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Said British Cardinal John Henry Newman: "It is not good for a Pope to live 20 years. He becomes a God [and] has no one to contradict him." No one but history. In 1870, Piedmont's King Victor Emmanuel arrived at Rome to complete the unification of Italy and end the church's 1,116-year history as a worldly monarchy. The Pope, 79, long white hair flying, climbed the Scala Santa staircase on his knees and told his troops to show token resistance and then surrender honorably. Victor Emmanuel offered him some powers in return for recognition. Pius excommunicated him and vowed to become a "prisoner of the Vatican." He never again left the grounds. Many Catholics loved him for it. The Italians did not; after his death, a Roman rabble tried to toss his coffin into the Tiber.
The judgment of the mob was too harsh," wrote ethicist Daniel Callahan in a 1966 essay. "Pius IX was no villain. But he was...a man who used the wrong weapons at the wrong time to fight for the wrong cause." Most historians concur. Yet someone clearly loves Pius, someone with the power to make saints. Vaticanologists have suggested that he is a "hero" of John Paul II's. The two Pontiffs do share a special reverence for the Virgin Mary, a generally conservative world view and an impatience with church dissenters. But John Paul's conservatism is tempered with an un-Pius-like humanism. Pius' comfort with executions runs counter to John Paul II's campaign against the death penalty. And then there are the Jews. Vittorio Messori, collaborator with John Paul on the best seller Crossing the Threshold of Hope, says, "I think Pius' cause is something of a problem. When John Paul II asked for forgiveness for the church's treatment of the Jews over the centuries, I think perhaps he was thinking of Pius IX."
If not John Paul, then who? Each year a group of aging, high-ranking clerics convenes for a special Mass on Feb. 7, Pius' birthday. They share a belief that a Pope's administration of worldly states (and by extension Pius' treatment of the Jews) has little bearing on his sanctity. Saintmaking's fine print sets great store by a candidate's intent. And so, says Austrian Cardinal Alfons Stickler, presenter of Pius' case in 1985, "you can't condemn someone for something he believed was an act of virtue." Most important, the group feels, was that Pius successfully preserved the church's great truths during a period of unbelief.
But if the Feb. 7 Club alone could prevail, it would have done so in the 1980s. Some see this year's events as the work of parties less keen on Pius himself than on blunting the thrust of the Second Vatican Council. As John Paul becomes weaker, liberals hope someday to interpret Vatican II's watchwords of openness and dialogue to revive seemingly shut issues like women priests. Guido Verucci, a Roman historian, is among those who see conservatives using Pius' beatification to reaffirm his contrasting "vision of a strong, unerring Church."
There is one other possibility: the Vatican simply needed a beatifiable Pope in a hurry. Even liberals admit the wisdom of balancing John XXIII with a conservative. Says Kertzer: "There are not so many recent Popes who can represent the right wing. Pio Nono's cause went through the administrative hoops in the 1980s, so everything was ready. He was from so long ago--who knew him? They thought he'd just slide by."