Pius_IX

Pius IX Pius IX (1792-1878) Pius IX was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 1846. He enjoyed the longest reign in papal history. His early acts as pope promised a liberal and popular government for the Papal States. He pardoned political prisoners, admitted lay people to the government, and promised a constitution. He fled Rome in 1848 when revolutionists made the city a republic. After his restoration in 1850, Pius followed a highly conservative policy in government matters. In 1854, Pius defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary as an article of Roman Catholic dogma. Ten years later, in 1864 he issued the Syllabus of Errors, a collection of 80 propositions that gave the impression that Pius was opposed to all progress and to modern civilization. He condemned republican government, rationalism, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, separation of church and state and other ideas that threatened the power and authority of the church. To him things such as these were all errors of man. These things are so prevalent today that we take them for granted and if they were suddenly taken away there would be a huge revolt. We pope, pius, papal, church, ix, infallibility, roman, made, government, dogma, catholic, power, errors, years, wrong, wasn’t, vatican, took, thought, things, take, syllabus, states, statement, rome, reign, promised, people, now, matters, limited, issued, freedom, faith, every