Lateran Pacts: what exactly did they entail?

2014-02-14 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio ) February 11 2014 marks 85 years since the signing of the Lateran Pacts. But what exactly were these Pacts?

That's what Veronica Scarisbrick asks Jesuit historian Gerald Fogarty who's currently teaching at the University of Virginia in the United States who says : ..."There's never been a Concordat in an English speaking country because of the use of common law the Roman law tradition which runs throughout most of Europe you have the rights the State gives you, so therefore the Concordat was an agreement between the Holy See and the government to guarantee the rights of the Church within a particular country"...

In this interview Professor Fogarty also tells Veronica Scarisbrick how since 1870, when Pius IX retreated of his own will into the Vatican, the Roman Pontiffs never went on an official visit to their own Cathedral. Clearly not until the signing of the Lateran Pacts on the 11th February 1929.