Bl Pius IX, Who Saw the Years of Peter

On this day in the year 1878, Blessed Pius IX died, ending the longest documented papal reign in history. (I will explain below why I qualify with “documented”.)

He was born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti in 1792 in Senigallia, a town on the Adriatic coast of the northern Italian region of the Marches, then part of the Papal State. After receiving his education in Volterra and Rome, he entered the company of the Pope’s palace guards known as the Guardia Nobile, but was released from service because of a seizure disorder from which he suffered. (The precise nature of this illness has apparently never been determined.) This would normally have prevented him from entering the clergy as well, but with the patronage of Pope Pius VII, he was able to begin his theological studies, and was ordained a priest in 1819. In 1824, he traveled to Chile on a diplomatic mission, the first future Pope to visit the New World. In 1827, Pope Leo XII appointed him bishop of Spoleto; Gregory XVI, who was elected in 1831, moved him to Imola 5½ years later, and in 1839, made him a cardinal.

A portrait of Bl Pius IX painted in 1847 by Giovanni Orsi.

On Gregory’s death in 1846, Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti was elected to the Papacy, and took the name “Pius” in honor of the Pope who had made it possible for him to enter the service of the Church. He was crowned on June 21, five days after his election.

Prior to his reign, nine among the successors of St Peter (numbering 254 at that point) had reigned for more than 20 years, but none had ever reached the 25 years traditionally ascribed to Peter himself. For many centuries, therefore, it had been part of the papal coronation ritual that as soon as the cardinal archbishop of Ostia placed the crown on the new Pope’s head, he would say to him, “Numquam videbis annos Petri. – Thou shalt never see the years of Peter”: a way of reminding him, amid the glories of the Church’s highest office, that like all Popes, he is the steward of Another.

But Pius IX did in fact live to see the years of Peter, surpassing the 25-year mark in 1871, and living for more than 6½ years beyond that. This custom was then removed from the coronation rite, and his successor, Leo XIII, reigned for exactly 25 years and 4 months. (St John Paul II, who beatified Pius IX in 2003, also surpassed it, reigning for a bit less than 26½ years.)

I began this by saying that Pius IX’s is the longest documented papal reign, because there is no ancient document which tells us precisely how long St Peter reigned. Some traditions say that he was Pope for 25 years, others for 32. The second number makes better sense of the traditional dates of the last year of the Lord’s earthly life, ca. AD 33, after which Peter assumed the leadership of the Church, and of Peter’s death at the hands of Nero, ca. AD 64. There is also a very ancient tradition that Peter was bishop of Antioch before he came to Rome, and one way of reconciling these different stories, an explanation which strikes me as the most plausible, is that Peter was Pope for 32 years, but bishop of Antioch for 7, and of Rome for 25. Pius IX would therefore have surpassed his years in the latter role, but not the former.

The photograph below shows a statue of St Peter in the nave of the Vatican basilica, made by Arnolfo di Cambio at the very end of the 13th century. On the wall above it is a mosaic portrait of Pius IX, with the inscription, “For Pope Pius IX, who alone equaled the years of Peter in the Roman Pontificate, the clergy of the Vatican decorated the holy throne. June 16, 1871”, this date being the 25th anniversary of his election.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Fczarnowski, CC BY-SA 3.0

A Series of Webinars on Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors

I thought that NLM readers might be interested in this series of seminars that just came to my notice, a study of the Syllabus of Errors issued by Bl. Pius IX in 1864, which is being led by Dr William Marshner, Professor Emeritus of Theology at Christendom College.

Unfortunately, I only just noticed that it was going on, and the second of these four takes place today at 7:30 pm EST. Not to worry, however; it is possible to catch up and join in today (or even next week if this is too short notice) as each session is recorded and accessible on the Institute of Catholic Culture website. You can register at InstituteofCatholicCulture.org/Events.

I encourage readers to look at the schedule of their other events, including for example a lecture on the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins by Joseph Pearce. Go here for more details.

