The Church in the 19th century: at war with modernity

09 Oct 2013

By The Record

Pope Pius IX, known popularly as Pio Nono, was paradoxically known for his hardline theology and personal warmth.

By Dr Robert Andrews

The period from 1846 to 1870 is matched closely by the longest pontificate in Catholic history: the reign of Pius IX or Pio Nono, as he is affectionately known (reign 1846-1878).

His time as pope was one of immense significance, during which  a number of historic Catholic dogmas were promulgated, most notably the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady and Papal Infallibility, the latter of which was part of the First Vatican Council.

By themselves, these are some of the major theological developments of the modern era, but they were accompanied and shaped by a European social and political history that makes their advent more plausible to the contemporary reader who interprets Catholicism within a secular and multicultural society, usually through the lens of the Second Vatican Council.

The historic moment that defined how Catholicism reacted to events of the 19th century was the French Revolution (1789-1799).

It is easy for us to forget how earth shattering this event was to the Church. France had long been a symbol of the intimate relationship that could exist between Church and State.

However, revolution in France had overturned the privileged place Catholicism had in French society.

The subsequent spread of revolutionary ideas throughout Europe (including Italy) gave the papacy a defensive edge that made it a fervent opponent of modernistic tendencies into the 19th century.

Pio Nono, who had initially seemed partial to liberal ideas, had only reigned for a few years before Italian nationalism drove him from Rome during the Italian revolution of 1848.

The Pope returned to Rome in 1850, though by now he had come to see liberal ideas—both in politics and theology—as a danger to the Church.

A reactive attitude against liberalism would become a defining feature of Pio Nono’s pontificate.

It resulted in the Pontiff supporting the conservative ultramontane wing within the Church and regarding with intense suspicion the liberal Catholics of Europe who tried to reconcile the Church with modern ideas, notwithstanding the revolutionaries who sought to overthrow it.

Pio Nono’s theologically aggressive and centralising papacy resulted in a number of developments that re-affirmed the Church’s spiritual authority in an age perceived to be fundamentally hostile to it.

It was, indeed, an assertive period for the Church. 1850 saw the English Catholic hierarchy restored, but more significant was Pio Nono’s definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, solemnly making it a dogma of the Church that “[t]he Most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the moment of her conception, … preserved immune from all stain of original sin”. Indeed, Our Lady featured prominently in this period, her example inspiring the faithful to a deeper and more active piety.

The following decade saw Pio Nono’s fight against liberalism increase in intensity. In 1864, the Pontiff released the Syllabus Errorum (Syllabus of Errors), a forceful summation of 80 modernistic errors that the Church rejected.

The errors listed ranged from religious liberty to freemasonry.

The document was an ideological declaration of war on modernity, its contents made more understandable today by paying attention to the context of the revolutionary age the Church was enduring.

The Syllabus’ most famous statement was its final condemnation: “That the Roman pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation”.

By far the most prominent event of the Church in this period, however, was the First Vatican Council (1869-70), which resulted in the historic definition of papal infallibility.

This doctrine can be said to have represented the zenith of Catholic assertiveness during the 19th century.

As the decree itself stated, the Catholic Church now decreed that infallibility, albeit within the confines of strict conditions, was a part of the Petrine office:

“[W]e teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of… divine infallibility.”

Like the Syllabus, the context of the period explains why a definition of infallibility emerged when it did, for almost immediately after the council, Pio Nono lost the last remaining vestige of papal territory—Rome itself—to the forces of Italian nationalism (the other papal states had been lost in 1860 during a similar conflict).

It was the end of an era. Since the 8th century, popes had ruled over territories and even commanded armies.

By 1870, however, the Pope’s temporal power was gone. Perhaps the definition of papal infallibility is best interpreted as the Church’s way of stating that it held a spiritual authority that no army or political movement could ever remove.

Defiant against modernism to the end, Pio Nono died in 1878. Though unbending in his principles, he exhibited a charm and warmth of disposition that many Catholics were attracted to. Like John Paul II, people loved Pio Nono.

John Henry Newman, for example, referred to the ‘magic of his presence’, even if he did not always see eye-to-eye with the prudence of all his decisions.

Of course, it would be a mistake to interpret the history of the Church in this period solely through the pontificate of this one Pope, no matter how influential.

Though condemning of ideas that it feared could destroy it, the Church did not retreat from the world.

There were, indeed, many notable examples of sanctity and theological creativity during this period that inspired the faithful.

In France, the saintly Curé d’Ars inspired tens of thousands of French and European Catholics towards holiness through his example of pastoral devotion, whilst at Lourdes in 1858 a 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous was told by Our Lady that she was the Immaculate Conception.

Across the channel in England, the Anglican convert Newman interpreted and explained the faith with more sagacity than any other theologian of his time; whilst across the globe, in the expanding European colonies, Catholic missionaries—priests, monks, nuns and the laity—attempted to keep the faith alive amongst settlers and, more importantly, convert natives.