“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

St. Pius X: 100 Years Later
Archbishop Lefebvre and St. Pius X
How to Fight a Heresy
The Catechism of St. Pius X

May - June 2014

Pope St. Pius X
“Such is the foremost of the Society’s activities: ‘…all the works
necessary for the formation of priests and whatever pertains
thereto.’ Thus, seminaries, whether they are those of the
Society or not, must take care that the training ‘attain its chief
goal: the priest’s holiness, together with sufficient knowledge.’
This is why the Society was placed under the patronage of
St. Pius X. The primordial concern of this holy Pope was the
integrity of the priesthood and the sanctity that flows from it.”
(Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 436)

Letter
from the
Publisher
One hundred years ago, St. Pius X went to his heavenly reward at the age of
79. The cause for his canonization was opened in 1923, and he was canonized
by Pope Pius XII in 1954. In these days of constant canonizations, the significance of this relative speed is probably lost on many today. Consider: Pius X
was the first pope to be canonized since Pius V was raised to the honors of the
altar in 1712!
Pius XII, in his discourse on the canonization, gave several reasons why the
Church owed such a debt to St. Pius X. First, the collection and publication of
the Church’s Code of Canon Law. Second, Pius XII praised “the lucidity and the
firmness with which Pius X led the victorious battle against the errors of modernism bear witness to what heroic degree the faith burned in the heart of the
saint.” Third, and finally, he praises St. Pius X’s sanctity, seen most evidently in
his legislation concerning the Eucharist.
For those of us who are traditional Catholics, we might say even more. It is
not just his heroic virtues, but the example of a pontificate entirely dedicated
to the reign of Christ the King. What a contrast it provides to what we have
been accustomed to since the Second Vatican Council! Finally, we priests of
the Society invoke him as our special patron, thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre’s
decision.
We have here collected various perspectives on this saint and his pontificate.
Let us use the occasion of the centenary of his death to pray to him, especially
for the well-being of the Catholic Church and the Society named for him.
In Christ the King,
Fr. Arnaud Rostand
Publisher

May - June 2014
Volume XXXVII, Number 3
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Contents
Letter from the Publisher

4

Theme: Pope Saint Pius X
– Archbishop Lefebvre and Saint Pius X
– Pope Pius X and Marcel
– Pilgrim Steps to the Venetian Pope
– The St. Pius X Catechism for the 21st Century
– The Just Man Lives by Faith
– Pope Pius X: Blessed and Saint
– Canonization of St. Pius X

6
10
13
21
25
31
36

Faith and Morals
– How to Fight a Heresy

42

Christian Culture
– Book Review: St. Pius X, Restorer of the Church
– Liturgy: Is Congregational Singing Catholic?
– History: Pope St. Pius X on Sacred Music
– Family Life: Relaxing with a Good Movie

46
48
54
59

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“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

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©2014 BY ANGELUS PRESS. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE
PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

– Questions and Answers
– Church and World
– Life of the Society: Priestly Ordinations 2014
– Theological Studies
– Letters to the Editor
– The Last Word

62
68
72
76
84
87

Theme Pope St. Pius X

Archbishop
Lefebvre and
Saint Pius X
by Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais

The founder of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X surely had reasons
for placing the work of safeguarding the Catholic priesthood under the
patronage of Pope Pius X.
-- What were they?
-- What bonds could have existed between the French prelate born in
1905, and therefore just eight years old when Saint Pius X breathed his
last breath on August 20, 1914, on the eve of the first World War that he
dreaded and had predicted?
When he was asked about the patronage of Saint Pius X over his priestly
brotherhood, Archbishop Lefebvre invariably answered: “It is not so much
because St. Pius X condemned modernism and liberalism, than because he
worked for the formation of priests, and especially their holiness of life; and
because he promoted genuine ‘Catholic action,’ which is the work of laymen
for the social reign of Christ the King.” In a word, it is the pontifical program
proposed and achieved by Pius X, Omnia instaurare in Christo, which was
the model for the actions of the Prelate of Ecône and which continues to be
the program of his priests in their apostolate. Such is the heritage of St. Pius X.
6

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1

Bernard Tissier de
Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre:
The Biography, tr. Brian
Sudlow (Kansas City:
Angelus Press, 2004), p. 36.

Of course, Pius X is the last pope to be canonized, and, as Pius XII said,
canonized as pope; as such Pius X could not but draw the attention of a
bishop like Archbishop Lefebvre, anxious to build bastions of Christendom,
truly Catholic societies: “As a missionary and then as a bishop,” he said,
“I always wanted to make Catholic societies.” St. Pius X’s motto, “to bring
everything under one head, Christ,” was inspiring, especially in a time
when the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ over civil society is despised and
disavowed by the post-conciliar popes and by the hierarchy as a whole.
At the French Seminary in Rome, the young Marcel, who at the age of
seventeen entered the seminary on the Via Santa Chiara, still experienced
the aura of his masters’ devotion to St. Pius X. Father Henri Le Floch, rector
of the seminary, would expatiate on the motto of the pope who had died just
nine years before; the spiritual talks of the rector were imbued with a frankly
anti-liberal spirit, but anti-liberal because he was engaged in a supernatural
combat, which is that of Christ the King. This is what ought to be explained
and highlighted.
Of course, the Archbishop affirmed the anti-liberalism of Saint Pius X as
conveyed by Father Le Floch. He told his seminarians in 1976:
“‘He was the one who taught us what the popes were to the world and the
Church, what they had taught for a century and a half—against liberalism,
modernism, and Communism, and the whole doctrine of the Church on these
topics. He really made us understand and share in this battle of the popes
to preserve the world and the Church from these scourges which plague us
today. That was a revelation for me....I remember...coming to seminary with
incorrect ideas which I modified during my studies. For example, I thought
that it was excellent that the State was separated from the Church. Oh yes! I
was a liberal!’
“Obviously this confession made the seminarians who heard burst into
laughter: Archbishop Lefebvre had been a liberal! What had brought about
his intellectual conversion? Quite simply,
“‘I listened to what the older students were talking about. I listened
to their reactions and especially to what my professors and the Superior
had taught me. And I realized that in fact I had quite a few wrong ideas....I
was very pleased to learn the truth, happy to learn that I had been wrong,
that I had to change my way of thinking about certain things, especially
in studying the encyclicals of the popes, which showed us all the modern
errors, those magnificent encyclicals of all the popes up to St. Pius X and
Pius XI.
“‘...For me it was a complete revelation. And that was how the desire was
quietly born in us to conform our judgment to that of the popes. We used
to say to ourselves: but how did the popes judge these events, ideas, men,
things, and times? And Father Le Floch showed us clearly what the main
ideas of these various popes were: always the same thing, exactly the same
in their encyclicals. That showed us...how we should look at history...and
consequently it stayed with us.’”1
Of course, Pope Pius X had a large part in these guiding ideas through his
encyclical Pascendi, against the modernists, and Notre Charge Apostolique
on the liberalism of the “Sillon” movement of Marc Sangnier. But he also
7

Theme Pope St. Pius X
2

Ibid., pp. 36-7.

3

Spiritual Conferences at
Ecône, February 23, 1976.

4

English version online at
papalencyclicals.net.

was influential through his decisions: the condemnation of the separation
of Church and State in France (the encyclical Vehementer, 1906) and the
exclusion of modernist masters from teaching in seminaries and Catholic
universities (the motu proprio Sacrorum Antistitum and the Anti-modernist
Oath, 1910).
The future Archbishop Lefebvre learned to love not only the sound,
combative doctrine of a holy pope, but also his practical decisions for
uprooting the modernist and liberal ideas that had penetrated the Church
and the young clergy. According to Archbishop Lefebvre:
“Father Le Floch made us enter into and live the history of the Church,
this fight that the perverse powers take to our Lord. We were mobilized
against this dreadful liberalism, against the Revolution and the forces of
evil which were trying to overcome the Church, the reign of our Lord, the
Catholic States, and the whole of Christianity.”2
But, the Archbishop explained to the seminarians, this combat is
essentially supernatural, and this is how these popes understood it,
especially St. Pius X:
“It is a spiritual, supernatural combat, a wrestling, as St. Paul says, against
the devil and the powers of darkness in the high places (Eph. 6:12). It is a
gigantic struggle, not a mere war of words, of theoretical discussions, of
intellectual jousting. It is much more serious than that. You need to realize
this right now by meditating on the lives of the saints. You are entering
the history of the Church. It is a warfare situated on a supernatural plane
and thus in the domain of grace. It cannot consist primarily of anti-liberal,
counterrevolutionary action. To drive out the spirits of darkness, you have
to be light, and this can only happen by the grace of God. The saints worked
conversions more by their example, by their prayer, by their mortification,
than by their words. Of course, knowledge is necessary, preaching is
necessary, discussion is necessary. You have to be able to convince; but if the
saints converted by their preaching, it was because they were saints.”3
Archbishop Lefebvre liked to quote to his seminarians and priests the
Apostolic Exhortation Haerent Animo of St. Pius X (To the Catholic Clergy
on Priestly Sanctity, August 4, 1902) which can be summed up in five words—
The priest must be holy:
“There is, indeed, only one thing that unites man to God, one thing that
makes him pleasing to God and a not unworthy dispenser of His mercy; and
that one thing is holiness of life and conduct. If this holiness, which is the
true super-eminent knowledge of Jesus Christ [Eph. 3:19], is wanting in the
priest, then everything is wanting....On the other hand, there is abundant
evidence from every age that even the humblest priest, provided his life
has the adornment of overflowing sanctity, can undertake and accomplish
marvelous works for the spiritual welfare of the people of God...”4
Archbishop Lefebvre, like St. Pius X in this exhortation, would warn
against the harm suffered by priests who give up daily meditation under
the pretext of greater devotion to exterior works. It is just the opposite,
unanimously teach the holy Pope and the Archbishop. What is the apostolate

8

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5

Quoted in the biographical
note of The Soul of the
Apostolate, tr. A Monk of
Our Lady of Gethsemani
(Trappist, Kentucky: Abbey
of Gethsemani, 1946), xii.

if not the overflow of the life of union with
God?—a channeled overflow, nevertheless.

By Way of Conclusion
In order to underscore what Monsignor
Lefebvre loved most about St. Pius X and why
especially he chose the holy Pope for the heavenly
patron of his priestly society, I would say that
both the Pope and the Archbishop strove to put
into practice the counsels of Dom Chautard in
the book that became a classic in seminaries
and rectories, The Soul of the Apostolate. Here is
what St. Pius X in 1908 said during an audience

with Msgr. Cloutier, Bishop of Three
Rivers, Canada, who was laying before His
Holiness his many projects for the good
of his diocese: “And now, my dear Son,
if you desire that God should bless your
apostolate and make it fruitful, undertake
everything for His glory; saturate yourself
and your devoted fellow-workers with the
spirit of Jesus Christ, animating yourself
and them with an intense interior life. To
this end I can offer you no better guide
than The Soul of the Apostolate, by Dom
Chautard, Cistercian Abbot. I warmly
recommend this book to you as I value it
very highly, and have myself made it my
bedside book.”5
Statue of Saint Pius X, Seminary at Ecône, Switzerland

9

Theme Pope St. Pius X

Pope Pius X
and Marcel
“There will be saints from among those children”
René Lefebvre and Gabrielle Watine were
married on April 16, 1902, in St. Martin’s Church
in Roubaix by the Dean, Father Berteaux. The
young couple went on honeymoon to visit the
Virgin of the Grotto in Lourdes since René had
been a helper for the sick since 1897. They then
went to Rome, where they received the blessing
of Pope Leo XIII. On their return to Tourcoing,
the young couple moved into a small house on
Rue Leverrier, a quiet street of sober red brick
façades and impeccably aligned windows. It was
a model of the ordered urban life of the region.
The first child was born on January 22, 1903,
and was given his father’s Christian name, René.
He was followed by Jeanne in 1904. Marcel
arrived on Wednesday, November 29, 1905, too
late to be baptized that day. The following day
on the feast of the crucified apostle, St. Andrew,
lover of our Lord’s Cross, the child’s uncle Louis
Watine-Duthoit and his aunt Marguerite LemaireLefebvre took the boy to the baptistery in the
Church of Our Lady and named him Marcel
François Marie Joseph: Marie and Joseph were
included by every northern Catholic family
among their children’s names; they chose
François because of the family association
with the Franciscan Tertiaries, and Marcel in
reparation for the disgraceful incarceration of
Pope St. Marcel, whose stable cell in Rome had
so touched Mrs. Lefebvre. The Archbishop’s
mother never waited to be back on her feet before
10

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having the children baptized; the family went to
the church without her, and it was only after the
ceremony that she was happy to hold the baby,
born again to the divine life and resplendent with
sanctifying grace. When Louise, the maid, gave
her Marcel to kiss, Mrs. Lefebvre received one
of those intuitions which she often had: “He will
have an important role in the Church close to the
Pope.”
Convinced that the future of a Catholic
homeland depends on fruitful Christian
marriages, the Lefebvre-Watines wanted to
surround themselves with many children, and so
in 1907 Bernadette was born. Her mother said of
her that she would be “a sign of contradiction,”
which is what the future Sister Marie-Gabriel
would in fact become when she, together with her
brother, founded the Congregation of the Sisters
of the Society of Saint Pius X. In 1908 came
Christiane, the last of the five older children.
Mrs. Lefebvre predicted that she would become a
Carmelite, which was indeed the case; moreover
she re-established the traditional Carmelites. The
last additions to the family were Joseph, born in
1914, Michel in 1920, and Marie-Thérèse in 1925.
As a mother Mrs. Lefebvre was profoundly
spiritual and extremely apostolic; we must
bear in mind these characteristics of her moral
physiognomy since Marcel was to inherit them.
She was a qualified Red Cross nurse and devoted
one and a half days a week to the care of the sick

in a clinic, seeking out the tasks which others
preferred to avoid. She and her husband were
also members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society,
but her most important apostolate was with the
Franciscan Tertiaries. Under the guidance of Mrs.
Lefebvre, who became president of the chapter
in Tourcoing, the number of Third Order “sisters”
reached eight hundred. The novice mistresses
were chosen by her, and they had their own
retreats.
Her spiritual director, Fr. Huré, was a
Montfortian priest. Her soul attained a state
of constant union with Jesus Christ, and she
meditated and did spiritual reading. She was
courageous and magnanimous, and practiced
mortification and self-sacrifice. In 1917, she
took a vow always to do the more perfect thing
(which she renewed at each confession). She
lived by faith, referring everything to God and
His holy will, and the most abiding characteristic
of her soul was gratitude to Divine Providence.
Moreover, she was an excellent educator. Her
husband set high standards for his children, but
tended to be excessively severe in his demands.
She, on the other hand, was more balanced; she
preferred to guide the family by establishing
an atmosphere of trust that never crushed the
children’s spontaneity, but stimulated their
generosity by good example.
The Lefebvres’ home was a sanctuary with
its own liturgy. Whilst Father went to Mass with
Louise at 6:15 A.M. and served for the Dean,
Mother woke the children, made the sign of the
cross on their foreheads, and made sure they
made their morning offering. Then she went to
Mass at 7:00 A.M. with the children who were
old enough to walk. When they were older, they
went to Mass at boarding school. Every evening,
family prayers gave them the opportunity to
put right any disagreements that might have
occurred throughout the day, and to unite their
hearts in God’s love. The children never went
to bed without receiving their parents’ blessing.
Christiane later said: “In May we would make
a pilgrimage to La Marlière on the outskirts of
Tourcoing near the Belgian border. We tried to
make a novena of pilgrimages during the month.
We had to get up at 5:00 A.M. and walk for three

quarters of an hour (fasting), hear Mass at 6:00,
then come back in time for classes.”
In January 1908, the family moved to a larger
house, 131 (later 151) Rue Nationale. The two
elder children went to school; René at the Sacred
Heart School and Jeanne at Convent of the
Immaculate Conception. The convent stood at
7, Place Notre Dame and had been built by the
Sainte-Union Sisters. The secularized Ursulines
took over from them in 1905. The school accepted
boys in the lower primary classes and Marcel was
among them. A postcard from 1911 shows some
of the children sitting on the grass at the garden
entrance in front of the statue of our Lady; Marcel
can be recognized from the long fringe that hangs
just above his solemn and attentive eyes.
After a preparatory retreat and having been to
confession–one of the first, if not the first, times
he received the sacrament of penance–Marcel
made his first Holy Communion on December
25, 1911, at the Convent of the Immaculate
Conception. Since he was already six, there
was no special permission needed to receive
communion; the kindly Fr. Varasse willingly
applied the decree of St. Pius X which had been
issued the previous year. The Pope’s decision
met some resistance here and there, and St.
Pius X once complained to Bishop Chesnelong
of Valence: “In France my decree allowing
small children to receive Communion is bitterly
criticized. Well, We say that there will be saints
from among those children, you’ll see!” As indeed
we have! During the Midnight Mass, celebrated at
7:00 A.M. by Father Varrasse, Marcel had his first
intimate conversation with the Eucharistic Lord.
He was the youngest of the fifteen communicants;
later, at home he took his finest pen and wrote
to the Pope to thank him for the decree which
enabled him to receive Holy Communion at the
age of six. From now on he was able to receive
Communion every day. His enlightened soul went
straight to God with the greatest simplicity, as
his sister Christiane observed: “Without realizing
it,” she said, “he radiated God, peace, and a sense
of duty.” But the child was not cut off from the
events which affected his family: his father’s
business and very soon the war.
Excerpted from “The Family Home,” Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography, by
Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2004), pp. 6-7.

11

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Pilgrim
Steps to the
Venetian
Pope
by Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, SSPX

“After having been 59 years a bird in the bush,
I do not feel like turning into a bird in a cage.”
These words of Cardinal Sarto, then on the brink
of being sent to the Roman Curia, reveal his
profound attachment to his peasant native land.
Its dialect and its countrymen were his treasures
as he spent there most of his life and the best of
himself. A pilgrim in the footsteps of the great
Pope will discover much of the saint through the
various assignments which Providence reserved
for him in his beloved Veneto.

Riese
Giuseppe Sarto came from the humble town of
Riese, the first born of a family of eight. Beppi, as
he was affectionately called by his sisters even

when Pope, soon revealed a definitely provincial
trait by working things out “the Venetian way,”
that is, with much determination and know-how.
The serene flatland of the Veneto marshes,
away from the busy city, was the cradle of his
strong personality. His life stretched between the
family “casetta,” the school, the parish church,
and the Madonna delle Cendrole, a favorite
pilgrimage church. Before long, the horizons
widened for the young lad who was eager to
study. The one way to do so was to walk most
days nine miles to Castelfranco with his meager
lunch bag of bread and polenta, not to forget his
shoes which he would take off to spare the soles.
The Riese visitor might have the luck of being
greeted by a relative of the saint at the casetta,
birth place. An amenable face, unassumingly
yet full of that old peasant dignity, he would
13

Theme Pope St. Pius X
unfold before the stranger the entire treasure of
the humble Sarto family. Original utensils as well
as later gifts from the Cardinal are disposed to
recreate the little world of rural life of the time.
Glued to the casetta is the recent museum, which
displays numerous relics and souvenirs of the
saint. The parish church of St. Matthew holds
in the apse the first casket of his remains until
1945. The church displays other liturgical items,
including the chalice he used for his first Mass.
One should not leave Riese without a detour to
the lovely Marian sanctuary of the Cendrole.

Seminary Years
By that time, the lad was ready to choose a
career. The family was struggling financially and
his Dad was not sold on his idea of becoming
a priest. A scholarship opened the way to the
Paduan seminary. During the eight years spent in
Padua, only twice did he return home, especially
the one when he received a premonition of his
father’s approaching death. Mamma Margherita,
turned widow, showed her adamantine faith in
letting him pursue his vocation: “Providence
will help you.” And so, despite the precarious

14

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situation and the stress placed on the oldest boy,
his religious uncles would watch over the family
estates and help Beppi conclude his training.
The busy city life was no joy to the country
lad. He abhorred the public transportation with
its rough crowd pushing elbows around. His
“ordinary refuge” was the famous monastery
of San Antonio. But he was maturing into a
gentleman and a model for all to admire and
imitate. Prizes were showered on his studies but
no less copious were the praises lavished on his
piety and personality: “May the Lord multiply
youth of the stamp of il Sarto!”

Tombolo and Salzano
Ordained at the precocious age of 23, Don
Giuseppe, although desirous to pursue his
theological studies, is called to be a vicario very
near his hometown, so as to better watch over
the family affairs. He soon had to act as de facto
Pastor, as Don Constantini was growing weaker
by the months. The young and zealous curate
was found everywhere stepping into the breach,
and what was most noticeable was his veneration
for his parish priest. He was at the school of

obedience with the man who most influenced his
priesthood, abiding by his smallest wishes for
the parish and souls. He soon became his nurse,
and when he finally was on his death bed, Don
Sarto away at the time, and hearing the bells toll,
did not have the courage to see his second father
dead, and went back weeping as a child.
By that time, Don Beppi had been appointed
parish priest of Salzano (1867-1875). He showed
himself no friend of the troublemakers. If there
was much Venetian diplomacy in his dealings
with the city council and the politicians, he did
not keep his fists to himself when he ran down
from the pulpit to straighten out rowdy boys. He
had a ready hand for blasphemers and, taken in
an ambush one time with his carriage, his whip
was cracked, opening his way through the rough
crowd. Beneath the pious Archpriest, there was
something of the bully Don Camillo. Yet, for all
that, his Salzaneans knew how to return the
charity of one who did so much for them: “He
came in with a shabby coat and left without a
shirt.” And, as to the portion of polenta, wood
and even the horse of the canonica, they often
became “public property.” His zeal became so
prominent during an epidemic of cholera that
some witness confessed that “if it had not been

for the archpriest, we would have died of sorrow.”
To the visitor, Tombolo still harbors one of Don
Sarto’s sundials that he built. More importantly,
Salzano has dedicated a worthy museum to the
saint, including many liturgical treasures he used
or donated, noticeably a rich chalice, gift of the
French bishops in 1906 during the hard time of
the separation of Church and State. There one
will find the famous watch which often ended
up in the Montes Pietatis to be used as pawn for
needy poor. The upper-floor showcases display
many original documents written in his hand.
The central case contains the famous Catechism
of Salzano, a manuscript of the pastor including
252 personal annotations. This work became
the foundation of the Catechism of St. Pius X,
propagated throughout the country and soon
offered to the world as the model of Christian
instruction.

