FACT-CHECK: Pope Pius IX did not warn about future popes

Dec 23, 2023 | Fact Checked by PressOnePH

There is no evidence that Pope Pius IX said that  “If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the Catholic Faith, do not follow him.”

CLAIM: Pope Pius IX said “If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the Catholic Faith, do not follow him.”
 
RATING: FALSE

 

A post circulating on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) made a false claim that the late Pope Pius IX said: “If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the Catholic Faith, do not follow him.”

There are no existing records of the pope ever saying those words.

Based on a search of a Vatican subsite dedicated to Pius IX, none of his writings contained the alleged quote.

The alleged quote is attributed to a fictitious letter of the pope to a “Bishop Brizen.”

A check on the past and current bishops of the Catholic Church does not yield a “Bishop Brizen.”

However, there is a diocese of Brixen, not Brizen. The full name of the episcopal see is Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone (Bozen-Brixen).

During the papacy of Pius IX (1846 – 1878), the diocese was known as the Diocese of Brixen. The bishops during the reign of Pius IX were Bernhard Galura (1829-1856) and Vinzenz Gasser (1856-1879). 

Gasser attended the First Vatican Council, which Pius IX convened. It is highly probable that Pius IX and Gasser corresponded, but there is no document proving that the pope wrote those words in any correspondence to Gasser. — Rommel F. Lopez

 

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