Why Did Vatican II Open on October 11?

In a motu proprio issued on the feast of the Purification in 1962, Pope St John XXIII established that the Second Vatican Council, which he had formally convoked on Christmas Day of 1961, would begin on the following October 11, and explains his motivation for choosing this date. “We have chosen this day most especially for this reason, that it calls to mind that great Council of Ephesus, which holds a place of the highest importance in the annals of the Catholic Church.”

The seven sessions of the Third Ecumenical Council took place at Ephesus between June 22 and July 31 of the year 431, not in October. Against the heretical teaching of Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, it reasserted that it is proper and just to refer to the Virgin Mary with the title “Mother of God”, and this accounts in part for the very frequent use of this term in the Byzantine Rite. Of course, this was decided in function of much larger issues within the great Christological controversies of that era, controversies which Ephesus most certainly did not put to rest. After a false council in 449, also held at Ephesus and famously named by Pope St Leo I “the robber-synod” (latrocinium), a true council was held at Chalcedon in 451, followed by the most important permanent schism which the Church would see until the Great Schism of 1054. This is not to diminish the importance of Ephesus, but in only one other case is there a shorter interval between two ecumenical councils. (see note below)

The question arises, therefore, as to what it was about the date October 11 that called Ephesus to mind, and why the Pope felt the need to do so in the context of the upcoming council.

Pope John had a strong devotion to Bl. Pope Pius IX, whom he once expressed a desire to canonize by acclamation. (It is appropriate that they were beatified together in 2000.) It was, of course, Pius IX who convoked Vatican I, which held its first session on the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1869, fifteen years to the day after he had formally and infallibly defined the Immaculate Conception as a dogma of the Faith.

In 1931, Pope Pius XI extended the feast known as “the Maternity of the Virgin Mary” to the universal calendar of the Roman Rite. October had been well established as a Marian month by the very popular feast of the Holy Rosary, and the importance of this devotion was repeatedly emphasized by Pope Leo XIII. The feast of the Virgin’s Maternity was therefore assigned to October 11th, which was then the first free day of that month.

A Breviary lesson was appointed for the feast, which explains that the Pope intended it to serve as a liturgical commemoration of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus. In the wake of Ephesus, Pope Sixtus III (432-40) built the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, the oldest church in the world dedicated to the Mother of God, which still preserves a famous mosaic with episodes of Her life on the arch over the altar. Pius XI also notes in this lesson that had arranged for extensive restorations of the basilica, “a noble monument of the proclamation of Ephesus,” and particularly the mosaic.

The upper left section of the mosaic on the triumphal arch of Saint Mary Major, with the Annunciation above and the Adoration of the Magi below; to the right of the Annunciation, the angel comes to reassure St Joseph. In the Adoration of the Magi, Christ is shown as a young child, but not as an infant, since the Gospel of St Matthew does not say how long after the Birth of Christ the Magi came to Him.

John XXIII’s choice of October 11th, therefore, was intended as a sign of continuity not only between his council and Vatican I, but by inference, with all of the previous ecumenical councils. As Bl. Pius had placed his council under the protection of the Mother of God by opening it on one of Her feast days, so did St John, the feast in question being also a commemoration of yet another Ecumenical Council, and one especially associated with the Church’s devotion to the Virgin Mary.

The crest of Pope St John XXIII, in the atrium of St Peter’s Basilica; the opening date of Vatican II is written beneath it, without reference to the feast of the Maternity of the Virgin Mary.

In the post-Conciliar liturgical reform, the feast of the Maternity of the Virgin Mary was suppressed, on the grounds that the newly-created Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, on January 1st made it superfluous; another fine example of the law of unintended consequences, and of the many efforts to obscure and erase Pope John’s intentions for what he wished the Council to achieve.

