The Tenth Pope Named Pius

There have been twelve popes named Pius; the first (Pope Saint Pius I) in the second century; the latest (Pope Pius XII) reigning from 1939 to 1958. Popes named Pius have seen the Church through tumultuous times: During Pope St. Pius V’s pontificate, the Catechism of the Council of Trent was published and also revised editions of the Roman Missal and Breviary as he continued the Church’s implantation of the reforms of the Council of Trent. Pope Pius VII, whose cause for canonization was promoted by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, endured imprisonment and exile at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte and worked for the freedom of the Church in France after the Revolution and Reign of Terror. Pope (Venerable) Pius XII served during World War II, doing all he could to aid civilians affected by the war, especially leading efforts to save Jews in Italy and Rome, descrying the Nazi regime’s campaigns against non-Aryans, including the Polish Catholics.

Pope St. Pius X, who reigned a little more than 11 years from 1903 to 1914, was a reforming pontiff, taking the motto Instaurare Omnia in Christo, or "to restore all things in Christ" to guide his papacy. Like Pope St. Pius V, he lived simply, stating that he had been born poor, had lived poor, and wanted to die poor. He shared Pius V’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, writing an encyclical on the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Also like Pius V—and his immediate predecessor Pope Leo XIII—he promoted the method and works of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Pius X was born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto on June 2, 1835 in what was then the Kingdom of Lombardy. As a parish priest and then bishop he had more pastoral experience than previous popes, but he also taught theology in seminary even though he never earned a doctorate. When he succeeded Pope Leo XIII, he saw the great danger to the Catholic faith as Modernism, which he considered the "synthesis of all heresies." Setting out a long list of Modernist propositions which he said Catholic could not agree, he also wrote an encyclical descrying Modernism, Pascendi dominici gregis ("Feeding the Lord's Flock"), pointing out that the agnosticism of the Modernists on matters of Church doctrine, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the Sacraments could lead to atheism. Pius X demanded loyalty oaths against Modernism from all Catholic priests.

Some scholars and theologians, like Alfred Loisy and George Tyrell, were removed from teaching positions, forbidden to publish their works, and even excommunicated. Some faithful but innovative scholars and theologians, like Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange, OP, founder of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, were also suspected and hampered in their efforts. During the reign of Pope Pius XII, the Ecole Biblique would publish The Jerusalem Bible translated not from the Latin Vulgate but from Greek and Hebrew texts; during Pope St. Pius X’s campaign against Modernism, such a volume might not have been possible. Marvin R. O’Connell provides an excellent overview of the period in Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995).

More positively, Pius X encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion and earlier First Communion. First Holy Communion had been delayed until the teenaged years, but he moved it to the age of reason, about seven years old, when a child could accept the doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Host. He is the “Pope of the Blessed Sacrament”.

Other liturgical reforms included the restoration of Gregorian chant in the Mass instead of classical settings by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, or Cherubini. His motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, written in Italian, also encouraged Renaissance polyphony, leading to the revival of works by Victoria, Palestrina, Byrd, and others from the sixteenth century.

Pius X also began the process of revising and regularizing the Code of Canon Law for the universal Church and, because of his pastoral experience, required the teaching of catechism classes in every parish in the world, establishing the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Pope Pius X described the duties of a catechist in his 1905 encyclical, Acerbo Nimis (“At this very troubled and difficult time”):

The task of the catechist is to take up one or other of the truths of faith or of Christian morality and then explain it in all its parts; and since amendment of life is the chief aim of his instruction, the catechist must needs make a comparison between what God commands us to do and what is our actual conduct. After this, he will use examples appropriately taken from the Holy Scriptures, Church history, and the lives of the saints - thus moving his hearers and clearly pointing out to them how they are to regulate their own conduct. He should, in conclusion, earnestly exhort all present to dread and avoid vice and to practice virtue.

As a pastor, Pius X knew this material had to be taught so that the students, both young and old, would understand it, but he also required that the catechesis be comprehensive and complete:

The catechetical instruction shall be based on the Catechism of the Council of Trent; and the matter is to be divided in such a way that in the space of four or five years, treatment will be given to the Apostles' Creed, the Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Precepts of the Church.

As pastor in Rome, Pope Pius X preached a homily every Sunday at St. Peter’s and gave catechetical instructions himself.

Pope Pius X dealt with some difficult church-state relationships in Europe, particularly in France, where conflict led to the official secularization of French society, called laicite. France had long been known as the Eldest Daughter of the Church and after the French Revolution, strong links between the government and Church, especially in education and healthcare, had been re-established. The official 1905 separation of Church and State ended that cooperation and Pius X condemned that action.

In the United States, he recognized the growth and stability of the Catholic hierarchy, and removed it from the authority of the Congregation of Propaganda—the U.S.A. was no longer considered mission territory. On August 15, 1913, Pope Pius X authorized the building of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, making a donation in Italian lire to its construction.

When he died on August 20, 1914, Europe was on the brink of World War I. Devotion to him led to the process for his canonization to begin quickly and he was beatified by Pope Pius XII on June 3, 1951 and canonized on Mary 29, 1954—the first pope to be canonized since Pope Pius V in 1712.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us!

Cardinal Merry del Val and Blessed John Henry Newman

From The Catholic Herald, this article by Stephen Bullivant, Senior Lecturer in Theology and Ethics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, describes how one faction in Catholic theology, the Modernists, tried to claim Newman as one of them. Bullivant demonstrates the crucial role of Rafael Merry del Val y de Zulueta, Cardinal Merry del Val, who died on February 26, 1930:

His unlikely name notwithstanding, Merry del Val is surely among the most remarkable churchmen this country has ever produced. The son of a Spanish diplomat, he was born in London in 1865. He lived here until he was thirteen, later returning to begin his ordination studies at Ushaw. Following a meteoric rise within the Vatican diplomatic corps – including, bizarrely, being made a monsignor before he was a priest – he was ultimately appointed Secretary of State by Pius X in 1903, aged just 38. Though a Spanish national, he considered himself to ‘be English to all intents and purposes’, even to the point of dreaming in English. There were rumours of his succeeding Cardinal Bourne as Archbishop of Westminster in 1903.

Though this was not to be – Pius had other plans for him – his gimlet eye remained fixed on English ecclesiastical life, and on its burgeoning modernism especially. It was Merry del Val who commissioned Joseph Lemius, procurator of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, to draft Pascendi; Merry del Val who took a lead role in enforcing its anti-modernist agenda; and – nota bene – Merry del Val who tirelessly championed Newman’s orthodoxy, using the semi-official L’Osservatore Romano to underline the ‘world of difference between what the Cardinal taught and the Modernism which is condemned in the Encyclical.’

Pius himself, in the same letter I quoted above, wrote to Bishop O’Dwyer of Limerick to commend him for showing, in a pamphlet, that ‘the writings of Cardinal Newman, far from being in disagreement with Our Encyclical Letter Pascendi, are very much in harmony with it’. To [George] Tyrrell’s guessing assertions, neither the magisterium nor its closest confidants had then any intention whatsoever of censuring, or casting aspersions upon, Newman’s thought and legacy. The simple fact is that, at this time, nobody – Protestant or Catholic, ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ – had a bad word to say about him.

Today especially, this point is of more than merely historical interest. The significant point is this: had Tyrrell been more successful in arguing for Newman’s condemnation, or Merry del Val and St Pius less proactive in denying it, then a great doubt would surely have been cast over his orthodoxy. So much so, that even his latter-day supporters John Paul II (who declared him Venerable) and Benedict XVI (who broke his own protocol to beatify him personally, and who has previously suggested Newman to be a Doctor of a Church) might have been wary of overturning it.

Read the rest there. The best book on the Modernist Crisis and papal response to it is Marvin R. O'Connell's Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis, published by the Catholic University of America Press:

Here for the first time [published in 1994], the story of the Catholic Modernists is presented as a chronological narrative of events, with special emphasis placed upon the persons involved, their interrelations and opinions. Through a study of the participants, Marvin O'Connell traces the emergence of Modernism and the controversies related to it, offers a careful examination of the movement's multiple causes and ramifications, and places the events within the political, social, and intellectual context of the time.

Rather than analyze the phenomenon called Catholic Modernism or argue one side or the other, the author tells the story of the Modernists themselves. These intellectuals-scripture scholars, philosophers, apologists, priests, and laypersons-were bound together by a mutual concern that the church could not survive the challenges of the modern world unless it brought its teaching and its constitution into line with contemporary thought. They offered unconventional solutions to the religious questions of the day, solutions they were convinced would reform and revivify their church.

Their story involves a cast of fascinating characters: the deeply learned and deeply skeptical exegete, Alfred Loisy; the lyrical and melancholy Anglo-Irish Jesuit, George Tyrell; the eccentric polymath, Friedrich von Hegel; the apostle of Christian democracy, Romolo Murri; the combative philosopher, Lucien Laberthonniere, and his mentor, Maurice Blondel. Against them stood the pope who, in the name of doctrinal integrity, sought to root out and destroy their ideas.

