[CarrotAndStick]

The Vatican is a special tiny state which houses a handful of buildings.

Would it be fairer if Italy lets the non-Catholics have a "special tiny state which houses a handful of buildings" of their own, then?

Just wanted to see a reply to this Devil's argument.

[B Knotts]

It would make sense if they, too, had once ruled Italy.

The Vatican is a tiny remainder of what was once the Papal States. Italy allowed for a tiny area surrounding St. Peter's and associated Vatican buildings to remain sovereign.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Would it be fairer if Italy lets the non-Catholics have a "special tiny state which houses a handful of buildings" of their own, then?"

This is the remnant of what was once the "Papal States" founded in about 756 A.D., occupying part of central Italy, historically and culturally Catholic for more than a millennium. It's now reduced to an area smaller than the Mall in D.C.

The true equivalent would be Hinduism retaining about 20 square miles of India as a Hindu State, or Islam retaining 20 square miles of Saudi Arabia, or Calvinism a couple square miles of Switzerland, etc, and then petitioning other countries for diplomatic relations.

Let them try it, if that's really what they want. Who's stopping them?

[Cronos]

Would it be fairer if Italy lets the non-Catholics have a "special tiny state which houses a handful of buildings" of their own, then?

Huh? you guys are being illogical -- read the history of the Vatican. When the Western Roman empire fell, Rome came under different rulers for a long time, forcing the papacy to become a temporal power and actually have a large state aroudn ti. but when Italy was formed, the Papal states became part of Italy and the Pope retreated to the Vatican until a treaty was made that gave the Papacy the rights to a little dot of land instead of the Papal states (which covered most of central Italy) -- to give an analogy, imagine that the Chief Priest of Kanshi had set up his own rule over a large area the size of say Delhi to keep the Muslim invaders from conquering and destroyign the sacred temple at Kashi and he had done this before Indian independence. After Indian independence, you know that the Indian government succesfully liquidated all the former princely states (and a good thing too), but it could not liquidate the Kanshi seer's land (because all the hindus in India would find it slightly unnervng), so the governmetn comes to a compromise and tells the Kanshi seer: "Ok, you can keep the temple complex as your own little country, but it is completelysurrounded by India, follows India's laws and everything" ok, followed me so far?

Next, let's take YOUR question and turn it around: "Should a Church be built in the temple complex?"

And the answer is an emphatic NO. Churchs can be built anywhere in India, Temples can be built anywhere in Italy. But Churchs cannot be built in the temple complexs of India (and no Catholic would ask for that), and temples cannot be built in the Vatican complex in Italy.

understood?