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Pius IX and Italy

Liberal churchmen in Italy, while rejecting Mazzini's dream of a republic, had evolved projects for attaining national unity while preserving the temporal power. The exiled Vincenzo Gioberti championed an Italian confederacy under the presidency of the pope; hand in hand with the unity of the nation should go the unity of the faith. In allusion to medieval partisans of the papacy this theory was dubbed Neo-Guelphism.

Towards such a solution Pius IX was at first not unfavorably inclined, but the revolution of 1848 cured him of his Liberal leanings. In November of that year he fled in disguise from his capital to Gaota, in the kingdom of Naples, and when French arms had made feasible his restoration to Rome in April 1850 he returned in a temper of stubborn resistance to all reform; henceforth he was no longer open to the influence of men of the type of Rossi or Rosmint, but took the inspiration of his policy from Cardinal Antonelli and the Jesuits. The same pope who had signalized his accession by carrying out a certain number of Liberal reforms set his name in 1864 to the famous Syllabus, which was in effect a declaration of war by the papacy against the leading principles of modern civilization.

What Pius IX saw of Mazzini's republic convinced him that Radicalism was inimical to peace and justice and essentially irreligious. He also began to fear, as his predecessors for centuries had feared, that the political unification of Italy, with the attendant establishment of a strong secular government, would decrease his own spiritual influence, would cause non-Italian nations to look upon him merely as a kind of chaplain for Italy rather than as Christ's vicar for the whole world. From 1849 until his own death in 1878, therefore, Pope Pius IX made every possible effort to combat Italian unity.

On the withdrawal of the French garrison Rome was occupied by the troops of Victor Emmanuel. This monarch had always been a thorn in the side of the papacy. Under him Sardinia had adopted the Siccardi Laws of 1850, which had taken away the right of asylum and the jurisdiction of the Church over its own clergy. His reputation for sacrilege, increased five years later by the abolition of many monasteries, became notorious when the formation of the kingdom of Italy (1861) took away all the dominions of the pope except thc patrimony of Peter, thereby reducing the papal provinces from twenty to five, and their population from over 3,000,000 to about 685,000. This act was followed in 1867 by the confiscation of church property, and on the 20th of September 1870 by the triumphant seizure of Rome.

The documents of the Vatican Council published since 1870 leave no room for doubt that the proclamation of Papal Infallibility was intended to be followed by a further declaration, to the effect that the doctrine of the temporal power of the pope should be regarded as a revealed article of faith; yet the advantage and necessity of the temporal power were not to be regarded as revealed dogma properly speaking, but as a truth guaranteed by the doctrinal body of the Holy Church. These articles, zealously championed by the sectaries of the Jesuit order, reveal the immediate object for which the council of 1860-1870 was convened.

The resolutions were devised to save the situation, in view of the impending loss of the temporalities. No one could expect that Pius IX would recognize the annexation of Rome by Italy. Rome, even in the 19th century, had been a spectator of many changes in the political world. It had seen more than one kingdom rise and fall. No wonder, then, that the Vatican, confronted by a new Italy, observed a passive and expectant attitude, and sanctioned no jot or tittle that could infringe its rights or be interpreted as a renunciation of its temporal sovereignty. It was quite in keeping that Pius IX. availed himself to the full, of the (for him) convenient clauses of the Italian Law of Guarantees (May 13, 1871), while refusing the civil list of three and a quarter million lire provided for his use, and inhibiting Italian Catholics from participating in the elections to the House of Deputies.

This step was regarded in Italy as a natural one. Although the Liberal record of the pope was a thing of the past, and his policy had, since Gaeta, become firmly identified with the reactionary policy of Antonelli, yet the early years of his pontificate were in such lively recollection as to allow of Pius IX's appearing to some extent in the light of a national hero. And rightly; for he had always had a warm heart for Italy; and had it not been for the anti-ecclesiastical policy of the house of Piedmont, he would not, in the 'sixties, have been wholly averse from reconciliation. The hitherto unpublished correspondence of the pope with Victor Emmanuel contains remarkable proofs in support of this contention, and a further corroboration can also be preceived in the conciliatory attitude of Pins IX on the death of the king.

Pius IX, however, indignantly refused to accept the terms of the "sub-Alpine" Government, as he termed the House of Savoy, whom he regarded as the despoiler of "God's vicar." Parliament had regularly voted the annuity since 1871, but it was not accepted; to accept it would be to recognize the Kingdom of Italy as a legitimate Government, which no Pope since 1871 had been willing to do. Pius IX shut himself up in his tiny domain and refused to leave it under any circumstances, regarding himself as the "Prisoner of the Vatican"; his successors followed this policy and never set foot outside the Vatican once they were elected Pope. An encyclical was issued, known as the non expedit, forbidding Italian Catholics to vote at the elections for Parliament or to hold office under the Crown. At first the situation was embarrassing and even dangerous to the Italians, who feared that France or Austria might champion the cause of the Pope and compel them to evacuate Rome. But the defeat of these two Catholic nations by Prussia and, especially, the establishment of an anticlerical Republic in France, made such an event only a remote possibility, and the "Prisoner of the Vatican" became a polite fiction. As time went on there began a rapprochement between the Vatican and the Quirinal, though, in theory, the successors of Pius IX continued to advocate the restoration of their temporal power. This dispute was only resolved with the Lateran Treaty, the concordat between the Holy See and the kingdom of Italy signed in 1929.