let me put it this way, a Papal States secular enough to do this is not a Papal States we have to worry about being a theocratic nightmare.
Agreed. It should also be pointed out that if the Papal States try to take all of Italy, they will anger some of the papacy's strongest supporters.
The papacy claimed ultimate suzerainity over the whole damn Western Europe, for that matter, all the Middle Ages long. In a sense, a great part of Italy was under it; the kingdom of Sicily was under formal vassalage, not to mention the actual Papal states, that however were just a chaotic patchwork of loosely-knit free cities, feudal lordships, duchies and other random stuff with varying degrees of actual central control.
The border of the area actually claimed by the Papal states varied in a lot of ways, but meant really little before around 1400. Only after that the bunch started to acquire some coherence.
The OTL Papal states were not spearheading progress in Early Modern times, but neither were a theocratic backwater. Censorship was stronger than other Catholic areas, but so was in the rest of Italy.
Wait are you saying Italian states in general had strict Censorship laws? I thought that states like Florence and Venice usually were the most liberal in Europe.
During what general time period - generally need to know when it happens to have a think about the possible butterflies? That said any Italy that's the Papal States is probably going to be a bad thing I would guess. Fewer banks, less trade, say goodbye to elected government and a lot of civil rights, repression of anything that's considered to contradict Church teachings or beliefs. It's also going to make relations with the secular rulers of Europe a bit trickier I would expect. Where as before the Pope was merely ruler of a small-ish country this now gives them a fair bit of power, that could make them try and throw their weight around a bit more. The Kings and Queens aren't going to like an expansionary Papal States, especially those that border it.
Also, are the Papal States retaining Avignon?
I'm thinking it could happen in the early period of Pope Pius IX. what if he remained liberal, making the Papal States, and later Papal Italy, more democratic and liberal.
In 1848 these were a series of revolutions in Italy led by intellectuals and agitators who desired a liberal government. If a those revolutionist pledged their alliance to the liberal Pope Pius IX.
in the OTL Pope Pius IX aroused the hopes of political liberals and of the poor both in the Papal States and throughout Italy. He began numerous political and economic reforms. Most dramatically he immediately pardoned hundreds of political prisoners, creating a sensation. He created a Council of State in order to share his power, as well as a municipal council for Rome and a Citizens' Guard so that the middle class would be armed and support his regime. These projects raised high hopes for greater popular influence in the papal government.
No, I was referring to the censorship operated directly by the Church, but that was effectively enforced mainly in Italy, with the exception of Venice, that actually was very liberaly (don't know much about Florence, but I think the Roman Inquisition was able to mess quite a bit there).Wait are you saying Italian states in general had strict Censorship laws? I thought that states like Florence and Venice usually were the most liberal in Europe.
You'll have to flap some strong butterfly wings to make Pius not turn back on the liberalization program, perhaps even going so far as to change his character in several ways. The straw the broke the camel's back IOTL was the decision of Piedmontese general Giacomo Durando, whom Pius had invited to command the Papal forces sent north to support the Piedmontese invasion of Austria, to cross the Po after the Austrians began their siege of Venice. However even if you remove that Pius would likely find another reason to balk at the liberal-unification movement, so again like I said you'll have to go back quite away. You might even have to butterfly away Pius from taken the Papacy, and have the expected liberal choice of Tommaso Pasquale Gizzi come out on top somehow in the 1846 Papal conclave. Pius IX was in favor of liberalization only to the extent that it made his state more efficiently run; he was hard-set against any changes that would limit or infringe on Papal power. That's going to run into the liberals demands for a strong parliament with its own legislative initiative that wasn't beholden to the Papacy. Something's got to give. Pius wouldn't willing take on a role as a mere figurehead of a united Italy over retaining his position as theocratic autocrat of his own personal kingdom.
You don't have to chance Pius' character for him to stick with his liberal ideology. He only turned conservative after assasinations and terrorist acts against some of his ministers. now, if if those assasinations and terrorist acts didn't happen? he would simply remain liberal. And in the case of Tommasa Gizzi, he was the Pius' Cardinal Secretary of State (sort of Prime minister) and they both wanted to make the Papal States liberal and democratic and give progress to the Papal States. But he reseigned from his function when Pius became conservative. But if Pius had remained liberal, he would have sticked to his position.
Pius turned long before the assassination of Rossi. As I stated already, Pius officially abandoned the League of Italian States and any intention on his part of leading up Papal unification of Italy as early as April of 1848. He explicitly rejected 'the treacherous advice of those who would have the Roman Pontiff to be the head and to preside over the formation of some sort of novel republic of the whole Italian people' in a well-publicized and proclaimed Papal allocution. You'll either need to change Pius or get rid of him if you want an 1848 Papal unification of Italy. It's possible, but unlikely without an appropriately-sized change.