Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX had the longest reign in papal history, lost the Papal States, and defined papal infallibility. Born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti at Senigallia in 1792 into a noble family, he suffered from epilepsy, which nearly barred him from ordination, and served as a missionary in Chile before becoming Bishop of Imola and a cardinal. He was elected in 1846 as a liberal, and began accordingly: he amnestied political prisoners, permitted a free press, established a consultative assembly and lay participation in government, and was cheered across Italy as the pope who might lead its unification. The revolutions of 1848 ended it. Asked to declare war on Catholic Austria, he refused; his prime minister was murdered, a Roman Republic was declared, and he fled to Gaeta in disguise. French troops restored him in 1850, and he governed as a reactionary for the remaining twenty-eight years. He issued the Syllabus of Errors in 1864, condemning eighty propositions including rationalism, socialism, freedom of religion, and the notion that the pope should reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation. He defined the Immaculate Conception as dogma in 1854 on his own authority, and convened the First Vatican Council, which in July 1870 defined papal infallibility in matters of faith and morals. Italian troops entered Rome two months later. He refused to recognise the new state, declared himself a prisoner of the Vatican, and forbade Catholics to vote in Italian elections. The Mortara case of 1858, in which a Jewish child baptised secretly by a servant was seized and raised by the papacy, caused international outrage. He died in 1878.
- Lived: 1792 CE – 1878 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, cleric
