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Why is Pius IX so important in the history of the Roman Church, and what is his particular significance for British Protestants? We can list at least five reasons in generally chronological order.
1. In 1850 he introduced a Roman hierarchy in England. To get round existing legislation safeguarding the titles belonging to the Church of England episcopate, Roman archbishops and bishops were given geographical titles not already in use. This was regarded as “papal aggression” and aroused a storm of opposition within the UK Parliament. Legislation was passed against the Roman action but it was never implemented and was eventually repealed.
2. In 1854 Pius, on his own authority, though with popular support and after consultation with some bishops, defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and it became an article of Roman faith. This and other matters related to Roman teaching on Mary may well merit fuller discussion in a future article. Such exercise of papal authority marked an important step towards Vatican. I and the debates of 1870. Interestingly, four years later, in 1858, came the purported vision of Mary at Lourdes, declaring, “I am the Immaculate Conception”, leading to Lourdes becoming an internationally-known pilgrimage centre. Pius also used his position to encourage the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
3. In 1864 Pius published the encyclical Quanta Cura and attached to it the notorious Syllabus of Errors. This came about because of an increasing movement within the Roman Church towards a more modernising and liberal agenda. Early in his papacy it had been hoped that Pius would reverse the very conservative attitude of his predecessor, Gregory XVI, but events had frightened him off as we shall see.
Instead, encouraged by those known as Ultramontanists, who were strongly conservative and upholders of the supreme authority of the papacy, Pius issued this document, clearly shutting the Roman Church away from the influences of modern thought.
In some matters good Protestants would have endorsed certain of the papal condemnations of the 80 propositions set out in the Syllabus. Others they would not, such as those concerned with the temporal power of the papacy and the freedom of non-Romans to practise their religion. The issue of papal temporal sovereignty leads us to our fourth point.
4. Before Pius became Pope in June 1846 he had criticised Gregory for his handling of the Papal States. At this period the Pope was still the secular ruler of certain parts of Italy. This stood in the way of political unification of the country, for which there was a growing demand associated with men like Cavour and Garibaldi. It was hoped that Pius would encourage the realisation of this vision.
Soon after his election, in 1848, a wave of revolutions swept across Europe. Alarmed by this, Pius drew back, and disowned any suggestion that he might become the head of a federal Italy. Violence broke out in Rome and he had to flee the city, only being able to return with the support of French troops in 1850. This killed off any leaning he might still have had towards democracy and he continued to rule over the Papal States under the protection of foreign armies. The growing democratic movement became increasingly secular and anti-clerical in outlook.
In 1860 about two-thirds of the Papal States were annexed by Piedmont, and military resistance on behalf of the Pope proved futile. This led to two very different assessments of Pius. On the one hand he was regarded as creating unnecessary problems for himself and the Church. On the other, to the Ultramontanists he was a hero for standing up against atheism and fearlessly defending Christianity. Among those taking the latter view was Henry Manning, a convert from the Church of England, who was to become Archbishop of Westminster in 1865 and a leading advocate of papal infallibility at Vatican I. It is worth noticing that John Henry Newman, another convert from the Church of England and a far more gifted man than Manning, was very apprehensive about Ultramontanism. Despite the loss of some of his territory Pius still ruled the city of Rome through the good offices of the French.
5. We come now to what is arguably the most important event in the pontificate of Pius, and that is the first Vatican Council. Announced in 1867 it was convened in December 1869 and met until July in the following year. It was here that Ultramontanists succeeded in getting a definition of papal infallibility though not in the terms they would have preferred.
The whole Council has interest for Protestants, and probably the best book in English on this from the Roman side is by Christopher Butler, entitled The Vatican Council 1869-70. A 1962 edition was published by Collins in its Fontana Library, and may well now be out of print, though some libraries might be able to supply it.
The decree on papal infallibility was debated at length and went through more than one draft. It was finally passed by 533 votes to 2. Fifty seven bishops had left Rome the day before the vote so that they would not have to register their position. The actual decree and its implications deserve a fuller treatment than we can give them here. It should be said, though, that the opposition in the Council towards the decree was not so much to the concept, but to the action of defining it. It was foreseen that it could lead to greater antagonism towards Rome.
Vatican I came to an abrupt end the day after the decree was approved. The Council was prorogued, but never met again. That day war broke out between France and Prussia. French troops were withdrawn in August to meet the Prussian threat, and in September the Italian army seized Rome and it became the capital of a united Italy. The Papal States had ceased to exist, and Pius never again left the Vatican, dying in 1878. The Roman Church was now in a very different position politically, and spiritually it had become more isolated from the world around. Paradoxically, this seems to have increased its influence. Perhaps there is a lesson for us in that.
This is just a brief and very general look at one particularly important Pope. It reminds us, though, that Rome is as much part of the historical process as any other body of people. Our endeavour to witness to Roman Catholics can be helped if we understand their history as they see it, as well as from a Protestant perspective, and if we recognise the different forces at work within Rome as well as those affecting it from the outside.
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