Treviso and Mantua
The next motion—and promotion—would
lead Don Giuseppe to the chancellery of Treviso.
As in Tombolo, where he had taken on a load
above his title, so in Treviso, he was to act as

Salzano: Death record during cholera epidemic
in Don Sarto’s own writing

Confessional in the parish church of Salzano

Altar in the parish church in Salzano

Page 14:
Sarto house in Riese
Our Lady of Cendrole, Riese

15

Theme Pope St. Pius X

16

bishop. Bishop Zinelli, despite his failing health
and delegating much work on the young canon’s
shoulders, was central in guiding Monsignore
Sarto’s intellectual stature. He introduced him
to the writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, which
were to have such an influence on his pontificate.
Looking back at Cardinal Pie’s legacy, Pope Pius X
would say: “He is my master.”
His function at Treviso was threefold.
Promoted canon with the duty to sing the whole
office at the cathedral, he was simultaneously
diocesan chancellor and the seminary spiritual
director. Monsignore Sarto spent his days in
the intricate work of the diocese, showing his
diplomatic skill with the ever touchy State
control, and burning much of his night candle
in urgent administrative duties. The spiritual

guidance of seminarians and his jovial spirit at
meals with the staff were his real relaxation.
In Treviso, the adventurous pilgrim might be
allowed to peek into the chancery office, which
has kept some of the original furniture of the
saintly chancellor.
Everyone knew that the miter was hovering
over his head, him excepted. With reason, it is
said that Leo XIII looked upon Msgr. Sarto as
the last chance for restoring order in the difficult
diocese of Mantua. The diocese was already
“famous for its ill fame.” Laborers in the field
confessed, “Here we are in partibus infidelium—
in the land of infidels—below the worst parishes
of Treviso and Padua.” The new Shepherd who
made his entrance in 1885 had no illusion about
his diocese: many Padres had abandoned their

Mantua: Cathedral

Pius X, Coat of arms

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vocation; too many acted as politicians first and
pastors next; the seminary virtually empty was in
its last agony; the atmosphere was loaded with a
virulent anticlericalism doubled with a profound
economic crisis. Worst of all, there was among the
clergy a latent indifference or even scorn towards
authority.
Under the velvet glove, Monsignore quickly
proved to hold an iron fist. A pastor who was
sluggish in his duty of confessor came running
one day as he saw his confessional occupied
until he opened the grate and found himself face
to face with… his own bishop! Msgr. Sarto’s
confessional—he loved to hear the confessions of
his faithful—is still on display in the cathedral.
On another occasion, the bishop invited two
priests for a ride in his carriage and dropped
his dumbfounded guests at the doorsteps of a
monastery, with a note for the abbot: they had not
made their retreat for a good many years! Well
known was the story of this priest who, time and
again, requested some financial help, until the
bishop answered him: “When was the last time
you recited your breviary? Had you done so, you
would have found your donation there a long time
ago!”
The Pastor turned into a real father when
dealing with his revamped seminary, which
he often visited and offered classes. When
seminarians came to his office to confess
their blunders, the fist might strike hard on the
table, but soon Monsignore would recover his
composure and one could see tears in his eyes:
the lesson would not be forgotten! The zeal of
the bishop was felt through the entire diocese;
pastoral visit succeeded the Diocesan Synod
succeeding another pastoral visitation. The
sojourn of Mantua brought forward the musical
genius of Father Perosi under Msgr. Sarto’s radar,
who would later appoint him Maestro of the
Sistine Chapel.

Patriarch of Venice
In 1893, nine Mantovan years had passed in
endless work and battles with the city council
and the clergy. Time was running out for the

Rome: Painting of St. Pius X, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

Monsignore who was in the run for the important
post of the “Laguna,” although he made no bones
about the Venetian hat: “I patriarcati non sono
bocconi per le nostre bocche—Accepting this
Patriarchate would be biting off more than I
could chew.” Yet the Pope was adamant: Sarto
would be the next Venice Patriarch, and even
more, Cardinal, so pleased was his Sanctity with
the bishop’s work in Mantua. When he belatedly
entered triumphantly the Piazza San Marco, all
windows were dressed up and wide open except
the City Mayor’s, in the grips of Freemasonry. The
neoporporato prophesied: “If the City palace has
closed the windows, we’ll open them ourselves.”
Before long, the Laguna’s new head had united all
conservative forces and ousted the undesirable
godless rulers. He delved into politics of the
best type, entertained the best terms with the
statesmen of the day, as was evidenced on the
occasion of the blessing of the corner stone of
the new San Marco Campanile. Cardinal Sarto
also indulged in social works of mercy and
finances, with the creation of “mounts of piety”
and other banks, in reviving dying industry in
the peninsular city which was fast turning
17

Theme Pope St. Pius X
into a begging Queen. The patriarch wished to
visit physically all corners of the diocese and
have access to all classes and all ages, adults and
children. He resented strongly the modernism of
a fallen priest, Murri, of whom, he said: “I would
excommunicate him if I were the Pope.” This
prophetical threat would be fulfilled soon after,
unlike that which he pronounced when he left for
the conclave of 1903 which was to elect him Pope:
“I shall return to Venice, alive or dead!” Only dead
did he return to the Laguna at the instance of
John XXIII, who had also been Patriarch there.
For the Santo Sarto pilgrim, Venice is certainly
the place where one can walk in his footsteps,
especially the magnificent Byzantine Cathedral,
and the Patriarchal Palazzio, where his bedroom
and study rooms are visited. It is worth the
Venice: View from Cardinal Sarto’s office window

18

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detour to reach the summit of the Monte Grappa,
crowned with a statue of the Madonna. There,
one day, admiring the resemblance with Pius IX,
a woman had cried out: “Oh, see the beautiful
Pius X.” The Cardinal had his heart riveted there:
“I would return to her on my knees.” But God had
other designs, and the trip to the Roman conclave
was to be his last one alive. He had said to his
busy secretary Don Bessan encumbered with
the heavy suitcases: “The journey to Rome is not
quite like travelling to America!” Little did he
know what Providence had in store.
Fr. Dominique Bourmaud has spent the past 26 years teaching at the Society
seminaries in America, Argentina, and Australia. He is presently stationed at
St. Vincent’s Priory, Kansas City, where he is in charge of the priests’ training
program.

Venice: Cardinal Sarto’s bedroom desk

Mass on the altar of St. Pius X

Relics of St. Pius X under the Altar at St. Peter’s, Rome.

Baldachin, St. Peter’s.

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The St. Pius
X Catechism
for the 21st
Century
by Fr. Pierre Duverger, SSPX

The Council of Trent provided a catechism
for priests. It was, however, also the desire of
the Council Fathers to give a catechism for the
children. They wanted something different that
the Catechism of St. Peter Canisius available at
the time. The Pope asked St. Charles Borromeo
to lead the effort. Finished in 1566, St. Pius V
published it and had it translated. We know it as
usually as the Roman Catechism.
Unfortunately, it was not implemented
everywhere as the Fathers of Trent had
wanted. Pope Clement VIII then asked Cardinal
Bellarmine to write a catechism. Named Dottrina
Cristiana Breve, this catechism was published in
1598 and was imposed on all the dioceses of the
Papal States. Urban VIII further recommended its
use in the missions.

In 1742, Benedict XIV expressed the same wish
of his predecessors: one unique catechism. Over
time, other catechisms were published and many
dioceses used unique versions. In 1761, Clement
XIII lamented such a reality. He recommended
coming back to and limiting the presentation of
the doctrine to what is universal, traditional, and
unanimous.

Vatican Council I Tries Again
The project was therefore discussed again
during the First Vatican Council: one catechism,
published by the council in Latin for the whole
Church. The bishops would be in charge of the
translations to be submitted to Rome. But the
plan was never finished!

21

Theme Pope St. Pius X
The Beginnings of
This Catechism
St. Pius X was parish priest in Salzano during
the First Vatican Council. At that time, he wrote
a catechism. This work was the draft of the
catechism he would publish in 1912 at the end of
his life.
As bishop of Mantua, he wrote a proposal
for a unique catechism on the occasion of the
Catechistic Congress of Piacenza in 1889. Then,
in 1891, he sent a letter with the same idea
to Pope Leon XIII. As Rome gave a universal
catechism for the priests, he argued that the
same should be done for children in order to
have only one and the same catechism in all the
schools. In his own words:
“It is the Holy See which established the
Catechism for Parish Priests for the universal
Church. Similarly, we would like there to be a
popular catechism, historical, dogmatic, moral,
written in very short questions and answers,
which would be taught in all schools of Christian
doctrine and published in every language so that
even in this area, everyone might be of the same
tongue. This catechism would be the foundation
of all other larger instructions to be made by
the pastor and catechist according to the age,
intelligence, and condition of the educated”
(Proposal on the occasion of the Catechistic
Congress of Piacenza, August 29, 1889).
Once elected Pope, he worked to accomplish
this very project. In 1905 he wrote the Encyclical
Acerbo Nimis denouncing the ignorance of
doctrine as the main cause of the problems
of the day: “If faith languishes in our days, if
among large numbers it has almost vanished, the
reason is that the duty of catechetical teaching
is either fulfilled very superficially or altogether
neglected” (p. 16). He encourages the teaching of
doctrine, demands it from the parish priest, and
describes the function of the catechist:
“The task of the catechist is to take up one
or other of the truths of faith or of Christian
morality and then explain it in all its parts; and
since amendment of life is the chief aim of his
instruction, the catechist must needs make a
comparison between what God commands us to
22

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do and what is our actual conduct. After this, he
will use examples appropriately taken from the
Holy Scriptures, Church history, and the lives of
the saints—thus moving his hearers and clearly
pointing out to them how they are to regulate
their own conduct. He should, in conclusion,
earnestly exhort all present to dread and avoid
vice and to practice virtue” (p. 13).

The Compendium
The same year he published the Compendium
of Christian Doctrine and ordered it to be used
in the diocese and province of Rome. It is a
remake of a compendium published in 1756 for
the diocese of Piedmont. Pius X hoped that this
catechism would at least be spread throughout
Italy. It is also commonly called the Catechism
of St. Pius X, though this is something of a
misnomer.
In 1910 the pope published the Decree
Quam Singulari, clarifying the time for first
Holy Communion: “...the age of discretion for
Confession is the time when one can distinguish
between right and wrong, that is, when one
arrives at a certain use of reason, and so simi­
larly, for Holy Communion is required the age
when one can distinguish between the Bread
of the Holy Eucharist and ordinary bread—
again, the age at which a child attains the use of
reason.”
If very young children were again to be
admitted to Communion, which catechism
should be used? The pope recognized that the
Compendium published five years before had to
be further shortened.
In 1909, Pius X had already named a
commission directly answering to himself in
order to prepare a catechism. After two years and
five different drafts, the first text was ready for
review. It was sent for correction and criticism to
sixty-five experts, including the anti-modernist
commission. The pope reviewed each and every
comment. He asked a professor to insure the best
and easiest style. Again, five different versions
were needed to provide the definitive text. On
November 30, 1912, the catechism was published

in two different books: a complete edition (433
questions and prayers) and an abridged one for
children (179 questions and prayers).
St. Pius X imposed it on the Province of Rome
and expressed his wishes that it be adopted by
the other dioceses of Italy as well. He believed
that the quality of the catechism would assure
its success. It would be translated, and indeed
adopted in many dioceses. Here is his own
presentation of the Catechism to Cardinal
Respighi, then vicar of Rome:
“We consented to reducing the Old Catechism
into a new one, significantly condensed, which
We Ourselves examined and wished also to be
examined…it seems to Us…that we must not
delay any further in a substitution of the text,
recognized as opportune, trusting that…it will
be more convenient and as much as, if not more,
profitable than the old one, since the volume of
the book and the things to be learned having been
quite reduced, it will not discourage the youth,
already seriously overburdened by scholastic
programs, and will thus permit teachers and
catechists to make them learn it all. Here they
will find, despite its brevity, the truths better
explained and accentuated, those that nowadays
are the most hardly fought, misunderstood, or
forgotten, and which result in immense harm
done to souls and society.
“…we hope that even adults, those who wish,
as at times they should, in order to live better
and for the education of their family, to revive
in their soul the fundamental knowledge on
which the spiritual and moral life of a Christian
is based, that they are to find this brief account
useful and pleasing, very accurate even in its
form, where they will encounter, set forth with
great simplicity, the most important Divine truths
and the most efficacious Christian reflections”
(Letter of St. Pius X to Cardinal Pietro Respighi
by which the Catechism is given for the diocese
and the ecclesiastical Province of Rome, October
18, 1912).

