PIO VIII, POPE. - Francesco Saverio Castiglioni, born at Cingoli on 20 Nov. 1761, died at Rome on 30 Nov. 1830. He studied at the Campana College in Osimo and then at the Montalto College in Bologna. Having graduated in theology on 2 July 1785, he was ordained priest in Rome on 17 Dec. of the same year. Collaborating with Monsignor Devoti in the compilation of the *Institutiones Iuris Canonici* and serving as secretary to the commission that examined the decisions of the Council of Pistoia, he subsequently held the office of vicar general in Anagni, Fano, Ascoli Piceno, and Cingoli. On 10 Aug. 1800 he was consecrated Bishop of Montalto delle Marche, where he displayed his zeal and his austere conception of episcopal dignity. In July 1808, having refused to swear loyalty to Napoleon, he was imprisoned in Mantua, Pavia, and Milan. On 8 Mar. 1816 he was created Cardinal Priest of the title of Santa Maria in Traspontina and Bishop of Cesena, where he took possession on 27 Apr. of that year. On 13 Aug. 1821 he became Major Penitentiary and Bishop of Frascati. He enjoyed the favour of Cardinal Consalvi and of Pius VII, to whom he nearly succeeded.
At the Conclave of 1829, the two factions of the “zelanti” and the “politicanti” again confronted each other, the latter remaining faithful to the moderate tradition of Consalvi. The former, though still numerically strong, were weakened by conflicting judgments on the pontificate of Leo XII. The representatives of the powers expressed conservative and authoritarian tendencies through the Spanish plenipotentiary Labrador, but above all they urged moderation through the authority of Lutzow and, more emphatically, through the Frenchman Chateaubriand, who invoked a pope who would well understand “the needs of the present and the future.” In reply on behalf of the Sacred College, Cardinal Castiglioni, the candidate of the moderates and well regarded in Paris, was elected on 31 Mar. 1829 and consecrated on 5 Apr. To reassure Austria, he immediately appointed Cardinal Albani, head of the Consalvi faction and acceptable to the Habsburgs, as Secretary of State.
From his very first encyclical, *Traditi humilitati nostrae*, he wished to show that moderation and modernity of methods did not signify a renunciation of the intransigent defence of Catholic principles and of papal authority; and indeed he again condemned religious indifferentism and sects, reaffirming the authority of the Roman Pontiff over bishops.
Through his efforts the Church made progress in the Anglo-Saxon countries following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 23 Apr. 1829, which permitted English Catholics to sit in Parliament and hold public office, and also thanks to the first American Council held in Baltimore. He obtained from the Sultan civil rights and religious freedom for the Armenians and on 6 July 1830 established an archiepiscopal see of the Armenian rite in Constantinople.
Serious difficulties, however, presented themselves on the European continent. Pius VIII indeed came into conflict with Prussia over the question of mixed marriages, regarding which he reaffirmed the doctrine that tolerates them, provided that the children be brought up in the Catholic faith, in the brief *Litteris altero abhinc* of 25 Mar. 1830. As he had already wisely refrained from pronouncing on the conflict between Lamennais and the legitimist and Gallican clergy, so in the face of the July Revolution, which had also led to very violent anticlerical disorders in Reims, Besançon, and Nancy, he acted with tact and succeeded in establishing friendly relations with the new regime, giving it his recognition, recommending submission to the constituted authorities, ordering the bishops not to abandon their sees, and permitting them to take the oath to the new King, to whom he granted the title of “Most Christian.” Similar and different problems arose in Belgium, where what Albani considered a “monstrous alliance” between liberals and Catholics against the absolutism of the Protestant William I had been formed, as well as in Poland and Ireland. In his own State, disturbed by some Carbonari uprisings in Rome and Cesena, he adopted various administrative and social measures, reducing taxes, providing work for unemployed labourers, regulating the administration of the postal service and customs tariffs, suppressing the Congregation for the Supervision of Civil Servants, extending the provision of Leo XII “which prohibited landlords from exploiting workers and raising rents,” and also awarding prizes to farmers, prohibiting the export of grain that would harm the common people. In Oct. 1830 he opposed an Austrian occupation of the Legations, already agreed upon with Vienna by Cardinal Albani.