one brief period, the pontificate of the shrewd and careful ruler Innocent XII in the 1690s.

Browning’s The Ring and the Book has been described as a detective novel in verse. There’s nothing wrong with that, but more to the point, perhaps, it can also be described as a historical novel in verse. Browning researched his history very carefully and reconstructs, in fascinating detail, a notorious murder trial of the period, in which a well-connected nobleman was accused of the brutal murder of his young wife and her adoptive parents. If, as seems likely, he is found guilty and sentenced to death, he plans to appeal to the Pope who, as the head of state, is empowered to pardon him.

Be warned, it’s a very long poem: 21,000 lines, twice the length of Paradise Lost and half as long again as the whole of the Divine Comedy. But it seems much shorter, thanks to Browning’s gift for writing very entertainingly.

https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Book-Un...book,p_30:penguin&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1

 

[TK421]

@HomeschoolDad

There is no need to be idealistic. History is messy. Monarchs and warlords carved out territories that they controlled that were distributed to vassals. It was challenging for the Church to maintain its autonomy in these circumstances, and so the Papal States ended up coming into existence. Nobody necessarily planned it and it and it was never necessarily desirable but it did avoid the problem of a Pope living underneath the thumb of a king or emperor.

We face the same challenge today. The Church has to operate within governments that show varying levels of hostility to its principles and there is the perpetual struggle of how to cope with it.

 

[GordonP]

I have always thought of the papal states as a useful experiment in the application of Catholic values to whole societies.

In that regard, the Papal States were an abject failure. As far as I know, at no time in their 1100 years of existence did any pope ever hit upon the idea of treating it as a model Christian community. So, really, no experiment of the type you describe was every carried out.

Unfortunately apart from references to armed struggle, there seems to be little accessible about everyday life, laws, education, health provision, taxation, slavery, crime etc. Anyone know of any sources?

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any comprehensive history of the Papal States that covers such topics. Their main interest to historians consists almost entirely of the never-ending power struggles that plagued the Papal States, and their effect on European and Papal politics and diplomacy.

Other than that, the Papal States were a impoverished and war-torn backwater for most of their history, with no golden, silver or even bronze age to boast of. The almost constant warfare kept the region from developing much. And unlike other regions in Italy, the various fiefdoms never accumulated the material or human capital to flourish for long. Heavy taxation didn’t help.

Even Rome was a backwater until it started to improve slowly in the late 1400s. Before that, even the popes refused to live there, preferring Viterbo, Orvieto, Perugia, and, finally, Avignon. The rest of the territory remained backward until 1870.

 

[Justin_Mary]

How does it square with the Gospel for the Vicar of Christ to be, in effect, the king of a European country?

My opinion is that God uses images we understand to explain the reality we can yet understand.

Jesus came to establish a kingdom in the hearts of men.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

These are all very good responses and they answer my question. Thanks to everyone who responded. As far as “reading history”, I have two degrees in it, so I think I can be said to have read my fair share. The Papal States were only covered cursorily, if at all.

Again, as I said, my issue (if it can be called that) is basically “admitting the necessity of an independent papal enclave, how large or powerful should that enclave be?”. I don’t think Vatican City State is large enough — it is hardly the size of the average North American shopping mall including the parking lot. SCV doesn’t even have a “real” airport within its confines, nor does it have a seaport. There is no residential space to speak of. I would view an acceptable enclave as being, let’s say, somewhere between the size of a large US county and the state of Rhode Island (the Australian Capital Territory is roughly the same size, as would be, for instance, the District of Columbia joined with Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland). Again, it becomes at that point a population and square-mileage quibble.

Probably the simplest way to put it, would be to posit that all of Rome and its environs, down to the Mediterranean littoral (thus ensuring sea access), would make a logical “papal state”. But short of some kind of massive Catholic restoration (the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary coupled with the rise of a European “Great Catholic Monarch”), politically this could never happen. SCV is never going to get any bigger than it already is.

