In January 2023, the Institute of Art and Law, along with several international partners, held an online seminar to investigate the Vatican collections, their legal structure and how repatriation might be possible to countries and communities of origin. In particular we looked at the principle of ‘inalienability’ which governs the collections under Vatican civil law.
In particular, Article 11 of the Vatican’s Cultural Goods Law of 2001 (Legge sulla tutela dei beni culturali) provides that no objects can be removed from the collections. The only exceptions are for loans (at Article 14) or ‘deposits’ (at Article 15), neither of which transfers title.
Thereafter, I worked with Chiara Gallo to research how, despite this restriction, the Pope could transfer objects outside the collection on a permanent basis. We looked specifically at the transfer of three Parthenon fragments in the Vatican collection which were brought to Athens and reinstalled amongst the sculptures of the Acropolis Museum. The transfer was not to the museum, nor indeed to the Greek state, but to the Archbishop of Athens. It was described by Pope Francis at the time as an ‘ecumenical donation’.
In February 2023 – after our conference but before we began the research – the Pope set out in a motu priprio apostolic letter that all assets in bodies of the Holy See were to be considered ecclesiastical property and thus governed by canon law, rather than civil law. This seemed, amongst other things, to override the principle of inalienability under civil law that otherwise applied to the Vatican collections under the 2001 Cultural Goods Law.
While Vatican civil law usually governs the civic organs of Vatican infrastructure, canon law applies more broadly to the entire Catholic Church. The regime for managing ‘temporal goods’ (goods that are not res sacrae, ‘sacred’) is set out in Book V of the Code of Canon Law. The Pope, of course, has supreme authority and the Church has the right to acquire, administer and alienate such property.
The purposes by which it can do so relate to the practice of worship, caring for the clergy, the ‘works of the sacred apostolate’ and charity (Canon 1254). More specifically in relation to high-value goods, any disposal is possible only for a ‘just cause’, which can include necessity, evident advantage, piety, charity or some other ‘grave pastoral reason’ (Canon 1293).
Based on our understanding of canon law, it appeared as though the Parthenon transfers, especially in the context of strengthening ecumenical relations, could be considered part of the apostolate work, as well as serving a just cause.
This may give us the legal answer as to why the latest transfer was made from the Vatican collections to the CCCB. As with the Parthenon gift, this transfer could arguably fall within the ‘apostolate’ work, and be supported by a just cause.
