Papacy

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PAPACY

french revolution and napoleonic imperium
the restoration era
revolutions of 1830 and 1848
pius ix's conservative crusade
turn of the century
bibliography

The nine popes from Pius VI (r. 1775–1799) to Benedict XV (r. 1914–1922)—more than half of whom chose the name Pius—had to confront the innumerable crises that rocked their world for more than a century. These figures were constrained to react to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic imperium, the upheavals troubling Europe from 1820 to 1848, industrialization, urbanization, and increased secularization, as well as liberal Catholicism, Italian and German unification, and the Kulturkampf. Four of these popes—Pius VI, Pius VII (r. 1800–1823), Pius IX (r. 1846–1878), and Leo XIII (r. 1878–1903)—pontificated for more than two decades, providing one third of the list of the twelve longest-reigning popes in the institution's two thousand–year history. They utilized their time to confront the ideological currents that challenged the spiritual authority of the papacy, even as political events threatened their temporal power. The effort only succeeded in part, for 1870 witnessed the collapse of the Papal State. The loss of the temporal power during the course of the Risorgimento, the movement for Italian unification, did not silence Rome's enemies.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century some loudly decried papal primacy and centralization in the Vatican, which seemed to increase as its political power was challenged. In response, the papacy remained neither silent nor passive, mounting an energetic counteroffensive. As early as 1775, Giovanni Angelo Braschi (Pius VI) condemned attacks on orthodoxy by the "monstrous desire of innovation." Despite these papal protests, dechristianization and secularization proceeded apace in the political arena and the broader society.

french revolution and napoleonic imperium

The revolt of the American colonies from 1775 to 1781, justified by the broad precepts of the Enlightenment, did not threaten the Catholic Church or its head. The consequences of the French Revolution, however, proved far more dangerous for the papacy. Beginning with the confiscation of church property in 1789, followed by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy shortly thereafter (1790), the ensuing years witnessed a determined, often violent assault against the temporal and spiritual authority of the papacy, culminating with the spiriting of Pius VI from the eternal city and the proclamation of a republic in Rome. The worship of reason and the cult of the supreme being were proclaimed in France as alternatives to the traditional faith. Napoleon, who became first consul in 1799, questioned the prudence of this policy and sought some reconciliation with Rome. In 1801 he concluded with the Holy See a concordat that recognized Catholicism as the religion of the majority in France, provided for the reestablishment of public worship there, and ended the prospect of schism. The agreement did not prevent the emperor from occupying the Papal States in 1808, nor from annexing the territory in 1809.

Barnaba Gregorio Chiaramonti (Pius VII), like his predecessor, was dragged into exile by the French. As Napoleon's domination spread throughout Europe, the papacy once again appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Although Napoleon deemed the papal institution an important moral force whose military equivalence he compared to a "corps of 200,000 men," during these years Rome found itself politically and ideologically on the defensive. The threat posed by the French only dissipated with the dissolution of Napoleon's legions in Russia and the emperor's exile to St. Helena. Unlike Pius VI, Pius VII did not die in exile but, assisted by his secretary of state cardinal Ercole Consalvi, survived the Napoleonic ordeal and returned to Rome as spiritual ruler of the church and sovereign of his state.

the restoration era

The settlement of 1815 witnessed a reconstitution of the Papal State, the restoration of the Jesuits, the return of the Inquisition in Rome and Spain, and a renewed appreciation of the union of throne and altar in conservative circles. The monarchs who adhered to the principles of the "Holy Alliance," the product of the religious fervor of Tsar Alexander I of Russia (r. 1801–1825), promised to conduct their foreign relations in accordance with the precepts of holy religion. Writers such as Edmund Burke (1729–1797), Joseph-Marie de Maistre (1753–1821), Louis de Bonald (1754–1840), and Father Gioacchino Ventura (1792–1861), who borrowed freely from them, saw a close nexus between religion and society. While Pius VII sought to adopt his secretary of state Consalvi's reformism in his 1816 program, which incorporated many French innovations, his moderation was counterbalanced by the intransigent zelanti (conservative intransigents) in the curia and by the traditionalists abroad who called for papal absolutism and shunned constitutionalism.

