Pope Pius X

Life events

1. Born — 1835

   Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was born on 2 June 1835 in Riese, Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, Austrian Empire (now in the province of Treviso, Veneto, Italy), the second of ten children of Giovanni Battista Sarto, the village postman, and Margherita Sanson. He was baptised the following day, 3 June 1835.

2. Ordained — 1858

   On 18 September 1858, Sarto was ordained a priest by Giovanni Antonio Farina, Bishop of Treviso, and became a chaplain at Tombolo, where he expanded his knowledge of Thomas Aquinas and canon law while fulfilling most of the pastoral duties of the ailing parish priest.

3. Consecrated — 1884

   On 10 November 1884, Pope Leo XIII appointed Sarto bishop of Mantua; he was consecrated six days later in Rome at the church of Sant'Apollinare alle Terme Neroniane-Alessandrine by Cardinal Lucido Parocchi. Sarto required a papal dispensation because he lacked a doctorate, making him the last pope without one until Pope Francis.

4. Other — 1893

   On 12 June 1893, Pope Leo XIII elevated Sarto to cardinal and appointed him Patriarch of Venice. After a prolonged dispute over the Italian government's claim to nominate the Patriarch, Sarto was finally permitted to assume the position and was formally enthroned on 24 November 1894.

5. Other — 1903

   On 4 August 1903, following the death of Pope Leo XIII, the conclave elected Sarto to the pontificate on the fifth ballot with 50 votes. He took the name Pius X, explaining: 'As I shall suffer, I shall take the name of those Popes who also suffered.' His election marked the last known exercise of a papal veto (jus exclusivae) by a Catholic monarch, when Cardinal Puzyna invoked Emperor Franz Joseph's veto against the front-runner, Cardinal Rampolla.

6. Wrote — 1907

   In July 1907 Pius X issued the decree Lamentabili sane exitu condemning 65 propositions drawn chiefly from the works of Alfred Loisy, followed by the encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis characterizing Modernism as 'the synthesis of all heresies.' He subsequently required all clerics to take the Anti-Modernist oath Sacrorum antistitum and instituted the Sodalitium Pianum, an anti-Modernist network.

7. Died — 1914

   Pius X died at 1:20 am on 20 August 1914, at age 79, in the Apostolic Palace. His final weeks were marked by illness brought on in part by grief over the outbreak of World War I; his last reported words expressed a wish that God might spare him the horrors Europe was undergoing. He was buried in a simple, unadorned tomb in the crypt of Saint Peter's Basilica.

8. Other — 1954

   On 29 May 1954, less than three years after his beatification by Pope Pius XII on 3 June 1951, Pius X was canonized at Saint Peter's Basilica before a crowd of approximately 800,000. He became the first pope canonized since Pius V in 1712. His feast day is observed on 21 August in the General Roman Calendar.

Relationships

Documented claims

• In 1910 Pius X issued the decree Quam singulari, lowering the age for First Communion from 12 to 7 years old — the age of discretion. This change, motivated by his conviction that children should encounter the Eucharist at the earliest opportunity, became one of the most durable liturgical innovations of his pontificate and earned him the honorific 'Pope of the Blessed Sacrament'. (certain)
• Within three months of his coronation in 1903, Pius X published the motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, formulating the principle of participatio actuosa — active participation of the faithful — and mandating a return to Gregorian chant over the Baroque and Classical compositions that had displaced it in Catholic liturgy. He appointed Joseph Pothier to supervise new chant editions, leading to the official adoption of the Solesmes edition. (certain)
• On 19 March 1904 Pius X appointed a commission of cardinals to draft the first systematic, universal Code of Canon Law for the Catholic Church. Two future popes — Giacomo della Chiesa (Benedict XV) and Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) — served on the commission. The Code was promulgated by Benedict XV on 27 May 1917 and remained in force until Advent 1983. (certain)
• After the Messina earthquake of 1908 — one of the deadliest in European history — Pius X opened the Apostolic Palace to refugees, housing survivors there long before the Italian government had organized a response. This act became a frequently cited example of the personal charity that distinguished his pontificate. (likely)
• When Pius X's coffin was exhumed on 19 May 1944 as part of the beatification process, the examiners found his body remarkably well preserved despite thirty years in the tomb and his explicit prohibition of the standard embalming practice of organ removal. The incorruption was presented as miraculous and contributed to the momentum toward his canonization nine years later. (likely)