Note: The Council of Constance, which was held from 1414-18, represents the high point of enthusiasm for “conciliarism”, the idea that ecumenical councils are superior to the Popes, and have authority over them. As part of this enthusiasm, it decreed that councils would henceforth be held on a regular schedule, five years after its own closure, seven years after the closure of the next council, and thenceforth every ten years. The Council of Siena, called in 1423, is not recognized as an ecumenical council because almost no one showed up for it. The next council opened at Basel in Switzerland in 1431, to an equally unpromising start, and, like Siena, would have ended as no more than an historical footnote, had its purpose not changed; after being transferred first to Ferrara, then to Florence, it became the last great council of reunion between the Eastern and Western churches. Between the closure of Constance and the opening of Basel is an interval of only 13 years, but this interval was determined by Constance itself, and not as the result of an intervening crisis, as was the case with Chalcedon after Ephesus.

The sudden and complete evaporation of enthusiasm for conciliarism in the 15th century is very similar to the sudden and complete evaporation of enthusiasm for “aggiornamento” in the 20th. There is an important lesson to be had here in keeping our perspective on ecumenical councils, the most unpredictable of ecclesiastical events, if we are willing to learn it.

May 13 and the Virgin Mary

Today, the Church celebrates the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fatima in Portugal, and the canonization of two of the three young children who received the visions, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. Of course, many recent articles about these events have noted that it was also on this day in 1981 that Pope St John Paul II was shot in St Peter’s Square, while moving though the crowds at the weekly papal audience. His Holiness always ascribed the preservation of his life to the direct intervention of Our Lady of Fatima; as a sign of gratitude for his deliverance, the bullet which just missed his heart is now mounted in the crown of the famous statue.

The well-known photograph of Francisco and Jacinta Martos (middle and right), who as of today are the Catholic Church’s newest Saints, together with their cousin Lúcia Santos, whose cause for canonization is in process. St Francisco died on April 9, 1919, at the age of 10, St Jacinta the following year on February 20, at the age of 9; both were victims of the great influenza pandemic which raged though the years 1918-20, one of the greatest natural catastrophes in human history. (More deaths were caused by the so-called Spanish flu in those years than were caused by the First World War.) Sister Lúcia died on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97, almost 56 years after her profession as a Discalced Carmelite.

There are a few other important Marian events connected with this day which have received rather less attention. One of these is the consecration of the Pantheon in Rome as a church in honor of the Virgin Mary and All Martyrs, which took place in the year 609. As I have noted on more than one occasion, the name “Pantheon” means “building of all the gods”, but there is no evidence that there was any kind of collective worship of all the gods in the ancient Roman world, and no evidence that the building was a temple. The idea is probably a misunderstanding which arose in the Carolingian period, when much of ancient Rome lay in ruins; to an early medieval Christian’s eyes, the imposing mass of the building, dominating the center of the city, could hardly have appeared as anything other than a religious building. Nevertheless, the legend persists that the building was dedicated to All Martyrs, and hence to All Saints, because it had previously been a temple of all the gods; it remains in the traditional Martyrology to this day.

Solemn Mass in the traditional rite celebrated in the Pantheon on May 13, 2009, the 14th centenary of its dedication as a church.

Another legend connected with the Pantheon is that of a blind cantor who composed the responsory for the Annunciation, “Rejoice, o Virgin Mary, you alone have destroyed all heresies, who believed the words of the Archangel Gabriel: while Thou begot both God and man, and after His birth, remained a Virgin inviolate.” The first part of this is also sung as the 7th antiphon of Matins on feasts of the Virgin.

In the year 1792, the same day saw the birth of Bl. Pius IX, the Pope who would later formally define the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. As a young man, he had suffered from some kind of seizure disorder (it does not appear to be absolutely clear which one), of which he was cured at the most important Marian shrine in Italy, that of Loreto.

Even more remarkable is the fact that Eugenio Pacelli, who as Pope Pius XII would formally define the dogma of the Assumption in 1950, was being ordained a bishop in the Sistine Chapel on May 13, 1917, at the very same time that the first apparition of the Virgin was taking place at Fatima.