His successor, Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiore Girolamo Nicola della Genga (Leo XII), who followed the zelanti agenda, dismissed Consalvi and issued decrees against liberalism and Freemasonry while restricting the Jews once again to the Roman ghetto. Francesco Saverio Castiglione, who followed as Pius VIII (r. 1829–1830), sought to overturn the more reactionary features of Leo's regime, but the opposition of the zelanti, combined with the shortness of his pontificate, aborted most of his reformist attempts. Thus, there was considerable discontent in the Papal State as Europe witnessed a new outburst of revolutionary upheaval in 1830. Not surprisingly, the revolutions of 1830, like those of 1848, were directed against the religious order that critics charged bolstered the prevailing power structure. The Camalolese monk Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari, who became Pope Gregory XVI (r. 1831–1846), had to confront the revolutionary upheaval in Europe and in his own state, as well as the new ideological currents emerging not only in liberal circles, but in the Catholic camp.

revolutions of 1830 and 1848

The revolutions of 1830, especially those in France and Belgium, encouraged the appearance of a liberal Catholic movement that sought to disassociate the church and the papacy from the moribund monarchical structure, giving rise to Hughes-Félicité-Robert de Lamennais's Avenir movement, which invoked a separation of church and state. At the same time the outbreak of revolution in the Papal State, suppressed only by Austrian intervention, prompted the drafting of a Memorandum of the Powers (1831) urging the pope to introduce reforms in his government, including the laicization of its administration. Pope Gregory XVI, who questioned Lamennais's support of the revolutions in Poland and Belgium, and his attempts to modernize the church, condemned the Avenir movement in his Mirari vos (1832). Resenting foreign interference in his state, Gregory shelved the reformist suggestions of the powers. Indeed, he continued to adhere to the position he had earlier outlined in his "Triumph of the Holy See and Church against the Assaults of Innovators" (1799). Critics charged that this pope virtually ignored the social and economic dislocation caused by the Industrial Revolution, as he focused on the religious and political consequences it provoked.

The thirty-two-year pontificate of Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti (Pius IX or Pio Nono), the longest to date, opened on an optimistic note as the new pope, who was known to associate with liberals and called for a reform of the administration of the Papal State, was hailed as the figure who would reconcile liberty and Catholicism, and unite the Italian peninsula. Reformers and liberals applauded his political amnesty, the establishment of a consultative chamber and a constitution for the Papal State, and the prospect of his leadership in the national movement. This reformist image was shattered by his refusal to declare war against Catholic Austria, which provoked riot and rebellion toward the end of 1848. Subsequently, Pius IX concluded that the revolutionaries made demands to which he could not concede and that endangered the church he was elected to guide. Advised by Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, he fled from his state and subjects, and from his exile in the Kingdom of Naples witnessed the toppling of the Papal State and its replacement by a Roman republic guided by Giuseppe Mazzini and defended by Giuseppe Garibaldi. The pope, who was restored to power in 1849 by the Catholic powers Austria, France, Spain, and Naples, judged that his position as supreme pontiff had been jeopardized by his brief flirtation with constitutionalism. Following his return to Rome (1850), Pius focused on his position as head of the faith, leaving the execution of political matters in the hands of his astute secretary of state, Antonelli.

pius ix's conservative crusade

Within the church, Pope Pius IX favored centralization by imposing the Roman liturgy seeking to reduce the autonomy of the bishops of the eastern churches united with Rome, while extending the scope of Roman jurisdiction, by prompting the bishops to make periodic or ad limina visits to Rome. Devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus, Pius proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854), which stipulated that she was born without the stain of original sin. Politically, Pius refused to reconcile himself to the loss of the bulk of his territory to the Kingdom of Italy (1861), which he refused to recognize. Following a Franco-Italian agreement (1864) to withdraw French troops from the remaining papal territory, which included Rome and its surroundings, Pius IX responded by issuing the encyclical Quanta cura, to which was appended a "Syllabus of Errors." First and fore-most a denunciation of religious liberalism and the growing secularism of the age, it condemned naturalism, indifferentism (the belief that all religions beliefs were equally acceptable), and absolute rationalism, upsetting moderate and liberal Catholics. Even greater consternation was caused by his attack on liberalism, nationalism, and the separation of church and state. Critics charged the "Syllabus" reiterated the stance of Leo XII and Gregory XVI, putting the papacy in conflict with the modern world.

