Blessed Pius IX: restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England

(Vatican Radio)  Saturday 7th of February marks the day the Church remembers Blessed Pius IX, the man chosen to succeed Gregory XVI in 1846.

Unusually young at fifty-five Cardinal Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti popularly referred to as 'Pio Nono' was to become the longest serving pope in the history  of the Catholic Church.

Pius IX is best known perhaps for his 1864 encyclical 'Quantam Cura' with its attached 'Syllabus of Errors'  as well as for  having called the First Vatican Council two years later. But for English Catholics his name is inevitably linked to the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in their nation  back in 1850.

Professor of Church history, Norman Tanner SJ sheds light for us on this restoration in an interview with Veronica Scarisbrick: