Pope Pius IX - Legacy

Legacy

Pius IX celebrated his silver jubilee in 1871, going on to have the longest reign in the history of the post-apostolic papacy, 31 years, 7 months and 23 days. As his temporal sovereignty was lost, the Roman Catholic Church rallied around him, and the papacy became more centralized, to which his personal life-style of simplicity and poverty is considered to have contributed. From this point on, the papacy became and continues to become increasingly a spiritual, and less a temporal, authority. Pius IX's pontificate marks the beginning of the modern papacy.

Having started as a liberal, Pius IX turned conservative after being thrown out of Rome. Thereafter, he was considered politically conservative, but a restless and radical reformer and innovator of Church life and structures. Church life, religious vocations, new foundations and religious enthusiasm all flourished at the end of his pontificate. Politically, his pontificate ended with the isolation of the papacy from most major powers of the world: "The prisoner of the Vatican" had poor relations with Russia, Germany, and the United States, poor relations with France and open hostility with Italy. Yet he was most popular with the faithful in all these countries, in many of which Pope Pius associations were formed in his support. He made lasting Church history with his 1854 infallible decision of the Immaculate Conception, which was the basis for the later dogma on the Assumption. His other lasting contribution is the invocation of the ecumenical council Vatican One, which promulgated the definition of Papal infallibility. With his advice he helped Saint John Bosco found the Salesian Society, for which reason he is also called „don Bosco's Pope”.

The Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to Saint Malachy, is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin. They purport to describe each of the Roman Catholic popes. It describes Pius IX as Crux de Cruce, Cross of the cross.