A New Presentation
In 1913 Pius X approved the work of Fathers
Pavanelli, Vigna, and Isengard. These priests

wanted to divide his catechism into six different
booklets using a progressive method: the four
parts of the Catechism are studied every year,
but new questions are progressively added and
completed from one year to another. Sacred
Scripture, Liturgy, and Church History are
included in these 52 lessons that compose each
booklet. On June 3, 1914, Father Pavanelli offered
his booklets to the pope, who encouraged and
blessed his work. On August 10, 1914, St. Pius X
died.
Because of the two World Wars of the first half
of the 20th century, the Catechism of St. Pius X
did not spread as widely as originally expected.
Then came World War III with the opening of the
Council...

The Catechism Reborn
As some priests of the Society of St. Pius X
were working to gather and publish the complete
works of St. Pius X, our patron, they came across
this last work, almost forgotten, although so
important to St. Pius X.
The District of France worked hard on
resuscitating this catechism. They compared the
three existing French translations, chose the
closest expressions to the Italian original and
produced the best translation possible with the
necessary adaptations. The two original books of
St. Pius X and the five booklets of the progressive
method for children of Fathers Pavanelli and
Vigna were published there in 2010 after five
years of intense work.
In the United States, we have been working on
the same project for four years already, trying to
take into account the experience of our French
colleagues. We found one English translation
adapted to orientations of Vatican II by Msgr.
Kevane, an Irish prelate. A second one was found
from a retired American priest who had taught
for several decades in Rome. Between the Italian
original, these two English versions, the French
one, three American-speaking Italian scholars
have been asked for their comments. We have
been working on the English expression, insisting
on the style and rhythm of the sentences,
23

Theme Pope St. Pius X
trying to remain as close as possible to the Italian
original. The project is still a work in progress.
Our plan is to test it in classrooms before the
definitive text is published.
The challenge is huge. The text of St. Pius X
is an excellent Italian. It is a true theological
summa, written to be put in the memory of
the child but only to receive its complete
understanding in the mind of the adult. The
order is definitely Thomistic, the modern errors
clearly targeted, but only the common doctrine is
retained.

Some Examples from
the Catechism
“The Church is holy because Jesus Christ, her
invisible head, and the Holy Ghost, who vivifies
her, are both holy; because in her, the doctrine,
the sacrifice, and the sacraments are holy, and all
are called to become holy; and because in reality
many were, are, and will be holy.”
“Outside of the Roman Catholic Church, can
another be the Church of Jesus Christ, or at least
a part of it?”
“The Pope and the Bishops united to him
constitute the teaching Church, so called because
she has the mission from Jesus Christ to teach
the divine truths and laws to all men, who receive
from her alone the full and sure knowledge [of
them] which is necessary to live in a Christian
manner.”
“The faithful who are in the Church are called
saints because they are consecrated to God,
justified or sanctified by the sacraments, and
obliged to live as saints.”
“Original sin is the sin which mankind
committed in Adam, its head, and which everyone
contracts through natural descent from Adam.”
“After death, Jesus Christ descended with His
soul to Limbo, where dwelt the souls of the just
who were then dead, to lead them with Him into
paradise; then He rose from the dead, taking back
up His body which had been buried.”
“Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders
are received only once because they impress a
permanent character upon the soul, working
24

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a perpetual consecration of the man to Jesus
Christ, which distinguishes him from those who
do not have it. Baptism impresses on the soul the
character of the Christian; Confirmation, that of
the soldier of Jesus Christ; Holy Orders, that of
His minister.”
“Why is the Most Holy Eucharist reserved in
churches?”
“The Holy Mass is the sacrifice of the Body and
Blood of Jesus Christ which, under the species
of bread and of wine, is offered by the priest to
God on the altar in memory and in renewal of the
sacrifice of the Cross.”

What Could Have Been
If this catechism had been widely adopted
by Catholic schools, loved by the teachers
(including in high school and college), and
properly taught, can we imagine the reforms of
Vatican II penetrating Catholic minds so easily?
“I am intimately convinced that the triumph of
the Faith depends on the catechism” (Letter of
Bp. Sarto to Bp. Sclabrini on occasion of the
Catechistic Congress of Piacenza, August 29,
1889).
The authority of the Baltimore Catechism
brought unity to the United States, but the text
is insufficient for students after confirmation.
The 1912 Catechism of St. Pius X comes with
the pontifical authority of the Anti-modernist
Pope, also called the Pope of the Catechism, a
saint, and apostle of children. It not only clearly
express the divine truths, it also feeds piety and
gives a safe reference in the storm we are in.
It is the desire of the District Office, as we are
working to implement unity and coherence in our
religion curriculum, to adopt this text in all SSPX
schools. If all goes well, it will be available from
Angelus Press next year. Please remember this
project in your prayers!

The Just
Man Lives
by Faith
by André Charlier

In a pastoral letter addressed to his clergy,
Monsignor Sarto sketched in these terms the
physiognomy of the priest as he conceived of him:
“A priest should be holy; he should therefore be
grave, such that his words, his deportment and his
manner of acting draw to him people’s affection,
conciliate the public authorities, and earn him
respect. Let him remember that an outward
bearing marked by dignity and self-discipline is
a sort of eloquence effective for winning souls;
it is the most persuasive of speeches. Nothing
inspires greater confidence in a churchman than
to see him never fail to live up to the dignity of his
calling, thus bearing in himself the gravity that
attracts and captures the homage of all hearts.”
St. Pius X, himself, was the priest of whom
he spoke; the witnesses who testified during
the investigation for his canonization assure

us of the fact. And when we study a series of
portraits of this great pope at different stages of
his life, we are struck by a radiant harmony that
becomes increasingly apparent. Surely this soul
was continuously faithful to the inspirations of
the Holy Spirit for such supernatural charm to
shine from his portrait. The nature it animates
is spontaneous, quick, and good-humored.
Witnesses even tell us that in his youth Pius X was
capable of violence, but that he always dominated
its first motions. The face is distinguished,
energetic and thoughtful.
The line of the mouth indicates firmness—a
character that will overcome every contradiction,
and that, after having weighed all the
consequences, will undertake without haste the
most momentous decisions. In the images we have
of the young vicar of Tombolo, the physiognomy
25

Theme Pope St. Pius X
betrays something of a conquering spirit that
will fade as the ardor becomes more interior; but
already the eyes are those of a contemplative;
they are fixed on “what eye has not seen, nor ear
heard.” And the dew of contemplation will foster
the growth of those two flowers of the heights:
humility and charity. The humility of Pius X is
evinced by the trembling that would seize upon
him and the tears that sprang from his eyes
each time he had to ascend one of the degrees
of the hierarchy up to the Supreme Pontificate,
which was his Calvary. His charity is attested
by thousands of testimonies that show us an
inexhaustible heart, overflowing with love for his
brethren after the example of Christ.
In the portraits of the later years, the face,
a little heavier in old age, is pervaded by
melancholy, a sadness that conveys less his
lassitude—for he labored till the end—than his
suffering at the ingratitude of men and their
spirit of revolt. Did he not also have to endure his
Garden of Olives?...
Nowadays people no longer willingly resort
to the teaching of Pius X, and yet he is the only
pope to have been canonized thus far since the
sixteenth century. It is not hard to find the reason:
Pius X condemned. But it is commonly thought
today, even in the Church, that nothing should
be condemned, that the time of condemnations
is past because the truth is everywhere, even
in doctrines the most opposed to Christianity,
because the majority of men are of good will.
This is the expression of a liberalism very much
in style, and the current that conveys people
toward liberalism is all the stronger as the idea
of transcendent truth inspires universal fright,
even among those who have the faith: because
everything is evolving, nothing is absolute....
Written more than fifty years ago, [the writings
of Pius X] strike us as being pertinent for the
Church today. As a layman I am perhaps entitled to
express my amazement, since the laity in our day
is the object of a “promotion” about which it feels
both honored and, why not say it? embarrassed.
Seventeen years ago I was struck by the beautiful
pastoral letter of His Eminence Cardinal Suhard,
“Rise or Fall of the Church”1... The letter invited us
to be on guard against excessive traditionalism.
26

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Rise or Fall of the Church
The Church, it said, is a perfect, holy society
as the Mystical Body of Christ, but we must not
forget that she is engaged in time and as such she
is subject to “organic growth.” The Church changes
and grows, striving to respond to the needs of
humanity. Thus there is a visible, “legal” Church
that does not always allow the supernatural reality
to appear: it remains for us like the real presence
of Christ in the Eucharist veiled by the Eucharistic
species. Such is the mystery of the Church, with its
double aspect of supernatural reality and human,
changing society. We have to admit that the Church
evolves with the world without any loss of its
holiness. It so happens that modern civilization
is indifferent and even hostile to religion because
the naturalism ushered in by the Renaissance has
under various guises sought to drive God out of
society. And so a considerable mass of people once
Christian have slid out of the traditional faith and
fallen back into paganism. The Church, in order to
fulfill her missionary vocation, must reconquer this
multitude. Christians mustn’t let their faith congeal
in out-of-date forms: they must be present in the
world in which God has placed them.
It will behoove us, the Cardinal said, to
integrate good, authentic human values within our
religious perspective: “the development of social
organization; the renewal and transformation
of the world by the intellectual, technical,
and aesthetic efforts of recent centuries; the
increasingly conscious affirmation of a universal
human solidarity, and so forth.” Christians should,
then, believe in progress and work “to perfect
creation,” but their first duty must be to tend
towards holiness; there is no genuine apostolate
without interior life, an interior life founded on the
authentic spiritual tradition of the Church, that
is, based on prayer and meditation. In the present
state of the world, in which there is no longer a
Christian society, the missionary apostolate will
consist in “mingling with unbelievers in order
to save them as they are and to bear witness in
their midst.” “Being an apostle means taking
everything, to become involved in everything
that can legitimately be adopted, of man and of
the world he has fashioned. Everything except

sin, that is to say, all values, even those hitherto
extraneous to Christianity.” The letter emphasized
the “communitarian” form the apostolate should
take, as well as its “social” form: “It is no longer
the individual, it is the group itself that needs to
become missionary.” Finally, the Cardinal depicted
what is most inhuman in modern civilization and
called on Christians to build a new world in which
more humane structures—economic and social—
would foster evangelization.
The letter was remarkable and had consider­
able effect. But it awakened in me two misgiv­
ings. Eminence, I said to myself, you are sending
your clergy among barbarians, which is the
true Christian tradition, and in this you are not
mistaken: we are in an age of barbarism. As Péguy
said, barbarism is on the rise. But the Christians of
yesteryear, who bore witness to their faith among
the barbarians, could expect not only to be cast in
prison, which is but a light penalty, but also to be
hacked, sawed, boiled, grilled, crucified, and the
like.

