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Pope Pius VIII [1829-30]

Francesco Xaviero Castiglioni, pope in 1829-30, was born at Cingoli November 20, 1761. Pope Leo XII died on February 10, 1829, and was succeeded by Castiglioni. In the sixteen months' reign of the aged and sickly Pius VIII (1829-1830) came the achievement of Catholic emancipation in England and the Revolution of 1830; and the pope departed from the principle of legitimacy by recognizing Louis Philippe as king of the French. So short a reign could produce no important changes; its historical character consists in carrying forward the principles of the Restoration.

Pope Pius VIII has been pictured as a man of mild spirit. As Cardinal Castaglioni (b. 1761) the new pope had suffered much from the French Revolution and Napoleon, like the former pope whose name he adopted. He had been educated by the Jesuits and was one of the foremost canonists of the time. He had been made cardinal by Pius VII in consideration of his valiant defense of papal rights. It is said to have been the wish of Pius VII that Castiglioni should succeed him. The process of his election was inaugurated in the conclave by an enthusiastic speech which Chateaubriand delivered, who as French ambassador in Rome delighted the society of the nobility, but who was unable to change the course of politics.

His policy as pope was in general identical with that of the two preceding popes and the influence of the Jesuits was everywhere manifest. Only diplomats who have no real understanding for ecclesiastical questions speak of liberal or illiberal popes. The fact is that all individuals, no matter what their differences, have to yield to the machinery of the Curia. Pius VIII. in some aspects of his character may remind us of Pius VII, and Pius IX resembled both in that the first phase of his reign was characterised by greater mildness. On the other hand, the sharp, rugged, ungenial nature of Leo XII. seemed to be renewed in Gregory XVI., and then to a greater degree in Leo XIII. But the course of the papal policy has remained invariably the same under the government of one and all.

It was said to the credit of the new pope that he was freer from nepotism than his predecessor. But his first circular letter made it unmistakably evident that from the moment of the "adoration" the individual was lost in the system. His salutation to Christian society consisted in the customary series of anathemas against liberty of conscience under the name of indifferentism, against the Bible-societies, and against national development as represented by the aspirations of Carbonari and Freemasons.

Pius VIII began his reign with a public denunciation of liberty of conscience, Bible societies, Freemasonry, and the Carbonari (the social democracy of Italy). During his brief pontificate Catholic emancipation (including the right of Catholics to sit in Parliament and to hold civil offices) was completed in England (April, 1829), and the exodus to Rome from the Church of England, begun some time before, was greatly accelerated, especially among the clergy, the nobility, and the gentry.

The work of the Jesuits grew so rapidly by reason of the strong papal support given it that high administrative officers for France, Spain, Italy, and Germany were found necessary. They had a momentary triumph in France, whose Bourbon king, Charles X, is said to have been more popish than the pope and whose policy was thoroughly Jesuitical and Ultramontane; but the revolutionary reaction (July, 1830) was too mighty for the combined forces of pope, king, and Jesuits. The July revolution in France was followed by revolutionary proceedings in Belgium, Poland, Ireland, and several Protestant countries. The principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, that had been sternly repressed since 1815, had gathered energy for a fresh outbreak and no human power could hold them in check.

The fall of the friend of the Jesuits in France, Charles X., however otherwise unwelcome, gave to the Papacy an opportunity of showing itself as the guardian of legitimacy against the revolution. Charles had done more service in the pope's cause than anyone, and might surely calculate upon the solidarity of conservative interests so often appealed to by the Curia. But the pope was by no means of that mind now. The papal policy did not for a moment hesitate to sacrifice the royal tool, just as, by the concordat with Napoleon, it had sacrificed the legitimate pre-Revolutionary bishops of France; just as in after times it was to sacrifice the German bishops who had compromised themselves in the papal interests. It was with the utmost reluctance that Pius VIII consented to recognize Louis Philippe as king of the French and to permit the French bishops to take the oath of allegiance to him and to include his name in the prayers of the church. Though Charles X had been more papal than the pope himself, Pius VIII did not even content himself with leaving Charles X in the lurch; shortly before his death he expressly made it the duty of the French clergy to subject themselves without resistance to the new order of things, to pray for the new ruler, and to show him fidelity and obedience.

Under Pius VII, Prussia had signed a concordat with the Roman Curia that conferred privileges upon Roman Catholics greater in some respects than those enjoyed by the evangelicals. The reckless use of these legalized privileges led to a controversy between Pius VIII. and Frederick William III. Great importance belongs to the reign of Pius VIII, for it prepared the way for the first Prussian ecclesiastical conflict and provided the means for stirring up the population of the upper Rhine against the laws of the state. Both these movements belong to the history of German Catholicism. The one thing which the state required, in order to guarantee the equality of the churches, and which was quite rightly placed at the head of the demands for an honest compact between Church and State, equal matrimonial rights, had been declared by the Curia to be inadmissible for discussion. Cases had multiplied from year to year where Roman Catholic clergymen, before the marriage between two parties of different faith, exacted the promise that all prospective issue without regard to sex should be trained in the Roman Catholic faith, and professed themselves unable to perform the marriage without this promise. It was the natural consequence of the politics of the Restoration and of the concordats that the state was absolutely unable to protect the equality of the different churches. The pope took the opportunity of impressing upon the Prussian bishops that "the most certain dogma of our religion is that, outside of the true Catholic faith, no one can be saved."

Already in feeble health when he was elected pope, his absorption in the great ecclesiasticopolitical questions of the time soon exhausted what vitality remained to him and he succumbed to the strain. On his death-bed Pius VIII lamented that it had not been possible for him to canonise Alfonso da Liguori. But he did accomplish the erection of an opposition patriarchate to the orthodox patriarchate of Constantinople. The death of Pius VIII took place at Rome on November 30, 1830. He was succeeded by Gregory XVI.