Everyone living in one country is evicted the day they retire

The 1929 Blueprint for a Country Without Natives

The Lateran Treaty, signed February 11, 1929, by Cardinal Pietro Gasparri and Benito Mussolini, created Vatican City as the world's smallest sovereign state occupying 109 acres carved from Rome. Article 9 of the agreement stipulated that citizenship would be granted solely to residents of Vatican City—the Pope, cardinals serving in the Roman Curia, and persons authorized to reside there by papal decree. No provision existed for birthright citizenship, naturalization through marriage, or permanent residency after employment cessation. The treaty resolved the "Roman Question" that had festered since 1870 when Italian forces seized the Papal States, leaving successive popes as self-described "prisoners of the Vatican" who refused to recognize the Kingdom of Italy. By creating a sovereign enclave, the Church secured territorial independence without claiming nationhood in the conventional sense.

Vatican citizenship operates through a dual-passport system documented in the Fundamental Law of Vatican City State, revised most recently in 2001. Approximately 800 people hold Vatican citizenship at any given time, but nearly all retain citizenship of their birth country—typically Italy, Switzerland, or another Catholic-majority nation. When a Swiss Guard completes his service, usually after two to twenty-five years, his Vatican passport is revoked and he returns to civilian life in Switzerland with no continuing legal connection to the Holy See. Cardinals appointed to congregations in Rome receive Vatican citizenship upon taking office and surrender it upon resignation, retirement at age 75, or death. The system ensures the enclave remains a functioning instrument of ecclesiastical governance rather than a population with generational continuity or ethnic identity.

The Swiss Guard Exception and the Children Who Cannot Stay

Since 1506, Swiss Guards have formed the Pope's ceremonial and protective corps, recruited exclusively from Catholic men aged 19 to 30 who have completed Swiss military service. Guards sign renewable contracts typically lasting two years, living in barracks within Vatican walls near the Sant'Anna Gate. Those who marry—allowed only after reaching the rank of corporal and serving at least three years—may bring spouses and children to Vatican apartments, but those family members do not acquire citizenship. A child born to Swiss Guard parents inside Vatican City is registered through the Swiss embassy in Rome as a Swiss national. In 2009, guardsman David Geisser became father to the first child born in Vatican City in decades; his daughter Giulia was inscribed in Swiss civil registers in Lucerne, her parents' canton of origin, within days of her birth.

The absence of schools, playgrounds, or pediatric healthcare within Vatican walls underscores its non-residential character. No more than a dozen children have resided in Vatican City at any given time in the past three decades, and all attend Italian schools in Rome requiring daily passage through the border at St. Anne's Gate. When guardsman parents complete their service, the family must vacate Vatican housing within weeks, typically returning to Switzerland or relocating elsewhere in Italy. This transience extends to the roughly 40 lay employees—archivists, engineers, gardeners—who live on-site in the Palazzo del Governatorato or apartments near the Vatican Museums. Unlike diplomatic staff of other nations who might retire in their host country, Vatican residents face mandatory departure, ensuring the population never develops the civic structures—schools, hospitals, retirement homes—that define permanent communities.

The Pope's Unique Citizenship Limbo

Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires on December 17, 1936, lost his Argentine citizenship upon election March 13, 2013, under Vatican City's law conferring citizenship automatically on the reigning pontiff. Yet his status differs from other Vatican citizens: he cannot lose citizenship through retirement or resignation because popes hold office until death, and the five popes who abdicated in history—most recently Benedict XVI in 2013—retained Vatican citizenship as "Pope Emeritus." Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger in Bavaria, relinquished his German passport upon election in 2005 and lived in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery within Vatican walls until his death December 31, 2022, as a permanent Vatican citizen without employment. This creates a paradox: abdicated popes are the only Vatican citizens not dependent on active service, effectively becoming the enclave's sole "retirees."

The diplomatic complications of this system emerged in 2002 when American Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston amid sexual abuse scandals and was appointed Archpriest of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, receiving Vatican citizenship. Though the basilica stands on Italian soil with extraterritorial status, Law's Vatican passport complicated potential legal proceedings, as the Holy See does not extradite its citizens. He retained citizenship until his death in 2017, illustrating how Vatican nationality can function as a shield from national jurisdictions. Similarly, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, implicated in financial scandals and abuse cover-ups, held Vatican citizenship as Dean of the College of Cardinals until his retirement in 2019, after which he became an Italian resident in Rome. The passport thus operates as both employment credential and, critics argue, diplomatic immunity.

Why a Job-Only Nation Still Shapes International Law

Vatican City's employment-based citizenship challenges the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 1948, which asserts in Article 15 that "everyone has the right to a nationality" and "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality." Yet the Holy See, holding permanent observer status at the UN since 1964, maintains its system violates neither principle because Vatican citizenship supplements rather than replaces national citizenship. When the European Court of Human Rights examined statelessness cases in the 2010s, legal scholars cited Vatican City as precedent for "functional nationality"—citizenship granted for administrative purposes without the expectation of permanent belonging. This framework influences how international law treats diplomatic enclaves, military bases, and research stations like Antarctica's scientific outposts, where residency depends entirely on employment.

The model's relevance intensified as authoritarian states studied Vatican governance for population control strategies. China's administration of Tibet and Xinjiang has implemented residency systems where Han Chinese government workers receive temporary permits rather than permanent status, echoing Vatican logic that presence serves state function rather than individual right. In 2018, Saudi Arabia's NEOM megacity project announced plans for citizenship granted only to workers and revoked upon departure, explicitly citing Vatican City as proof such arrangements comply with international norms. Meanwhile, the Vatican's 2023 population stood at 764—453 with residential citizenship and 311 with non-residential citizenship granted to diplomats abroad—demonstrating that the world's only job-dependent country continues operating as designed nearly a century after its creation, a sovereign anomaly where employment and nationhood remain inseparable by theological decree.