VATICAN CITY - A century ago, relations between the Vatican and Italy were so antagonistic that popes refused to recognize the newly unified country and declared themselves "prisoners" of the Vatican.
Pope John Paul II will take another step toward healing that rift on Thursday when he becomes the first pontiff to address the Italian parliament.
Italians have been almost giddy with anticipation of the event, with local newspapers speculating daily about what the Polish-born pope might say and politicians marveling at the historic significance of the visit.
The Communications Ministry has issued a commemorative postcard bearing images of the pope against a backdrop of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, and the Vatican coined special medals to be handed out to lawmakers for the occasion.
The visit, the Rome daily La Repubblica said in an editorial this week, "represents the symbolic surmounting of the breach of Porta Pia" — a reference to the 1870 capture of Rome by the Italian army that ended the pope's temporal rule.
There was no advance word from the Vatican on the topic of John Paul's speech, but he was likely to raise at least some of the major themes he has addressed over the years: Christian traditions in Europe, bioethics, peace, justice and democracy.
Italian prison inmates, meanwhile, were hoping the pontiff would appeal to Italian authorities for a general clemency, as he did during a special Mass he celebrated in a Rome prison during the 2000 Jubilee.
While the pontiff may not want to get involved in such domestic issues, his visit alone will remind Italians of the once-fractious relationship between the Italian government and the Roman Catholic Church.
Until the mid-19th century, the Church exercised temporal rule over a vast swath of the Italian peninsula, known as the Papal States. When Italy was unified in 1860, the new Italian army seized the territory, leaving only Rome and some areas on the coast under the pope's control.
Troops loyal to King Victor Emmanuel captured Rome itself in 1870, at Porta Pia, declaring Rome the Italian capital and ending the Church's rule over it.
The government guaranteed the pope independence within what is now the Vatican city state and offered to compensate him for the lost lands, but Pope Pius IX refused to recognize the new government and called himself a "prisoner" of the Vatican.
The so-called "Roman Question" was only officially resolved in 1929, when the Vatican and Italy signed the Lateran Treaty, in which the two recognized each other as sovereign entities and proclaimed Roman Catholicism as the only state religion in Italy.
Relations have improved ever since, such that John Paul — the first non-Italian pope in 455 years — was made an honorary citizen of Rome just last month.
While the pope has visited the Italian presidential palace before, he has never spoken before the Italian parliament and has only addressed national parliaments three times before: in his native Poland, in Australia, and the tiny republic of San Marino on the Italian mainland.