Pope Pius IX
pope|English name=Pius IX|image=
|birth_name=Giovanni Maria
Mastai-Ferretti|term_start=
June 16,
1846|term_end=
February 7,
1878|predecessor=
Gregory XVI|successor=
Leo XIII|birth_date=
May 13,
1792|birthplace=
Senigallia,
Italy|dead=dead|death_date=
February 7,
1878|deathplace=
Apostolic Palace, The
Vatican|other=Pius}}
Pope Pius IX (
May 13,
1792 –
February 7,
1878), born
Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was
Pope for a record pontificate (not counting the Apostle
St. Peter) from his election in
June 16,
1846, until his death over 31 years later in
1878.
Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti was born in
Senigallia,
Italy into the noble family of Girolamo dei conti Ferretti, and was educated at the
Piarist College in
Volterra and in
Rome. He attempted to join the
Noble Guard but was turned down due to his
epilepsy. He instead studied
theology at the Roman
Seminary. He was ordained in April
1819. He worked initially as the rector of the
Tata Giovanni Institute in Rome before being sent to
Chile and
Peru in
1823–
1825, to assist the Apostolic Nuncio, Mons. Giovanni Muzi, in the first mission to post-revolutionary South America [
1]. He returned to become head of the
hospital of San Michele in Rome (
1825–
1827) and
canon of Santa Maria in Via Lata. Father Mastai-Ferretti was made
Archbishop of
Spoleto in
1827, at the age of 35. In 1831 the abortive revolution that had begun in Parma and Modena spread to Spoleto; the Archbishop obtained a general pardon after it was suppressed, gaining him a reputation for being liberal. The following year he was moved to the more prestigious
diocese of
Imola, was made a
cardinal in pectore in
1839, and in
1840 was publicly announced as
Cardinal Priest of Santi Pietro e Marcellino. According to historians, Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti was considered a liberal during his episcopate in Spoleto and Imola because he supported administrative changes in the
Papal States and sympathized with the nationalist movement in
Italy.
The
conclave of 1846, following the death of
Pope Gregory XVI (1831–46), was one which took place within an unsettled political climate in Italy. Because of this, many foreign
Cardinals decided not to attend the conclave. At its start, only 46 out of 62 cardinals were present.
Moreover, the
conclave of 1846 was steeped in a factional division between
conservatives and
liberals. The conservatives supported
Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini,
Gregory XVI's secretary of state. Liberals supported two candidates: Cardinal Gizzi and the 54 year-old Cardinal Mastai-Ferreti. During the first ballot, Mastai-Ferreti received 15 votes, the rest going to Cardinal Lambruschini and Cardinal Gizzi. Many thought that if Lambruschini was not elected, Gizzi would surely be selected.
Because the conclave was deadlocked, liberals and moderates decided to cast their votes for Mastai-Ferreti – a move that was certainly contrary to the general mood throughout Europe. By the second day of the conclave, on
16 June 1846, during an evening ballot, Mastai-Ferreti was elected Pope, having received a majority of 36 votes, while Lambruschini received only ten; Gizzi received no votes. Because it was night, no formal announcement was given, just the signal of white smoke. Many Catholics had assumed that Gizzi had been elected successor of St. Peter. In fact, celebrations began to take place in his home town, and his personal staff, following a long standing tradition, burned his cardinalatial vestments.
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Arms of Pope Pius IX |
On the following morning, the senior Cardinal-Deacon announced the election of Cardinal Mastai-Ferreti before what had to be a shocked crowd of faithful Catholics. Of course, when Cardinal Mastai-Ferreti appeared on the balcony, the mood became joyous. Mastai-Ferreti chose the name Pius IX in honor of
Pope Pius VII (1800–23), who had encouraged Mastai-Ferreti's vocation to the priesthood despite his childhood epilepsy.
