It is 1:30 a.m., Central European Time (GMT + 1). In a neutral Italy amidst a continent ravaged by war, the bells are about to toll all through the City and throughout the world.
Exactly at this moment, exactly 100 years ago, the great Pope who still lives in our hearts, the simple parroco
Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto
SAINT PIUS X
gave his soul up to the LORD he had always served faithfully, leaving the travails of the earth for eternity in the Church Triumphant, in sempiternal glory.
Thank you, Saint Pius X! Please, intercede for us in Heaven above, that we may accomplish the words of the Apostle to the Gentiles you made your lifelong aspiration: "to restore all things in Christ"!
For the past 8 years, we have strived to cover each major centennial of Pope Saint Pius' amazing holy work for the Restoration of All Things in Christ in his relatively short but highly consequential pontificate. No one since Saint Pius V, and no one after him, has accomplished a similar global work of true Catholic reformation, that is always based on Our Lord Jesus Christ himself. In the encyclical in which he presented his pontifical program, Pius X was clear:
Now the way to reach Christ is not hard to find: it is the Church. Rightly does Chrysostom inculcate: "The Church is thy hope, the Church is thy salvation, the Church is thy refuge." (Hom. de capto Euthropio, n. 6.) It was for this that Christ founded it, gaining it at the price of His blood, and made it the depositary of His doctrine and His laws, bestowing upon it at the same time an inexhaustible treasury of graces for the sanctification and salvation of men. You see, then, Venerable Brethren, the duty that has been imposed alike upon Us and upon you of bringing back to the discipline of the Church human society, now estranged from the wisdom of Christ; the Church will then subject it to Christ, and Christ to God. If We, through the goodness of God Himself, bring this task to a happy issue, We shall be rejoiced to see evil giving place to good, and hear, for our gladness, " a loud voice from heaven saying: Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ." (Apoc. xii., 10.) But if our desire to obtain this is to be fulfilled, we must use every means and exert all our energy to bring about the utter disappearance of the enormous and detestable wickedness, so characteristic of our time - the substitution of man for God; this done, it remains to restore to their ancient place of honor the most holy laws and counsels of the gospel; to proclaim aloud the truths taught by the Church, and her teachings on the sanctity of marriage, on the education and discipline of youth, on the possession and use of property, the duties that men owe to those who rule the State; and lastly to restore equilibrium between the different classes of society according to Christian precept and custom. This is what We, in submitting Ourselves to the manifestations of the Divine will, purpose to aim at during Our Pontificate, and We will use all our industry to attain it. [
E Supremi Apostolatus, Oct. 4, 1903]
And in eleven years, he did it. And his work was so magnificent that the "wickedness so characteristic of our time" that he mentioned above was almost unbelievably kept at bay from the Church during the bloodiest period of human history in the 50 years that followed his death, and that all good things that subsist in the Church after the debacle of the past half-century are imbued with his concern and passed through his hands. It is true that we often see the glass half-empty when we view the Church of our age, and the terrible years of her passion in the past half-century, during which, as one of his successors admitted, "the smoke of Satan enter[ed] into the Temple of God" -- but we must instead glorify God for the great man whose truly Catholic reforms built up the defenses that kept her integrity safe during her time of need. A sane liturgical movement, a strong Catholic identity, a safe doctrinal environment, an unsurpassed time of Eucharistic devotion, a rationalization of the law, the promotion of sound sacred music, the acceleration of the global expansion of missionary activities and the creation of numerous dioceses in mission areas, and the greatest vocational explosion in modern history beginning in his pontificate -- all accomplishments of the first pontificate of the 20th century, achievements which would collapse (but not totally!) only in the 1960s. So, instead of lamenting the recent past, we must celebrate the almost unsurpassed influence of one holy man whose work on this earth was a gift for God's Church, and whose eternal reward began exactly 100 years ago: Happy Birthday in Heaven, Saint Pius X, and thank you for everything.
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Transcribed below is the article on the death of Pope Pius X published in the August 22, 1914, edition of
The Tablet, with links to our various posts and series on several aspects of the Sarto Pontificate. The text also provides a general tone of how the holy Pope was viewed -- loved and revered in an unsurpassed way -- by his contemporaries in the Church in that, the first month of what would be a long and devastating war.
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It is with inexpressible sorrow that we have to announce the death of the Pope.
His Holiness had so far recovered from the serious illness which attacked him last year that hopes had been entertained that he might still be spared for the welfare of the Church. But he was in his eightieth year, and there can be no question that his powers, already weakened by his illness, were still further reduced by the sorrow with which, as he said, his heart was wrung at the outbreak of the great conflict in Europe [cf. centennial of exhortation
Dum Europa]
. On the fourteenth of this month, His Holiness contracted a slight bronchial cold, which, though accompanied by a rise in temperature, at first gave no anxiety. On Sunday he rose as usual, but was so weak that he was ordered back to bed. But Monday [Aug. 17]
night was a bad one, and on Tuesday [Aug. 18]
he was so much worse that it was decided to issue bulletins morning and evening. Unfortunately, the bronchitis trouble developed, and was accompanied by increased feverishness. On Wednesday [Aug. 19]
his state had become so critical, owing to a sudden relapse, that by evening death seemed imminent, and a telegram from our Rome correspondent informed us that it was "now only a question of hours." That was only too true. At half-past two on Thursday morning death came, and released the sufferer from the heavy weight of the great burden of the Supreme Pontificate.