Class 26: Pius IX and
Vatican I
29 March 2006
Introduction




Pius IX (cont.)
Labor Movements and Revolutions of 1848
Vatican I
Anti-Semitism
Pius IX (1846-1878)







Considered a liberal, but shocked by revolutions of
1848
Negotiates Church rights with many European
governments (concordats)
Issues Syllabus of Errors condemning much
enlightenment thought
Promotes Thomism as ‘official’ theology of Church
Convenes Vatican I in 1869
Loses Papal States in 1870
Beatified along with John XXIII in 2000
Background to Revolutions of 1848





Industrial Revolution had created a class of urban poor laborers
 Barely able to survive on subsistence wages
 Disruption of family (child labor in industry very different from
working family farm)
 Survival of the fittest (Malthus, Essay on Principle of Population,
1789)
Disruption in basic social patterns leads to disillusionment with
society, including established religions
Efforts to change conditions for laborers often united with
atheism
Religious response
 YMCA
 Salvation Army
 St. Vincent de Paul
Reread Charles Dickens
Socialism and Communism


Associated with ‘free thinkers’
Specifically targeted economic and social
models (unlike philosophes a century earlier
who attacked political models)



Opposed to private property
Criticized religious response as basically one
of keeping the laborer in his place
Friedrich Engels, Conditions of Working
Class in England (1844)
Gustav Dore Scripture Reader in a Night Shelter
groups.msn.com/HOMELESSinbaltimoremd/gustavedore.msnw?action=ShowP
hoto&PhotoID=13
Prolog Communist Manifest 1848
www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/61/61.txt
A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of communism. All the powers of old
Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar,
Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its
opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the
branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition
parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
Two things result from this fact:
I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a
power.
II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world,
publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the
spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and
sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French,
German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.
Revolutions of 1848

In 1848, revolt started in Italy, spread to
France



Pius IX forced to flee Italy
In 1849 labor revolutions in Prussia, Austria,
Hungary, Southern Italy
Eventually revolutions are crushed and
strong rulers come to power in France (Louis
Napoleon) and Prussia (Bismarck)

But strong rulers who supported economic
liberalism; not supportive of Church
Vatican I


Pius IX announced intention to call a Council in
1864 just before publication of Syllabus of Errors
Bull of Convocation, Aeterni Patris was promulgated
on Dec 8, 1868



Definition of Papal Infallibility
Hostile reaction in England, Germany, France
First Session 8 Dec. 1869, Council ended in 1870


Council affirmed infallibility in First Dogmatic Constitution of
Church of Christ (Session 4)
Franco-Prussian War of 1870; Council not officially closed
Reflections on Vatican I

Epistemology




Major issues in early Enlightenment: how do we know
Vatican I says we know the faith because we can trust in
Magisterium of Church; Pope is uniquely guarantor of what
is in the Magisterium
Method of knowing the truth: Thomism; theological
empiricism; most like a mathematical proof
Society and Politics



Stability in religion and society critical
Church (Pope) provides that stability
The document is a Constitution
Three Types of Anti-Semitism

From Second Century onwards conflict between
synagogue and Church
Economic and Social




C
Religious


th
19
Middle class and wealthy Jews adept at moving and taking
advantage of free market economies because of roots in
banking business
Several intellectual leaders of radical social reforms and
revolution to implement them were Jewish
Both of these lead to fear of Jews by non-Jewish middle
class
Cultural

Development of nations; what does it mean to be German
or Italian or French?
Pius IX and Kidnapping of Edgardo
Mortara





Remember, Pius IX opened the Jewish ghetto in
Rome
In 1858 a Jewish boy who may have been Baptized
by a family servant was ‘kidnapped’ by Catholic
authorities in Bologna an placed in a monastery
Pope Pius IX affirms this action and takes a special
interest in the boy
Fuels flames of Italian nationalism against Pope and
Papal States
International outrage over this incident also
contributes to downfall of Papal states in 1870
What Happened to Edgardo?


In his early teens, he was given the opportunity to
return to his family and Judaism; he refused
He joined Canon Regulars; ordained at age 21






Canon Regulars follow Augustine’s Rule
All are ordained (unlike monks)
Dedicated to service to Church, often in world
Lived in Belgium
He felt a special link to spirituality of Lourdes
Died in 1940, just two months before the Nazis
invaded Belgium
Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and Dreyfus
Affair




France lost the Franco Prussian War of 1870 in a disastrous
series of battles;
 Forced to relinquish Rhine valley, Alsace-Loraine to Prussia
 Defeat created social and political tensions within France and the
military: who was to blame
 French military had been very open to Jewish officers
In 1880s the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt, causing
one of the first capitalist depressions in France
 Owners of company were Jews
Cries of ‘France for the French’ were raised
 ‘Scientific’ definition and stereotyping of races
Dreyfus arrest as a spy for Germans in 1890; convicted and
spent 12 years on penal colony; exonerated in 1906
Timeline of Pius IX









1846: Elected Pope
1848: Revolutions of 1848, forced to flee Rome,
returned by French
1854: Dogma of Immaculate Conception
1858: Lourdes and Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara
1864: Syllabus of Errors
1869-1870: Vatican I
1870: Franco-Prussian War
1878: Pope Pius IX dies
1985: Declared blessed along with John XXIII by
Pope John Paul II