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Pope Pius X, whose name previously was Joseph Sarto, was born in a village
Riese in the Venetian province. He enrolled among the students in
the seminary of Padua and, when he had been ordained priest, was first
a curate in the town of Tombolo, then pastor at Salzano, then canon and
chancellor of the bishop’s curia at Treviso. He was so outstanding
in holiness that Leo XIII made him bishop of the Church of Mantua.
Lacking in nothing that makes a good pastor, he labored particularly to
teach young men called to the priesthood; he fostered the beauty of divine
worship and the growth of devout associations; he saw to the needs of the
poor with generous charity. Because of his great merits, he was made
a cardinal and created patriarch of Venice. After the death of Pope Leo
XIII he took up the supreme pontificate like a cross, having refused it
in vain. Placed upon the chair of Peter, he gave up nothing of his
former way of life. He shone especially in humility, simplicity and
poverty. He ruled the Church firmly and adorned it with brilliant
teachings. As a most vigilant guardian of the faith, he condemned
and suppressed Modernism, the sum of all heresies; as a most zealous defender
of the freedom of the Church, he boldly resisted those who strove to bring
about her downfall; he provided for the sound education of clerics, brought
the law of the Church together into one body; and greatly fostered the
cult and more frequent reception of the Eucharist. Worn out with
his labors and overcome with grief at the European war which had just begun,
he went to the heavenly homeland on August 20 in the year 1914. Pope
Pius XII numbered him among the Saints. |
