Pope Pius Ix

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Pope Pius IX (Italian: Pio IX; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti;^[a] 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in history and second only to Saint Peter according to Catholic tradition. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 which defined the dogma of papal infallibility before taking a break in summer of 1870. The council never reconvened. At the same time, France started the French-Prussian War and removed the troops that protected the Papal States, which allowed the Capture of Rome by the Kingdom of Italy on 20 September 1870. Thereafter, he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner in the Vatican".

At the time of his election, he was a liberal reformer, and during his early papacy, he enacted progressive reforms, but his approach changed after the Revolutions of 1848. When his prime minister, Pellegrino Rossi, was assassinated and Pius himself was made prisoner in his own palace, he fled Rome and excommunicated all participants in the short-lived Roman Republic. After its suppression by the French army and his return in 1850, his policies and doctrinal pronouncements became increasingly conservative. He was responsible for the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old taken by force from his Jewish family who went on to become a Catholic priest in his own right and unsuccessfully attempted to convert his Jewish parents.

In his 1849 encyclical Ubi primum, he emphasized Mary's role in salvation. In 1854, he promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, articulating a long-held Catholic belief that Mary, the Mother of God, was conceived without original sin. His 1864 Syllabus of Errors was a strong condemnation of liberalism, modernism, moral relativism, secularization, separation of church and state, and other Enlightenment ideas.

His appeal for financial support revived global donations known as Peter's Pence. He strengthened the central power of the Holy See and Roman Curia over the worldwide Catholic Church, while also formalizing the pope's ultimate doctrinal authority (the dogma of papal infallibility defined in 1870). Pope John Paul II beatified him in 2000.

Early life and ministry

The birthplace house of Pius IX in Senigallia

Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti was born on 13 May 1792 in Senigallia. He was the ninth child born into the noble family of Girolamo dei Conti Mastai-Ferretti (1750–1833), grandnephew of Pietro Girolamo Guglielmi, and wife Caterina Antonia Maddalena Solazzei di Fano (1764–1842).^[3] He was baptized on the day of his birth with the names Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro. He was educated at the Piarist College in Volterra and in Rome. An unreliable account published many years later suggests that the young Count Mastai was engaged to the daughter of the Protestant Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore, William Foster.^[4] If there was ever any such engagement, it did not proceed.

Illustration showing Mastai-Ferretti at his first Holy Mass in 1819

In 1814, as a theology student in his hometown of Senigallia, he met Pope Pius VII, who had returned from French captivity. In 1815, he entered the Papal Noble Guard but was soon dismissed after an epileptic seizure.^[5] He threw himself on the mercy of Pius VII, who elevated him and supported his continued theological studies.

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kath._Illustratie_1869-1870_nr_25_p.126_De_priester_Masa%C3%AD_Ferretti,_thans_Pius_IX,_in_Tata_Giovanni.jpg)Fr. Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti teaching to orphans

Mastai-Ferretti was ordained a priest on 10 April 1819. The Pope had originally insisted that another priest should assist Mastai-Ferretti during Holy Mass, but rescinded the stipulation after the seizures became less frequent.^[6] He initially worked as the rector of the Tata Giovanni Institute in Rome.

Shortly before his death, Pius VII – following Chilean leader Bernardo O'Higgins' wish to have the Pope reorganize the Catholic Church of the new republic – named him auditor to assist the apostolic nuncio, Monsignore Giovanni Muzi, in the first mission to post-revolutionary South America.^[7] The mission had the objective to map out the role of the Catholic Church in Chile and its relationship with the state, but when it finally arrived in Santiago in March 1824, O'Higgins had been overthrown and replaced by General Ramón Freire, who was less well-disposed toward the Church and had already taken hostile measures such as the seizure of Church property. Having ended in failure, the mission returned to Europe.^[8] Nevertheless, Mastai-Ferretti had been the first future pope ever to have been in the Americas. Upon his return to Rome, the successor of Pius VII, Pope Leo XII, appointed him head of the hospital of San Michele a Ripa in Rome (1825–1827) and canon of Santa Maria in Via Lata.

Leo XII appointed the 35-year-old Mastai-Ferretti Archbishop of Spoleto in 1827.^[6] 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. During an earthquake, he made a reputation as an efficient organizer of relief and great charity.^[6] 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 Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano. As in Spoleto, his episcopal priorities were the formation of priests through improved education and charities. He became known for visiting prisoners in jail and for programs for street children.^[9] 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.

Election

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[### Pope Pius IX

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Pope_Pius_IX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_IX)

head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in history.