Feast of Beato Pio IX

Beato Pio Nono, ora pro nobis

February 7th is the Feast of Blessed Pius IX (1792-1878), the last Pope-King. Popular among liberals and Italian Patriots during his early Papacy, he became a staunch conservative following the violent Revolution in Rome in 1848 and the declaration of the Republic in 1849. Fleeing to Gaeta in the Kingdom of Naples, he was restored to the Papal throne in 1850 with the aid of the French and Austrian armies. Convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868, he condemned, among other things, the errors of anarchism, communism, socialism, liberalism, materialism, modernism, and secularism.

The longest reigning Pope, he proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, defined the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, declared St. Joseph patron of the Universal Church, instituted the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ and consecrated the Church to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

When the Kingdom of Italy conquered the Papal States in 1870, Pius IX declared himself a “Prisoner in the Vatican.” Known as the “Roman Question,” this territorial dispute was adopted by all subsequent Popes until the signing of the Lateran Treaty in 1929.

In celebration, we’re posting a prayer to Blessed Pius IX. The Portrait of Pope Pius IX was painted by George Peter Alexander Healy in 1871. Evviva Beato Pio Nono!

Prayer to Blessed Pius IX

O God, who gave your servant, Blessed Pius IX, Pope, the spirit of fortitude in adversity, and enabled him to enter more deeply into the pure faith of the Church, grant through his intercession, that we may be filled with the same spirit and live with the same devotion. Through Our Lord.