Pope Pius IX

(GIOVANNI MARIA MASTAI-FERRETTI).

Pope from 1846-78; born at Sinigaglia, 13 May, 1792; died in Rome, 7 February,

1878.

BEFORE HIS PAPACY

His early years. After receiving his classical education at the Piarist College in

Volterra from 1802-09 he went to Rome to study philosophy and theology, but left

there in 1810 on account of political disturbances. He returned in 1814 and, in

deference to his father's wish, asked to be admitted to the pope's Noble Guard.

Being subject to epileptic fits, he was refused admission and, following the desire

of his mother and his own inclination, he studied theology at the Roman

Seminary, 1814-18. Meanwhile his malady had ceased and he was ordained

priest, 10 April, 1819. Pius VII appointed him spiritual director of the orphan

asylum popularly known as "Tata Giovanni", in Rome, and in 1823 sent him, as

auditor of the Apostolic delegate, Mgr Muzi, to Chile in South America. Upon his

return in 1825 he was made canon of Santa Maria in Via Lata and director of the

large hospital of San Michele by Leo XII. The same pope created him Archbishop

of Spoleto, 21 May, 1827. In 1831 when 4000 Italian revolutionists fled before the

Austrian army and threatened to throw themselves upon Spoleto, the archbishop

persuaded them to lay down their arms and disband, induced the Austrian

commander to pardon them for their treason, and gave them sufficient money to

reach their homes. On 17 February, 1832, Gregory XVI transferred him to the

more important Diocese of Imola and, 14 December, 1840, created him cardinal

priest with the titular church of Santi Pietro e Marcellino, after having reserved

him in petto since 23 December, 1839. He retained the Diocese of Imola until his

elevation to the papacy. His great charity and amiability had made him beloved

by the people, while his friendship with some of the revolutionists had gained for

him the name of liberal.

His election. On 14 June, 1846, two weeks after the death of Gregory XVI, fifty

cardinals assembled in the Quirinal for the conclave. They were divided into two

factions, the conservatives, who favoured a continuance of absolutism in the

temporal government of the Church, and the liberals, who were desirous of

moderate political reforms. At the fourth scrutiny, 16 June, Cardinal

Mastai-Ferretti, the liberal candidate, received three votes beyond the required

majority. Cardinal Archbishop Gaysruck of Milan had arrived too late to make use

of the right of exclusion against his election, given him by the Austrian

Government. The new pope accepted the tiara with reluctance and in memory of

Pius VII, his former benefactor, took the name of Pius IX. His coronation took

place in the Basilica of St. Peter on 21 June. His election was greeted with joy,

for his charity towards the poor. his kindheartedness, and his wit had made him

very popular.

TEMPORAL ASPECT OF HIS PAPACY

Within the Papal States. Conciliatory policies (1846-1848).-- "Young Italy" was

clamouring for greater political freedom. The unyielding attitude of Gregory XVI

and his secretary of state, Cardinal Lambruschini, had brought the papal states

to the verge of a revolution. The new pope was in favour of a political reform. His

first great political act was the granting of a general amnesty to political exiles

and prisoners on 16 July, 1846. This act was hailed with enthusiasm by the

people, but many prudent men had reasonable fears of the results. Some

extreme reactionaries denounced the pope as in league with the Freemasons

and the Carbonari. It did not occur to the kindly nature of Pius IX that many of the

pardoned political offenders would use their liberty to further their revolutionary

ideas. That he was not in accord with the radical ideas of the times he clearly

demonstrated by his Encyclical of 9 November, 1846, in which he laments the

oppression of Catholic interests, intrigues against the Holy See, machinations of

secret societies, sectarian bitterness, the Bible associations, indifferentism,

false philosophy, communism, and the licentious press. He was, however, willing

to grant such political reforms as he deemed expedient to the welfare of the

people and compatible with the papal sovereignty. On 19 April, 1847, he

announced his intention to establish an advisory council (Consulta di Stato),

composed of laymen from the various provinces of the papal territory. This was

followed by the establishment of a civic guard (Guardia Civica), 5 July, and a

cabinet council, 29 December.

Failure of appeasement (1848-1850).-- But the more concessions the pope

made, the greater and more insistent became the demands. Secret clubs of

Rome, especially the "Circolo Romano", under the direction of Ciceruacchio,

fanaticized the mob with their radicalism and were the real rulers of Rome. They

spurred the people on to be satisfied with nothing but a constitutional

government, an entire laicization of the ministry, and a declaration of war against

hated and reactionary Austria.

On 8 February, 1848, a street riot extorted the promise of a lay ministry from the

pope and on 14 March he saw himself obliged to grant a constitution, but in his

allocution of 29 April he solemnly proclaimed that, as the Father of Christendom,

he could never declare war against Catholic Austria.

Riot followed riot, the pope was denounced as a traitor to his country, his prime

minister Rossi was stabbed to death while ascending the steps of the

Cancelleria, whither he had gone to open the parliament, and on the following day

the pope himself was besieged in the Quirinal. Palma, a papal prelate, who was

standing at a window, was shot, and the pope was forced to promise a

democratic ministry. With the assistance of the Bavarian ambassador, Count

Spaur, and the French ambassador, Duc d'Harcourt, Pius IX escaped from the

Quirinal in disguise, 24 November, and fled to Gaëta where he was joined by

many of the cardinals. Meanwhile Rome was ruled by traitors and adventurers

who abolished the temporal power of the pope, 9 February, 1849, and under the

name of a democratic republic terrorized the people and committed untold

outrages. The pope appealed to France, Austria, Spain, and Naples. On 29 June

French troops under General Oudinot restored order in his terrotory. On 12 April,

1850, Pius IX returned to Rome, no longer a political liberalist.

His subsequent rule (1850-1858).-- Cardinal Antonelli, his secretary of state,

exerted a paramount political influence until his death on 6 November, 1876. The

temporal reign of Pius IX, up to the seizure of the last of his temporal

possessions in 1870, was one continuous struggle, on the one hand against the

intrigues of the revolutionaries, on the other against the Piedmontese ruler Victor

Emmanuel, his crafty premier Cavour, and other antipapal statesmen who aimed

at a united Italy, with Rome as its capital, and the Piedmontese ruler as its king.

The political difficulties of the pope were still further increased by the double

dealing of Napoleon III, and the necessity of relying on French and Austrian

troops for the maintenance of order in Rome and the papal legations in the north.

Intrigues against the Papal States (1858-1878).-- When Pius IX visited his

provinces in the summer of 1857 he received everywhere a warm and loyal

reception. But the doom of his temporal power was sealed, when a year later

Cavour and Napoleon III met at Plombières, concerting plans for a combined war

against Austria and the subsequent territorial extension of the Sardinian

Kingdom. They sent their agents into various cities of the Papal States to

propogate the idea of a politically united Italy. The defeat of Austria at Magenta

on 4 July, 1859, and the subsequent withdrawal of the Austrian troops from the

papal legations, inaugurated the dissolution of the Papal States. The insurrection

in some of the cities of the Romagna was put forth as a plea for annexing this

province to Piedmont in September, 1859. On 6 February, 1860, Victor

Emmanuel demanded the annexation of Umbria and the Marches and, when Pius

IX resisted this unjust demand, made ready to annex them by force. After

defeating the papal army at Castelfidardo on 18 September, and at Ancona on 30

September, he deprived the pope of all his possessions with the exception of

Rome and the immediate vicinity. Finally on 20 September, 1870, he completed

the spoliation of the papal possessions by seizing Rome and making it the

capital of United Italy. The so-called Law of Guarantees, of 15 May, 1871, which

accorded the pope the rights of a sovereign, an annual remuneration of 3¼ million

lire ($650,000), and extraterritoriality to a few papal palaces in Rome, was never

accepted by Pius IX or his successors. (See STATES OF THE CHURCH; ROME;

LAW OF GUARANTEES).

Outside of the Papal States. The loss of his temporal power was only one of

the many trials that filled the long pontificate of Pius IX. There was scarcely a

country, Catholic or Protestant, where the rights of the Church were not infringed

upon. In Piedmont the Concordat of 1841 was set aside, the tithes were

abolished, education was laicized, monasteries were suppressed, church

property was confiscated, religious orders were expelled, and the bishops who

opposed this anti-ecclesiastical legislation were imprisoned or banished. In vain

did Pius IX protest against such outrages in his allocutions of 1850, 1852, 1853,

and finally in 1855 by publishing to the world the numerous injustices which the

Piedmontese government had committed against the Church and her

representatives. In Würtemberg he succeeded in concluding a concordat with the

Government, but, owing to the opposition of the Protestant estates, it never

became a law and was revoked by a royal rescript on 13 June, 1861. The same

occurred in the Grand Duchy of Baden where the Concordat of 1859 was

abolished on 7 April, 1860. Equally hostile to the Church was the policy of

Prussia and other German states, where the anti-ecclesiastical legislations

reached their height during the notorious Kulturkampf, inaugurated in 1873. The

violent outrages committed in Switzerland against the bishops and the remaining

clergy were solemnly denounced by Pius IX in his encyclical letter of 21

November, 1873, and, as a result, the papal internuncio was expelled from

Switzerland in January, 1874. The concordat which Pius IX had concluded with

Russia in 1847 remained a dead letter, horrible cruelties were committed against

the Catholic clergy and laity after the Polish insurrection of 1863, and all relations

