Who Was Pope St. Pius X?
Q. Who was Pope Pius X? Did he found the society that is named for him? J.K., via email A. Pope Pius X (1835-1914), whose feast day we celebrate today, was born Giuseppe Melchior Sarto, the second of ten children of an Italian cobbler and postman. He was ordained in 1858, appointed Bishop of Mantua in 1884, and was named a cardinal and Patriarch of Venice in 1893. He was elected pope in 1903. Pius kept extremely busy as pontiff. He began a codification of canon law, established a commission to revise the Vulgate (the ancient Latin translation of the Bible used by the Church), ordered a revision of the psalter and breviary and reorganized the papal court. He was especially concerned with the modernist heresy, which he condemned in the encyclicals Lamentabili Sane (1907) Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). He also called for an oath against modernism to be taken by every priest. Pius died in Rome in 1914 and was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1954, becoming the first pontiff to be raised to
