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Pius IX and Non-Catholic Countries

In the non-Catholic countries of Europe during the reign of Pius IX, and in fact during the whole 19th century, the important gains of Rome were in strategic position rather than in numbers. The spread of toleration, which always favored minorities, broke down between 1845 and 1873 the Lutheran exclusiveness of Norway, Denmark and Sweden; but as yet the Catholics formed a disappearing fraction of the population. In European Russia, as a result of the partitions of Poland under Catherine II (1762-1706), about one-tenth of the people were Roman Catholics. The Ruthcnians had united with Rome at Brest in 1596, forming a group of Uniates distinct from the Poles, who belonged to the Latin rite. In spite of the assurances of Catherine, Russia repeatedly persecuted the Ruthenian Uniates, in order to incorporate them into the Holy Orthodox Church; and she occasionally took drastic measures against the Poles, particularly after the revolts of 1830 and 1863. After more than a century of repression in 1905 the Edict of Toleration brought some relief.

The remarkable extension of the Catholic hierarchy by Pius IX into Protestant lands, legally possible because of toleration, was in some cases made practicable because of immigration. Though this factor was perhaps not prominent in Holland (1853) or Scotland (1878) it was Irish immigration which made it feasible in England (1850). For a time the Roman propaganda in England, which drew to itself High Churchmen like Newman and Manning, was viewed with apprehension; but though the Roman Catholic Church has grown greatly in influence in the country, the number of its adherents, in proportion to the growth of population, has not very greatly increased.

In the United States of America, however, the Catholic population increased by leaps and bounds through immigration. The famines of the forties, with their subsequent political and economic difficulties, transferred to America millions of the Irish, whose genius for organization in politics had not fallen short of their zeal for religion. The German-speaking immigrants also had a creditable share in the work of church extension, but the Italians manifested no marked ardor for their faith.

Summing up the history of the papacy from the Congress of Vienna to the fall of the temporal power, one finds statistical gains in Protestant countries offset perhaps by relative losses in Catholic lands, both largely due to the closely related forces of toleration and immigration. While the hold of the popes on the States of the Church was constantly weakening, their power over the domestic policies of foreign governments was increasing; and the transition from autocracy to parliamentary rule accelerated this process, at least in non-Catholic territories. The unparalleled spread of ultramontane ideas brought about a centralization of authority at Rome such as would have appalled the 19th century. This centralization was, however, for the time not so much legal as doctrinal. In 1854 Pius IX by his sole authority established a dogma (Immaculate Conception); and the infallibility implied in this act was openly acknowledged in 1870 by the Council of the Vatican. Thus were the spiritual prerogatives of the papacy exalted in the very summer that the temporal power was brought low.