However, Cardinal Mastai-Ferreti, now Pope Pius IX, had little diplomatic and no curial experience, which did cause some controversy. In fact, the government of the Empire of Austria as represented by
Prince Metternich in its foreign affairs objected to even the possible election of Cardinal Mastai-Ferreti. Thus, Cardinal Gaisruck, Archbishop of Milan was sent to present the official veto of Mastai-Ferreti. However, Cardinal Gaisruck arrived too late: – the new Pope was already elected.
Pius IX was crowned on
21 June 1846, and chose Cardinal Gizzi as his Secretary of State. Liberal Europe applauded his election.
Liberalism and conservatism
|
Title page to El Syllabus, in Spanish. |
As a liberal and someone aware of the political pressures within the
Papal States, his first act was to announce a general
amnesty for
political prisoners. As his nature was kind-hearted and generous, he did not consider the potential implications of the amnesty – his concessions only provoked greater demands; radical Roman groups sought
constitutional
government and
war with
Austria. He was not such a
radical, and in an
encyclical of November
1846 he denounced secret societies (such as
Circolo Romano), the
Bible associations, false
philosophy,
communism, and the
press.
His initial reforms created quite a sensation among Italian patriots, both at home and in exile, that is best exemplified by the following letter written by Giuseppe Garibaldi from Montevideo, Uruguay.:"If these hands, used to fighting, would be acceptable to His Holiness, we most thankfully dedicate them to the service of him who deserves so well of the Church and of the fatherland. Joyful indeed shall we and our companions in whose name we speak be, if we may be allowed to shed our blood in defence of Pio Nono's work of redemption" (October 12, 1847). [A. Werner,
Autobiography of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. III, p. 68, Howard Fertig, New York, 1971.]
His
Syllabus of Errors issued in
1864 as an appendix to his
encyclical Quanta Cura condemned as heresy 80 propositions, many on
political topics, and firmly established his pontificate in opposition to
secularism,
rationalism, and modernism in all its forms, thus branding himself as an enemy of liberalism and a leading conservative.
Treatment of Jews
Pius IX's relations to the Jews remain ambiguous. He repealed laws that forbade Jews to practice certain professions and required them to listen to
sermons four times per year aimed at their conversion.
Judaism and
Catholicism were the only
religions allowed by law (
Protestant worship was allowed to visiting foreigners, but strictly forbidden to Italians). The testimony of a Jew against a Christian remained inadmissible in courts of law, a tax levied only on Jews supported schools for the conversion of Jews to Catholicism, and Jews continued in various other respects to be discriminated against by law. At the beginning of his pontificate, Pius IX opened the Jewish ghetto in Rome, but after his return from exile in 1850 re-instituted it again.
In
1858, in a highly publicized case, a six-year-old Jewish boy,
Edgardo Mortara, was taken from his parents by the police of the Papal States. He had reportedly been
baptized by a Christian servant girl of the family while he was ill, because she feared that otherwise he would go to
Hell if he died. At that time, the law did not permit Christians to be raised by Jews, even their own parents. Pius IX steadfastly refused calls from numerous heads of state including
Emperor Franz Josef (1848–1916) of
Austria-Hungary and Emperor
Napoleon III of France (1852–70) to return the child to his parents.
The end of the Papal States
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Pope Pius IX |
By early
1848, public disorder had forced Pius IX to concede a
lay ministry and a constitution, although he held fast against war with Austria (April 1848). Public disorder grew, with repeated
riots; the
Prime Minister was
murdered (
November 15) and the Pope was denounced and trapped by a mob in the
Quirinal. Pius IX escaped in disguise to
Gaeta on
November 24, leaving Rome to the
radicals and the mob. A
Roman Republic was declared in February
1849. When General Oudinot's expeditionary force made its direct attack in April 1849, and the Constituent Assembly in Rome passed a resolution of protest (
May 7,
1849), French President Louis Napoleon (the future
Napoleon III of France) encouraged him and assured him of reinforcements from France. The Pope appealed for support, and Napoleon – who had engaged in a liberal insurrection in the states of the church himself in 1831 – now sent troops that crushed the republic (
June 29), although Pius IX did not return to Rome until April
1850. The French troops remained in Rome to protect the
status quo until 1870 (see
September Convention), while the Risorgimento united the remainder of Italy, leaving the block of the Papal States in the center.
Although Pius IX had lost his liberal tastes, temporal problems still beset his rule. The revolutionaries were still there, and the Papal States were coming under increased pressure from anti-papal
nationalists – notably
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (1861–78) of
Piedmont. The Pope was obliged to rely on French and Austrian soldiers to maintain order and protect his territories.
Napoleon III and
Cavour (Premier to Victor Emmanuel) agreed to war on Austria. Following the
Battle of Magenta (
July 4,
1859) the Austrian forces withdrew from the Papal States, precipitating their loss to Sardinia. Revolutionaries in
Romagna called upon Piedmont for annexation. In February
1860, Victor Emmanuel II demanded
Umbria and the
Marches; when his demand was refused, he took them by force. After defeating the papal army on
September 18 at
Castelfidardo, and on
September 30 at
Ancona, Victor Emmanuel took all the Papal territories except
Latium with Rome. In September
1870, he seized Rome as well, making it the
capital of a new united Italy. He granted Pius IX the
Law of Guarantees (
May 13,
1871) which gave the Pope the use of the Vatican but denied him sovereignty over this territory, nevertheless granting him the right to send and receive ambassadors and 3.25 m
lira a year. Pius IX officially rejected this offer (encyclical
Ubi nos,
May 15, 1871), retaining his claim to all the conquered territory. Although he was not forbidden or prevented from travelling as he wished, he called himself a
prisoner in the Vatican. See also
September Convention.
With the end of the Papal States in 1870, Pope Pius IX was thus the last Pope to hold temporal powers.
The pontificate of Pius IX from his return to Rome in April 1850 to 20 September 1870 is discussed in the book by Raffaele De Cesare,
The Last Days of Papal Rome, Archibald Constable & Co, London (1909). The following are excerpts:
The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon's feet--that dragged him into the abyss. He never forgot, even in August 1870, a month before Sedan, that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country, that he had been made Emperor, and was supported by the votes of the Conservatives and the influence of the clergy; and that it was his supreme duty not to abandon the Pontiff. [Chap. XXXIV, p 440]
For twenty years Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many friends and relations ... . Without him the temporal power would never have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would have endured. [Chap. XXXIV, p 443]
The Pope's reception of San Martino [10 Sept. 1870] was unfriendly. Pius IX allowed violent outbursts to escape him. Throwing the King's letter upon the table he exclaimed, "Fine loyalty! You are all a set of vipers, of whited sepulchres, and wanting in faith." He was perhaps alluding to other letters received from the King. After, growing calmer, he exclaimed: "I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet, but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!" San Martino was so mortified that he left the next day. [Chap. XXXIV, p 444]
Church and spirituality
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Pope Pius IX |
Besides the loss of territory in Italy, the rights of the Church were reduced across Europe, with Piedmont leading the way (a loss Pius condemned repeatedly, in
allocutions in
1850,
1852,
1853 and
1855). By decree of Pope Pius IX on
29 September 1850, the Catholic hierarchy was restored on a regular pattern to
England and
Wales. The Church was reduced in the German states due to the power of Protestantism; in
1873 a
Kulturkampf was started in
Prussia and elsewhere against the Church. The situation was even worse for the Church in
Switzerland,
Poland and
Russia, while in the
New World the Pope denounced
Colombia (1852) and
Mexico (
1861) for their anti-Church legislation. However, Pius IX did manage to secure satisfactory
concordats with
Spain,
Austria,
Portugal and a number of
Caribbean and
South American states. By the Bull
Universalis Ecclesiae (29 September 1850), he recreated a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales, which had become extinct with the death of the last Marian bishop in the reign of Elizabeth I; a similar pronouncement followed for the
Netherlands in 1853.
