Even with the long papacy of Pope St. John Paul II, Blessed Pope Pius IX has the longest reign of any Pope in… "15. The new pope accepted the tiara with reluctance and in memory of Pius VII, his former benefactor, took the name of Pius IX. The new, “liberal” regimes that would arise in Europe were not as we might picture them. In addition to this, Pius IX was also the last Pope to rule as the Sovereign of the Papal States, which fell completely to Italian nationalist armies by 1870 and were incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy. The separation of Church and State, for example, was not a constitutional prescription for both to operate independently of each other. The Church was growing rapidly, particularly outside the chaos of continental Europe. The pope’s announcement of a Year of St. Joseph purposely coincided with the 150th anniversary of the saint’s proclamation as patron of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX … In fact, Pius from his first days could not be defined politically. It was an era when racial identity, and racism, became a growing and dangerous part of “modern” thinking. 127-161. However, his career soon progressed rapidly. Pius IX (Italian: Pio IX; (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti) born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest papal reign. 1 Vatican Letter, by John Thavis, August 25, 2000, “Balancing Act: Popes to be beatified were very different” (Catholic News Service). Without the Papal States, the Emperor dominated Pius and his spiritual authority compromised. (Credit: Public Domain.) This was simple aggrandizement and Pius IX could do nothing but thunder in protest. He was elected in only two days, one of the shortest conclaves in history. Free exercise of the papal ministry was equated with the freedom guaranteed by being a temporal ruler subject to no other ruler or nation. In Jefferson Davis: Tragic Hero (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964) he announced his conclusion as if it were fact: the “chaplet of thorns” was “woven by the Pope… With Garibaldi’s victories in Sicily and southern Italy, Victor Emmanuel, king of Piedmont, was declared king of a not-quite-united Italy in 1861. "You must indeed especially see to it that the faithful themselves have firmly fixed in their minds that dogma of our most holy religion, namely, the absolute necessityof the Catholic Faith for obtaining salvation . And on November 15th he was stabbed to death. It made sense. Hi… Though pope for only five years (he was elected as an “interim” pontiff at the age of 77), he is recalled as the pope who convened the Second Vatican Council. However, in 1864 Pope Pius IX wrote Jefferson Davis a letter that was made public, addressing him as the President of the Confederacy — in effect becoming the only foreign power to recognize the South. The Roman rebellion turned ugly and though the new government attempted to restrain the mobs, priests were killed and churches desecrated. These sentiments in combination would support what was essentially a land grab against a virtually defenseless Papal States by the government of Piedmont. The remainder of the paper can be found at: http://www.catholicleague.org/Research/Pionono.html#PopePiusIX. Pope Pius IX (Italian: Pio IX; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878), born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, [lower-alpha 1] reigned from 16 June 1846 to his death in 1878. Pius IX also granted the Marian title of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a famous Byzantine icon from Crete entrusted to the Redemptorist priests. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true. Pope Pius IX, or Pio Nono, ­usually gets bad press. He was born into a troubled world. The propaganda spread by supporters of Italian unification, England’s consistent anti-Catholicism, and a receptive audience in the United States, helped to create fertile ground for the image of an intractable medieval Pope dominating an impoverished Papal States yearning for freedom from theocracy. In Pius IX, many Italians felt they had found such a man. Outside the papal residence, the Quirinal palace, a mob demanded a new government, and a monsignor standing next to the Pope was killed by gunfire. My own professor of church history claimed that Pius’s epileptic seizures had made him “insane.” Systematic theologians vilify him as the incarnation of evil because he stuck that eternal thorn into the Catholic mind, the dogma of papal infallibility. The future Pope Pius IX was born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti in Senagallia in the Papal States in 1792. 1. 