Temporal jurisdiction (papacy)
Temporal jusdiction is a term used within Roman Catholicism to refer to past claims by popes to rule a territory as well as rule the Church. For over one millennium, popes ruled as sovereign over an amalgam of territories on the Italian peninsula known as the Papal States from the capital, Rome. The pope's alternative claims to reign in religion and to reign in a state were reflected in the possession of two official papal residences, the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, which served as their official religious residence, and the Quirinal Palace, which was their official residence as sovereign of the Papal States. In 1870, papal rule in the Papal States was deposed, with the territories being included in the territory of the Kingdom of Italy, with Kings of Italy using the Quirinale as their official state palace.
Popes continued to assert that their deposition from temporal jurisdiction in the Papal States was illegal until 1929. Catholics were prohibited from voting in Italian elections and Italian state and royal institutions were boycotted as part of their campaign for a return of the papal states. In 1929, with the Lateran Treaty the Italian state and the papacy agreed to recognise each other, with the state paying the Church compensation for the loss of the territories. The pope was recognised as sovereign of a new state, Vatican City.
The Papal Coronation and the papal crown, the Papal Tiara, were both interpreted as reflecting a continuing claim to temporal jurisdiction by the papacy. However in his homily at his October 1978 Papal Inauguration, Pope John Paul II dismissed that claim and asserted that the papacy had no wish, and had long had no wish, to possess any temporal jusdiction outside the Vatican.
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