Vatican City, the only fully recognised sovereign state not to be a member of the United Nations, is a walled city enclave within the larger city of Rome, Italy. It is the smallest state in the world both in terms of size and population, an ecclesiastical state run by the Bishop of Rome and head of the worldwide Catholic Church – also known as the Pope. It is the official home of the Holy See (the Pope’s episcopal jurisdiction dating back to early Christianity) and accordingly the central reference point for the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. Although the city-state was only formally established in 1929, Popes have been associated with the geographical area of the Vatican for almost as long as Christianity itself. The Pope in fact had direct control over large territories of modern Italy – known as Papal States – for over 1,000 years between the 8th and 19th Centuries. So, why’s it now limited to a walled enclave? Let’s go way back.
An area in Rome by the Tiber River was known as the Vatican as far back as the 1st Century AD in the days of the Roman Empire, which was at the time exceptionally hostile to the new religious movement known as Christianity. Early Christians were martyred in this area by Emperor Nero. Indeed, Saint Peter (the Apostle of Jesus Christ who retrospectively became known as the first Pope and Bishop of Rome) was himself said to have been crucified upside down under Emperor Nero’s reign in the area known today in the Vatican as Saint Peter’s Square, under which he is buried. Subsequent Bishops of Rome remain rather obscure, were often persecuted, and do not appear to have been referred to as Popes (‘pappas’) until the 4th Century when Emperor Constantine converted and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
The power of the Pope and the Catholic Church grew and grew from that point, and the Church began to exert more and more influence over European kings following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, culminating with the Frankish King Pepin II gifting large areas of land to Pope Stephen in the 8th Century (what would become the Papal States). In the 9th Century, Pope Leo III and King Charlemagne banded together to essentially create the Holy Roman Empire, which picked up the pieces of the old Western Roman Empire and dominated Central Europe during the Middle Ages. Due to eventual political instability in the region, the Pope left not only Rome but Italy as well during this time period, and for a while was based in France. Pope Gregory XI moved the papal residence back to the Vatican region of Rome in the 14th Century and it has remained there ever since.
In running the Papal States from Rome, the Pope and his cardinals participated in diplomacy, wars and expansionism. They are said to have become widely corrupt, and essentially behaved as if running a secular nation-state. It was in fact a secular uprising that led to the end of the Papal States, as Italy unified in the 19th Century under King Victor Emmanuel II and the Papacy was forced to retreat inside the protective walls of the Vatican. There the Pope remained, rather awkwardly, until the Lateran Treaty of 1929 which formally established Vatican City as an independent state within Rome and re-affirmed the special status of Catholicism within Italy. But Europe was entering a dark phase at this time – Fascist Italy sided with Nazi Germany during World War 2 while Vatican City remained officially neutral, a neutrality respected first by the Germans when they occupied Rome in 1943 and by the Allies when they occupied in 1944.
Perhaps wary of becoming embroiled once again in temporal politics, Vatican City chose to retain its neutrality in world affairs and not take up membership of the United Nations when it was formed in 1945, although the Holy See does retain a non-voting ‘observer’ status at the U.N.
That all makes sense; I now understand why Vatican City doesn’t participate fully in the U.N. Okay, let’s start dipping our toes into religion – to find out more about this one, jump to Adventure 8: Catholicism
Second choice: it’s a big one we need to understand, so we might as well embrace this one too – to get an overview of the worst few years in human history, jump to Adventure 9: World War 2
