Pius IX

Born in 1792, Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti was elected Pope on June 16th 1846. His pontificate, the subject of this biographical study, lasted thirty-two years, the longest after that of St Peter himself.
To the English reader Blessed Pius IX is best known for the restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy, the convening of the First Vatican Council, and for the definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception and of Papal Infallibility.
Elevated to the Papacy amid the historical backdrop of turmoil and revolution in Italy and Europe, he was also to play a central role in the drama of the Risorgimento that led to the creation of a united Italy. He was quick to identify the threat posed not just to the Church, but to the whole foundations of society and morality, by the essentially anti-Christian revolutionary masonic movement, and his steadfast defence of the Papacy itself, of the social sovereignty of Christ and of the truth of Catholic doctrine preserved both Church and Papacy through decades of revolution, exile, occupation and persecution.
Publication of the English translation of Roberto de Mattei's study of Pius IX marks the 150th anniversary of the Pope's solemn definition of the Dogma of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception.