I just watched a program on AHC network that Mussolini is the dictator that gave the Vatican it's sovereignty if they would back his fascist regime. It's also a historical fact that the Vatican is the first country to sign a treaty with Hitler. In addition, it was discovered that the Vatican provided many of the top Nazi war criminals to escape prosecution. Today the Vatican still refuses to produce many documents from that era.
This is the kind of crap that makes me sick about religious institutions. They hold such power over people and are run by greedy old white men who do horrible things to hold onto power. Such hypocrites!
Do you guys know Germans still pay Kirchensteuer ( church tax ) yes even the former East Germany payed up
yes, every employee who is too lazy to declare her/his connection to church non-existent would have to pay.
I had seen the one where the 3rd pope in history was taking Jewish people kids from them and unless the Jewish converted to Catholic they would never see the children again. I had also heard but never confirmed is the reason behind convents. Was because the priest would consider the nuns their property would have sex with the nuns and if the nuns got pregnant that it was not public knowledge.
During world war two the only German that received any reprimand was a fellow that got a divorce.
No Popes lived in what is known as the Vatican until the 1400s. They lived on the other side of Rome in a place called the Lateran Palace. There was a time during the 1300s when they didn't reside in Rome at all, but left the city in 1309 because the papal court moved to Avignon, France, after King Philip IV arranged for a French cardinal to be elected pope. Seven French popes ruled from Avignon, and the papacy didn't return to Rome until 1377, by which time the Lateran Palace had burned and the Vatican started being used as a papal residence.
Then, to the point of your post: The dispute between the Italian government and the Catholic Church ended in 1929 with the signing of the Lateran Pacts, which allowed the Vatican to exist as its own sovereign state. The church was compensated to the tune of $92 million (more than $1 billion in today’s money) for the Papal States. The Vatican used the payment as a foundation upon which to re-grow its coffers. Mussolini, the head of the Italian government, signed the treaty on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III, and did make the deal with the church you mentioned. It was a mutually beneficial bit of business -- and the church maintained good relations with the Hitler led government in Germany as well, making other mutually beneficial deals there too. Industrious little critters, those Popes.
A student of the history of the Catholic church I see. To me Catholic history is much like reading a political soap opera. This family killed this guy so their son could become pope so these other people.......
@DavidLaDeau -- Yes, a long and sordid soap opera involving embarrassing amounts of wealth and ass kissing.
@evidentialist I've read volumes of books on the Catholic church. By many different authors. What strikes me the most is you find very little about religion in the history books. It almost all repetitive politics. So much so it seems to all mash together that I can keep any facts straight. Just change the names and dates and rewrite the the previous 300 chapters. I am oversimplifying but even though I love history it begins to read like a chess match no matter whom the author is.
I totally agree on that 100 percent! The Vatican and religious institutions across the world are total lying hypocrites