Restoring All Things in Christ

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - August 22, 2008

Yesterday we celebrated the 94th anniversary of the birth into eternal life of the founder of the Diocese of Fall River, Pope St. Pius X. This saintly shepherd always had special affection for our diocese, because we were the first local church he created, in February 1904, six months after having been chosen as St. Peter's successor. "You are my very dear child because you are my first born," he said about our diocese to Bishop William Stang during his 1905 visit to Rome.

When I became a seminarian for the diocese 15 years ago, having heard of St. Pius X's earthly predilection for Catholics on the south coast, I adopted him as a particular intercessor whenever I would pray for the needs of the diocese, hoping that from heaven he would be even more solicitous for his "very dear child."

During my time 4,100 miles away from the diocese studying to be a priest in Rome, he was a great help to keep me spiritually close to home. Whenever I was in St. Peter's Basilica — which I'm happy to say was virtually every day — I would make a short visit to his tomb to pray for Bishop O'Malley and the priests and faithful of the diocese as well as for perseverance and fidelity in my vocation.

After my priestly ordination, when I was sent back to Rome to continue theological studies, my relationship with him intensified.

Several times a week, I would descend the Janiculum Hill to St. Peter's early in the morning, pass by the Swiss Guard checkpoint and walk to the back entrance of the sacristy to celebrate Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. The doors would open precisely at 7 a.m and then there would be a dash of about 20 priests to vest and get out of the sacristy as quickly as possible to secure one of the altars in the upstairs basilica built over the remains of great saints. Even though I was younger and in decent shape, I was routinely dusted by priests almost three times my age who had made rapid vesting an art form. I would have to settle for one of the "lesser" altars.

Three-quarters through the year, however, the priest who was always the first to the altar of St. Pius X fell ill. He was a friend and former professor of mine, Fr. Goswin Habets, and as I called him to encourage him in the midst of his sickness, he asked me if I would be able to keep the altar of St. Pius X "warm" for him. I replied that I would do my best. He came by the sacristy one morning to ask the sacristan and some of the senior altar servers to be ready for me with vestments and cruets as soon as I entered — the trick that the more experienced priests in and around the Vatican had perfected — and I was amazed at how quickly I could vest and be heading briskly toward St. Pius X's altar! Out of 106 Masses I celebrated within St. Peter's Basilica that first year of priesthood, 24 were over the mortal remains of the founder of our Diocese.

With each Mass, by a sort of holy osmosis, I could sense my bond with him growing. Since I was entrusting to him all the prayers I was taking with me to the altar, I felt that the least I could do was to get to know him better, so that his priestly life and virtues might rub off on me. I began by reading several biographies and then turned to his encyclicals, letters, motu proprios, and other documents and decrees. The more I entered into the details of his life, the more I realized how many lessons they had for me and for all in the Church today.

He was the first parish priest in centuries to be elected pope. For centuries, most of the pontiffs had come from the Vatican curia and diplomatic corps, both of which were comprised mainly of the sons of noble families. Pius X was the son of a mailman from a poor family of 12.

Born in 1835 in a small village called Riese near Venice, Giuseppe Sarto discerned a priestly vocation as a boy but his family did not have the resources to pay for his priestly education. His pastor came to the rescue. He tutored him in Latin and arranged a scholarship for him to go away to seminary where, despite a ten mile journey on foot each day, Giuseppe excelled so much that he was ordained a priest by dispensation at the early age of 23, 150 years ago this year.

Straight out of the script of Going My Way, he was assigned as the assistant to an aging and crippled pastor in Tombolo for nine years. In between pastoral calls, he continued to study St. Thomas Aquinas and canon law, established a night school for adult catechesis, and became a much sought-after preacher. In 1867, he was named pastor in Salzano, where he rebuilt the Church, provided for a parish hospital, and heroically served the ill during a cholera epidemic. Recognizing his talents and zeal, his bishop then made him a canon of the Cathedral, spiritual director and rector of the diocesan seminary, and finally vicar general.

At the age of 49, he was named Bishop of Mantua, a diocese that was in rough shape due to various scandals among the clergy. He immediately set out to reform his priests, present and future, and with and through them to reform the people. He taught dogmatic and moral theology at the seminary. He gave weekly catechesis to adults. He heard confessions regularly. He charity knew no bounds. After eight years, there was a such a change in Mantua that Pope Leo XIII named this simple priest of humble origins Cardinal Patriarch of Venice. There, in contrast to the pageantry with which such a prelate was accustomed to be treated, his unpretentiousness and zeal in trying to teach the faith quickly won over the people, who regarded him as a saint.

After Leo died in 1903, the cardinals in conclave were set to elect the Vatican Secretary of State Mariano Rampolla as the new pope, but his election, by an historical situation too complicated to describe now, was vetoed by the Austrian emperor Franz Jozef. Providentially, Cardinal Sarto was elected as a compromise.

During his 11 years as pope, he brought to the papacy his vast priestly experience ministering to ordinary Catholics. He chose as his motto, "To renew all things in Christ" (Eph 1:10), and he began that renewal with the "source and summit of the Christian life," Christ in the Eucharist. Most Catholics, influenced by Jansenist rigorism, received Holy Communion only once or twice a year. He encouraged them to receive Holy Communion frequently, even daily. He lowered the age of first communion from about 18 to the age of reason. He promoted communion to be brought to the sick. He encouraged all Catholics to read Sacred Scripture each day, preached publicly every Sunday on the Gospel, and founded the Pontifical Biblical Institute to help in the understanding of the Bible. He reformed Church music so that the people would be able to sing simple Gregorian plainchants during Mass. He fostered Marian devotion. He clearly denounced the various forms of "modernist" ideas that were undermining people's faith and made sure that all priests and teachers who had a responsibility to pass on the Catholic faith took an oath to promise they would pass it on rather than modernist notions. He also began a thorough reform of canon law and resolved various complicated Church-state issues.

In just over a decade, he brought renewal to almost all areas of Church life.

We ask him from heaven to intercede for the faithful of his "first born" see, so that, by imitating his virtues and implementing his ever-relevant wisdom, we may experience in Christ a similar, on-going renewal.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.