Pius IX Quotes
Now you know well that the most deadly foes of the Catholic religion have always waged a fierce war, but without success, against this Chair [of St. Peter]; they are by no means ignorant of the fact that religion itself can never totter and fall while this Chair remains intact, the Chair which rests on the rock which the proud gates of hell cannot overthrow and in which there is the whole and perfect solidity of the Christian religion.
Pius IX. "Inter Multiplices." Papal Encyclicals Online, 21 Mar. 1853, par. 7.
It is an error to say that He was the last Pope to hold temporal power. 101 years later, the Vatican rejected this view and accepted Protestantism at Vatican II.
Smith was the first Roman Catholic to run for President. He was very popular but there was a substantial amount of anti-Catholicism in America at the time. He lost, probably by the margin of the anti-Catholic vote.
His response was to being asked whether he could do something with Russian Catholics to help Laval win favor with the Pope, to counter the increasing threat of Nazism. This quotation is often used as an example of Stalin’s disrespect for the Papacy. However, in this case, the Pope was extremely weak politically and some argue spiritually for he did not oppose Hitler and the Nazis very much. Defenders of the Papacy argue that Hitler had overwhelming force and little respect for the Pope, and ironically this was what Stain was referring to. Ironically, another Pope, John Paul, had a major part in bring down the Soviet Union and he had no divisions.
Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest papal reign. After starting as a liberal he reversed positions and strongly condemned liberalism. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing papal control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. He refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner of the Vatican". His diplomacy mixes many failures with some successes such as Austria-Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Canada, Tuscany, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti.