Pius IX was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 1846. He enjoyed the longest reign in papal history. His early acts as pope promised a liberal and popular government for the Papal States. He pardoned political prisoners, admitted lay people to the government, and promised a constitution. He fled Rome in 1848 when revolutionists made the city a republic. After his restoration in 1850, Pius followed a highly conservative policy in government matters. .
In 1854, Pius defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary as an article of Roman Catholic dogma. Ten years later, in 1864 he issued the Syllabus of Errors, a collection of 80 propositions that gave the impression that Pius was opposed to all progress and to modern civilization. He condemned republican government, rationalism, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, separation of church and state and other ideas that threatened the power and authority of the church. To him things such as these were all errors of man. These things are so prevalent today that we take them for granted and if they were suddenly taken away there would be a huge revolt. We are lucky that the power given to the Pope at the time of Pius IX was limited. His power wasn't so limited though, papal infallibility is still a law in the Roman Catholic church. Even if every priest, nun, bishop, cardinal and the pope wanted to eliminate papal infallibility they couldn't, because the rule of it is that no dogma created by the pope can be refuted, and papal infallibility is a dogma created by the pope.
Italy took the Papal States and Rome by force during the unification in the 1860's and 1870's. Pius became a voluntary prisoner in the Vatican. He refused any accord that did not recognize him as a sovereign ruler. He believed that he would be looked on as "the Italian king's chaplain" if he settled for anything less. .
In the mid-1800's, Pope Pius IX took steps to uphold the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
