Church policies under Pope Pius IX are…

Church policies under Pope Pius IX are dominated by a defense of the rights of the Church and the free exercise of religion for Catholics in countries like Russia and the Ottoman Empire, although this defense is only on behalf of Catholics.

He also fights against what he perceives to be anti-Catholic philosophies in countries like Italy, Germany and France.

Many of the Pope's subjects want to be Italian instead.

The soldiers who have guarded the Pope from Italians since 1849 are largely French and Austrian.

In Syllabus errorum, promulgated on December 8, 1864, Pope Pius IX condemns theological liberalism as an error and claims for the supremacy of Roman Catholic Church authority over the civil society.

He also condemns rationalism and socialism.

Statements the encyclical condemns as false include the following:
"human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil" (No. 3)
"All the truths of religion proceed from the innate strength of human reason; hence reason is the ultimate standard by which man can and ought to arrive at the knowledge of all truths of every kind." (No. 4) 
"in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship." (No. 77)
"Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church" (No. 18).
"the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church." (No. 55)
"every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) and that
"it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship." (No.78)
"the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with, progress, liberalism and modern civilization. (No.80)

Reactions are uniformly negative within the Protestant world.

The document meets with a mixed reception among Catholics; many accept it wholeheartedly, others want a clarification of some points, and still others are as shocked as their Protestant neighbors by the apparent broad scope of the condemnations.

In the wake of the controversy following the document's release, Pius IX will refer  to it as "raw meat needing to be cooked."

However, others within the church who support the syllabus disagree that there is any misinterpretation of the condemnations.