 

[Dan_Defender]

To me, the bigger issue was the issue of temporal power of the Church. Ever since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it was thought necessary for the Church to have temporal power and to influence rulers and kings. The Papal states is just an extension of this line of thought. With the advent of new ideas and democracy in the 19th century, the temporal power came to an end and I am glad it did, as it allows the Church to focus on its spiritual mission.

 

[Thinkcat]

To me, the bigger issue was the issue of temporal power of the Church.

As far as I know, this opposition to the idea of Church having any temporal power has appeared after Protestantism.

Ever since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it was thought necessary for the Church to have temporal power and to influence rulers and kings.

I don’t really believe that anyone actually thought that. It would take a millennium until there appeared a form of Christianity that thought in terms of separate secular truths and spiritual truths.

With the advent of new ideas and democracy in the 19th century, the temporal power came to an end and I am glad it did, as it allows the Church to focus on its spiritual mission.

I heard it explained by bishop Williamson in the summary lecture of his conference on Vatican II that the whole reason for the existence of this planet and entire history is the salvation of souls. The idea is that there really is not, and neither should there be, an independent “secular” realm with an independent purpose.

Secularism and Democracy are like sin in that in their very core is man’s separation from God. The big difference is that those ideas do not consider this separation an undesirable accident, but an ideal state of being. As if it was ideal that people and souls will be lost, except those who happen to come under this spiritual mission you referred to.

 

[AlbMagno]

Yet Jesus also made a separation when He said “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”

 

[Rhubarb]

As a non-Catholic, I don’t think the Papal States as an example against the Church.

When the Empire fell in the West, society had to move on. And the Pope was shown to be at the whim of local rulers blowing through Italy. When offered land, I don’t see why anyone would refuse. Especially in the middle ages and early modern period when feudalism was the form of government at the top of the pack. To maintain an authority outside the monarchs of the various countries the Church was in, they needed a means to pay for it. And a place they could have a base they could ensure was secure. (as much as a small realm such as the Papal States can)

 

[poche]

One other thing to take into consideration. During the 19th century, before the Savoy takeover of the Papal States there were those favoring a unification of the Italian peninsula under a kind of constitutional presidency of the Pope.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Yet Jesus also made a separation when He said “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”

Very true. I don’t believe Jesus intended for the Church to have temporal power. Democracy has its flaws but it is the best among all other options. When the Holy See wanted to appoint the first Bishop in the USA, it asked the American government for authorization and received the unprecedented answer that it was free to do so, that it was no concern of the government. So for the first time in many centuries, there was a country where the Church didn’t have to have any sort of government approval to appoint clergy, where religious freedom was a natural right.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

When the Holy See wanted to appoint the first Bishop in the USA, it asked the American government for authorization and received the unprecedented answer that it was free to do so, that it was no concern of the government. So for the first time in many centuries, there was a country where the Church didn’t have to have any sort of government approval to appoint clergy, where religious freedom was a natural right.

I never knew this before. Indeed, you do “learn something new every day”.

The general “vibe” I have gotten, when reading about the early days of the United States and the Church’s dealings in this country, was that the Church didn’t know quite what to make of the new nation. She had never dealt with anything quite like this before — basically a new European nation (but not just European, as later events bore out) not founded on religious principles, but in no way opposed to them, unlike revolutionary France. I have to think that the Church basically said “all right, this is something new, let’s stand back and see how this all works out”.

 

[Dan_Defender]

I have to think that the Church basically said “all right, this is something new, let’s stand back and see how this all works out”.

Well, they didn’t wait that long. John Carroll was made the first American Bishop in 1789.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I have to think that the Church basically said “all right, this is something new, let’s stand back and see how this all works out”.

Consecrating a bishop who was a citizen of the new nation is not the same thing as the Church understanding and appreciating the character and genesis of that new nation. The Church didn’t have a template to go on, in dealing with the United States. A colonial exclave of an existing European nation, and ruled by that nation (usually a monarchy), yes, but a brand-new quasi-European country established on newly found (relatively speaking) real estate, I have to think that was a bit of a head-scratcher for Rome.

It’s just a theory of mine. I could be entirely (or partially) wrong.