VATICAN CITY — Contrary to the insinuations made by a press campaign that has taken place in recent days (cf. ZS00072006), Pius IX was a pontiff greatly loved by the Jewish world, to the point that, in 1847, Mosè Israel Kazzan, who at that time was chief rabbi of the Israelite University of Rome, dedicated a psalm and a prayer to the «glorious and immortal» Pius IX.
The psalm says: «You, O great God of hosts, when an entire people places all its pride in acting uprightly, grant it a king who is tender, a prince who represents you worthily». The monarch to whom Kazzan referred was Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, Pius IX (1792-1878), who at that time was also the highest authority of the independent Papal States.
With regard to the work of Pius IX in relation to the Jews, Kazzan wrote: «He showed his piety toward a debased people, a people emigrated, scattered and persecuted». «Before the world», he adds, «he removed it from the reproach of the nations, for you desired its restoration, O Eternal One!».
Kazzan’s psalm concludes in this way: «Let it be said in the remotest islands with how much glory Pius IX governs, how he administers justice with exactness, how the whole world shines with splendor because of him».
Pius IX is owed, among other things, the end of the Jewish «ghetto» of Rome, a district that had been reserved particularly for the Jewish inhabitants of the Eternal City. He himself sent men to defend the Jews against the anger of people who were irritated by this decision of the pontiff, and he asked that the Hebrews no longer be considered «foreigners».
John Paul II will beatify Pius IX and John XXIII in a ceremony that will take place on September 3.
July 27, 2000
Source: Zenit.org