Future Saints Pius IX and XII

John XXIII in His Own Words (3): Devotion to Saint Pius X and Blessed Pius IX

Pope John on the sedia gestatoria

It seems ironic, to say the least, given the polarization that postconciliar developments have produced in the Church, with the Society of Saint Pius X as a kind of flashpoint, that one of the deepest and tenderest of Blessed John XXIII’s personal devotions was to none other than Giuseppe Sarto, whom he constantly recalls in his private notes and public discourses. Today it would be harder to imagine a saint further removed from “the spirit of Vatican II” than Pius X—and (although to a lesser degree) John XXIII himself, who sought to live, think, and pray in that saint’s footsteps. Some passages in John XXIII's Journal of a Soul bring out his tender and profound devotion to both Pius IX and Pius X, papal saints and heroes of traditionalism.

Of special note is the fact that Angelo Roncalli, on the day of his first Mass, was blessed personally by Pope Pius X, as we will see mentioned in two of the following diary entries.

[Prayer to St. Pius X]
         On the day of my first Mass your hands were laid on my head, the head of a newly ordained priest kneeling as you passed by in the Vatican.
           I have always treasured in my heart the memory of that gesture and of the gentle words of good wishes and blessings which accompanied it.
         Now fifty years have passed.  You are a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, you rejoice in the glory of the saints, and all Christians pray to you.
         The humble young priest of long ago has been placed in the Chair of St. Mark, where you, too, presided with such splendour of doctrine, virtue, and example.        O Holy Father Pius X, I put my trust in you.  I do not fear to die.  I do not refuse to work.  May your powerful arm assist me, so that all that is still left for me to do in my life may be to the edification, the blessing and the joy of these beloved children of Venice, your children and mine, with whom it is sweet to live but still more precious and joyful to sacrifice myself in an outpouring of lovingkindness and pastoral care.  [Prayer for the 50th anniversary of Roncalli's ordination as priest, August 1954, while Patriarch of Venice.]

It is interesting, in this passage, that John XXIII spontaneously thinks of Pius IX after outlining the virtues necessary for a saintly soul (and shepherd):

The maxim “Know thyself” suffices for my spiritual serenity and keeps me on the alert.  The secret of my success must lie there: in not “searching into things which are above my ability” and in being content to be “meek and humble of heart.”  Meekness and humbleness of heart give graciousness in receiving, speaking and dealing with people, and the patience to bear, to pity, to keep silent and to encourage.  Above all, one must always be ready for the Lord’s surprise moves, for although he treats his loved ones well, he generally likes to test them with all sorts of trials such as bodily infirmities, bitterness of soul and sometimes opposition so powerful as to transform and wear out the life of the servant of God, the life of the servant of the servants of God, making it a real martyrdom.  I always think of Pius IX of sacred and glorious memory and, by imitating him in his sufferings, I would like to be worthy to celebrate his canonization.  (Journal, p. 299, between 29 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1959)

Pope St. Pius X

And an outpouring of gratitude for his priestly ministry:

My heart is touched when I think of this anniversary of my ordination as a priest—10 August, 1904—in the church of Santa Maria in Monte Santo, Piazza del Popolo. … I remember it all, at a distance of fifty-seven years.  Ever since then I have felt ashamed of my worthlessness.  “My God, my mercy.” … After my first Mass over the tomb of St. Peter I felt the hands of the Holy Father Pius X laid on my head in a blessing full of good augury for me and for the priestly life I was just entering upon; and after more than half a century (fifty-seven years precisely) here are my own hands extended in a blessing for the Catholics, and not only the Catholics, of the whole world, in a gesture of universal fatherhood.  I am successor to this same Pius X who has been proclaimed a saint, and I am still living in the same priestly service as he, his predecessors and his successors, all placed like St. Peter at the head of the whole Church of Christ, one, holy, catholic and apostolic.  (Journal, p. 302; on 10 August 1961)