Pius IX ordered the kidnapping of the Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara in 1858 and raised him Catholic in the Vatican after learning he had been secretly baptized by a housekeeper; Pius X was the early ...

Since the 1800s, there have been 16 popes. Of those popes, Francis has the ninth-longest papacy so far. Over the past 200 years, the longest papacy reign was that of Pope Pius IX, who served over ...

Pope Pius IX flees Rome – Nov. 24, 1848. This week marks the anniversary of when Pope Pius IX was forced to flee Rome due to the revolutionary upheavals taking place across Europe in 1848.