with Rome were broken in 1866. The anti-ecclesiastical legislation in Colombia

was denounced in his allocution of 27 September, 1852, and again, together with

that of Mexico, on 30 September, 1861. With Austria, a concordat, very

favourable to the Church, was concluded on 18 August, 1855 ("Conventiones de

rebus eccl. inter s. sedem et civilem potestatem", Mainz, 1870, 310-318). But

the Protestant agitation aginst the concordat was so strong, that in contravention

to it the emperor reluctantly ratified marriage and school laws, 25 March, 1868. In

1870 the concordat was abolished by the Austrian Government, and in 1874 laws

were enacted, which placed all but the inner management of ecclesiastical affairs

in the hands of the Government.

With Spain, Pius IX concluded a satisfactory concordat on 16 March, 1851

(Nussi, 281-297; "Acta Pii IX", I, 293-341). It was supplemented by various

articles on 25 November, 1859 (Nussi, 341-5). Other satisfactory concordats

concluded by Pius IX were those with:

Portugal in 1857 (Nussi, 318-21);

Costa Rica, and Guatemala, 7 Oct., 1852 (Ib., 297-310);

Nicaragua, 2 Nov., 1861 (Ib., 361-7);

San Salvador, and Honduras, 22 April, 1862 (Ib., 367-72; 349);

Haiti, 28 March, 1860 (Ib., 346-8);

Venezuela, 26 July, 1862 (Ib., 356-61);

Ecuador, 26 Sept., 1862 (Ib., 349-56).

(See CONCORDAT: Summary of Principal Concordats.)

RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF HIS PAPACY

His greatest achievements are of a purely ecclesiastical and religious character.

Battle against false liberalism. It is astounding how fearlessly he fought, in the

midst of many and severe trials, against the false liberalism which threatened to

destroy the very essence of faith and religion. In his Encyclical "Quanta Cura" of

8 December, 1864, he condemned sixteen propositions touching on errors of the

age. This Encyclical was accompanied by the famous "Syllabus errorum", a

table of eighty previously censured propositions bearing on pantheism,

naturalism, rationalism, indifferentism, socialism, communism, freemasonry, and

the various kinds of religious liberalism. Though misunderstandings and malice

combined in representing the Syllabus as a veritable embodiment of religious

narrow-mindedness and cringing servility to papal authority, it has done an

inestimable service to the Church and to society at large by unmasking the false

liberalism which had begun to insinuate its subtle poison into the very marrow of

Catholicism.

Previously, on 8 January, 1857, he had condemned the philosophico-theological

writings of Günther, and on many occasions advocated a return to the philosophy

and theology of St. Thomas.

His promotion of the inner life of the Church. Through his whole life he was

very devout to the Blessed Virgin. As early as 1849, when he was an exile at

Gaëta, he issued letters to the bishops of the Church, asking their views on the

subject of the Immaculate Conception, and on 8 Dec., 1854, in the presence of

more than 200 bishops, he proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of the

Blessed Virgin as a dogma of the Church. He also fostered the devotion to the

Sacred Heart, and on 23 Sept., 1856, extended this feast to the whole world with

the rite of a double major. At his instance the Catholic world was consecrated to

the Sacred Heart of Jesus on 16 June, 1875. He also promoted the inner life of

the Church by many important liturgical regulations, by various monastic reforms,

and especially by an unprecedented number of beatifications and canonizations.

Convocation of the Vatican Council. On 29 June, 1869, he issued the Bull

"Æterni Patris", convoking the Vatican Council which he opened in the presence

of 700 bishops on 8 Dec., 1879. During its fourth solemn session, on 18 July,

1870, the papal infallibility was made a dogma of the Church. (See VATICAN

COUNCIL..)

Appointments and foundations. The healthy and extensive growth of the

Church during his pontificate was chiefly due to his unselfishness. He appointed

to important ecclesiastical positions only such men as were famous both for

piety and learning. Among the great cardinals created by him were: Wiseman

and Manning for England; Cullen for Ireland; McCloskey for the United States;

Diepenbrock, Geissel, Reisach, and Ledochowski for Germany; Rauscher and

Franzelin for Austria; Mathieu, Donnet, Gousset, and Pitra for France. On 29

Sept., 1850, he re-established the Catholic hierarchy in England by erecting the

Archdiocese of Westminster with the twelve suffragan Sees of Beverley,

Birmingham, Clifton, Hexham, Liverpool, Newport and Menevia, Northampton,

Nottingham, Plymouth, Salford, Shrewsbury, and Southwark. The widespread

commotion which this act caused among English fanatics, and which was

fomented by Prime Minister Russell and the London "Times", temporarily

threatened to result in an open persecution of Catholics (see ENGLAND). On 4

March, 1853, he restored the Catholic hierarchy in Holland by erecting the

Archdiocese of Utrecht and the four suffragan Sees of Haarlem, Bois-le-Duc,

Roermond, and Breda (see HOLLAND).

In the United States of America he erected the Dioceses of: Albany, Buffalo,

Cleveland, and Galveston in 1847; Monterey, Savannah, St. Paul, Wheeling,

Santa Fe, and Nesqually (Seattle) in 1850; Burlington, Covington, Erie,

Natchitoches, Brooklyn, Newark, and Quincy (Alton) in 1853; Portland (Maine) in

1855; Fort Wayne, Sault Sainte Marie (Marquette) in 1857; Columbus, Grass

Valley (Sacramento) Green Bay, Harrisburg, La Crosse, Rochester, Scranton,

St. Joseph, Wilmington in 1868; Springfield and St. Augustine in 1870;

Providence and Ogdensburg in 1872; San Antonio in 1874; Peoria in 1875;

Leavenworth in 1877; the Vicariates Apostolic of the Indian Territory and

Nebraska in 1851; Northern Michigan in 1853; Florida in 1857; North Carolina,

Idaho, and Colorado in 1868; Arizona in 1869; Brownsville in Texas and Northern

Minnesota in 1874. He encouraged the convening of provincial and diocesan

synods in various countries, and established at Rome the Latin American

College in 1853, and the College of the United States of America, at his own

private expense, in 1859.

Conclusion. His was the longest pontificate in the history of the papacy. In 1871

he celebrated his twenty-fifth, in 1876 his thirtieth, anniversary as pope, and in

1877 his golden episcopal jubilee. His tomb is in the church of San Lorenzo fuori

le mura. The so-called diocesan process of his beatification was begun on 11

February, 1907.

[Pope Pius IX was beatified on September 3, 2000. -- Ed.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Acta Pii IX (Rome, 1854-78); Acta Sancta Sedis (Rome, 1865 sq.); RIANCEY,

Recueil des allocutions consistoriales (Paris, 1853 sq.); Discorsi del Sommo Pont. Pio IX (Rome,

1872-8); MAGUIRE, Pius IX and his Times (Dublin, 1885); TROLLOPE, Life of Pius IX (London,

1877); SHEA, Life and Pontificate of Pius IX (New York, 1877); BRENNAN, A Popular Life of Our

Holy Father Pope Pius IX (New York, 1877); O'REILLY, Life of Pius IX (New York, 1878);

MCCAFFREY, Hist. of the Cath. Church in the Nineteenth Century, I (Dublin, 1909); LYONS,

Dispatches resp. the condition of the Papal States (London, 1860); BALLERINI, Les Premiéres

pages du pontificat de Pie IX (Rome, 1909); POUGEOIS, Histoire de Pie IX, son pontificat et son

siècle (Paris, 1877-86);VILLEGRANCHE, Pie IX, sa vie, son histoire, son siècle (Paris, 1878);

SAGèS, SS. Pie IX, sa vie, ses écrits, sa doctrine (Paris, 1896); ROCFER, Souvenirs d'un prélat

romain sur Rome et la cour pontificale au temps de Pie IX d(Paris, 1896); VAN DUERM, Rome et la

Franc-Maçconnerie (Brussels, 1896); GILLET, Pie IX, sa vie, et les actes de son pontificat (Paris,

1877); RÜTJES, Leben, wirken und leiden Sr. Heiligkeit Pius IX (Oberhausen, 1870); HÜLSKAMP,

Papst Pius IX in seinem Leben und Wirken (Münster, 1875); STEPPISCHNEGG, Papst Pius IX und

seine Zeit (Vienna, 1879); WAPPMANNSPERGER, Leben und Wirken des Papst Pius IX (Ratisbon,

1879); NÜRNBERGER, Papsttum und Kirchenstaat, II, III (Mainz, 1898-1900); MAROCCO, Pio IX

(Turin, 1861-4); MOROSI, Vita di SS. Pio papa IX (Florence, 1885-6); BONETTI, Pio IX ad Imola e

Roma–Memorie inedite di un suo famgiliare segreto (Rome, 1892); CESARE, Roma e lo stato del

Papa dal ritorno di Pio IX al 20 Settembre (Rome, 1906).

MICHAEL OTT

Transcribed by WGKofron

With thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII

Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York