Pius VIII, Pope

PIUS VIII, Pope. - Francesco Saverio Castiglioni, b. at Cingoli on 20 Nov. 1761, d. at Rome on 30 Nov. 1830. He studied at the Campana college of Osimo and then at the Montalto college of Bologna. Having obtained his doctorate in theology on 2 July 1785, he was ordained a priest in Rome on 17 Dec. of the same year. A collaborator of Msgr. Devoti in the compilation of the Institutiones Iuris

Canonici and secretary of the commission that examined the decisions of the Council of Pistoia, he was vicar general successively at Anagni, Fano, Ascoli Piceno and Cingoli. On 10 Aug. 1800 he was consecrated bishop of Montalto Marche, where he revealed his zeal and his austere conception of episcopal dignity. In July 1808, having refused to swear fidelity to Napoleon, he suffered imprisonment at Mantua, Pavia and Milan. On 8 March 1816 he was created cardinal priest of the title of S. Maria in Traspontina and bishop of Cesena, where he went on 27 Apr. of that year. On 13 Aug. 1821 he became major penitentiary and bishop of Frascati. He enjoyed the favor of Card. Consalvi and of Pius VII, whom he was on the point of succeeding.

At the Conclave of 1829 the two parties of the "zealots" and the "politicians" were once again opposed to each other, the latter faithful to the moderate tradition of Consalvi. The former, still numerically strong, were weakened by the opposing judgments on the pontificate of Leo XII. The representatives of the powers expressed conservative and authoritarian tendencies through the mouth of the Spaniard Labrador, but above all calls for moderation through the mouth of the Austrian Lutzow and, in a more pronounced manner, of the Frenchman Chateaubriand, who invoked a pontiff who well knew "the needs of the present and of the future." He was answered in the name of the Sacred College by Card. Castiglioni, the candidate of the moderates and well regarded in Paris. Despite the opposition of the "zealots," who supported De Gregorio and then Cappellari, he was elected on 31 March 1829 and consecrated on 5 Apr. Immediately, to reassure Austria, he named as secretary of State Card. Albani, head of the Consalvian party and pleasing to the Habsburgs.

From his first encyclical Traditi humilitati nostrae he wished to show how moderation and modernity of methods did not mean renunciation of the intransigent defense of Catholic principles and of papal authority; and indeed he returned to condemning religious indifferentism and the sects, reaffirming the authority of the Roman Pontiff over the bishops.

Also the condemnation of the Piedmontese Jansenists, the favor granted to the Jesuits and the canonization of St. Alphonsus Liguori (16 May 1830) had a clear significance.

Through his work the Church made progress in the Anglo-Saxon countries following the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 23 Apr. 1829, which allowed English Catholics to sit in Parliament and hold public offices, and thanks also to the first American Council held at Baltimore. He obtained from the Sultan civil rights and religious freedom for the Armenians and on 6 July 1830 created at Constantinople an archiepiscopal see of the Armenian rite.

Serious difficulties, however, presented themselves on the European continent. P. VIII indeed came into conflict with Prussia over the question of mixed marriages, regarding which he reconfirmed the doctrine that tolerates them, save for the Catholic education of the offspring, with the brief Litteris altero abhinc of 25 March 1830. As he had already wisely abstained 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 extremely violent anticlerical disorders at Reims, Besançon, Nancy, he knew how to act with tact and came to establish 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 swear the oath to the new King, to whom he recognized the title of "most Christian." Similar and different problems presented themselves in Belgium, where there had come about what Albani considered a "monstrous alliance" between liberals and Catholics against the absolutism of the Protestant William I, as well as in Poland and in Ireland. In his own State, troubled by some Carbonarist unrest at Rome and at Cesena, he adopted various administrative and social measures, reducing taxes, procuring work for unemployed laborers, regulating the administration of the posts and customs tariffs, abolishing the Congregation of vigilance over employees, extending the provision of Leo XII "which forbade landlords to evict workers and to increase the rent"; he also assigned prizes to cultivators, prohibited the export of grain harmful to the common people. In Oct. 1830 he opposed an Austrian occupation of the Legations, already agreed upon with Vienna by Card. Albani.

Fausto Fonzi