With effect from 1 January, Vatican City has divorced from Italian law, changing the system under which laws adopted by the Italian parliament were automatically adopted by the smallest state in the world.

Vatican legal experts said there are too many laws in the notoriously antiquated, obsolete Italian Civil and Criminal Codes, which often conflict with principles of the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI decreed that as from 1 January, laws will no longer be adopted automatically and will be considered one by one before it is decided whether or not they are taken on by the Vatican.

The previous system was introduced some 80 years ago under the Lateran treaties signed between Italy and the Pontiff of the time.

A senior Vatican canon lawyer went on record saying that there are far too many laws in Italy which are unstable, often in conflict with the moral values of the Church.

The Italian government, meanwhile, reacted by saying that from a technical point of view, the Vatican might be right. It has also admitted that laws are badly written and sometimes difficult to understand, while admitting that tens of thousands of obsolete laws need to be removed.

We will not delve into the issues of morality, as the purpose here is to look at the legal bindings and complications that the previous system put in place. But it stands to reason. The Church has every right to take a stance on an issue. Let us take euthanasia, for example. The arguments for and against are huge in number, but the Vatican has decided that it is against euthanasia, assisted suicide or any other form of assisted killing, and we reiterate, it has every right to take whatever stand it wants to. Now, say, the Italian government were to legalise euthanasia. That’s right, it would be one heck of a conundrum. On the one side, the Church is saying that it does not agree with it, and on the other hand, it would have to pass the legislation into law.

At the same line, the Vatican has also decided to scrutinise international treaties before deciding whether or not to adhere to them. In fact, it recently refused to approve a United Nations declaration decriminalising homosexuality. Some legal observers said the Vatican is trying to assert its legal independence in cases involving, for example, civil unions, divorce, living wills, or euthanasia. Again, it has every right to take the stance it wishes to – after all, it will be judged by its followers more than anything. Pope Benedict has put a lot of effort into reasserting Vatican power, albeit on a moral level. Once again, we emphasise that this editorial is not talking about the Pope and senior cardinals’ moral judgment. But as a fully fledged sovereign state, the Vatican should not be obliged to implement laws which it does not deem fit, simply because of a treaty that was signed some 80 years ago. One must remember that when this treaty was signed, the Church wielded much more power than it does today and would have had a say in what laws were passed by the Italian government in the first place.

However, one now hopes that the Catholic Church will not take its ‘new found powers’ to extremes and should continue to build bridges where possible and not to take stances which will distance it from its existing practising flock or further alienate those who feel like they cannot be practising Catholics.