O'Connell follows the drama step by step until it reaches its climax in the condemnations of 1907, when Pius X denounced Catholic Modernism as the synthesis of all heresies. The author recounts the story largely in the words of the Modernists and their opponents, as well as those who, like the journalist and biographer Wilfrid Ward and the scripture scholar Marie-Joseph Lagrange, desperately sought a middle ground.

Critics on Trial offers the nonspecialist a reliable, compelling account of the Modernist crisis; it offers the student of nineteenth- and twentieth-century religious and intellectual history a thorough introduction to the topic.

Cardinal Merry del Val wrote the great Litany of Humility:

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

Pope St. Pius X and Holy Communion

I wrote this for the Pray the Mass website which shut down last year. I thought it was appropriate to bring it back to the web for the 100th anniversary of Pope St. Pius X's death--his is feast, however, is tomorrow:

Although we may think of the Middle Ages as a time of great faith and devotion to the Holy Eucharist, Catholics did not receive Holy Communion often. As the late Eric Ives pointed out in his 2013 study, The Reformation Experience, 16th century Catholics in England demonstrated great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. At Sunday Mass, they were most attentive at the moment of consecration, worshipping the Body and the Blood of Jesus as the priest elevated the Host and the Chalice. At great shrines and cathedrals, the faithful wanted to see the Precious Body and Blood as each Mass was celebrated in separate chapels. The Feast of Corpus Christi was instantly popular in England with its processions and special sequence and hymns. During Holy Week, the Sarum rite vigil protecting the consecrated Host from Good Friday to Easter also demonstrates their devotion to the Real Presence. The one thing they did not do is receive Holy Communion often. They were obligated to receive during the Easter Season (Easter Duty), but the practice of frequent Communion had fallen off during the Middle Ages.

The Council of Trent addressed this issue of Catholic laity not receiving Holy Communion and urged frequent reception of the Eucharist by the laity at Mass, provided that they were free of Mortal Sin. Many of the great religious orders founded after the Reformation, like the Society of Jesus, the Oratorians, the Redemptorists, and others, encouraged the laity to receive Holy Communion and also aided the laity with devotions and prayers.

Jansenism, a heretical movement beginning in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, discouraged frequent Communion. Pope St. Pius X referred to this problem in his “Sacra Tridentina: On Frequent and Daily Reception of Holy Communion,” issued on December 20, 1905:

Piety, however, grew cold, and especially afterward because of the widespread plague of Jansenism, disputes began to arise concerning the dispositions with which one ought to receive frequent and daily Communion; and writers vied with one another in demanding more and more stringent conditions as necessary to be fulfilled. The result of such disputes was that very few were considered worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist daily, and to derive from this most health-giving Sacrament its more abundant fruits; the others were content to partake of it once a year, or once a month, or at most once a week. To such a degree, indeed, was rigorism carried that whole classes of persons were excluded from a frequent approach to the Holy Table, for instance, merchants or those who were married. 

Jansenism required such rigorous standards of preparation because of its overall belief “that there are some commands of God which just men cannot keep, no matter how hard they wish and strive” as stated in one of the five propositions condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653.

Although, as Pope St. Pius X wrote, several of his predecessors made statements against these rigorist views,

The poison of Jansenism, however, which, under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist, had infected the minds even of good men, was by no means a thing of the past. The question as to the dispositions for the proper and licit reception of Holy Communion survived the declarations of the Holy See, and it was a fact that certain theologians of good repute were of the opinion that daily Communion could be permitted to the faithful only rarely and subject to many conditions.

The Pope pointed out that others went to the opposite extreme:

They held that daily Communion was prescribed by divine law and that no day should pass without communicating, and besides other practices not in accord with the approved usage of the Church, they determined that the Eucharist must be received even on Good Friday and in fact so administered it.

(Note that he was writing before the major revision of the Holy Week liturgy, which now includes a Communion service on Good Friday with Hosts consecrated at Mass on Holy Thursday.)

So Pope St. Pius X stated unequivocally that members of the laity were to be encouraged to receive Holy Communion frequently, even daily, as long as they had the correct disposition and were not in a state of Mortal Sin. He called on both factions to unite around this discipline and not place obstacles in the way of the lay faithful. For this document, and his decision on the proper age for First Holy Communion, Pope St. Pius X became known as “the Pope of the Eucharist”.

In 1910 he approved a “Decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Discipline of the Sacraments on First Communion” setting the age of discretion or reason at about age seven. Inspired by the verse from the Synoptic Gospels: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of God”; he again urged that the Church unite around this discipline because of the sacramental benefits of Holy Communion.

Giuseppe Sarto succeeded Pope Leo XIII in 1903 and began his reign at Pope Pius X with the motto “To Restore all Things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). Among other liturgical reforms, he also revised the Breviary and issued the motu proprio “Tra le Sollecitudini” in 1903 soon after becoming pope encouraging not only the revival of Gregorian chant in the celebration of Mass, but active participation by the laity in chant. He acknowledged progress in the arts by commending the use of Renaissance polyphony (especially the works of Palestrina), but warned against any “theatrical” or “profane” influences in liturgical music.

Pope Pius X died in on August 20, 1914 at the beginning of World War I and was succeeded by Benedict XV. In 1954 he was canonized and his feast is on August 21 (since St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s feast is on August 20).

Pope St. Pius X, the Pope of the Eucharist, pray for us!

Mosul Today and England Yesterday

Father Christopher Colven, rector of St. James, Spanish Place, offers these reflections on the current state of affairs in Mosul, Iraq and in the England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:

The Christian communities of Iraq are among the oldest that have existed and it is particularly painful to see the witness of 2,000 years persecuted and dispersed. As our bishops reminded us last weekend, the Eucharist will have been celebrated in Mosul for the best part of two millennia – but now no more – no altar, no priest, no Christian people. We must continue to pray and do whatever we can for our brothers and sisters as they seek a new security, but it does us well to remember that what we take so easily for granted is a great privilege denied to many in our own times, and that there were many sad years here in England when the state forbade the celebration of the Mass. The reredos above the Martyrs altar in Saint Michael’s Chapel (this is the original which has been reproduced in many other Catholic churches) depicts a few of those who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives for the sake of the Mass. Several of those depicted were ordinary working people - John Roche, the Thames lighterman, together with three housewives Margaret Clitheroe, Anne Line and Margaret Ward – all of them martyred for trying to ensure that, despite every attempt to frustrate them, the Holy Sacrifice would continue to be offered on English soil.

Father Colven goes on to highlight our proper dispositions for receiving Holy Communion at Mass, citing Pope St. Pius X, whose memorial we will celebrate on Thursday this week:

The new Bishop of East Anglia has recently made the point that we are in danger of losing our grasp on the Eucharistic Mystery: because the Mass is now so easily available (a minimum of three Masses each weekday here at Spanish Place alone) and Holy Communion is received as a matter of course (often without any real time of preparation) we can become blasé in approaching the Bread of Life. It was Saint Pius X at the beginning of the last century who encouraged all Catholics to make their Holy Communion as regularly as possible – and that is clearly a very good thing to do – but Saint Paul issues a stern warning in his dealings with the Corinthian Christians about any failure to “discern the Lord’s Body” when doing so: we must never treat holy things in a casual way. “Everyone is to recollect themselves before eating this bread and drinking this cup because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation” (1 Corinthians 11:28).

Then he brings us back to the memory of the English Catholic martyrs who were willing to suffer so much for the sake of the Holy Eucharist, the source and summit of our Catholic faith:

The current suffering of so many of those who are with us “in Christ", as well as the particular history of the Catholic Church in these islands, should give  pause for thought and the opportunity to think out afresh what the celebration of the Eucharist means to us.  Tyburn Tree, where so many of countrymen and women accepted terrible deaths is only a few hundred yards from Saint James’s doors – “lest we forget”. Mother Teresa of Calcutta caused a notice to be  put up in the sacristy of each of her convents worldwide: it was an admonition to the celebrant – but it applies as well to the faithful gathered around any altar: “O priest of God, offer this Mass as if it were your first … and as if it were your last”.

Image credit.

Cardinal Merry del Val, RIP

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred to others,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
From the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being suspected,
That others may be loved more than I, O Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
That, in the opinion of the world, others may, increase and I may decrease,
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, O Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
Amen.

Cardinal Rafael Merry de Val, Secretary of State for Pope St. Pius X, died on Feburary 26, 1930. He composed the Litany of Humility, above. He was born in England at the Spanish Embassy in London on October 10, 1865 and was educated at Catholic schools in England and then in Rome.

According to this article, he maintained those early links with England, including his investigation of the validity of Anglican Orders in the Catholic Church:

After graduating from the Pontifical Gregorian University, he became one of the most influential and consulted figures of pontifical Rome, especially when it came to problems regarding Anglicanism. His perfect knowledge of the environment and of the language, his frequent trips across the English Channel, and the esteem of Cardinal Vaughan gave him great authority.

