Visit to Italian parliament signals new era in Vatican relations

The Pope yesterday symbolically closed the Vatican's territorial dispute with the Italian state by making the first papal visit to the Italian parliament, where he urged MPs to place spiritual values at the heart of their political action.

The first non-Italian Pope in five centuries paid tribute to Italian democracy at a time when the standing of its parliamentary representatives is at a particularly low ebb. His 40-minute speech was repeatedly interrupted by applause as he avoided party political issues to appeal for the respect of fundamental human rights and emphasise the shared values that unite Italian society.

He was welcomed to a packed chamber by a ceremonial band in cocked hats with red and white plumes, which performed the Vatican and Italian national anthems.

He stood to attention, a small, hunched figure in white flanked by the tall speakers of the two houses of parliament, as church and state symbolically repaired the rupture caused by the invasion of the papal territories by Italian troops in 1870.

The Vatican responded to that affront by ordering Italian Catholics to refrain from voting or participating in the political life of the new state, only relenting in 1913.

For the Pontiff it was, in a sense, a homecoming: the Montecitorio palace was built by popes and once housed ecclesiastical tribunals, serving as an administrative centre for the papal states.

The reconciliation, already formally sealed by a 1929 concordat, comes at a time when the Vatican's overt influence in Italian politics is at a historic low. Divorce, abortion, religious and political pluralism, are all consolidated planks of the modern secular state.

And the Pope was careful not to offend the leftwing opposition, hinting only obliquely at his desire to see a strengthened private Catholic education sector, emphasising his concern for the weakest in society and appealing for an amnesty for prisoners to ease the overcrowding in some of Italy's jails.

The Pope renewed his plea that an enlarged European Union incorporate the traditional values of Christianity, warning against a vision of the continent based only on economics, politics and a consumerism indifferent to spirituality.

"As history demonstrates, democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism," he said.

His speech was delivered in a clear voice despite the evident symptoms of his Parkinson's disease.

After the ceremony, selected parliamentarians were given the opportunity to greet the Pope, supporters of the centre-right government bowing to kiss his ring while the opposition tended to opt for a quick bob of the head and a more informal handshake.

But there were few MPs who chose to distance themselves from his message, a sign that traditional anti-clericalism - like the practice of religion - is on the wane in Italy.