On the Feast Day of Pope St. Pius X: Challenging Times are Nothing New!

In the old calendar, today is the feast of Pope St. Pius X (pope from 1903-1914). In honor of his feast day, I am reading selections from My Words Will Not Pass Away: doctrinal writings of St. Pius X. I am personally grateful to this pope for encouraging the frequent, even daily, reception of Holy Communion and reducing the age for reception to the age of reason around seven years old. [This is what the Church means when it talks about "development of doctrine". It doesn't mean playing fast and loose with the perennial teachings of Holy Mother Church.] We have a lot to learn from this great saint!

The document I'm reading today is the encyclical, E Supremi Apostolatus, the first official message of his pontificate. After describing his fearful reluctance to be raised to the chair of Peter, Pope Pius writes:

We were terrified beyond all else by the disastrous state of human society today. Who can fail to see that at the present time society is suffering more than in any past age from a terrible and radical malady which, while developing every day and gnawing into its very being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, this disease is apostasy from God. Truly nothing is more all allied with ruin, according to the saying of the the Prophet: "For, behold, they that go away from thee perish." We saw, therefore, that in virtue of the ministry of the Pontificate which was to be entrusted to Us, We must hasten to find a rememdy for this great evil. Thus We considered as addressed to Us the Divine Command: "Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to waste and to destroy and to build and to plant."... Relying on the power of God in the work entrusted to Us, We proclaim that we have no other program in the Supreme Pontificate than that "of re-establishing all things in Christ." so that "Christ may be all things and in all."

Giuseppe Sarto was born of peasant parents in 1835, the second of ten children. He grew up in a period of rapid change with the 2nd Industrial Revolution, wars around the globe, famine, disease, expansion of freemasonry, etc. Darwin and Marx were spreading their atheistic philosophies and attracting many adherents. It was a time of great upheaval for the world. But one can say that about most ages. 

The devil has never confined himself to one century. The level of his success in any era can be predicted based on the strength of his greatest enemy, the Catholic Church. Pope Pius X was a serious adversary. The pope recognized that the Eucharist and Our Lady, under her title of Our Lady of Confidence, were our greatest weapons to defeat the prince of this world. But he also knew that for the laity to be holy, they needed a holy and well educated clergy. He was a reformer pope who impacted sacred music, bible studies, Canon Law, and seminary life - always from the perspective of "reestablishing all things in Christ."

Pope Pius X lamented the "sacrilegious war which is now almost universally being stirred up and fomented against God....We find extinguished among the majority of men all respect for the Eternal God and no regard pain in manifestations of public and private life to the Supreme Will. On the contrary, every effort and artifice is employed to blot out the memory and the knowledge of God." He feared that all this was "the foretaste and perhaps the beginning of those evils reserved for the last days" writing that he could not "think otherwise in virtue of the audacity and wrath employed everywhere in persecuting religion, in combating the dogmas of faith...this is the distinguishing mark of the Antichrist."

As a powerful adversary against modernism, a scourge that had even infected the clergy and entered the Church, the saint nevertheless recognized that God's enemies were fighting a lost cause:

In fact, in the very moment when man, under the delusion of his triumph, rises up with most audacity, defeat is knocking at the door. We are assured of this in the Sacred Scripture by God Himself. Seemingly unmindful of His strength and greatness, He "overlooks the sins of men," (Wisd. 11:24) but swiftly, after these apparent retreats, "aroused like a mighty man that has been overcome by wine," (Ps 77:65) "he shall break the heads of his enemies," (Ps 67:22) that all may know "that God is king of all the earth."(Ps. 46:8)

Could that not have been written today? Pope St. Pius X is a man for all seasons, especially this season of corruption and apostasy among the hierarchy which was probably the warning of the third secret of Fatima which remains shrouded in mystery.

Let us ask the intercession of Pope St. Pius X for the outcome of the next conclave which cannot be too far distant for us. In his encyclical letter to the bishops he urged them to:

[bend] every effort to hasten the work of God...not merely by praying assiduously...but more important still, by openly professing in word and deed God's supreme dominion over man and all things, in order that His right to command and His authority may be fully realized and respected.

Should we not do the same? We are the Church Militant, not the Church Picnic!

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

St. Joseph, Pillar of Families, pray for us.

Pope St. Pius X, pray for us that we may have the courage to work to restore all things in Christ Jesus, our Sovereign Lord.