DEATH OF POPE PIUS X.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1287, 22 August 1914, Page 3

DEATH OF POPE PIUS X.

The death is announced from Rome of His Holiness Pope Pius X, 258th Roman Pontiff, in his 80th year. His Holiness was crowned Pope on August 9th, 1903, and he passed away on August 20th. Giuseppe Mel* cbiorre Sarto (Pius X.) w*s born on June 2, 1835, at Riese, in the Province oi Treviso, in Venice. His father, who was a postman, died in 1852, but his mother, Margarita Sarto (nee Sanson) lived to see her son a Cardinal. The boy proved himself an earnest and successful student, and in 1850 he received the tonsure from the Bishop of Treviso, and was given a scholarship of the Diocese of Treviso in the seminary of Padua, where he finished his classical, philosophical and theological studies with distinction. He was ordained in 1858, and for nine years was chaplain at Tombolo. In 1867 he was named archpriest of Salzano, a large borough of the Diocese of Treviso, where he was habitually generous to the poor, and especially distinguished him* self by his abnegation during the cholera. In 1878, on the death of Bishop Zanelli, he was elected vicar-capitular, and in 1884 he was named Bishop of Mantua. The temporal administration of his see imposed great sacrifice upon him. At a secret consistory of June, 1893, Leo XIII. created him a cardinal under the title of San Bernardo alle Terme ; and in the public consistory three days later, he was preconized Patriarch of Venice, where, as at Mantua, the Cardinal paid great attention to the seminary. He promoted the use of the Gregorian Chant. Leo XIII. having died, the Cardinals entered into conclave, and, after several ballots, Guiseppe Sarto was elected on August 4, 1903, by a vote of 55 out of a possible 60 votes. His coronation took place on the following Sunday, August 9. Throughout his reign in Rome his sisters lived opposite the Vatican. A Roman Catholic writer has stated that the historian of the present Pontificate will certainly dwell with enthusiasm on the following features of the late Pope’s great programme—“ To restore all things in Christ,” which Pius X gave as the motto of his reign in the first encyclical he addressed to the world : 1. The reformation of sacred music, by restoring the Gregorian chant to the purity of its golden age and by banishing theatrical music from the house of God.

2. The apostolic visitation of Rome and,all the dioceses of Italy, by which numerous abuses were removed and a new spirit of zeal and fervour infused into both clergy and laity. 3. The reformation of ecclesiastical education —(a) by ordaining that candidates for the priesthood must study theology four years and philosophy for three years, and (b) by abolishing in Italy the small and anaemic seminaries and gathering the students into flourishing district seminaries, where they have the advantage of good professors, and are, at the same time, able to follow the general courses leading to the governmental universities. 4. The reformation of catechetical instruction in the parishes — a measure very necessary in many countries, and not least of all throughout a large part of Italy. 5. The formation of Biblical Commission. 6. The condemnation of the heresy of modernism, and the vigorous means adopted for putting an end to it. 7. The promulgation of a new and universal code of laws, the first attempt ever made to give complete unity in ecclesiastical legislation. v/The first fruit of this codification of the Church's laws was the decree of August 2, 1907, on espousals and marriage.) 8. To this record the New Zealand Tablet, adds the great 1908 reform of the Vatican Congregations (or Departments through which the business of the Universal Church is conducted). In. June, 1908, the Pope, by an Apostolic Constitution, decreed the reorganisation of these congregations. Some of the minor congregations were abolished, and their work divided among the others ; other congregations were reorganised; a new congregation was established dealing with the disciplinary side of the sacraments (matrimony in its various aspects included), their dogmatic side remaining as heretofore, under the direction of the Holy Office, of which the Pope will continue to be, ex officio, the Prefect; and (among other useful reform) a body of experts in canon law was retained for the gratuitous service of the poor.