8 A History of the Popes, 1830-1914, by Owen Chadwick (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998) p. 63. The revolutions that swept through Europe and shook Rome threatened to end the popes’ thousand-year … Although some persons say that every Syllabus of Errors is infallible, I think it falls under the ordinary non-infallible Magisterium. “The strength of the authority of Pope Pius IX in the Catholic Church lay not in the crowned heads, nor in the need of clergy under pressure from governments to appeal to Rome for help, nor in better communications, nor even, in the world-wide sense in Catholicism, that the Pope was in danger of persecution in the modern world…Pius IX shared the people’s affection for a warmth of devotion, for the cults of the Blessed Virgin and the Sacred Heart, and the coming forms of eucharistic devotion. 3 For the case against Pius IX within Catholic circles, see Commonweal, August 11, 2000, “No! After a riot broke out over the planting of “Liberty Trees” around Rome, French troops entered the city and Pius VI, terminally ill, was carted off as a prisoner. Pope Pius IX, Nationalism and the Italian Risorgimento When Pope Pius IX was elected at the surprisingly young age of 54 the more conservative forces in Europe shuddered. In 1847, he demanded that the Austrians withdraw from a border city within the Papal States. The papal prisons filled up, and exiles schooled Europe in anti-papalism.”7 Gregory’s rule of the Papal States, protected and propped up by foreign troops, was hated in Italy and became a symbol in Europe -- unfairly when compared to most contemporary governments -- of the worst in reactionary authority. [6] [7] [8] In both cases the pope checked with bishops worldwide that this was the belief of the Church before proceeding to a formal definition. In Italy and in certain Church intellectual circles, it had often been expressed that the pope could provide the monarchial leadership of a united Italy under a constitutional government. This information is shared with social media, sponsorship, analytics, and other vendors or service providers. Though Pope Pius IX would serve for 32 years, the modern caricature of his papacy surrounds four events: his resistance to Italian unification and political trends in 19th century Europe; the Syllabus of Errors that appeared to set the Church squarely against democratic ideals; the “kidnapping” of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish child taken from his family by authorities after his Christian baptism was discovered; and the definition of the doctrine of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council of 1870. Pius IX had instituted reforms in the government of the Papal States that were promising, and in 1848 he established elected municipal government in Rome. Nine months later, on April 12, 1850, the Pope returned. 12 See Nativism and Slavery, by Tyler Abner (Oxford University Press, 1992) pp. The reign of Pius IX began at an extremely critical time. These revolutionary events led Pius to question his reformism as well as constitutionalism. He concluded an agreement with Pius over the reconstruction of the French hierarchy. They were viewed as bible-burners eager to rob the public till to pass on their superstitious beliefs to a new generation in their own schools where dangerous doctrines were taught. And Pius was its leading public figure, not because of his political savvy but rather the strength of his faith and how well it resonated with the world’s Catholics. Pius IX (Italian: Pio IX; (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti) born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest papal reign. His successor faired no better. The aftermath in the Papal States was disastrous. He died under French imprisonment in August 1799. Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, 1792-1878) The longest-reigning pope, who played an important part in 19th century Italian and European developments, shaping the character of the Catholic church and the papacy prior to Vatican II, was born into a family of the lower nobility in Senigallia. When the Prussian armies defeated Louis Napoleon in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Prussian state would turn on the Church as its paramount danger. 195-214. About 700 bishops attended the opening. Bishops were jailed, monasteries and Catholic schools suppressed, convents disbanded. The Papal States cut Italy in half and was centered in Rome, Italy’s most important and historic city. Cities within the Papal States erupted in support of the popular war to oust the Austrians. An informative study of Blessed Pope Pius IX. The Papal States by now virtually ceased to exist, leaving only Rome and a small strip of western Italy under papal control. Before he had reached the age of 21, French authorities imprisoned two popes and, without the bravery of those popes, the Church would have become an effective puppet of France. The development of the Churches in Europe during the next three decades elicited all the priestly side of him, so that his personal influence upon the Catholic Church became greater than any of his predecessors…”10, After the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 and their suppression, Piedmont -- with a constitutional government under the monarchy -- became the hope for Italian unification by driving out the Austrians and taking over the Papal States. With the end of the Papal States in 1870, Pope Pius IX was thus the last Pope to hold temporal powers. His coronation took place in the Basilica of St. Peter on 21 June. As will be seen in the section on papal infallibility, pressure for a clearer definition came from many bishops who had seen the papacy as their means of protection against state persecution and control. Without his temporal power, Pius VII…had come within a whisker of signing away his spiritual authority. “On the lips of Napoleon the call for the Pope to lay down his temporal sovereignty and to rely on spiritual authority had been blatant code for the enslavement of the papacy to French imperial ambitions. It was a misreading of Pius that would help create an image of an early, “liberal” pope that would be replaced by a reactionary once he faced revolution in Rome. Pope Pius IX, born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, marked his contribution to the abortion debate by removing the distinction between an “animated” and “unanimated” fetus from Catholic doctrine, and established the edict that a human should be protected starting from the moment of conception onward. The 1830 revolution in France overthrew the Bourbon monarchy reestablished at the Congress of Vienna and replaced it with the so-called “Citizen King,” Louis Phillippe, who would rule until overthrown in the revolution of 1848 that would return a Bonaparte to power. It was this seeming alliance between “throne and altar” in an age where there were growing movements toward more representative forms of government that was be a difficult inheritance for Pius IX. John was not just a name, but also an honorific title meaning “He of Gnostic Power and Wisdom.” It is related to the Sa… http://www.catholicleague.org/Research/Pionono.html#PopePiusIX, Free eBook: Liturgical Year 2020-2021, Vol. Hughes de Payens thus became John #70 in a long line of gnostic Johannites (the “Johns”) that had begun with John the Baptist and included: Jesus, John the Apostle, and Mary Magdalene. Gregory had needed to call on the assistance of Austrian troops in the summer of 1831. Louis Phillippe lost his throne in France and rulers throughout the states of Germany faced uprisings. He called on the Austrian government to help suppress the rebellion. Even his most strident enemies, once having met him, uniformly praised his charm, spirituality and simplicity. The surrender of the Papal States by Pius VII and his virtual incarceration by Napoleon reinforced in the Church the vital need for the pope to maintain his position as a temporal ruler. Before Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti had been ordained a priest in 1819, two popes had been imprisoned and the Church in Europe nearly destroyed by the revolutionary movements and nationalist fervor that swept out of France and across the continent. (It is said that the revolutionary Garibaldi, living in Brazil, offered his service to the papal representative upon hearing the news.) "You must indeed especially see to it that the faithful themselves have firmly fixed in their minds that dogma of our most holy religion, namely, the absolute necessityof the Catholic Faith for obtaining … Pius appointed Pelligrino Rossi to be his prime minister in September. Even his loyalty to the Papal States was not a temporal matter. He was unable to exercise any authority and on more than one occasion, came close to virtually surrendering his authority over the Church to the whim of the Emperor. Only two years after Pope Pius IX’s election in 1846 had triggered great popular enthusiasm across Italy, the pope found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. Catholic League's Research Paper on Pope Pius IX, September 2000. In 1870, at the onset of the Franco-Prussian War, the French troops were withdrawn and Victor Emmanuel sent his soldiers to secure the city. Pius IX Pius IX (1792-1878) was pope from 1846 to 1878. The pope’s announcement of a Year of St. Joseph purposely coincided with the 150th anniversary of the saint’s proclamation as patron of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX … Piedmont would launch a series of anti-Catholic legislative acts to prove its stripes in Europe and to maintain support toward its goal of assuming the leadership of the entire peninsula. In the year 1848, revolutions swept Europe. These range from an attempt to balance an allegedly “liberal” Pope John XXIII with the caricature of a “conservative” Pius IX, as well as the more realistic view of connecting the popes of the First and Second Vatican Councils. But it would directly clash with the movement for Italian unification as a nation-state. Pope Leo re-instituted difficult rules against Jews living in the Papal States and followed a diplomatic