The Vatican City State is a landlocked independent country, city-state, microstate, and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under “full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction” of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity under international law, which maintains the city state’s temporal power and governance, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Pope who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The Vatican has always been a beacon of power and opulence, and for some, the very personification of the whore of Babylon as described in Revelations.