Modern Apostles
Sufferings of the body strengthened, as it were,
the resistance of their souls. Modern apostles in
any big city have nothing to fear for their body, but
their soul is assailed on all sides at once, almost
without their realizing it, for modern barbarism
piles up a heap of truly incredible seductions, all
of which tend to separate them from God. Ancient
barbarism compelled Christians to deny God by a
solemn, official act that carried fearful sanctions
should one refuse. Modern barbarism imposes
nothing and threatens no punishments, but it dulls
the conscience, which ends by no longer perceiving
that it is denying God at every turn. To resist such
temptations, Eminence, your young clerics must
be given arms, the arms of a spiritual formation
grounded in self-discipline and self-abnegation, for
their combat is going to be much more dangerous
than that of monks: they will have to choose every
minute between faithfulness and betrayal.
I had another misgiving, Eminence. I thought
that your definition of apostle goes pretty far. To
be an apostle, you say, means taking everything,

becoming involved in everything, that is to say,
all the values till now foreign to Christianity.
This is more than an immense program, it is a
program that demands the greatest discernment.
Your clerics will have to have a cultivation far
above that of an ordinary student, for, it must be
acknowledged since it is a fact, that a young man
who has completed his secondary studies enters
university or seminary relatively uncultured.
But he is going to have to choose among the new
values the world presents him and to choose in the
direction of truth, and not a truth in the process of
evolution, changing with the vicissitudes of time,
but a Truth that does not pass away.
Shall I say that these misgivings were in vain?
If I speak of them, it is because unfortunately they
were not. They lead us back to St. Pius X, who,
whatever one may think today, gave to the Church
doctrine both firm and relevant, doctrine of which
we stand in need even today. For, in effect, as the
Church plunges into social action, she more or less
forgets to teach the things that are of faith. I am
acquainted with groups of young families whose
members regret that their pastors speak to them
too little of God. Last year I attended a Mass for
a group of men in a village in France. There were
about two hundred men from the surrounding
countryside, many of whom did not regularly go to
church. It was Passion Sunday, a perfect occasion
to remind them of the mystery of Redemption
and to have them meditate on what sufferings
our salvation cost our Lord. A vicar general had
gone to the trouble to come and give the sermon.
Yet God was scarcely mentioned. There was only
talk of hunger in the world and of the duty of
Christians to work for the advancement of their
profession. What could these good men take home
from such a sermon for the salvation of their soul?
And thus we see established a new spirituality, a
social spirituality where the accent is placed on
the action of man more than on the grace of God.
The boldest young priests declare forthrightly
that the city of the future has to be built first, and
who call upon the collaboration of unbelievers as
well as believers (I was going to say: preferably
of unbelievers, for there is a singular distrust
of practicing Christians, who are suspected in
principle of being reactionary and conservative).
27

Theme Pope St. Pius X
We must build, they think, a better world before
dreaming of transmitting the message of Christ:
this is what they call “reforming the structures.”
They make us think of a certain modernist for
whom Pius X had great affection and to whom
he said: “You widen the door to let in those who
are outside, and meanwhile you make all those
who are inside leave.” In this new spirituality,
engagement in the service of others is truly to
know Christ, and one can only subscribe to this
proposition if the character of this engagement is
purely supernatural, if it is Christ we serve in our
brothers.
But how can we harmonize this knowledge
of Christ with contempt for the sacraments,
especially contempt for the sacrament of penance,
which sets in sometimes imperceptibly? There can
be no true spirituality where the sense of adoration
is lacking. What is to be said of these priests who
issue a kind of ultimatum to their bishop, guilty
of having spoken in favor of private education?
What is to be said of the pillaging of the liturgy
that we have witnessed more or less everywhere,
at the mercy of everyone’s whims despite the rules
established by the hierarchy? How can we not but
see with sorrow the new spirituality discourage
devotion to the Virgin to such a degree as to
rank the rosary among the “devotions” good for
backward Christians?
St. Pius X did not think that there are two
spiritualities, a traditional spirituality (which
is repudiated today because it is disdained as
too monastic) and a spirituality adapted to the
apostolate in the modern world. There is only one
spirituality, which flows from the Sermon on the
Mount and which makes perfection the normal
attainment of Christian life. To wish to strip it of
contemplation and of sacrifice is to make it lose
its purpose. On this St. Pius X is faithful to all
the Fathers of the Church. It suffices to read his
teachings to notice that he had to fight against
the same deviations that we observe today, and
that the indiscipline of the clergy that shocks
us so much is nothing new. The encyclical letter
addressed to the Bishops of Italy of July 28,
1906, [“Pieni l’animo”] treats of the formation of
seminarians and warns the bishops against the
contempt for authority that is spreading among
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the clergy: “Over and above the most degrading
corruption of manners there is also an open
contempt for authority and for those who exercise
it. What overwhelms Us with grief, however, is the
fact that this spirit should creep into the sanctuary
even in the least degree, infecting those to whom
the words of Ecclesiasticus should most fittingly
be applied: ‘Their generation, obedience and love’
(Ecclus. 3:1).”

Pope of the Holy Eucharist
Pius X was the Pope of the Holy Eucharist. He
really lived by it and he wanted men to live by it
even more. Here I can do no better than quote
the words of Pius X himself. One day in 1912,
four hundred French first Communicants made a
pilgrimage to Rome in thanksgiving, and they were
received by the Pope who, with tears in his eyes,
gave this admirable speech:
“Since God is spotless purity, someone united
to Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, rising like
an innocent dove from the marshy waters of this
miserable world, takes flight and finds refuge
in the bosom of God, One who is purer than
the immaculate snow on the mountaintops. If
God is infinite beauty, someone united to Jesus
Christ attracts the admiration and loving regard
of the angels, who, were they able to experience
passion, would envy him his lot. If God is charity
by essence, the faithful united to Jesus Christ
is as it were ravished in a blessed ecstasy and
transfigured by charity; it shows outwardly, even
on his face, in the ardent aspirations of his heart
and in the sweetness of the words on his lips;
everything reminds him and manifests unto him
this love... The Eucharist is the center of the faith.”
The decrees of Pius X about frequent
Communion and Communion for children were a
revolution in the Church. Resistance was vigorous,
especially in France, and it saddened Pius X. One
day he said to Msgr. Chesnelong: “In France, the
early Communion we have decreed is bitterly
criticized, but We say, there will be saints among
the children; you’ll see.”
Pius X was too shrewd a psychologist not to
know that the sensibility of the faithful has

Prayer to a Saint
I believe, O great Saint, that from the dwelling of the
blessed, you watch over our frisks and frolics, and are the
witness of our concerns. You who lived by faith, teach us
how our soul can become so perfectly docile to Christ that
He may deign to make it His abode and that we too may
henceforth live by faith. You knew how to defend the rights
of the Church with such firmness and to govern the faithful
people with evangelical meekness: inspire in us the same
fortitude and the same mildness such that, in the midst of
the vicissitudes of the world, we may remain faithful to our
Christian vocation and know how to win souls to the love
of Christ. Give us hope, of which you have said that it is “the
sure anchor of the soul” and the “unique rampart of life,” the
hope that rests on the promises of Christ. You never ceased
to fight for the defense of Truth: make us submit our minds
without reserve to the truth of the Gospel as it is proclaimed
by the Church and with the same humility that never ceased
to shine in you. Give us after your example a great love of
perfection so that in us the grace of God may not be in vain.
Oil painting in the office of Cardinal Sarto (St. Pius X) in the Patriarchal Palace in Venice

Theme Pope St. Pius X
to be engaged in order to cultivate their faith,
and that this is the role of the arts; but it is also
necessary that the art be pure for it to conserve
a supernatural character. That is why he was
the Pope of the liturgy and of Gregorian chant.
He himself was a good musician, and, it seems,
hearing him sing was pure delight...
In all the places where he carried out his
ministry, as vicar, as curate, as bishop, he trained
singers, established choir schools, and imposed
decorum, harmony, and beauty in worship.
“Gregorian chant,” he wrote to Cardinal Respighi,
“as it was handed down by the Fathers and is
found in the codices of the various churches, is
noble, quiet, easy to learn, and of a beauty so
fresh and full of surprises that wherever it has
been introduced it has never failed to excite real
enthusiasm in the youthful singers.”2 How profound
this judgment is: indeed, this beauty is so fresh and
full of surprises because it is hard to believe that
such simplicity of means could produce an effect of
such grandeur.
I once knew a religious, now deceased, who
thought that Gregorian chant was “inspired”
as Sacred Scripture is. It goes without saying
that that is a personal opinion, but when one
thinks of the marvels contained in the Gradual
and the Antiphonary, when one remembers the
admirable pieces like the Exultet, the Improperia
of Good Friday, the Responsories of Holy Week,
the Offertory Jubilate Deo, the Media Vita, and
so many other masterpieces, one is not far from
being of the same opinion. Gregorian music is
both a popular art and an art that introduces us
into the highest mysteries of the faith. It is the
best educator of the spiritual life. But nowadays
the same thing is happening to it as to Thomism.
Without saying openly that they want to discard
it, they create a whole new liturgy whose songs
gradually supplant all the Gregorian chant; and
these songs are almost all of a heart-rending
mediocrity. Which is to say simply that they
are in the process of spoiling the taste of the
Christian people instead of forming it. It is being
spoiled because they follow the taste of the world.
I wonder if they hope that the faith will gain
something from it? I know a seminary where the
seminarians are allowed to play “pop” music:
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obviously no one can say that the songs of Georges
Brassens and Yves Montand are an excellent
formation for the spiritual life.
One may form the taste of a parish, and one
must likewise form the taste of a seminary. Music
has a power over the soul unlike any of the other
arts: it is capable of making them vulgar, but it
is also capable of opening to them the door of
contemplation. In Gregorian chant, and I have
experienced it, there is always a spot, the turn of
phrase that reveals the perfection to which the
soul is called, and the singers sense it. Is it under
the pretext of a “return to the sources” that they
are going to condemn us to such an impoverished
religion?

Excerpts from “Le Juste vie de la foi,” Itinéraires, No. 87, November 1964, pp. 5-6,
9-13, 20-22. Translated by A. M. Stinnett.
André Charlier (1895-1971) was a renowned French educator. A convert to the
Catholic Faith at 18, he began his teaching career in 1921. For many years he was
headmaster of the École des Roches, at Maslacq. Letters he addressed to the elder
boys were later collected and published under the title Lettres aux Capitaines. His
other miscellaneous writings were published under the title Que faut-il dire aux
hommes (What Must Be Said to Men, 1964) which was honored by the Académie
Française.

1

Emmanuel-Celestine Cardinal Suhard (1874-1940), Archbishop of
Paris from 1940-1949. He helped found the French Mission in 1941
and promoted the Worker-Priest Movement. Today he is considered a
precursor of Vatican II.

