Secrets of the Vatican Secrets of the Vatican Secrets of the Vatican is an American television documentary film. It was first aired on the PBS Channel on 25 February 2014 as an episode of PBS' "Frontline" TV series. The film covers the period after the death of John Paul II up to the first year of Pope Francis while positing a theory of what made Pope Benedict XVI resign from the papacy in 2013. It presents a return of trust in the Vatican and its new Pope, Francis, by millions of Roman Catholics after a long period of controversy regarding sexual abuse by Church
Prisoner in the Vatican or from inside the basilica, and papal coronations were instead held at the Sistine Chapel. The period ended in 1929, when the Lateran Treaty created the modern state of Vatican City. The 13 May 1871 Italian Law of Guarantees, passed eight months after the capture of Rome, was an attempt to solve the problem by making the pope a subject of the Kingdom of Italy, not an independent sovereign, while guaranteeing him certain honors similar to those given to the king and the right to send and receive ambassadors. The popes—Pius IX (died 1878) and his successors Leo XIII (reigned