Unlike his immediate predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, and each of his three successors (Popes Benedict XV, Pius XI, and Pius XII), the former Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was not in the diplomatic service of the Holy See at any time during the nearly forty-five years of his priesthood prior to his rather remarkable election as the Successor of Saint Peter on August 4, 1903. He was not prone to accept the word of diplomats, and he did not suffer lies and misrepresentations easily.
The farm boy from Riese, Italy, who served as a pastor of souls in a rough-and-tumble Italian cow town, Tombolo, and then in Salzano before becoming Bishop of Mantua and the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, was always close to Our Lady. This tender devotion to Our Lady, which he learned from his saintly mother, helped him to keep close to the sheep even when he was the Vicar of Christ on earth.
Thanks to the sign given him by the life and death of Little Nellie of Holy God, Pope Saint Pius X was the advocate of early First Communion (and early Confirmation) and of frequent Communions. It is no accident at all that the now retired Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI made no reference to the centenary of Pascendi Dominci Gregis on September 8, 2007. Ratzinger/Benedict made absolutely no reference on August 15, 2010, to the centenary of Pope Saint Pius X's Notre Charge Apostolique, which was a ringing condemnation of the false philosophy of the Sillon that is of the essence of conciliarism. He made no reference to the one hundredth anniversary of The Oath Against Modernism on September 1, 1910 (see Witness Against Benedict XVI: The Oath Against Modernism).
How could he?
He stands condemned by the very words in these documents issued by Pope Saint Pius X.
So does the man who ignored the one hundredth anniversary of Papa Sarto's death, Jorge Mario Bergolio, back on August 20, 2014.
The contrast between the Catholicism of Pope Saint Pius X, a defender of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the confessional Catholic civil state, and the conciliarism of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has denounced "restorationists" as "Pelagian" and "hard-headed" Pharisees while defending "healthy laicism" and "religious liberty" and the "separation of Church and State, could not be more clear.
Here is the Collect for today's feast in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition:
"O God, who for the defense of the Catholic Faith and the restoration of all things in Christ didst fill Saint Pius, Supreme Pontiff, with heavenly wisdom and apostolic courage: grant in Thy loving kindness that by following his teachings and examples we may attain eternal rewards. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, forever and ever. Amen."
Pope Saint Pius X opposed Modernism.
So must we as we refuse any "communion" at all with conciliarism or its false shepherds who are at war with the Catholic Faith.
Part five of my current series is taking longer to complete. This is partly a function of the fact that the first four parts pretty much wiped me out in the past week. However, I am working on part five, which will be the last installment as, barring some unexpected development, there is little more to add at this time.
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us!