DEATH OF POPE PIUS IX.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1230, 12 February 1878, Page 3

DEATH OF POPE PIUS IX.

The following life of the late Roman Pontiff is extracted from "Men of the Time":

Pius the IX. (Pope), a member of the noble family of Ferretti, named Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, born at Sinegaglia, May 13th, 1792, was intended for the army, but resolved to devote himself to the Church. For several years after his ordination he attended to his paßtoral duties with exemplary self-devotion, and was nominated by Pius VII. on a mission to the Government of Chili, in South America, shortly after the recognition of the independence of that republic. The duties of this mission were performed by him with great discretion ; and immediately on his return to Rome he was appointed by Leo XII. to one of the most important of the ecclesiastico-civil departments of administration. In 1836 he was sent as Apostolic Nuncio to Naples, while the cholera was raging there, and his name is still revered by the poorer inhabitant s of that city, in gratitude for his disinterested efforts to alleviate their sufferings. In 1810 he was created Cardinal Archbishop of Imola, in the Romagna, where much political disaffection existed; but ho devoted himself to the duties of his diocese with so much zeal and self-denial, and displayed such liberality of sentiment that he soon gained the affeci tions of the people, and restored peace and tranquillity to the district. Pope Gregory XVI. died June Ist, 1846, and Cardinal Ferretti was elected to the Papacy, under the name of Pius the Ninth, June 16th. The new Pope at first acquired much popularity by favoring the hopes and wisheß of the people for the reform of the Papal Government, and the enthusiasm not only of the Romans, but of the whole Itihan people, was raised to the highest pitch. But the French revolution of 1848 gave a much more powerful impulse to the enthusiasm, not only of the Italian patriots, but of the friends of liberal institutions all over Europe, awakening a demand, not for mere administrative reforms, but for popular systems of representative government. These sweeping changes the Pope was not prepared to support, and from that moment his popularity began to decline. A policy of reaction commenced, which only widened the breach between the Papal Government and the people, and gave an impetus to the agitation for organic changes. The popular disaffection was greatly increased on his taking for his minister Count Rossi, one of the most aristocratic and unpopular men in Rome; and, indeed, the fury [of the people could with difficulty be restrained. Count Roßsi was assassinated November 15th, and Pius himself, a few days later, escaped from Rome in disguise, and arrived safely in Gaeta, the first town in the Neapolitan territory, whither he was followed by the members of the Papal court and the diplomatic corps. He sent to Rome an ordonnance, Nov. 27th, declaring void all the acts of the Government, which he superseded by a state commission. This document the Roman Chambers treated with contempt, appointed a Provisional Government, and set about improving the victory they had achieved. The Pope remained nearly a year and a half at Gaeta and Portici, an object of sympathy as tho head of the Roman Catholic Church. During his absence, Rome, which was in the possession of the native troops under Garibaldi, was besieged, and at last taken by storm by the French army under General Oudinot" after sustaining some reverses. The Pope left Portici April 4th, 1850, escorted by Neapolitan and French dragoons, and accompanied by the King of Naples and several members of his family. He crossed the frontier at Terracino, April 6th, and re-entered Rome April 12th, with great ceremony and splendour. The events of the years 1859 and 1860 tended greatly to weaken the tern* poral power of the Holy See. A rebellion broke out in the Legations, and the inhabitants expressed a desire to submit themselves to the Government of the King of Sardinia. This was subsequently effected. In September, 1860, the Sardinian troops, to the number of about 50,000, entered the Papal territory, took Pesaro, Fano, Urbino, Perugia, and Spoleto, and brought the campaign to a close by the capture ot Ancona on September 28th, when General Lamoriciere, to whom the defence of the Papal forces had been entrusted, surrendered with the entire garrison as prisoners of war. All the States of the Church were now seized by the Sardinian troops with the exception of Rome, Civita Vecchia, and certain districts that were occupied by the French army. Differences arose also between the Holy See and the French Government, and in 1864 the famous September Convention was concluded between Italy and France, the latter Power engaging to withdraw all her troops from tho Pontifical States within the space of two years, while Italy engaged not to attack the territory of the Holy Father, and to prevent even by force every attack upon that territory from without. Italy further engaged to raise no protest against the organization of a Papal army, and declared herself ready to enter into an arrangement to take under her charge a proportionate part of the debt of the former titates of the Church. On the Bth of December following the Pope issued his Encyclical, accompanied by a Syllabus of Errors, condemnatory of the revolutionary principles of 1789. At tho commencement of the year 1860 hie Holiness obtained leave from the French Government to raise in France a corps of foreign troops, called the Antibes Legion, destined for the defence of the Holy See after the withdrawn! of the French soldiers. The impatience of Garibaldi and his followers, however, precipitated the crisis, and led to the prolongation of the French occupation peyojjd tjje p er j V (J atfpubUtf i» t>b'e Coimuliou

of September. The "rod shirts"advanced into the Pontifical territory, and defeated the Pontifical troops at Monte Eotondo (October 26th) ; but a few days later (November 4th) they were in turn completely vanquished at Montana by the united Pontifical a> d French armies. The French troops remai' ed at Rome until the war took place between France and Q-ermany, when the Emperor Napoleon felt himself compelled to withdraw them. Accordingly the last detachment left the Pontifical territory August Bth, 1870, and on the 20th of the following month, notwithstanding the agreement made hv King Victor Emmanuel not to invade the Pope's dominions, the Italian troops, under General Cadorna, entered Rome after a short resistance from the Pontifical troops, who ceased firing at the request of the Holy Father himself. Since that period the Sovereign Pontiff has lived in seclusion in the Vatican, refusing to take part in the grand religious ceremonials which formerly attracted so many thousands of visitors to the Eternal City, and declining to enter into any compact with the Italian Government on the basis of the Papal guarantees voted by the Parliament at Florence. On the occasion of hiß completing the twenty-fifth year of bis eventful Pontificate on June 16th, 1871, the Holy Father received the congratulations not only of his religious subjects in every part of the globe, and of the rulers of Catholic nations, but also of several non-Catholic sovereigns, including Queen Victoria and the Emperor of Germany. The chief ecclesiastical acts of the Pope have been the condemnation of the Irish Colleges ; the division of England into Roman Catholic dioceses in 1850; the formal definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December Bth, 1854 ; the publication of the famous Encyclical and Syllabus, December Bth, 1864; the canonisation of the Japanese martyrs ; and lastly, the OEcumenical Council of the Vatican, convoked by a bull, December Bth, 1867, and solemnly opened in the Vatican Basilica, December Bth, 1869. The total number of patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops who took part in the Council at anytime between December Bth, 1869, and July 18th, 1870, when it was suspended, in consequence of the invasion of Rome, was 704 The most important act of the Council was the definition of the dogma of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff in the following terms: —" We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra —that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church—is, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, irreformable."

On August 7th, 1873, his Holiness addressed a letter to the Emperor of Germany, complaining in very strong terms of the harsh measures which had been adopted against the Church in Prussia. This letter, together with the Emperor William's reply, was published at Berlin, October 14th, 1873. It should be remarked that the French man-of-war Orenoque, which had for several years been stationed off Civita Vecchia, in order to afford a refuge for the Pope in case of necessity, was withdrawn in October, 1874. The most recent ecclesiastical acts of the Sovereign Pontiff are the proclamation of the jubilee of 1875 (by allocution dated December 21st, 1874) and the condemnation (1875) of the Q-erman laws against the Church as being wholly null and voir).