Vatican City
The name was first used in the Lateran Treaty, signed on 11 February 1929, which established the modern city-state. The name is taken from Vatican Hill, the geographic location of the state. "Vatican" is derived from the name of an Etruscan settlement, "Vatica" or "Vaticum" meaning garden, located in the general area the Romans called "vaticanus ager", "Vatican territory".
Catholic Church and evolution
The concentration of concern on the implications of evolutionary theory for the human species was to remain typical of Catholic reactions. No Vatican response was made to this, which some have taken to imply agreement. No mention of evolution was made in the pronouncements of the First Vatican Council in 1868. In the following decades, a consistently and aggressively anti-evolution position was taken by the influential Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica, which, though unofficial, was generally believed to have accurate information about the views and actions of the Vatican authorities. The opening in 1998 of the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (in the 19th century called the Holy Office and the Congregation of the Index) has revealed that on many crucial points this belief was mistaken, and the journal's accounts of specific cases, often the only ones made public, were not accurate. The original documents show the Vatican's attitude was much less fixed than appeared to be the case at the time.