In spiritual matters Pius IX was much more vigorous. His December
1864 encyclical
Quanta cura condemned eighty errors (
Syllabus errorum) related to many of the important
intellectual ideas of the century such as
rationalism,
socialism,
communism, and
freedom of religion. In
1854 he became one of the few Popes to issue a statement considered
infallible when he
defined the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception. He also organised the
First Vatican Council (
1869–
1870) which defined the
dogma of
Papal infallibility.
A detailed analysis of the
First Vatican Council, and how the passage of the infallibility dogma was orchestrated, is contained in the book by the Catholic priest August Bernhard Hasler:
HOW THE POPE BECAME INFALLIBLE: Pius IX and the Politics of Persuation, Doubleday (1981) [translation of
WIE DER PAPST UNFEHLBAR WURDE: Macht und Ohnmacht eines Dogmas, R. Piper & Co. Verlag (1979)].
Pius IX
beatified 13 individuals, one in
1847, 1850 and 1861, and 11 in
1867:
Margaret Colonna (1847),
Peter Claver (1850),
John Leonardi (1861),
John Baptist Machado (1867),
John Baptist Zola (1867),
John Kinsaco (1867),
John Yano (1867),
John Foyamon (1867),
John Maki (1867),
John Cochumbuco (1867),
John Xoun (1867),
John Ivanango (1867),
John Montajana (1867), and
Thomas Tsugi (1867). He also
canonized four others:
John of Cologne (1867),
John of Osterwick (1867),
John Soan de Goto (1867), and
Nicholas Pieck (1867).
Pius IX died on
7 February 1878 from natural causes. His last words were "Guard the church I loved so well and sacredly" as recorded by the Cardinals kneeling beside his bedside. His body was originally buried in St. Peter's grotto, but was moved
13 July 1881 to the
Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura. The event was almost disrupted when a mob tried to seize the body and throw it into the
Tiber River.
The process for his
beatification was begun on
February 11,
1907, and recommenced three times.
Pope John Paul II (1978–2005) declared him
venerable on
July 6,
1985, and
beatified him on
September 3,
2000. This latter ceremony also included the beatification of
Pope John XXIII (1958–63).
The beatification of Pius IX is a subject of controversy in light of some of his actions during his time as Pope, and lingering questions concerning his mental well-being in the last years of his reign. Some Jews and Catholics have expressed concern that if Pius IX were to be declared a
saint, it would seriously hamper Catholic-Jewish relations.
Pius IX had the
longest reign in the history of the post-apostolic papacy, celebrating his silver jubilee in
1871. Despite his own wishes, Pius IX's pontificate also marks the beginning of the modern papacy, which was freed of its temporal sovereignty during his reign. From this point on, the papacy became and continues to become more and more a spiritual, and less a temporal, authority.
For all his achievements, Pius IX was considered a conservative Pope by the standards of the time, and he was often lampooned by reference to the Italian version of his name (
Pio Nono), as
Pio No No.
To commemorate his term as pope, there is a street in
Montreal called Pie-IX, French for Pius IX. There is also a stop on the
Montreal Metro system called
Pie-IX serving the street, located at the foot of the
Olympic stadium. Also, there is a street in
Santiago, Chile called Pío Nono, Spanish for Pius IX.
*[
2]
*
Vatican news: Pius IX*
El Papado y la Iglesia naciente en América Latina (1808-1825)*
Pope Pius IX.*Raffaele De Cesare,
The Last Days of Papal Rome, Archibald Constable & Co, London (1909)
*August Bernhard Hasler:
HOW THE POPE BECAME INFALLIBLE: Pius IX and the Politics of Persuation, Doubleday (1981) [translation of
WIE DER PAPST UNFEHLBAR WURDE: Macht und Ohnmacht eines Dogmas, R. Piper & Co. Verlag (1979)]
*David I Kertzer, 2004.
Prisoner of the Vatican: The Popes' Secret Plot to Capture Rome from the New Italian State (Houghton Mifflin)ISBN 9780618224425
