Pope Pius IX
Early life and ministry

Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti was born on 13 May 1792 in Senigallia. He was the ninth child born into the noble family of Girolamo dei Conti Ferretti (1750–1833) and Caterina Antonia Maddalena Solazzei di Fano (1764–1842). He was baptized on the day of his birth with the names Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro. He was educated at the Piarist College in Volterra and in Rome. An unreliable account published many years later suggests that the young Count Mastai was engaged to the daughter of the (Protestant) Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore, William Foster. Certainly, if there was ever any such engagement, it did not proceed.

In 1814, as a theology student in his hometown of Sinigaglia, he met Pope Pius VII, who had returned from French captivity. In 1815, he entered the Papal Noble Guard but was soon dismissed after an epileptic seizure. He threw himself on the mercy of Pius VII, who elevated him and supported his continued theological studies.

Mastai was ordained a priest on 10 April 1819. The pope had originally insisted that another priest should assist Mastai during Holy Mass, but rescinded the stipulation after the seizures became less frequent. He initially worked as the rector of the Tata Giovanni Institute in Rome.

Shortly before his death, Pius VII – following Chilean leader Bernardo O'Higgins ' wish to have the Pope reorganize the Catholic Church of the new republic – named him auditor to assist the apostolic nuncio, Monsignore Giovanni Muzi, in the first mission to post-revolutionary South America. The mission had the objective to map out the role of the Catholic Church in Chile and its relationship with the state, but when it finally arrived in Santiago in March 1824, O'Higgins had been overthrown and replaced by General Ramón Freire, who was less well-disposed toward the Church and had already taken hostile measures such as the seizure of Church property. Having ended in failure, the mission returned to Europe. Nevertheless, Mastai had been the first future pope ever to have been in the Americas. Upon his return to Rome, the successor of Pius VII, Pope Leo XII, appointed him head of the hospital of San Michele a Ripa in Rome (1825–1827) and canon of Santa Maria in Via Lata.

Pope Leo XII appointed the 35-year-old Mastai Ferretti Archbishop of Spoleto in 1827. In 1831, the abortive revolution that had begun in Parma and Modena spread to Spoleto; the Archbishop obtained a general pardon after it was suppressed, gaining him a reputation for being liberal. During an earthquake, he made a reputation as an efficient organizer of relief and great charity. The following year he was moved to the more prestigious Diocese of Imola, was made a cardinal in pectore in 1839, and in 1840 was publicly announced as cardinal-priest of Santi Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano. As in Spoleto, his episcopal priorities were the formation of priests through improved education and charities. He became known for visiting prisoners in jail and for programs for street children. Cardinal Mastai Ferretti was considered a liberal during his episcopate in Spoleto and Imola because he supported administrative changes in the Papal States and sympathized with the nationalist movement in Italy.
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