Class 26: Pius IX and Vatican I

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Class 26 Pius IX and Vatican I

• 29 March 2006

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Introduction

• Pius IX (cont.)
• Labor Movements and Revolutions of 1848
• Vatican I
• Anti-Semitism

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Pius IX (1846-1878)

• Considered a liberal, but shocked by revolutions
  of 1848
• Negotiates Church rights with many European
  governments (concordats)
• Issues Syllabus of Errors condemning much
  enlightenment thought
• Promotes Thomism as official theology of Church
• Convenes Vatican I in 1869
• Loses Papal States in 1870
• Beatified along with John XXIII in 2000

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Background to Revolutions of 1848

• Industrial Revolution had created a class of
  urban poor laborers
• Barely able to survive on subsistence wages
• Disruption of family (child labor in industry
  very different from working family farm)
• Survival of the fittest (Malthus, Essay on
  Principle of Population, 1789)
• Disruption in basic social patterns leads to
  disillusionment with society, including
  established religions
• Efforts to change conditions for laborers often
  united with atheism
• Religious response
• YMCA
• Salvation Army
• St. Vincent de Paul
• Reread Charles Dickens

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Socialism and Communism

• Associated with free thinkers
• Specifically targeted economic and social models
  (unlike philosophes a century earlier who
  attacked political models)
• Opposed to private property
• Criticized religious response as basically one of
  keeping the laborer in his place
• Friedrich Engels, Conditions of Working Class in
  England (1844)

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Gustav Dore Scripture Reader in a Night Shelter
groups.msn.com/HOMELESSinbaltimoremd/gustavedore.m
snw?actionShowPhotoPhotoID13
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Prolog Communist Manifest 1848www.gutenberg.org/d
irs/6/61/61.txt

• A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of
  communism. All the powers of old Europe have
  entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this
  spectre Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot,
  French Radicals and German police-spies.
• Where is the party in opposition that has not
  been decried as communistic by its opponents in
  power? Where is the opposition that has not
  hurled back the branding reproach of communism,
  against the more advanced opposition parties, as
  well as against its reactionary adversaries?
• Two things result from this fact
• I. Communism is already acknowledged by all
  European powers to be itself a power.
• II. It is high time that Communists should
  openly, in the face of the whole world, publish
  their views, their aims, their tendencies, and
  meet this nursery tale of the spectre of
  communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
• To this end, Communists of various nationalities
  have assembled in London and sketched the
  following manifesto, to be published in the
  English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and
  Danish languages.

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Revolutions of 1848

• In 1848, revolt started in Italy, spread to
  France
• Pius IX forced to flee Italy
• In 1849 labor revolutions in Prussia, Austria,
  Hungary, Southern Italy
• Eventually revolutions are crushed and strong
  rulers come to power in France (Louis Napoleon)
  and Prussia (Bismarck)
• But strong rulers who supported economic
  liberalism not supportive of Church

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Vatican I

• Pius IX announced intention to call a Council in
  1864 just before publication of Syllabus of
  Errors
• Bull of Convocation, Aeterni Patris was
  promulgated on Dec 8, 1868
• Definition of Papal Infallibility
• Hostile reaction in England, Germany, France
• First Session 8 Dec. 1869, Council ended in 1870
• Council affirmed infallibility in First Dogmatic
  Constitution of Church of Christ (Session 4)
• Franco-Prussian War of 1870 Council not
  officially closed

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Reflections on Vatican I

• Epistemology
• Major issues in early Enlightenment how do we
  know
• Vatican I says we know the faith because we can
  trust in Magisterium of Church Pope is uniquely
  guarantor of what is in the Magisterium
• Method of knowing the truth Thomism theological
  empiricism most like a mathematical proof
• Society and Politics
• Stability in religion and society critical
• Church (Pope) provides that stability
• The document is a Constitution

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Three Types of Anti-Semitism 19th C

• Religious
• From Second Century onwards conflict between
  synagogue and Church
• Economic and Social
• Middle class and wealthy Jews adept at moving and
  taking advantage of free market economies because
  of roots in banking business
• Several intellectual leaders of radical social
  reforms and revolution to implement them were
  Jewish
• Both of these lead to fear of Jews by non-Jewish
  middle class
• Cultural
• Development of nations what does it mean to be
  German or Italian or French?

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Pius IX and Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

• Remember, Pius IX opened the Jewish ghetto in
  Rome
• In 1858 a Jewish boy who may have been Baptized
  by a family servant was kidnapped by Catholic
  authorities in Bologna an placed in a monastery
• Pope Pius IX affirms this action and takes a
  special interest in the boy
• Fuels flames of Italian nationalism against Pope
  and Papal States
• International outrage over this incident also
  contributes to downfall of Papal states in 1870

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What Happened to Edgardo?

• In his early teens, he was given the opportunity
  to return to his family and Judaism he refused
• He joined Canon Regulars ordained at age 21
• Canon Regulars follow Augustines Rule
• All are ordained (unlike monks)
• Dedicated to service to Church, often in world
• Lived in Belgium
• He felt a special link to spirituality of Lourdes
• Died in 1940, just two months before the Nazis
  invaded Belgium

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Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and Dreyfus Affair

• France lost the Franco Prussian War of 1870 in a
  disastrous series of battles
• Forced to relinquish Rhine valley, Alsace-Loraine
  to Prussia
• Defeat created social and political tensions
  within France and the military who was to blame
• French military had been very open to Jewish
  officers
• In 1880s the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt,
  causing one of the first capitalist depressions
  in France
• Owners of company were Jews
• Cries of France for the French were raised
• Scientific definition and stereotyping of races
• Dreyfus arrest as a spy for Germans in 1890
  convicted and spent 12 years on penal colony
  exonerated in 1906

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Timeline of Pius IX

• 1846 Elected Pope
• 1848 Revolutions of 1848, forced to flee Rome,
  returned by French
• 1854 Dogma of Immaculate Conception
• 1858 Lourdes and Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara
• 1864 Syllabus of Errors
• 1869-1870 Vatican I
• 1870 Franco-Prussian War
• 1878 Pope Pius IX dies
• 1985 Declared blessed along with John XXIII by
  Pope John Paul II