To Restore All Things in Christ

I finished reading Pope Pius X's first encyclical, E Supremi Apostolatus, this morning. What a wonderful pope! The document could have been written yesterday and what a clarion call for today's Catholics. Please read it. I'll give you just a few bits of its brilliance:

• 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.

Think about it. That statement was made in 1903. What would the saint say about the situation today when the attack on reason has led to people justifying the insane proposition that man can choose his own sex, mothers can kill and be celebrated for murdering not only their unborn babies in the womb but their born children. How would that saintly pope respond in order "to restore all things in Christ." Do you think he would be telling the world that all religions (including paganism) are pathways to God? Would Pachamama be celebrated in the Vatican garden? Would he invite representatives of other Christian denominations, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. to come to Assisi and worship together? Read his words and answer for yourself:

• ...with unlimited boldness man has put himself in place of God, exalting himself above all that is called God. He has done this in such a way that although he cannot utterly extinguish in himself all knowledge of God, he has condemned God's majesty and made the universe a temple in which he himself is to be adored...No one of sound mind can doubt the outcome of this contest between man and the Most High. By abusing his liberty, man can violate the right and the majesty of the Creator of the universe, but the victory will ever be with God. 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.

What a message of hope in an age where we see unparalleled "audacity" from those in authority in the Church. We may not understand how God is using the current horrors of the modern culture (and the modern Church, sad to say) to accomplish His Will, but we can be confident that He is. We simply must trust in Him while we continue to work "to restore all things in Christ." Pope Pius X calls on all to pray and work, both clergy and laity. He begins with the bishops and their priests:  

• We and you have the duty of bringing human society, now estranged from the wisdom of Christ, back to the discipline of the Church....If, however, Our desire to obtain this end is to be fulfilled, We must use every means and bend every effort to bring about the total disappearance of that enormous and detestable wickedness so characteristic of our time -- the substitution of man for God.

Modern popes opened the window to the world and instead of going out to convert the world, allowed the world in to try to convert the Church. Dereliction of duty is not to strong a description for what's happened in recent decades. But we are still called "to restore all things in Christ." And how is this duty to be accomplished in the world? It is one that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre recognized when he established the Society of St. Pius X, well named for its focus on the seminary training of priests. We need holy and faithful clergy:

• The means to be employed in attaining this great end are so obvious that it seems superfluous to mention them. Let your first care be to form Christ in those who are destined by the duty of their vocation to form Him in others. We refer to priests, Venerable Brethren. All those who are stamped with the seal of the priesthood must realize that  they have the same mission to the people among whom they live as that which Paul proclaimed he received...."It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me."...Your greatest diligence, therefore, will be directed towards the right government and ordering of your seminaries, so that they may flourish both in sound doctrine and upright morals. Look upon your seminary as the delight of your heart and on its behalf neglect none of those provisions which the Council of Trent has prescribed with admirable forethought.

The pope emphasized the "right government and order of the seminaries," a duty we saw abandoned in recent decades with modernist gatekeepers banning orthodox Catholic applicants and welcoming homosexuals and dissenters. Their action resulted in seminaries such as the "pink palace," St. Mary's in Baltimore, known for the practice of sodomy by the seminarians and their instructors. If you doubt what I'm saying, read Michael Rose's book, Goodbye, Good Men. Remember that it was seminarians who begged Archbishop Lefebvre not to abandon them. Thanks be to God for the SSPX which continues to provide excellent formation in their seminaries!

I'll close with one last quote about the priesthood:

• Even though everyone is included in the exhortation "to advance towards the perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ," it is principally addressed to him who exercises the sacerdotal ministry. He is therefore called another Christ, not merely by the communication of power, but especially because he imitates His works. He should therefore bear stamped upon himself the image of Christ. [my emphasis]

Wow! How many priests, bishops, and even popes today "bear stamped upon [themselves] the image of Christ?" Would you describe Cardinal Fernandez that way? How about Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal McCarrick, Cardinal Bernardin, or Cardinal Law? How about Pope Francis or Pope Leo? The companion question, of course, is how many of we laity reflect the "image of Christ" to those we meet, especially in our own families? Are you beating your breast like I am? Increase our charity, Lord? And, in fact, Pope Pius X ends with an exhortation to charity. Certainly it is the greatest virtue as St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13. An increase in charity is definitely something for which to strive.

Finally, one bit of trivia. Every footnote in the encyclical is Scriptural. Compare that to to the voluminous encyclicals of the post Vatican II popes. Those under the pontificate of Francis are loaded with references to his own documents and Vatican II as if the Church only began in the 1960s. It certainly doesn't reflect humility! It is so different from the past when popes referenced great saints and their writings, Doctors of the Church, and past councils like Nicaea and Trent. 

I want to read all 17 of Pope Pius X's encyclicals. I've read Pascendi's condemnation of modernism several times in the past. Next I plan to read Lamentabili Sane issued by the predecessor of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It condemns 65 "novelties" that "captivate the faithful’s minds and corrupt the purity of their faith." How many fill the agenda of the synodal approach poisoning the faith? 

Catholics are called to dispel ignorance beginning with our own. Reading the encyclicals of Pope Pius X is a good place to work on that obligation. We can balance it with our study of Scripture which the pope recommended reading every day. Many of the bishops with the duty to "teach" have abandoned their role of teacher giving it over to "progressives" who scandalize. Some bishops, sad to say, teach dissent and heresy. As grownups we need to respond by taking control of our own education in the faith. If we aren't doing that, we can't blame anyone but ourselves for being spiritual ignoramuses.

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.

Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

St. Joseph, patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.

Pope St. Pius X, pray for us.

Angels and saints of God, pray for us.