Not So Saintly?

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In 1864 this intemperance was writ very large indeed. The Vatican released the Syllabus of Errors, an index of don'ts that summed up Pius' response to modernity--by spitting in its face. The 80 delusions in question included separation of church and state, freedom of conscience, civil rights and rationalism. Error No. 80 was that "the Roman Pontiff can...reconcile himself to any compromise with progress, liberalism and modern civilization." Writes Wills: "The Syllabus dumbfounded the world." It still has its defenders. Theologian Don Gianni Baget Bozzo says Pius "simply refused to accept the tenets of liberalism in their entirety." It is true that the knee-jerk antireligious sentiment and materialism that irked Pius plague Western culture today. Still, the tract defined Catholicism in the negative--and placed good Catholics at odds with modern Western governance. Wills maintains that it "gave ammunition" to anti-Catholics "down to the time when John Kennedy was running for President and many felt no Catholic could be free--that the church was opposed to democracy in every way."

Many of the Syllabus' most egregious positions were repudiated 35 years ago at the Second Vatican Council. But Vatican II let stand what may be Pio Nono's most lasting achievement, the doctrine of papal infallibility. By 1869 most Catholics already believed that a Pope could, alone, define the word of God through church dogma. But no Pontiff had ever said so explicitly, and some bishops thought this might drive an even greater wedge between Catholicism and the rest of the world. Pius' war on the dissenters featured deception, obfuscation and railroading. When the Archbishop of Bologna complained that church tradition in Europe argued against infallibility, Pius roared, "I am tradition!" and reassigned the Archbishop to a monastery. (He came around.)

Said British Cardinal John Henry Newman: "It is not good for a Pope to live 20 years. He becomes a God [and] has no one to contradict him." No one but history. In 1870, Piedmont's King Victor Emmanuel arrived at Rome to complete the unification of Italy and end the church's 1,116-year history as a worldly monarchy. The Pope, 79, long white hair flying, climbed the Scala Santa staircase on his knees and told his troops to show token resistance and then surrender honorably. Victor Emmanuel offered him some powers in return for recognition. Pius excommunicated him and vowed to become a "prisoner of the Vatican." He never again left the grounds. Many Catholics loved him for it. The Italians did not; after his death, a Roman rabble tried to toss his coffin into the Tiber.

The judgment of the mob was too harsh," wrote ethicist Daniel Callahan in a 1966 essay. "Pius IX was no villain. But he was...a man who used the wrong weapons at the wrong time to fight for the wrong cause." Most historians concur. Yet someone clearly loves Pius, someone with the power to make saints. Vaticanologists have suggested that he is a "hero" of John Paul II's. The two Pontiffs do share a special reverence for the Virgin Mary, a generally conservative world view and an impatience with church dissenters. But John Paul's conservatism is tempered with an un-Pius-like humanism. Pius' comfort with executions runs counter to John Paul II's campaign against the death penalty. And then there are the Jews. Vittorio Messori, collaborator with John Paul on the best seller Crossing the Threshold of Hope, says, "I think Pius' cause is something of a problem. When John Paul II asked for forgiveness for the church's treatment of the Jews over the centuries, I think perhaps he was thinking of Pius IX."

If not John Paul, then who? Each year a group of aging, high-ranking clerics convenes for a special Mass on Feb. 7, Pius' birthday. They share a belief that a Pope's administration of worldly states (and by extension Pius' treatment of the Jews) has little bearing on his sanctity. Saintmaking's fine print sets great store by a candidate's intent. And so, says Austrian Cardinal Alfons Stickler, presenter of Pius' case in 1985, "you can't condemn someone for something he believed was an act of virtue." Most important, the group feels, was that Pius successfully preserved the church's great truths during a period of unbelief.

But if the Feb. 7 Club alone could prevail, it would have done so in the 1980s. Some see this year's events as the work of parties less keen on Pius himself than on blunting the thrust of the Second Vatican Council. As John Paul becomes weaker, liberals hope someday to interpret Vatican II's watchwords of openness and dialogue to revive seemingly shut issues like women priests. Guido Verucci, a Roman historian, is among those who see conservatives using Pius' beatification to reaffirm his contrasting "vision of a strong, unerring Church."