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Show LIFE OF POPE PIUS X. Giuseppe .Melchiorre Sarto. known to the world as Pope Pius X , was elected elect-ed to the pontificate on August 4,1903 and during his occupancy of his exalted ex-alted office as head of the Roman i Catholic church, he was confronted with some of the mos: momentous j problems religious and governmental, with which the holy see has had to deal in modern times Pope Plus was horn on June I at Riese, In the Venetian prov inces. the first child of Olan-Battlsta j Sarto, a postman, and his wife Marg herita. Giuseppe's early career was influenced by the village priest who took a liking for the boy, taught him to read and write and drummed into the youthful head the rudimentB of Latin At the age of eleven years he entered the seminar at Castelf ranco, rot far from his birthplace, and for four years every day he tramped to school usually barefooted, until he reached the outskirts of the pillage, where he would slip on his shoes to keep up appearances P'rom BStelfrancO he passed in 1 o 1 1 to the seminary at Padua, and in 1So8. at the age of 25. was ordained priest and took up his studies at Tom holo In 187 he had his first parish of Importance, that of Salzano, where lm remained for eleven years, in ad dition to his ecclesiastical duties Pa ther ?arto contributed lurgely to the support of his mother and sisters, who found life a hard struggle, cspe-ciallv cspe-ciallv In the winter His eloquence led to hi- being call ed at the age oT 40 to Treylso as c bancellor of the diocese and slinrt-lv slinrt-lv after he was appointed professor of theologj in the seminary Nino years of strenuous work followed,! crow ned, in 1884. by his assuming the mitre as bishop of Mantua Leo XIII conferred upon Bishop J Sarto the title of Roman Count," and in the consistory of June, 1898. created him cardinal, giing him the Roman church of San Bernardo from v bich to take his title He was so poor that he was unable to pay the fees connected with the acceptance of the new dlgnityi but some oT bis admirers ad-mirers came forward and provident him with the necessary funds. Creating him cardinal. Leo XIII ap pointed him also patriarch of Ven Ice but he did not leave Mantua an til a year later, owing to conflict br' tween the Italian government and the holy see, over the right of the house ot Suvov to be consulted before the1 appointment of a patriarch the gov-j ernment having inherited the rights Of the republic of Venice The dis l pute was cut short by Kmc Humbert, also appointing Cardinal Sarto as patriarch pa-triarch of Venice The patriarch's relations with fhe house of Savoy were always most cordial Every time thai then majesties maj-esties r tin princes visited Venice he paid them n visit and presented his homage, He was one of Queen Maicherita s confessors, and onlv a' few months before the death of Leo Xlll be was next the count of Turin j in pubiu . when he (the patriarch) blessed the foundation stone of the ; nrw Campanile In Piazza Sin Marco I He was the c andidate of Leo XIII as bis successor, but he so little realized the future that when he left Venice in July, 1003. for the conclave In Koine, be bought a return ticket In the conclave the struggle was foi and against Cardinal Rampolls Leo XIU'S secretary of state, whose chances were lost when Cardinal Puzyns pronounced the veto of Austria Aus-tria against him. which veto was sup posed to represent the triple alliance Th( D needing a "compromise" pope, all eyes turned to Cardinal Sarto who at first refused, but was afterward Induced to accept the high position, being elected almost unanimously on Augusl 4. assuming the title of pope Puis X. bishop of Rome and Icar oT Jesus Christ, successor oi Ft1 Peter, prince of the apostles; su pr ue pontiff of the universal church patriarch of the west, primate of Italy, archbishop and metropolitan oi ihe Roman province and sovereign ot the temporal dominions of the holy Roman church The pontificate of Pope Plus X was ( baracterlzed by that spirit of mod-! mod-! e-tv which never abandoned him and ' by thai strong religious feeling which made him choose as motto "To re-i re-i store everything to Christ. The day alter his coronation he was asked to give orders for his private apart- ment In the Vatican, and while he urged the then young Monsignore Merr del Val. hi- pro-Secret i r or state to occupy the gorgeous Borgia I apartment, he himself chose four ! small rooms in the low-ceilinged suite ! above the state apartment of the pon tiff which under Leo XIII had been occupied by his private Secretary Manager Angeli. Plus X desired to give himself up entirely to his work In so doing he i did not spare any fatigue and giving I audiences, admitting people to large celebrating masses. pie-acblng. giving communion reach-1 ed 9Ui h a point of exhaustion that while in the exercise or his priestly Eunctloo m fhe Pauline chapel, crowded with people, he fainted, and thus started that report which pur l sued him ever after that be was, habb to fainl'ms fits, which was quite untrue, as that was the onlv occa alon "U which he suffered In that way and it was entirely due to the lnat and the vitiated air of Hie chapel. cha-pel. That was the first opportunlt f"1 the otficials of the vatlcan to Btep In, and on the pretext of protecting the popes health, attempt gradually to isolate him from the world, How ever, thev were not always success-ful success-ful One of the yearh American PU grfmmages had left the i nltci State at the beginning ot July, 1908 On their way to Europe Leo Xlll who I should have received them, died, sol that they were In Rome during the conclave, and the day on which Plus! X was elected and descended Into St Peter's to give his first benediction they were In the basilica with two American Mags waving above the im men 86 crowd assembled then- and Jomiug hurrahs to the cheering which greeted the venerable figure. Some days after the same American PU-giimmage PU-giimmage was In the vatlcan gardens when suddeuly, the work or the officials of-ficials having already begun. they were ordered away as the pope was seen approaching. With true American Amer-ican determination the objected that thev did not want to leave. Pius X, who understood something of what was going on. inquired, aud Cardinal Gibbon who was a.mong thoe who accompanied them, explained that It was a piltmmmage of his countrymen who desired to pav homage to the boh father They had asked for an audience and were waiting for the ap pointed day The pontiff Immediately suld there was no necessity to wait. I and he would receive the AmoricanH at once in the adjoining museum Lapt-1 i darlum. Thus Pius X received the I first pilgrlmmage of his pontificate, held in his hands and blessed the two J American flags which are still pre served, one in Rome and one in Xew York Plus X did not intend to change the substance of the policv which his tWpj predecessors had followed towards! Italy His protests against the loss of the temporal power however, lost the vehemence and bitterness which formerly characterized them The strongest of his protests on! this subject was when President Loubet, disregarding the prohibition I to all Catholic rulers and heads of states to visit the king of United Italy in his capital, was the first, with the exception of Prince Perdl- I nand of Bulgaria since 1870, to go as guest to the Quirinal This, however was not only caused I by the feeling towards Italy but much more by the state of religious war with France, which was the most re markable event in the last pontificate,! ard of which many have attributed; Ihe responslbillt to Pius X while the hostilities had already begun under un-der Leo Xlll France found imitators In Spain. which passed in parliament bills' against the religious congregations and the clergy, leading to the recall of the Spanish ambassadoi accredited to the holy see, and in Portugal.! where the republic proclaimed on Oc- tober 5. 110. brought about 8 com plete separation betw een church and I slate the expulsion of the religious congregations and the confiscation of their properties While such serious crises were tak-i ing place betw een the vatlcan and I some of the Latin countries, which had been known in hlstorv as the' most faithful to the holy see. the re- j I lations with Italy while maintaining 1 in me uuioiue luim int; nuiii uuww ter of hostility were In substance much more cordial. It would take long to enumerate a'l the reforms of a religious character char-acter initiated by Pius X. such as that of restoring the Gregorian chants, of preaching every Sunday fiom a text from the bible himself giving the good example- by having :n lon.i as his strength allowed him. the faithful oi the different parishes of Rome in the courtyard of San Da-maso Da-maso to hear him explain the gospel storv. and carrying out one after the othei as none the same ideas and principles which he had confessed and advocated as bishop and patri arch One nf his undertakings will leave an important mark in the history his-tory of the papacy the codification of ecclesiastic law lie entrusted the work to an Illustrious scholar in Canon law, Mgr. Pietro Gasparri on whom be ' onferred the red hat in December, 1907 Another epoeh-mak. ing task was that of the revision of the vulgate. which he confided to Fa ther Francis Aldan Gasquet. abbot-presldent abbot-presldent of the English benedictine congregation so well knop n as a learned historian Pius X was determined to restore the most Iron discipline among the clergy, and this led to an unndent Ing i impain against that section ot eccleslastii a who professed unortho dox opinions and were called modern iMs The encyclical promulgated ou Sepiembet s 1907, condemned the modernists and their doctrines Following this several leaders of the modernist movement were ex com : municated In Italy, England and Germain Ger-main The pope displayed even greater energy on November 18, 1907 v hen he reaffirmed the necessity of combatting bj every possible means the spirit or rebellion, and ordered the bishops to watch and If nocessary to dismiss the professor infected with the condemned doctrines and to pre vent from taking orders those BtU-! BtU-! dents who were suspected of Sympathizing Sympa-thizing with the movement New rebellions broke out. and Pius j X went further In the struggle, wltb ' a new encyclical, In May. 1909 and ; more so by imposing the anti-mod-c-rnist oath on all ecclesiastics. Thp pontiff roused a storm or opposition oppo-sition to himself entirely unexpected. b3 lils encyclical against the protest-auts protest-auts In general and those of the Ger-i Ger-i man reformation in particular, on the occasion of the centennial of St Charles Rorromco. Another very Important reform duo to Pius X is that ol the Roman 'iiria. which was still ruled bv the bull of Sixtus V of January. 1588 With this he reformed the office, the ecclesiastical ecclesias-tical courts and the Roman congrega tions. withdrawing America, Canada Newfoundland. Great Britain, Holland and Luxembourg, from the jurisdlc lion of propaganda fide, removing them therefore from among the missionary mis-sionary countries and putting them together with the rest of the Catholic-world Catholic-world under the consistorlal I ongre-gation ongre-gation To Americans Pius X was especial- ly Interesting. His great friendship for this country, his frecpient audiences audi-ences to Americans, both Catholic and non-Catholic and his interest in Amer man affairs kept him in closer touch with this side of the Atlantic than perhaps any pontiff that has preceded preced-ed him. He was an ardent admirer of Theodore Roosevelt, and had the ex-presldent's writings translated for reading, yet, as will be recalled, events accruing at the time of Mr. Roo?ee!ts visit to Home led to the cancellation of his visit to the rati-can. rati-can. Former vice President harlee Falrhanks had a somewhat siml lar experience, and the Incident created cre-ated widespread interest in this coun-j coun-j try and in Europe at the same time. oo |