Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX (13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 16 June 1846 until his death in February 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 the summer of 1870. The council never reconvened. At the same time, France started the Franco-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 notably eased restrictions on Jewish movement and granted an amnesty to revolutionaries, but his approach changed radically 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 behind the Mortara case, the taking of a six-year-old 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.
Patron saint of Pius Seminary of Rome; Senigallia; Diocese of Senigallia; First Vatican Council
In the Martyrology
- February 7 Blessed Pius IX, pope