BURNS OATES & WASHBOURNE LTD. 1954...

In the village of Riese in the Venetian plains was born on the 2nd of June, 1835, a child who was destined to leave his mark on the world's history. Giuseppe[*] Melchior Sarto was the eldest of the eight surviving children of Giovanni Battista Sarto, the municipal messenger and postman of Riese, and his wife Margherita. They were poor people, and it was difficult sometimes to make both ends meet. The daily fare was hard and scanty, and the future pope was clothed, as an Italian biographer puts i

The village of Tombolo, in the province of Padua and the diocese of Treviso, is surrounded by hilly and well-wooded country, watered by the tributary streams of the Brenta. The parish church, St. Andrew's, stands in the centre of the little township. Tombolo boasts of no commercial industries; it is a pastoral country, and the greater part of the population is occupied in dairy farming and the rearing of cattle. The people have clearly marked characteristics; strong and robust in build, hardened

In the early spring of the year 1875 the chancellor of the diocese of Treviso was removed to Fossalunga. A canon's stall was also vacant, while the seminary was in need of a spiritual director. It was the general opinion that if these three offices could be held by one holy, wise and purposeful man, it would be an excellent thing for all parties concerned. "I have it!" said Bishop Zinelli, "Don Giuseppe Sarto is the very man we need." No sooner said than done. The rector of Salzano was named cha

In the consistory of June 12, 1893, Pope Leo XIII named Bishop Sarto cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, and three days later appointed him archbishop and patriarch of Venice.[*] On June 7 the bishop had set out for Rome, and on the 15th, in the presence of representatives from Venice, Treviso, Mantua and Riese, he received the cardinal's hat, with the title of San Bernardo alle Terme. The wisdom and modesty of the new cardinal, added to his charm of manner, won him many friends during his stay i

The news of the death of Leo XIII, on July 20, 1903, came as a blow to the whole Catholic world. The old man of ninety-four, whose wonderful intelligence had remained unimpaired until the very end of his life, had guided the bark of Peter with sure and unswerving hand during the twenty-live years of his pontificate. His blameless life, his lofty ideas, and his indomitable moral courage have been borne witness to by men who had small sympathy for the Catholic Church. "The original attitude of Leo

With a firm and sure hand the new pope had traced out the programme of his pontificate—the restoring of all things in Christ. It was not the first time he had used these words. We have already seen how as parish priest, bishop and patriarch they had been ever in his thoughts as the ideal and the aim of the sacerdotal life. The time had come when from the chair of Peter he was to set them before the world as the remedy for all its evils, calling on the faithful children of the Church to help in t

The separation of church and state had long been the deliberate aim of the irreligious French government. During the pontificate of Leo XIII the following resolution had been put and carried at an assembly of freemasons: "It is the strict duty of a freemason, if he is a member of parliament, to vote for the suppression of the Budget des Cultes, for the suppression of the French embassy at the Vatican, and on all occasions to declare himself in favour of the separation of church and state without

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the last remnants of Jansenism were still influencing Catholic teaching in many countries of Europe. This most insidious of heresies, preached by men of austere life and veiled by the plea of reverence for holy things, was a danger to the lax and to the scrupulous alike. It laid down as conditions for approaching the sacraments dispositions of soul which for the greater part of mankind were wholly unattainable; it presented God as the Jehovah of the Old

In July 1907 the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued the decree "Lamentabili," which condemned sixty-five distinctive Modernist doctrines. Two months later appeared the encyclical "Pascendi," denouncing under the name of "Modernism" a group of errors which struck at the very roots of the Christian faith. These events marked the breaking of a storm that had been threatening for some time, of which the condemnation of certain books of the Abbé Loisy, and other incidents, had been the war

A personal friend of Pius X was speaking to him one day with indignation of the abuse levelled at him by a Modernist writer. The pope's answer was as characteristic as the smile that accompanied it. "Come," he said, "did he not allow that after all I was a good priest? Now, of all praise, that is the only one I have ever valued." "A man who hid a boundless ambition under a pretence of humility," wrote another opponent. And in one sense most certainly Pius X was a man of ambition, an ambition tha

As a young parish priest at Salzano, Giuseppe Sarto during the cholera epidemic of 1873 had been the stay and comfort of his people. Consoling the grief-stricken, nursing the sick, burying the dead, utterly regardless of his own safety, his one thought had been for his suffering parishioners. This compassion for every kind of pain or sorrow was characteristic of him throughout his life. Not without reason was it said that he had "the greatest heart of any man alive." The very sight of suffering

At the private consistory held in May 1914, Pius X, alluding to the consolation which had been afforded him by the celebration of the sixteenth centenary of the Peace of Constantine the year before, spoke words which in the light of later events might well have seemed prophetic. "During these months," he said, "the Catholic world, while confirming its own faith, has presented to the suffering human race the Cross of Christ as the only source of peace. To-day more than ever is that peace to be de