policy that supported the royal houses of Europe. Yet, various pundits have put forward their own explanations of his beatification by Pope John Paul II. The pope’s announcement of a Year of St. Joseph purposely coincided with the 150th anniversary of the saint’s proclamation as patron of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX … Pius became pope in 1846. First, he proclaimed the teaching of the Immaculate Conception in his Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, on December 8, 1854. Pope Pius VII had returned to Rome when Napoleon had assumed complete power and appeared to moderate his position against the Church. Throughout Italy, the new Italian state would wage war on the Church with the Church fighting back by refusing the sacraments and not taking part in state celebrations. The Catholic Church in England was ruled previously by vicars reporting directly to Rome. It became the darling of liberal and Protestant Europe, while the Papal States were tarred as a medieval throwback destined for the dustbin of history. Prussia had overthrown Austrian power in 1866, leaving only the French troops in Rome to defend the Pope. To understand what happened at Vatican I, it is important to know that the Roman Catholic Church is structured in a hierarchy. … Yet, Pius IX and his world -- as well as his reaction to it --are far more complicated than the secularized propaganda that greeted his beatification. Born on May 13, 1792, Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferrett, Blessed Pope Pius IX was elected to the Papacy on June 16, 1846, and served 32 years till his death on February 7, 1878. If anything, he hoped for a miracle and if no miracle was forthcoming, it must be God’s will. . Throughout Italy, it was believed that the Pope had abandoned the cause of liberty. At the time, however, it was viewed as a stunning defeat by both the Church itself, and a secular world that assumed the Church had received a mortal blow. He did not. Pius IX was the Holy Father of the Catholic Church longer than any other pope, from 1846 to 1878. Pope Pius IX, or Pio Nono, as he was both affectionately and not so affectionately called in Italian, has been treated less kindly by the world. Pius IX also granted the Marian title of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a famous Byzantine icon from Crete entrusted to the Redemptorist priests. The pope’s announcement of a Year of St. Joseph purposely coincided with the 150th anniversary of the saint’s proclamation as patron of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX … The reestablishment of the hierarchy allowed for direct and quicker action. ), Pope Pius IX inadvertently fueled this hate campaign when he reestablished the British hierarchy in 1850. Theoclete met the first Templar grandmaster, Hughes de Payens and then passed the mantle of his Johannite authority to him. He served as pope from 1846 to 1878, the longest and one of the most difficult pontificates in history. At the very beginning of his pontificate, Pope Gregory had made what would be seen as a disastrous decision. Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti), Pope. He was notable for convoking the Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing papal control of the papal states in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy . Instead, on April 29, 1848, he announced that he could not send men to war on a Catholic nation. The seizure and restoration of the Papal States had a strong impact on how the Church viewed itself and what was necessary for it to continue its mission in the 19th century. Only two years after Pope Pius IX’s election in 1846 had triggered great popular enthusiasm across Italy, the pope found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. Pope Pius IX, Nationalism and the Italian Risorgimento When Pope Pius IX was elected at the surprisingly young age of 54 the more conservative forces in Europe shuddered. Pope Pius IX, born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, marked his contribution to the abortion debate by removing the distinction between an “animated” and “unanimated” fetus from Catholic doctrine, and established the edict that a human should be protected starting from the moment of conception onward. You may click on “Your Choices” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. His election was greeted with joy , for his charity towards the poor, his kindheartedness, and … King of Rome. Pius XI, a student of Hebrew, was responsible for the three major encyclicals against the totalitarian systems that challenged Christian principles: Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; “We Do Not Need to Acquaint You”) against the abuses of fascist Italy; Mit brennender sorge (1937; “With Deep Anxiety”) against Nazi Germany, and Divini redemptoris (1937; “Divine Redeemer”) against the ends of atheistic communism. 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