Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility, promoted the growth of religious congregations, and convened the First Vatican Council. He passed away on February 7, 1878.
Newsroom(06/02/2025 17:34, Gaudium Press) Pope Pius IX marked the history of the Church with the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception; he was the zealous guardian of orthodoxy, author of the Syllabus and the Encyclical Quanta Cura; he convoked the First Vatican Council and declared Papal Infallibility. His pontificate spanned much of the 19th century, forcing him to confront with heroic courage the intricate problems of his time, undermined by materialists and revolutionaries of the most diverse stripes.
John Mary was born in Senigallia, one of the oldest cities on the Italian Peninsula, on May 13, 1792, in the troubled times of the French Revolution. He was the second son of Count Jerome Mastai-Ferretti and Catherine Sollazzi, of no less nobility.
He was still very young when Napoleon’s troops invaded Italy and took captive Pius VI, already 81 years old. From then on, the countess began to pray with her family for the suffering Pope, and little John Mary, despite his tender age, began to take an interest in the news of the august prisoner, which arrived frequently, and the misfortunes that weighed on the Church at that time of impiety and anti-clericalism.
Unable to understand why God, being the Lord of the universe, would allow his Vicar on Earth to be treated like an evildoer, he asked his mother about his perplexity and she replied with pity:
“My son, that’s why God allows him to be treated like Christ himself.
When Pius VI died in exile and he learned of the difficulties involved in holding the Conclave, the little boy asked the Countess
: “Mom, is it true that we won’t have a Pope anymore?
She replied “Rest assured, my son, because kings can die and not be replaced. Popes, however, will never end! Be confident. God will provide.”
John Mary never forgot that answer.
Consecrated to Our Lady from the cradle
When he turned 12, he entered the Valterra College in Tuscany, run by the Piarist religious. There he showed his inclination towards the ecclesiastical state, despite the cruel trials the Church was going through, or perhaps because of them. However, a few years later, a terrible illness – epilepsy – manifested itself in the boy, and was declared by doctors to be incurable, with a probable end near.
The Countess Mastai-Ferretti, in addition to naming her son after the Beloved Disciple and Mary Most Holy, consecrated him to the Virgin while he was still in the cradle: “Adopt him too, O my Mother, just as you have adopted the disciple; I consecrate him to you, I give him to you”. And Mary Most Holy, as we shall see, gladly accepted her fervent mother’s charge.
The Galenians’ prognosis did not weaken his vocation. The young man left for Rome and began to study theology. Some time later, having already taken minor orders, he returned to Senigallia together with Prince Odescalchi, prefect of the pontifical court, who was on his way there to carry out a mission. They were also accompanied by Monsignor Vincent Strambi, now canonized, and some other priests.
That mission, during which he served as a catechist, marked the beginning of his first work of evangelization. And, far from damaging his health, the missionary activities were very beneficial to him and, on his return to Rome, Prince Odescalchi obtained the necessary authorizations for John Mary to be ordained a deacon in December 1818.
In order to ask Our Lady for a complete and immediate cure, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy House of Loreto and from that moment the attacks stopped completely. Shortly afterwards, Pope Pius VII granted him permission to complete his studies in philosophy and theology at the Roman College. In April 1819, he was ordained to the priesthood on condition that he always celebrated the Holy Sacrifice assisted by another priest.
However, as the months went by, he dared to ask the Pope for a dispensation from this inconvenience, trusting in the grace he had received in Loreto. In response, the Holy Father said: “Yes, we want to give you this grace, and all the more so because it seems to me that from now on you won’t be tormented by this cruel illness.”
In fact, the illness disappeared completely, leading him to declare that he owed to Mary Most Holy “the grace of his vocation to the priesthood and the health necessary to rise to such a sublime dignity”.
After his ordination, Father Mastai-Ferretti’s first task was to run the Tata Giovanni Institute, where he not only educated and instructed the hundred orphans housed there, but also supported them from his own resources. In 1820, he was assigned to accompany Archbishop John Muzzi, who had been appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Chile, and it was hard to separate the children: they “clung to his clothes, and those who could not approach him begged him not to abandon them”.
In his new role, he traveled not only through Chile, but also Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Uruguay, and became thoroughly acquainted with the situation of the Church in these lands. On his return to Rome in 1825, he was given the task of running St. Michael’s Asylum.
At just 35, he was appointed Archbishop of Spoleto, and a few years later Gregory XVI transferred him to the Diocese of Imola, which, according to the criteria of the time, indicated his desire to make him a Cardinal soon. In both dioceses, he left his mark as a zealous shepherd and brought countless benefits to his flock.
