Pius IX's liberal policies initially made him very popular throughout Italy. He appointed an able and enlightened minister, Pellegrino Rossi, to administer the Papal States. He also showed himself hostile to Austrian influences, delighting Italian patriots, who hailed him as the coming redeemer of Italy. "They want to make a Napoleon of me who am only a poor country parson", he once declared.Schapiro, J. Salwyn, Ph.D., Modern and Contemporary European History (1815-1921) (Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1921, Revised Edition), pp. 204-205