2

Letter to Cardinal Respighi, Cardinal Vicar of Rome, December 8,
1903. Translation from F. A. Forbes, A Short Biography of Saint
Pius X (1918; new and revised edition by Tan Books, 1954).

Pope Pius X

Blessed
and Saint
by Yves Chiron

1

Zone (first published
in 1912, reprinted in
the collection Alcools).
Apollinaire used the term
“modern” again, later, to
explain why he preferred
Pascal to Claudel: “What,
nowadays, is more fresh,
more modern, more laid
bare and more weighed
down with riches than
Pascal? You taste this,
I’m sure, and rightly. We
can love him,” Guillaume
Apollinaire–Pablo Picasso,
Correspondance (Paris:
Gallimard, 1992), p. 181.

The day after the Pope’s death the praise for him was unanimous. In Rome
the great liberal daily Il Giornale d’Italia, which had so often echoed the
principles and catch-phrases of Modernism, gave pride of place to an article
which well expressed the common feeling: “History made him a great Pope,
and the Church will make him a great Saint.” Even the great Paris Socialist
newspaper, L’Humanité, gave an admiring bow before the mortal remains of
Pius X:
“The Pope is dead. It must be said that he was a great Pope. His policies
were very simple, namely, to restore the values of faith with an apostolic
firmness. He was able to conduct these policies with authority because of his
simplicity of soul and the indubitable sincerity of his virtues. However he is
judged, it must be said that Pius X has been a great Pope.”
Even while he was alive, his prestige was very great. Guillaume
Apollinaire, a poet far removed from classicism, wrote in one of his poems:
Seul en Europe tu n’es pas antique ô Christianisme
L’Européen le plus moderne c’est vous pape Pie X.1

31

Theme Pope St. Pius X
2

Deposition of Msgr. R. de
Samper, Summarium, p.
991.

[You alone in Europe, Christendom, have not grown old and ancient; Of all
Europeans, you, Pope Pius the Tenth, are the most modern.]

Immediate Veneration
After his death, in conformity with the express terms of his will, Pius X’s
body was not embalmed. This meant that the lying-in-state was very short,
from the first evening of the day he died until the following morning. For one
whole night the mortal remains of Pius X, clothed in a white pontifical habit,
were exposed in the throne-room of the Vatican. The crowd of anonymous
faithful filed uninterruptedly past the coffin. Many had brought small objects
(a rosary, holy pictures, a crucifix) in the hope of touching them against the
body of a Pope who, in popular piety, was already considered to be a saint.
Two prelates willingly offered their services for this devotional rite, and
touched Pius X’s mortal remains with these proffered objects.
According to his wishes, Pius X was interred in the crypt of St. Peter’s
Basilica. Thus he broke with the tradition of his predecessors who were
buried in one of the great Roman basilicas: Pius IX in St. Laurence-outsidethe-Walls and Leo XIII in St. John Lateran. Pius X wanted to associate
himself with a longer tradition, i.e., that of the many popes in the past who
had regarded it as important to be buried close to the remains of St. Peter.
On the evening of August 23 the body of Pius X was taken down to the
Vatican Grotto. The marble tomb was simple, austere and without ornament.
Only the tympanum bore the monogram of Constantine and the name: PIUS
PAPA X. The Pope’s wish to have a poor and simple tomb was respected.
However, an addition was placed on a small stone tablet in front of the tomb,
in the form of this inscription in Latin:
Pope Pius X
Poor in riches
Gentle and humble of heart
A firm defender of the Catholic faith
who desired
to restore all things in Christ
Died a holy death on August 20, 1914

“Fama Sanctitatis”
Pius X’s reputation for holiness went back a long way. Even while he
was alive, he was reputed to have the gift of healing. Here we mention just
three cases from the time of his pontificate. One day, a Belgian nun who
was suffering from consumption was admitted to a public audience with
the Pope. When she came out, she found that she was completely cured and
had no relapse. On another occasion, after a public audience, a German who
had been blind from birth gained his sight after Pius X put his hands over
his eyes and exhorted him to have trust in God. Similarly, a blind child was
immediately cured after the Pope put his hand on its head and said to the
mother: “Pray to the Lord and have faith.”2
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As soon as Pius X’s body had been placed in the tomb, the pilgrimages
began. Soon reports came in of miraculous favors and graces received,
attributed to his intercession. In February 1923 all the Cardinals resident in
Rome—the only time in history—signed a request for the introduction of his
cause for beatification. A postulator was appointed: Dom Benedetto Pierami,
the Procurator General of the Benedictines of Vallombroso. In St. Peter’s,
a few months later, on June 28, 1923, Pius XI inaugurated a monument in
honor of Pius X. A marble statue shows him with his arms outstretched and
his eyes lifted to heaven. At the base of the moment there are eight bronze
panels representing the most prominent aspects and events of his pontificate:
(1) The Pontiff of the Eucharist; (2) The Defender of the Faith; (3) The
Supporter of Catholic France; (4) The Patron of the Arts; (5) The Guardian
of Biblical Studies; (6) The Reorganizer of Canon Law; (7) The Reformer of
Sacred Music; (8) The Father of Orphans and the Abandoned.

Joseph Sarto
Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church,
Bishop of Mantua, and Patriarch of
Venice, from the year 1893 to the year
1903—before he was elevated to the See
of Peter—held as the title bestowed upon
him the church of San Bernardo alle
Terme, augmented for that reason with an
everlasting glory when upon the former
was bestowed the name, which now on
account of his extraordinary holiness
shines bright the world over, of Pius X.

The Beatification Process
The diocesan processes (or “ordinary processes”) began. They took place
in Pius X’s diocese of origin and in the dioceses where he had exercised
his different functions. They were organized under the authority of the
individual bishop responsible. There were four “ordinary processes”: in
Treviso, 1923-1926; in Mantua, 1924-1927; in Venice, 1924-1930; and in Rome,
1923-1931. These processes began less than ten years after the Pope’s death,
and so it was possible to question people who had known him: some of his
sisters, some friends of his childhood and youth, some ecclesiastics who
knew him in his different priestly and episcopal responsibilities, and also
certain Vatican prelates and cardinals. In total, 205 witnesses to his life
33

Theme Pope St. Pius X
3

34

J. Dal-Gal, Pius X, p. 235.

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were interrogated and their statements, under oath, were collated. Each
witness was asked the same questions (63 questions in all).
The collated statements from the ordinary processes (more than
10,000 manuscript pages) were published in the form of large extracts—
summarium—in the Positio super introductione causae (Report on
the introduction of the Cause). This Positio, which was finally edited and
produced in 1941, has 1,130 pages. It was examined by the Congregation of
Rites, which published the Decree for the introduction of the Cause in 1943.
This meant that the cause for beatification and canonization had officially
been judged worthy of being studied by the Holy See.
Now the new processes, termed apostolic, would be repeated in the
same places as the “ordinary processes.” These apostolic processes lasted
from 1943 to 1946. Eighty-nine witnesses were called, each having to reply
to 81 questions. While some of the witnesses for the ordinary processes
were no longer to be had, new witnesses were available to make their
statements. In total, in this twofold series of processes, some 240 witnesses
were interrogated and gave statements on the life and virtues of Pius X. A
new Positio was drawn up, composed of extracts of the twofold series of
processes; this was called the Positio super virtutibus. Published in 1949,
it consisted of 897 pages. The “objections” (animadversiones) raised by the
Promoter of the Faith—called the devil’s advocate—resulted, in 1950, in a
Nova Positio super virtutibus and a Novissima positio super virtutibus
(82 and 17 pages).
Meanwhile, a canonical examination of the remains had taken place. The
remains of Pius X were removed from his tomb on May 19, 1944, and brought
to the Vatican Basilica. The lead coffin was placed in the Chapel of the Holy
Crucifix and was opened in the presence of the prelates who were members
of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Process. The purpose of this examination
is to be sure that the remains in the tomb are those of the person who is a
candidate for beatification. By long tradition, however, the ceremony has also
been to establish whether the corpse may be incorrupt. This non-corruption
is not an additional proof of sanctity, but it is a miracle which can confirm a
reputation of sanctity that has been otherwise established. This was the case
with the remains of Pius X. One witness who was present at the exhumation
and examination describes the state of incorruptibility discovered on May 19,
1944:
“Opening the coffin they found the body intact, clothed in the papal
insignia as it had been buried 30 years before. Under the taut skin which
covered the face the outline of the skull was clearly recognizable. The
hollows of the eyes appeared dark but not empty; they were covered by
eyelids much wrinkled and sunk. The hair was white and covered the top of
the head completely. The pectoral cross and pastoral ring shone brilliantly.
In his last testament Pius X had specially requested that his body should
not be touched and that the traditional embalming should not be done. In
spite of this the body was excellently preserved. No part of the skeleton was
uncovered, no bones were exposed. While the body was rigid, the arms,
elbows and shoulders were quite flexible. The hands were beautiful and
slender and the nails on the fingers were perfectly preserved.”3

4

Pius XII, Discours de
canonization de Pie X,
May 29, 1954, Documents
pontificaux, Vol. I, p. 21.

Once the canonical examination had been completed, Pius X’s remains
stayed in the Chapel of the Holy Crucifix, open to the veneration of the
faithful, until the morning of July 3. Then they were placed in another chapel
of the Vatican Basilica, the Chapel of the Presentation, the first on the left
when one enters the Basilica, where they are still to be found, situated below
the altar.
The beatification process continued. Some consultors of the Congregation
of Rites felt that the testimonies regarding Pius X’s struggle against
Modernism were too numerous and too controversial: they raised detailed
objections on this subject and requested a supplementary report with
documentary research. This work was carried out by the Reporter General,
Antonelli, a Franciscan, who produced his Disquisitio circa quasdam
obiectiones modus agendi Servi Dei respicientes in modernismi
debellatione una cum summario additionali ex officio compilato, 1950.
This long collection of documents and commentary (303 pages) won the
support of the Congregation and of Pope Pius XII.

Blessed and Saint
On September 3, 1950, the decree was signed acknowledging that Pius X
had practised heroically the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and
the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. All that
remained, for beatification, was the canonical recognition of two miracles
that had been the result of the Pope’s intercession. Among the hundreds of
cures registered by the Postulator of the Cause that could not be attributed
to medicine, two were selected for canonical recognition.
One was that of a French nun, Marie-Françoise Deperras, who had been
suffering from a cancer of the left femur, and who was cured spectacularly
after the imposition of a relic of Pius X and two novenas to the Sovereign
Pontiff. The other was that of another nun, an Italian, who had been suffering
from a malignant tumor in the abdomen. The healing took place in February
1938 after the imposition of a relic of Pius X and when the convent had begun
a novena to ask his intercession. After a scientific study of the two cases,
conducted by medical experts of the Congregation of Rites, the cures were
declared to be instantaneous, perfect and definitive. Since they had been
due to recourse to the intercession of Pius X, they were declared to be of
the supernatural order, and on February 11, 1951, they were acknowledged,
by decree, to be authentic miracles. On June 3, 1951, Pius XII was able to
proceed with the solemn ceremony of beatifying his predecessor.
Finally, on May 29, 1954, after the examination of a further miracle, Pius
XII proceeded to the canonization of Pius X. In his address, the Pope said:
“Sanctity, which was the inspirer and guide of Pius X in all his
undertakings, shone even more brilliantly in his everyday actions. The task
he set before him, to unite and bring back all things in Christ, was something
he made a reality in himself before bringing it about in others.”4
Taken from Pope St. Pius X, by Yves Chiron (available from Angelus Press), pp. 301-305.

35

Theme Pope St. Pius X

Canonization
of St. Pius X
by Pope Pius XII

This hour of splendid triumph which God,
who raises up the lowly, has arranged and as it
were hastened, in order to set His seal upon the
marvellous elevation of His faithful servant Pius X
to the supreme glory of the altars, fills Our heart
with joy—a joy in which you, Venerable Brothers
and Beloved Sons, share abundantly by your
presence here. We offer heartfelt thanks, then, to
God in His goodness for allowing Us to take part in
this extraordinary event; all the more so since, for
perhaps the first time in the history of the Church,
the formal canonization of a Pope is proclaimed
by one who had the privilege of serving him in the
Roman Curia.
This day is blessed and memorable not only for
Us, who count it among the happiest days of Our
pontificate, to which Providence has allotted so
many sorrows and cares, but also for the entire
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Church, which, gathered around Us in spirit,
rejoices all together in a great thrill of religious
feeling. This wonderful evening the endearing
name of Pius X, pronounced in the most diverse
accents, spans the whole earth. It resounds in
enduring testimony to the fruitful presence of
Christ in His Church, by evoking everywhere
aspirations to sanctity, and great graces of faith, of
purity, and of devotion to the Holy Eucharist. God,
Who rewards with liberality, bears witness to His
servant’s lofty sanctity in exalting him. It was this
sanctity, even more than the supreme office which
he held, that made Pius X an outstanding hero of
the Church, and as such today the saint raised up
by Providence for our times. Now it is precisely
in this light that We wish you to contemplate the
gigantic and yet humble figure of the Holy Pope, so
that when the shadows of this memorable day fall

and the cries of the immense hosanna fade away
the solemn rite of his canonization may linger to
bless your souls and help in saving the world.
He solemnly announced the program of his
pontificate in his very first Encyclical, of October 4,
1903, in which he declared that his only aim was to
“re-establish all things in Christ” (Eph. 1:10); that,
in brief, to restore all things to unity in Christ. But
where is the road that leads to Christ, he asked
himself, looking in compassion at the hesitating,
wandering souls of his time. The answer, valid
yesterday as well as today and always, is: the
Church. His primary aim, then, unceasingly
pursued till death, was to make the Church even
more effectually suitable and ready to receive the
movement of souls towards Jesus Christ.
With this aim he conceived the bold undertaking
for re-casting the body of Church Law in such
wise as to give the Church a more ordered life,
greater certainty and flexibility of movement, such
as was demanded by an age typified by growing
dynamism and complexity. It is surely true that this
work, which he himself called “truly an arduous
task,” was consonant with his practical sense
and with the vigor of his character. Nevertheless,
the ultimate reason for his undertaking this
difficult task is not, it seems, to be found only in
the temperament of the man. The well-spring of
the legislative work of Pius X is to be looked for
above all in his personal sanctity, in his profound
personal conviction that the reality of God, which
he experienced in a life of constant union, is the
source and basis of all order, all law on earth.
Where God is, there is order, justice and law;
and, conversely, all just order safeguarded by
law manifests the existence of God. But what
institution here below ought to demonstrate this
relationship between God and law more clearly
than the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ
Himself?
God has blessed abundantly this work of the
Holy Pontiff, so that the Code of Canon Law will
remain for future ages the great monument of his
pontificate, and he himself will justly be hailed
as the providential saint of our age. Would that
this spirit of justice and law which Pius X gave
witness to and exemplified for the modern world
could penetrate the conference halls of nations,

where the most serious problems affecting the
whole human family are discussed, particularly the
method of banishing for ever the fear of terrifying
cataclysms, and of guaranteeing for all people a
lasting and happy era of tranquillity and peace.
In the second of his distinguished accomplish­
ments Pius X is revealed as the indomitable
champion of the Church and the providential
saint of our times. In sometimes dramatic
circumstances, this accomplishment resembled
the struggle of a giant in defence of a priceless
treasure: the internal unity of the Church, in her
innermost foundation—the Faith. Even from
his childhood years Divine Providence was
preparing the saint, in his humble family, built
upon authority, good habits and the exact practice
of the Faith. No doubt every other Pontiff would
by virtue of the grace of his state have fought
and repulsed the assaults which were aimed at
the very foundation of the Church. But we must
recognize the perspicacity and strength with
which, to an heroic degree, the virtue of Faith
burned in his saintly heart. Uniquely concerned
that the inheritance of God be preserved intact
for the flock confided to his care, the great Pontiff
knew no weakness when dealing with persons of
dignity or authority; nor did he manifest vacillation
when confronted with alluring but false doctrines
within or without the Church; nor did he betray
fear lest he bring upon himself personal affronts
and unjust interpreta­tions of his pure intentions.
He had the clear conviction that he was fighting for
the most holy cause of God and souls. The words
which the Lord addressed to the Apostle Peter are
literally verified in him: “I have prayed for you, that
your faith fail not, and you . . . will confirm your
brethren” (Luke 22:32).
[After a passage on Modernism, Pope Pius XII
continued:] One of the most expressive proofs
of his consciousness of his priesthood was
the extreme care he took to renew the dignity
of divine worship. Overcoming the prejudices
springing from an erroneous practice, he resolutely
promoted frequent and even daily Communion of
the faithful, and unhesitatingly led the children to
the Banquet of the Lord, and offered them to the
embrace of the God hidden on the altars. Then, the
spouse of Christ experienced a new springtime
37

Theme Pope St. Pius X
of Eucharistic life. In the profound vision which he
had of the Church as a society, Pius X recognized
that it was the Blessed Eucharist which had the
power to nourish its intimate life substantially, and
to raise it high above all other human societies.
Only the Eucharist, in which God gives himself
to man, is capable of laying the foundations of a
social life worthy of those who live it, cemented
more by love than by authority, rich in activity and
aimed at the perfection of the individual, a life that
is hidden with Christ in God. What a providential
example for the world of today, where earthly
society is becoming more and more a mystery to
itself, and is feverishly trying to re-discover its
soul. Let it look, then, for its model at the Church,
gathered around its altars. There in the sacrament
of the Eucharist mankind really discovers and
recognizes that his past, present, and future are
a unity in Christ (cf. Council of Trent). Conscious
of and strong in his solidarity with Christ and his
fellow men, each member of either society, the
earthly and the supernatural one, will be enabled
to draw from the altar an interior life of personal
dignity and personal worth, such as today is
almost lost through insistence on technology and
by the excessive organization of existence, of
work, and even of play.
Only in the Church, the Holy Pontiff seems
to repeat, the Universal Church, which is “life
hidden with Christ in God,” is to be found the
secret and source of renewed social life. Hence
follows the grave responsibility of ministers of
the altar, whose duty it is to disclose to souls the
saving treasure of the Eucharist. Many indeed are
the activities which a priest can exercise for the
salvation of the modern world. One of them, and
undoubtedly one of the most efficacious and the
most lasting in its effects, is to act as dispenser
of the Holy Eucharist, after first nourishing
himself abundantly with it. His work would cease
to be sacerdotal if, even through zeal for souls,
he were to put his Eucharistic vocation in a
secondary place. Let priests conform their outlook
to the inspired wisdom of Pius X, and let them
confidently exercise their whole apostolate under
the sign of the Blessed Eucharist. Similarly, let
religious men and women, those who live under the
same roof as Jesus Christ and are daily nourished
38

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with His Body, take as a safe norm in the pursuit
of the sanctity proper to their state what the Holy
Pontiff once declared on an important occasion,
namely, that the bonds which through their vows
and community life link them with God are not
to be subordinated to any other activity, however
legitimate, for the good of their neighbor (cf. Letter
to Gabriel Marie, Superior-General of the Christian
Brothers, April 23rd, 1905).
In the Blessed Eucharist the soul should strike
roots for nourishing the interior life, which is a
fundamental treasure of all souls consecrated to
the Lord, and also a necessity for every Christian
whom God calls to be saved. Without interior life,
any activity, however praiseworthy, is debased
and becomes purely mechanical in action, without
any vitalizing effect. The Holy Eucharist and the
interior life: this is the supreme and universal
lesson which Pius X, from the height of glory,
teaches in this hour to all souls. As apostle of the
interior life, he becomes, in the age of the machine,
of technology, and of organization, the saint and
guide of men of our time.
Saint Pius X, glory of the priesthood, light and
honour of the Christian people—you in whom
lowliness seemed blended with greatness, severity
with mildness, simple piety with profound learning,
you, Pope of the Holy Eucharist and of the
Catechism, of unsullied faith and fearless strength,
turn your gaze on Holy Church, which you so loved
and to which you consecrated the choicest of
those treasures with which the lavish hand of the
Divine bounty had enriched your soul. Obtain for
her safety and steadfastness amid the difficulties
and persecutions of our times; sustain this poor
human race, whose sufferings you shared in so
largely—those sufferings which at the end stilled
the beating of your great heart; bring it about that
this troubled world may witness the triumph of
that peace which should mean harmony among
nations, brotherly accord and sincere collaboration
among the different classes of society, love and
charity among individual men, so that thus those
ardent desires which consumed your apostolic life
may become by your intercession a blessed reality,
to the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the
Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever
and ever. Amen.

Fifth Annual Angelus Press Conference

The Mass, Heart of the Church

October 10-12, 2014,
Kansas City, MO
Register Today!
www.angeluspress.org/conference | (800) 966-7337
More information on speakers and the conference coming soon!

Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337
Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

A relic usually consists of the physical remains
of a saint or the personal effects of the saint
or venerated person preserved for purposes of
veneration as a tangible memorial. The word
relic comes from the Latin reliquiae, meaning
“remains” or “something left behind.” A reliquary is
a shrine that houses one or more religious relics.

Faith and Morals

How to Fight
a Heresy
by Louis Jugnet

We’ve been asked to give a personal testimonial in honor of the great Pope
of Pascendi, canonized by His Holiness Pius XII, another victim of calumny.
We gladly do so, for since our youth his image has been engraved in our
memory.
As the son of a university professor and brought up in a milieu far removed
from what might be called integralism, we nonetheless had an opportunity
during the philosophy year of our secondary studies (made in a classical
lyceum with a professor who had nothing but sarcasm for Scholasticism) to
discover Thomism thanks to some of the admirable traditional priests there,
men of doctrine and character whose memory makes the spectacle daily
inflicted upon us of the eunuchs of neo-modernism even more painful. It is
to them, as well as to St. Pius X himself, that we are mindful of rendering a
small part of what is due them.
Two ideas stand out as we examine St. Pius X at grips with modernism:
first, that he was manifestly the Man of God, the one who was called by
Providence to the capital role of flooring the new hydra; then, that, when all
is said and done, he was understood by the most honest and most intelligent
non-Catholics (as for the rest, it can’t be helped!).
42

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1

[The Reverend Alfred]
Loisy (1857-1940), whom
Houtin knew quite well,
“no longer believed in the
supernatural, nor in God,
nor a future life” by 1887!
This did not prevent the
head of a diocesan seminary
from saying that “his only
mistake was to have come
along fifty years too soon.”

2

The attention of today’s
readers is emphatically
directed to this remarkable
formulation: theological
charity presupposes faith.
It must not be confused
with humanitarian
philanthropy, a sentimental
outpouring over a particular
abstraction. Later on, the
great Pope, speaking about
the people involved in the
Sillon, will call it “the blind
goodness of their heart”;
this goodness, of course,
being entirely at the service
of the Church’s enemies,
with nary a trace to spare
for traditional Catholics...

