In 1881, as the burial procession of Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) neared the Tiber River in Rome, anticlerical protesters breached the escort and attempted to throw the papal bier into the murky water. Although they did not succeed, the episode gives testimony to the fiery passions roused by this pope's legacy, not the least of which was summoning the First Vatican Council, which defined “papal infallibility” as a binding Catholic teaching. This year marks the 150th anniversary of this council, and the past 12 months saw a flurry of publications about “Pio Nono,” including a new biographical work from Pulitzer Prize-winning author David I. Kertzer, a longtime student of modern Italy and the papacy.
Beloved by the faithful in his day but reviled by political liberals, Protestants and anticlerical intellectuals, Pius IX cut a path in history rivaled by few others. The longest reigning pope, Pius held the mantle from 1846 until his death in 1878. This was among the most tumultuous eras in the history of Europe—and the church. Shaken by revolutions in 1848, the Continent witnessed the birth of nationalist states like Italy, whose creation entailed the collapse of the Papal States, the pope's millennium-old temporal kingdom in central Italy.
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