St Andrew By The Bay Catholic Church

The Vatican is the  residence of the pope at Rome. 

Since the so-called Roman Question was ended by the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between Pope Pius XI and King Victor Emmanuel III (negotiated by Cardinal Gasparri and Mussolini), the Vatican City. has been an independent state , with the pope as its absolute ruler. It may be said to correspond politically to the former Papal States, but its origin is not connected with them.

The Vatican City State is situated on the Vatican hill, on the right bank of the Tiber River, within the city of Rome.

To Listen to the Vatican radio ..click HERE.

The pope has full legal, executive, and judicial powers. Executive power over the area is in the hands of a commission of cardinals appointed by the pope. The college of Cardinals is the pope's chief advisory body, and upon his death the cardinals elect his successor for life.

The Vatican City State, sovereign and independent, is the survivor of the papal states that in 1859 comprised an area of some 17,000 square miles (44,030 sq. km). During the struggle for Italian unification, from 1860 to 1870, most of this area became part of Italy. By an Italian law of May 13, 1871, the temporal power of the pope was abrogated, and the territory of the papacy was confined to the Vatican and Lateran palaces and the villa of Castel Gandolfo. The popes consistently refused to recognize this arrangement and, by the Lateran Treaty of Feb. 11, 1929, between the Vatican and the kingdom of Italy, the exclusive dominion and sovereign jurisdiction of the Holy See over the city of the Vatican was again recognized, thus restoring the pope's temporal authority over the area.

The first session of Ecumenical Council Vatican II was opened by John XXIII on Oct. 11, 1962, to plan and set policies for the modernization of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Paul VI continued the council, opening the second session on Sept. 29, 1963.

On Aug. 26, 1978, Cardinal Albino Luciani was chosen by the college of cardinals to succeed Paul VI, who had died of a heart attack on Aug. 6. The new pope took the name John Paul I. (For a listing of all the popes, see the table in Religion.) Only 34 days after his election, John Paul I died of a heart attack, ending the shortest reign in 373 years. On Oct. 16, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, 58, was chosen pope and took the name John Paul II.

On May 13, 1981, a Turkish terrorist shot the pope in St. Peter's Square, the first assassination attempt against the pontiff in modern times. On June 3, 1985, the Vatican and Italy ratified a new church-state treaty, known as a concordat, replacing the Lateran Pact of 1929. The new accord affirmed the independence of Vatican City but ended a number of privileges the Catholic Church had in Italy, including its status as the state religion. The treaty ended Rome's status as a sacred city. Relations, diplomatic and ecclesiastical, with eastern Europe have improved dramatically with the fall of communism. Relations with Russia, while improving, have not yet reached the ambassadorial level. Diplomatic ties were established in March 1994 with Jordan and full relations were established with Israel in June. Six months earlier the two nations had accorded each other mutual recognition. The Holy See, calling for closer relations with Orthodoxy, was scheduled to meet with Russian Patriarch Alexy II in June 1997, but differences prevented the encounter from taking place. In Jan. 1998, Pope John Paul II made a historic visit to Cuba, hoping to promote religious freedom in that communist nation. Iranian president Mohammad Khatami met with the pope in 1999, the first state visit by an Iranian leader to a western nation since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

In March 2000, the pope issued an apology for sins committed by Catholics over the past 2,000 years, including religious persecutions and discrimination against women. Several groups criticized the vagueness of the apology, wishing the pope had specified the church's particularly egregious sins.

Click here to link to the Vatican website