Vatican City as a Free Society: Legal Order and Political Theology, By Carlo Lottieri (University of Siena and Istituto Bruno Leoni) At working papers:
Despite its official self-description, the State of Vatican City is not a State. In 1929, it adopted this name because the 20th century legal culture was not in condition to accept the idea of a political institution that refuses the State model. With the Lateran Treaty, post-Christian idea of secular sovereignty did not modify the theology of the Catholic Church. For this reason, Vatican City is not a sovereign State. On the contrary, it is possible to put Vatican City in the set of legal and economic entities marked by a voluntary collaboration of individuals (as the families, the companies, the associations, and so on).
Vatican City is the outcome of free and spontaneous relationships, in absence of any kind of violence, and there is a big difference between this type of interactions and the bounds imposed by a State with the violence and the threat. If Catholic people of the different countries would understand the nature of the organization charged to defend the independence of the Pope and his preaching, they could act with more determination for the transformation of their political institutions. The hope to live in societies not completely dominated by an arrogant ruling class would be made more concrete.