In fact, on December 14, 1840, Bishop John Mary received from the Pope the purple barrette, along with the title of Cardinal Presbyter of Saints Marcellin and Peter. And in 1846, with the death of Gregory XVI, he went to the Eternal City to take part in the Conclave.
During this trip, an event took place that is worth remembering. As he was crossing Fossombrone, in the province of Marca, the carriage carrying Cardinal Mastai stopped for a moment and approached a large crowd, as it wasn’t every day that you got to see a Prince of the Church. Suddenly, a white dove appeared from nowhere and landed on the roof of the carriage. The people took this as a good omen and began to applaud and shout: “Long live! Hooray!”. The little bird wasn’t frightened and remained calm even when they hit it with a stick. The cheers then echoed prophetically: “Hooray! Hooray! This is the Pope!”
The people of Fossombrone were right. On June 16, 1846, the Sacred College elevated him to the Papal Hill.
Pius IX began his rule by granting amnesty to the perpetrators of political crimes, an act of generosity that brought him much applause, even from the enemies of the papacy. However, the countess’s son, who had prayed so much for Pius VI, had no illusions. He knew that after the Hosannas he would soon hear the Crucifixion, pronounced by the same lips that were cheering him at that moment. “Alas!” he once exclaimed, “I know that Palm Sunday will be followed by Passion Week!”
Three hours a day in adoration
Like all blessed souls, Pius IX did not cease to be a man of deep interior life. “Three hours a day the Holy Father kneels in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It is there that he draws the light and strength he needs to administer the Church,” says one of his biographers.
At dawn, the Pope celebrated Holy Mass in his private chapel, where he himself tended the lamp that burned perpetually before the tabernacle. His Mass took a long time, and his face often flooded with tears as he held in his consecrated hands the Body, Soul and Divinity of the One whose Vicar he was.
And when he had to flee to Gaeta, in the kingdom of Naples, after having been taken prisoner in the Quirinal Palace, he carried around his neck a small teak with the Blessed Sacrament, the same teak that Pius VI had worn when he was taken captive in Valence on the Rhône.
Pius IX was particularly devoted not only to Jesus and Mary, but also to her most chaste spouse, St. Joseph. His filial affection for Jesus’ adoptive father led him to institute his feast day as Patron of the universal Church.
A father who inspires trust
But perhaps one of the aspects of this Pope’s very rich personality that should be highlighted in these brief lines is the full trust that the faithful had in him, as they would in a true father.
One day, a resident of Monti, the neighborhood next to the Papal residence, lost his horse, which he was using to sell provisions at the market to support his family. Knowing of the Holy Father’s generosity, he went to the palace to ask the Pontiff if he could donate a horse that had been laid aside in his stables.
Pius IX took his request naturally and even with satisfaction, granting him not only what he asked for, but also two pieces of gold. “This man must not be rich,” thought the Pontiff, “if he were, would he come to look for a horse in the Quirinal?”.
Another display of paternal affection came from a Swiss soldier from Lucerne, a volunteer in the papal army, who was wounded to death after fighting like a hero at Castelfidardo. Because he wasn’t Catholic, the Pope’s enemies allowed him to travel to Rome, where he arrived in a sorry state. On hearing of the poor soldier’s desire to speak to him, Pius IX went to see him in person and, standing at his bedside, heard these moving words from the brave soldier’s lips: “I am going to die, I feel it, Holy Father, but I die happy because you are by my side, and dying for the Catholic Church I could die in another religion?” The Pope embraced him, blessed him and welcomed him into the bosom of the Church. He gave him the last Sacraments and a few hours later he expired.
It was as pastor and father that the Vicar of Christ ended his days on February 7, 1878. His last pontifical act, already on his deathbed and about to surrender his soul to the Creator, consisted of a final blessing for the College of Cardinals and the entire Catholic world, given with a wooden Cross that he always carried with him, in which a fragment of the Holy Cross was embedded.
Perhaps at that moment he remembered the words of his late mother, which had marked him so much during his childhood: “Kings can die without having replacements. Popes, however, will never end!” He died with unshakeable faith in Our Lord’s promise – “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18) – imbued with the certainty that revolutions pass, and although their impetuous winds shake Peter’s boat, it will never fail to reach a good port.
Text taken, with adaptations, from the Heralds of the Gospel Magazine no. 134, February 2013. By Sr. Juliane Vasconcelos Almeida Campos, EP.
Compiled by Teresa Joseph
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