Saint Pius X

Pope
(1835–1914)

Saint Pius X, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto on June 2, 1835, at Riese in the Veneto region of Italy, was the son of a village postman and a seamstress. He grew up in poverty, walking barefoot to school and carrying his shoes under his arm to spare them, putting them on only at the school door. He was educated at the seminary of Padua through the generosity of a benefactor and was ordained a priest in 1858. He served as a parish priest and then as a bishop before being elected Pope in 1903, succeeding Leo XIII.

As pope he took as his motto Instaurare omnia in Christo, to restore all things in Christ, and he pursued this goal through a series of far-reaching reforms. He reformed the liturgy, revising the breviary and simplifying the calendar. He required the codification of canon law, which was completed after his death as the Code of 1917. He reorganised the Roman Curia. He promoted the frequent reception of Holy Communion and famously lowered the age of First Communion to the age of reason, around seven, in his decree Quam Singulari of 1910, a reform that brought millions of children to the Eucharistic table who had previously been excluded for years.

He is also remembered for his condemnation of Modernism, the theological tendency that sought to reconcile Catholic doctrine with modern philosophical and historical criticism in ways he judged incompatible with the faith. His decree Lamentabili and the encyclical Pascendi of 1907 defined and rejected this tendency and led to a period of heightened vigilance in Catholic intellectual life.

He died on August 20, 1914, just weeks after the outbreak of the First World War, having said that he would willingly die if he could stop the war. He was beatified in 1951 and canonised by Pope Pius XII in 1954. He is the only pope of the twentieth century to have been canonised. His feast is celebrated on August 21st.