Pope killed: the reaction?

I'm working on a scenario that's a bit too complicated to go into, but I can't seem to get a handle on one aspect of it:

In the scenario Sicilian troops end up invading the Papal States and killing the Pope in 1854 (the POD is more than a hundred years prior in case you're wondering why the Papal States still exist or why Sicilians are invading them).

My question is this: what kind of reaction would this cause? How upset would Catholics be over this? Would nations choose to go to war over the matter? I'm trying to gauge a reasonable reaction.
 
With a PoD of 100 year prior, there's no way we can tell you what the reaction is going to be. For all we know a wave of Protestantism has swept Europe and the Sicilians defeated the Pope as part of the final extinguishment of Catholicism.
 
With the information we have, the POD is around 1754... Years after the end of the Religious Wars.

The murder of the Pope will be a shock and a blasphemy in the eyes of many catholics, even those who are not hard believers. After all, the Pope is the God's representant on Earth : it's nearly a crime worth of divine punishment in the eyes of Catholics.

Not to mention that killing the Pope is equivalent to a Regicide in worse : it will be badly seen by the other powers and the Sicilians could loose the support of their allies because of this.

Besides, by 1854 the Papacy and other Religious powers are loosing ground in Europe : this will go against the Sicilians as the Pope is no longer a real danger in matter of Politics. So his murder had no reason to be accomplished.
 
If your nineteenth century is anything like OTL's, states don't go to war over dead priests. Of course anyone looking for a casus belli against Sicily might choose this, but while outrage in Catholic nations would be considerable, it is also likely to be relatively short-lived. Especially if proper apologies are issued.

that is, of course, assuming thedeath was more or less accidental. If they actually executed him, that could have a rather more lasting effect. recall how Pio Nono managed to stylise himself the 'prisoner of the Lateran' when the evil Italians did nothing more than tell him he was no longer absolute ruler of Rome.
 
I agree with Carlton Bach. Sicily would likely become a pariah for a while, but no one would go to war unless they were already itching for a pretext. I might even say that war is unlikely even if the Sicilians purposely execute the pope, but of course the shunning by the international community is likely to be greater.

But I would also have to ask, what happens to the rest of the Vatican? If the pope is dead, then there's going to have to be a conclave, and I doubt anyone will want to hold it in Sicilian-controlled Rome. Some other country will have to host it. And are the cardinals in Rome safe, or have some of them been killed too?
 
Why exactly are the Sicilians invading the Papal States and executing the Pope? That is what really makes the difference.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Could this perhaps convince the Papacy to flee Rome (or perhaps Italy altogether) for the duration of its Sicilian occupation? Perhaps Avignon is revived as the Pope's residence, assuming the Papacy is on good terms with France ITTL.
 
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