In 1846, at the age of fifty-four, Giovani Maria Mastai-Ferretti was elected pope (Pope Pius IX) after a forty-eight-hour conclave. He was known to have been openly critical of his predecessor Gregory XVI’s rule in the Papal States and he apparently possessed a large collection of cats which he loved. The first few months of reign were met with widespread among adoring crowds. In his first month in office, the new pontiff amnestied more than a thousand political prisoners and exiles. He also hosted garden parties (for both sexes) and encouraged development plans for railways and endorsed gas lighting for the streets of Rome (which his predecessor had detested). Pius also pushed for a mostly free press, reformed tariffs, introduced laymen into the papal government, and he abolished Leo XII’s “grotesque” law that forced Jews to listen to Christian lectures at least once per week. He quickly became the most popular man in Italy, a celebrity among the people. And with the outbreak of a revolutionary ethos across Europe in 1848, –in Sicily, Paris, Vienna, Naples, Rome, Venice, Florence, Lucca, Parma, Modena, Milan, Berlin, Krakow, Warsaw, and Budapest—the pope’s name was chanted on the streets as “Pio Nono! Pio Nono!” as if the pope had become the face of the revolution, though Pius never had any desire to be a revolutionary. He quickly sought to apply the brakes to this runaway train wherever he could.
While he was beloved by ordinary people, he was not equally as admired by the ruling class across Europe. As the Austrian State Chancellor Prince Metternich once prophetically wrote in October 1847:
“Each day the Pope shows himself more lacking in any practical sense. Born and brought up in a liberal family, he has been formed in a bad school; a good priest, he has never turned his mind toward matters of government. Warm of heart ad weak of intellect, he has allowed himself to be taken and ensnared, since assuming the tiara, in a net from which he no longer knows how to disentangle himself, and if matters follow their natural course, he will be driven out of Rome.”
At the time, there was an air of Italian patriotism sweeping throughout the papal lands as new constitutions were signed across the continent from France to Austria, and the pope himself signed a new moderate constitution with the Papal States which very nearly led to open warfare with Austria (likened to a “Crusade” at the time) until the Allocution of April 29, 1848 which ended the promise of a united Italy. News of the allocution was met with “horror” among Italians of all persuasions and almost immediately the “hero” pope was branded a “traitor” in the eyes of the people. And when his chief minister was hacked to death by a mob while trying to enter the chancery, the pope realized that Rome was no longer a safe city for him.
He quietly fled in disguise as a simple priest, with the aid of the French ambassador and the Bavarian minister, to Gaeta in Neapolitan territory where he was welcomed by King Ferdinand and given a palace and small Curia which allowed him to conduct the papal business. Very quickly, the Papal States fell back under the shadow of Austria as the forces of counterrevolution had prevailed –except in Venice. And in the pope’s absence, a Roman assembly convened and overwhelmingly voted to end the pope’s temporal powers and establish a united Roman Republic led by a forty-one-year-old seafaring adventurer, Giuseppe Garibaldi. But since an independent Rome posed a threat to France, forces were soon dispatched by Prince-Louis Napoleon to confront a self-governing Rome. Following an initially humiliating battle on April 30 which killed or wounded some 500 French soldiers and left 365 imprisoned, France redoubled its efforts and returned to Rome to decimate the republicans forces, sending them scurrying up into the hills.
By early 1850, the pope had finally felt safe enough to return to Rome (this time, he abandoned the Quirinal Palace and instead made his home in the Vatican where his successors have dwelled ever since). However, he had returned to a French-occupied Rome. In addition, the Austrians had regained their control of Venice and Lombardy along with Florence, Modena, and Parma, and King Ferdinand II had torn up the constitution in Naples, granting himself absolute power. Nevertheless, the spirit of revolutionary self-governance remined strong among the people –in January 1858, bombs were tossed at Louis-Napoleon’s carriage (the perpetrator, Felice Orsini, was executed by a French firing squad). War was now inevitable between Napoleon III of France, Franz Josef of Austria, and Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia—and only after many thousands were slaughtered in the First and Second Italian Wars of Independence, was Italy granted its independence under Victor Emmanuel II (King of Sardinia). It was the first time Italy had been united since the 6th century. Once again, throughout all of this bloody clamor, the frivolous papacy showed itself to be powerless in effecting any real change one way or the other, and the Papal States were now lost to Rome. Additionally, the pope was forced to address nascent democratic principles which were on the rise, as well as extraordinary publications by Charles Darwin about evolution and natural selection. Predictably, the pope responded in reactionary fashion with the distribution of the “Syllabus of Errors” which condemned things like non-Catholics practicing their faith in Catholic countries. It also strongly rejected the idea that “the Roman pontiff can and should reconcile himself with progress, liberalism, and recent civilization.”
“Pius IX never lost his easygoing charm, his ready smile, his ever-present sense of humor; yet here was proof –if proof was needed—that he now identified himself with one of the most reactionary, intolerant, and aggressive movements of modern Church history. For the Ultramontanists, as they had come to be called, the pope was absolute ruler, unquestioned leader, infallible guide. No discussion was permitted, to suggestion that there might be sides to an argument. Roman Catholicism was in danger of becoming something akin to a police state, illiberal and bigoted” (410).
The “Syllabus” was soon widely rejected and publicly burned across the continent, yet still the recalcitrant pope refused to relent. He convened a General Council of the Church which became known as the First Vatican Council in 1869, which was attended by some 700 bishops from five continents and chief among the topics discussed was that of “papal infallibility,” which reaffirmed the pope’s infallibility in not requiring the consent of the Church. This decree was promulgated on July 18, 1870 and one day later the Franco-Prussian War broke out and as far as the papacy was concerned, Pius IX remained in the Vatican where his meager defenses were quickly and easily cast aside by Victor Emmanuel who conquered the region. Shortly thereafter, the people of Rome voted overwhelmingly to join the Kingdom of Italy (no doubt beleaguered by theocratic incompetence). Only Vatican City was allowed to remain independent. By now, the bitter, enfeebled pope decided to retreat behind the walls of the Vatican where he remained for the next eight years of his life until his death in February 1878. His was the longest reigning pontificate in papal history according to John Julius Norwich.
Politically, his papal reign was an utter disaster, accelerating the inexorable decline of the papacy which had been unfolding over the past several centuries, though he did gain some victories for the Church, such as for the burgeoning “Cult of Mary” which celebrated when he declared the doctrine of Immaculate Conception (a doctrine that said the “Blessed Virgin” had been born without original sin). Another cult he elevated was that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“All his life he had been alternately loved and hated, respected and despised; and in 1881, three years after his death, the pendulum swung again. It had been decided that his body should find its final resting place in the patriarchal Basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, but since Italy was by now in the grip of a furious wave of anticlericalism inspired by her prime minister, Agostino Depretis, it was thought safer for it to be transported by night. Unfortunately, word of the intended operation had somehow reached the Roman mob, which almost succeeded in hurling the coffin into the river. By the time it was carried into San Lorenzo, it had been dented by stones and was heavily spattered with mud. Pio Nono, it seemed, was. As controversial a figure as he ever he had been. He still is” (416).
For this reading I used John Julius Norwich’s 2011 single volume history of the papacy Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy.