Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X reigned from 1903 to 1914 and was the first pope canonised in over four hundred years. Born Giuseppe Sarto at Riese in the Veneto in 1835, the second of ten children of a village postman and a seamstress, he walked several kilometres to school daily carrying his shoes to save them. He was a parish priest for seventeen years, then a bishop and Patriarch of Venice. He was elected after Austria exercised its ancient veto against the favoured candidate, and one of his first acts was to abolish that veto permanently. He took the motto to restore all things in Christ, and his concerns were pastoral rather than diplomatic. He lowered the age of first communion from about twelve to seven and encouraged frequent communion, which changed Catholic practice permanently. He reformed church music, restoring Gregorian chant and banning theatrical settings, reorganised the Roman curia, began the codification of canon law completed in 1917, and required catechism classes in every parish. He was inflexible on doctrine. He condemned Modernism — the attempt to apply historical and critical methods to scripture and dogma — in Lascendi in 1907, describing it as the synthesis of all heresies, imposed an anti-modernist oath on clergy in 1910, and permitted a network of informers under Monsignor Benigni that reported suspect scholars and ruined careers. He broke relations with France over the 1905 separation of church and state, refusing compensation for confiscated property. He was known for personal simplicity and for giving away what he had. He died in August 1914, weeks after the war began, and was canonised in 1954.
- Lived: 1835 CE – 1914 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, cleric