Pius was not deterred by the criticism and continued his crusade against the dangers he perceived in modern civilization. Mobilizing the forces of the church to bolster the position of the papacy, he convoked the Vatican Council in 1869, which in the following year proclaimed the primacy and infallibility of the pope. Opponents such as the Bavarian theologian Ignaz von Doellinger, among others, refused to recognize its validity, and his public opposition led to his excommunication by the bishop of Munich in 1871. He was not silenced, nor was the pope. The combative Pius refused to sanction the loss of Rome during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), which ended the oldest sovereignty in Europe, nor would he accept the conditions imposed by the Italians in their Law of Papal Guarantees of 13 May 1871, thus provoking the Roman Question, which persisted until 1929. Pius IX was no more accommodating or willing to submit to the Kulturkampf in Otto von Bismarck's Germany or the Los von Rom movement in Austria, which sought freedom from Rome. Critics such as the archbishop of Rheims cited the need for some accommodation with the

modern world. Pius, a crusader in a secular age, was not prepared to comply; his successor would make an attempt.

turn of the century

At the turn of the century, Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci (Leo XIII) proved somewhat more diplomatic than his predecessor and sought to heal the rift between Rome and democratic governments such as existed in Republican France (the Ralliement) and to diffuse the Kulturkampf with Bismarck's Germany. He also showed himself to be more concerned about the tribulations of the working classes in the industrial age, citing the weaknesses of laissez-faire social indifferentism on the one hand, but condemning Marxism as a cure worse than the disease (Rerum Novarum, 15 May 1891). In Graves de Communi (18 January 1901) Leo expressed his position on Christian democracy, emphasizing its moral rather than its political role. His diplomatic initiatives led him to arbitrate the dispute between Spain and Germany over the Caroline Islands, to reestablish relations with Spain, Mexico, and Colombia, and to secure the opening of a Russian embassy to the Vatican, while instituting diplomatic relations with imperial Japan. Leo's pontificate was perceived by some as a movement away from the intransigence of Gregory XVI and Pius IX, marking the first attempt of the papacy to reach an accommodation of sorts with the modern world. Nonetheless, Leo declared Anglican ordination invalid (1896) and would not condone Americanism.

Leo's successor, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto (Pius X, r. 1903–1914), proved to be more of a pastoral than a diplomatic pope. He denounced the modernist attempt to harmonize Catholic thought and theology with modern scientific and critical historical scholarship. In his decree Lamentabili of 1907, reinforced by his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of the same year, he denounced the attempt to alter Catholic doctrine to render it more palatable to the contemporary age. Furthermore, his intransigent defense of conservative causes and papal prerogatives contributed to the separation of church and state in France in 1905, and in Portugal in 1911, while neglecting the diplomatic role of the universal church. The next pope, Giacomo della Chiesa (Benedict XV), belonged to the diplomatic school of Leo rather than the pastoral one championed by his immediate predecessor, although he continued the missionary efforts of his predecessor. Much of Benedict's effort was directed to bringing the World War to a speedy conclusion and providing for a just peace.

Since the late nineteenth century scholars have denounced popes Leo XII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Pius X for their alleged rejection of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and for supposedly fighting a rear-guard action against the contemporary world. Other scholars have focused on the reformism of Leo XIII and Ben-edict XV. Despite the continuing controversy and varied assessments of the papacy during this period, most concur that during these years, the Holy See had to face internal and external opposition, including the undermining of traditional forms of authority in the church as well as the society at large, and responded accordingly. All nine popes of this period rejected the ethics of a secular society including the collectivism of socialism and the selfish individualism of economic liberalism. In its place the Vatican pursued its own via media or third path in pursuit of social justice.