1/ From Unam Sanc­tam, by Pope Boni­face VIII (1302):

We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spir­i­tual and the tem­po­ral. For when the Apos­tles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords’ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apos­tles were speak­ing, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but suf­fi­cient. Cer­tainly the one who denies that the tem­po­ral sword is in the power of Peter has not lis­tened well to the word of the Lord com­mand­ing: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard’ [Mt 26:52]. Both, there­fore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spir­i­tual and the mate­r­ial sword, but the former is to be admin­is­tered _for_ the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and sol­diers, but at the will and suf­fer­ance of the priest.

How­ever, one sword ought to be sub­or­di­nated to the other and tem­po­ral author­ity, sub­jected to spir­i­tual power. For since the Apos­tle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God’ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not sub­or­di­nated to the other and if the infe­rior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.

2/ From Pope Bene­dict XVI’s recent visit to the Ital­ian embassy at the Vatican:

[T]he Church is well aware that the dis­tinc­tion between Caesar and God, i.e. the dis­tinc­tion between State and Church, belongs to the fun­da­men­tal struc­ture of Chris­tian­ity. The Church not only rec­og­nizes and respects this dis­tinc­tion and this auton­omy, it rejoices in the dis­tinc­tion as a great advance­ment for human­ity and a fun­da­men­tal con­di­tion for both its free­dom and the ful­fill­ment of its uni­ver­sal mis­sion of sal­va­tion among all peoples.

3/ From Beppe Grillo’s blog:

In Italy, there is always a common denom­i­na­tor in pol­i­tics, whether they be centre-​left or centre-​right: it takes its orders from for­eign powers. The first of these is the Vat­i­can and the second is the United States. The former dic­tates our laws, while the latter sets up mil­i­tary bases in Italy and enrolls thi coun­try in wars, just like the mer­ce­nar­ies of old. Of the two, the Vat­i­can is by far the most dan­ger­ous, with­out any doubt. It has much more expe­ri­ence behind it and (always) wins its bat­tles by having them fought by the devoted Ital­ian Par­ties that are sit­ting in Parliament.