Entrusted by Leo XIII with the thorny question of the validity of Anglican orders – at the uncertain, hesitant beginning of the ecumenical journey – he led the Holy See to the negative response, made official in September of 1896 with the bull "Apostolicae Curae," of which he was the main architect. On the basis of practice that had stood for three hundred years, and of an exhaustive historical investigation, Leo XIII confirmed the "nullity" of the "ordinations carried out with the Anglican rite," thereby denying the apostolic succession of those bishops. The reconciliation of Anglicans and Catholics, which had been proceeding for some time, came to an abrupt halt, while the young prelate established himself as the spokesman of a stance of doctrinal austerity that was different from, if not incompatible with, the policy of Rampolla, who was secretary of state at the time.

He was well known for his facility with languages, his piety and devotion (evidenced by the prayer above), and his great personal support of Pope St. Pius X, whose cause for canonization he introduced and supported. Cardinal Merry del Val died on February 26, 1930 during an operation for appendicitus. His cause for canonization has been introduced and he is a Servant of God.

Image source: Wikipedia commons.

Pope St. Pius X and Frequent Communion

Allow me to draw your attention to an article I wrote last year for the PraytheMass.org website on Pope St. Pius X and his influence on liturgy, the age at which children receive First Holy Communion, and more frequent reception of Holy Communion:

Jansenism, a heretical movement beginning in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, discouraged frequent Communion. Pope St. Pius X referred to this problem in his “Sacra Tridentina: On Frequent and Daily Reception of Holy Communion,” issued on December 20, 1905:

 

Piety, however, grew cold, and especially afterward because of the widespread plague of Jansenism, disputes began to arise concerning the dispositions with which one ought to receive frequent and daily Communion; and writers vied with one another in demanding more and more stringent conditions as necessary to be fulfilled. The result of such disputes was that very few were considered worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist daily, and to derive from this most health-giving Sacrament its more abundant fruits; the others were content to partake of it once a year, or once a month, or at most once a week. To such a degree, indeed, was rigorism carried that whole classes of persons were excluded from a frequent approach to the Holy Table, for instance, merchants or those who were married.

 

Jansenism required such rigorous standards of preparation because of its overall belief “that there are some commands of God which just men cannot keep, no matter how hard they wish and strive” as stated in one of the five propositions condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653.

 

Although, as Pope St. Pius X wrote, several of his predecessors made statements against these rigorist views,

 

The poison of Jansenism, however, which, under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist, had infected the minds even of good men, was by no means a thing of the past. The question as to the dispositions for the proper and licit reception of Holy Communion survived the declarations of the Holy See, and it was a fact that certain theologians of good repute were of the opinion that daily Communion could be permitted to the faithful only rarely and subject to many conditions.

 

The Pope pointed out that others went to the opposite extreme:

 

They held that daily Communion was prescribed by divine law and that no day should pass without communicating, and besides other practices not in accord with the approved usage of the Church, they determined that the Eucharist must be received even on Good Friday and in fact so administered it.

 

(Note that he was writing before the major revision of the Holy Week liturgy, which now includes a Communion service on Good Friday with Hosts consecrated at Mass on Holy Thursday.)
 

So Pope St. Pius X stated unequivocally that the laity were to be encouraged to receive Holy Communion frequently, even daily, as long as they had the correct disposition and were not in a state of Mortal Sin. He called on both factions to unite around this discipline and not place obstacles in the way of the lay faithful. For this document, and his decision on the proper age for First Holy Communion, Pope St. Pius X became known as “the Pope of the Eucharist”.

 

In 1910 he approved a “Decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Discipline of the Sacraments on First Communion” setting the age of discretion or reason at about age seven. Inspired by the verse from the Synoptic Gospels: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of God”; he again urged that the Church unite around this discipline because of the sacramental benefits of Holy Communion.

 

Giuseppe Sarto succeeded Pope Leo XIII in 1903 and began his reign at Pope Pius X with the motto “To Restore all Things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). Among other liturgical reforms, he also revised the Breviary and issued the motu proprio “Tra le Sollecitudini” in 1903 soon after becoming pope encouraging not only the revival of Gregorian chant in the celebration of Mass, but active participation by the laity in chant. He acknowledged progress in the arts by commending the use of Renaissance polyphony (especially the works of Palestrina), but warned against any “theatrical” or “profane” influences in liturgical music.

 

Pope Pius X died in on August 20, 1914 at the beginning of World War I and was succeeded by Benedict XV. In 1954 he was canonized and his feast is on August 21 (since St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s feast is on August 20).

 

Pope St. Pius X, the Pope of the Eucharist, pray for us!