3

See also our article “Face
au modernisme” published
in this year’s SeptemberOctober issue in honor of
Father Garrigou-Lagrange.

Nowadays it is well known that, despite Leo XIII’s magnificent expounding
of sound doctrine, the end of his pontificate was marked by the rise of
false ideas in the Church in Germany, France, England, and Italy. One has
only to read the Memoirs of Loisy1 to see how much philosophy, theology,
history, exegesis, ecclesiastical discipline, and politico-social thought were
permeated by the errors in vogue. But, thanks to what Loisy euphemistically
calls “the mighty power of opinion and truth,” designating thereby influential
pressure groups (St. Pius X will later speak of a “clandestinum foedus”)
with branches everywhere, in seminaries, in Catholic universities, in the
episcopacy, and even in certain circles within the Curia, it had been nearly
impossible to get any effective measures out of the Roman Magisterium. And
this notwithstanding the efforts of a few good men like Cardinal Richard,
Archbishop of Paris, “little followed by the French episcopacy,” a recent
panegyrist of Loisy tells us.
In 1903, Joseph Sarto becomes Pope under the name Pius X. In December,
Loisy is placed on the Index. On the whole, none of Rome’s intentions
leaked out. The modernist evil had already taken hold, but the broad public
saw nothing, according to its custom, especially as certain bad shepherds
repeatedly assured it that the whole idea of a doctrinal crisis only emanated
from the poor brains of a few inquisitorial fanatics... That is why the
denunciation of modernism by the holy Pope astonished a lot of people and
left a great many incredulous.
On April 15, 1907, in a widely discussed consistorial Allocution, the Pope
declared that it is not the anti-Christian Caesars who are the most to be
feared, but rather those who, within the Church, profess subjectivism and the
radical evolution of dogma; “a return to the pure Gospel” by wiping the slate
clean of the teaching of the councils and of traditional theology; who speak
incessantly of “adapting to our age” in speaking, writing, and “preaching a
charity without faith”2; who reduce the Bible to the level of profane works,
adopting only scientific and rational methods of exegesis. That we have the
broad outline of Pascendi here cannot escape notice.
We shall not elaborate on the Decree Lamentabili and the Encyclical
Pascendi, assuming that they are sufficiently well known by the reader.
Should that not be the case, we urge them to study them closely since they
are still relevant.3 We shall simply recall that the last part of the Encyclical
traces a detailed plan for an anti-modernist counter-offensive and an
implacable battle against this “synthesis of all heresies.” A motu proprio of 18
November 1907 stipulates that “if anyone should be so bold as to defend any
of the propositions, opinions, and doctrines reproved in one or the other of
these documents, he will incur ipso facto the penalty of excommunication.”
Paired with energetic disciplinary measures against the refractory, these
texts routed the modernists by their own admission. God knows, though, if
they had thought they had nearly felt victory within their reach. “The year
1907,” writes the ultra-rationalist François Picavet, “was decisive in the
history of modernism. Never had its partisans had more confidence in their
ultimate success.” But God had decided differently, and they were thwarted,
and the movement took nearly fifty years to recover. Which proves that
43

Faith and Morals

44

4

Simple Reflexions [1908],
p. 288. [Passage translated
from Jugnet’s French.]

5

“Modernisme et tradition
catholique en France,” Coll.
de La Grande Revue (1908),
pp. 163, 179, 183.

6

Il primo e sommo sofisma
dei Modernisti.

7

What a splendid
justification, not only for
Pascendi, but also, in
advance, for the Encyclical
Humani Generis of Pius
XII! Read attentively pages
7-11 (Edition de la Bonne
Presse).

The Angelus

May - June 2014

it was not invulnerable, a lesson to be learned. As Msgr. Baudrillart wrote
then, “The wayward who were looking in earnest for the truth will submit
without delay and without reserve. The others have nothing more to do than
leave the Church; it’s painful, but it was high time that the equivocation
stopped and that no one could any longer claim to be Catholic while
upholding Protestant and rationalist theses” (La Croix, July 23, 1907). Pius
X himself, in the above-mentioned consistorial Allocution of December 1907,
pronounced these weighty words: “Surely, we could only bemoan it if these
men [modernist priests] on leaving the bosom of the Church went over to her
declared enemies. But we have still more to lament: their blindness is such
that they think themselves still to be sons of the Church and boast of it, even
though they have denied in fact, if not perhaps in word, the profession of
faith sworn at their baptism.”
There were undoubtedly not only recriminations, but also outcries
and rather base insults against the Holy Pontiff. However, it should be
underscored that many non-believers admirably grasped the stakes in the
matter and the justness of Rome’s attitude from the simple viewpoint of
logical coherence and moral uprightness, even abstracting from faith in the
supernatural.
Loisy himself, so hostile to Lamentabili and Pascendi, was notably to
write: “It shouldn’t be forgotten that Pius X has merely drawn the conclusions
that logically are deduced from the official teaching of the Church, and that,
if these principles are true, those who grant them may not even criticize the
opportuneness of the pontifical act....The Encyclical was commanded by the
circumstances, and Leo XIII would not have done noticeably otherwise....The
Pontiff told the truth when he said he could not keep silent without betraying
the deposit of traditional doctrine. Things having reached their present point,
his silence would have been an enormous concession, recognition of the
fundamental principle of modernism.”4
The rationalist historian Guignebert, so hateful toward the Magisterium,
was forced to write: “The Encyclical Pascendi constitutes...a truly strong
refutation of Catholic modernism....One regrets saying so, and yet one must,
for it is the truth: from the Catholic point of view, Lamentabili and the
Encyclical are right....The Roman Church cannot follow [the modernists]
without committing suicide.”5 And these are the opinions of decided enemies
of Catholic orthodoxy. Among others, the assessment is nuanced by genuine
sympathy, as we shall see.
It was thus that the famous neo-Hegelian philosopher Benedetto Croce,
in the Giornale d’Italia of October 15, 1907, wrote some very edifying
things, especially coming from him: namely, that modernist pretensions of
translating Catholic dogma indifferently into other metaphysical lexicons
was the first and most serious sophism of the modernists,6 for, he added,
metaphysical thought is not a language...it is logic, it is concept. “Whence
it results that dogma transposed in another metaphysical form is no longer
the same dogma, just as one concept transformed into another is no longer
the same.”7 Of course the modernists are free, he continued ironically, to
fashion Christian dogmas to their liking, then added, “I also make use of
this freedom!” but on condition that they realize that they are then outside

8

F. Rossignol, Pour
connaître Georges Sorel
(Bordas, 1948), p. 94.

the Church or even outside any firm religious belief worthy of the name.
To finish, he reproached the modernists with being imbued with a “vague
religious sentiment” which was entirely repugnant to all positive religion...
The same reaction is met with from the very dynamic Georges Sorel, a
“mix” (in the Aristotelian sense) of Bergson and Marxism, the theoretician
of revolutionary syndicalism and of the myth of the general strike. His
historian, F. Rossignol, explains how Sorel admired Pius X and sums up
his thought thus: “Catholicism legitimately condemned modernism, which,
under the pretext of harmonizing religion with science and the modern spirit,
pretended to impose on it theories which at the very moment they would
have been accepted, would have already been out-dated, and consequently
would amount to nothing more than introducing within it, without the least
benefit, the most complete and the most dangerous instability.”8
Unbelievers like François Picavet, specialist of the History of
Scholasticism, the American philosopher George Santayana, and many
others, reacted no differently, and we could compile a substantial volume of
like testimonies. A university philosophy professor wrote at the time: “If I
soon return completely to the ineffable center of the spiritual world, it will
have been because of the Encyclical on modernism....The most perfect and
the most evidently divine of certitudes is now both in my mind and in my
heart.”
The thing that people consistently fail to recognize is that there are two
very different sorts of non-Catholics. If some like the vague, the relative, the
ambiguous, change, others are sensitive above all else to doctrinal rigor, to
precise boundaries, to fidelity, and to a certain intransigence. For our part
we know quite a few of them. These are the ones put off and scandalized
by doctrinal deviations and capitulation complexes. In their alarmed
withdrawal, they find themselves in the company of authentic Catholics, but
if they too are profoundly scandalized by the success of neo-modernism,
they no longer know what to think (“How can I belong to a religion when its
representatives can no longer even say what we are supposed to believe?”
a philosophy student told us. We offer his observation to the masters of
winning the modern world, but we think that they will have some heavy
accounts to render “in die judicii”...).
Thus, it is deplorable conduct always to be blaming the Roman Authority
when it condemns an error, out of the romantic and juvenile prejudice
according to which those in charge are wrong in principle. It is mendacious
extortion to assert: Unless the traditional structures of Catholicism are
dismantled, people will be kept away from the faith. May St. Pius X be our
protector and our intercessor at a time when the New Arianism seems to be
winning!...

Translation of “Comment combattre une hérésie,” Itinéraires, No. 87, November 1964, pp. 126-131. Translated by A. M.
Stinnett.

Louis Jugnet (1913-73), was a self-described metaphysician and Catholic counterrevolutionary of Scholastic formation. He
taught at a lyceum as well as at the Institute of Political Studies at Toulouse. He was considered the best philosophy teacher in
his time by the French minister of education, and was a beloved mentor to many of his students. He authored several books and
contributed occasionally to Itinéraires.

45

Saint Pius X: Restorer of the Church
By Yves Chiron

Here is a valuable book, with precious inserts
from Italian and the Vatican Secret Archives, arguably the most researched and complete biography
of ‘our’ saint. This volume not only relates the
historical events of the Pope’s life but offers many
personal stories that are like windows into his soul
and clearly flesh out his saintly personality.
The mission of this pope of the early 20th century was a living sign of contradiction. His person
was vilified because of his typical “rags-to-riches”
life story and undiplomatic career, “the pietistic
simpleton.” But his papal activity too was qualified
as obscurantist and retrograde, “prisoner of his
infallibility as much as of the Curia.”
In a pontificate lasting just over a decade, the
Venetian was to navigate the bark of Peter with
consummate wisdom. Certainly he was labeled a
conservative and integrist for turning a deaf ear
to the modernist sirens preaching a “pure Gospel”
and for defending tirelessly the Church’s rights
against secularism. His condemnation of modernism—which would weaken the Church some fifty
years later—made his leadership invaluable to the
Church.
Yet, on this rather somber background, his positive achievements could only be termed monumental. “To restore all things in Christ” was the
mission Giuseppe Sarto assumed as he donned
the papal tiara. And few pontiffs more justly merit
the title of reformer than Pope Pius X, for the
enormous progress he accomplished in domains
as varied as ecclesiastical studies, canon law, the
Holy Bible, and the liturgy.
Cardinal Mercier of Belgium reserved the highest praise for his pope: “If the Church had been
led by pontiffs of Pius X’s caliber when Luther and
Calvin raised their heads, would the Reformation
have torn a third of Christian Europe away from
Rome?” History could repeat itself. Could not the
same maladies be cured by the very remedies used

46

The Angelus

May - June 2014

by a saintly pope and a pope ‘papally holy’ of the
stature of St. Pius X?
Fr. Dominique Bourmaud

324 pp. – Photographs – Softcover – STK# 6768 – $21.95

35 pp. – Softcover – STK# 1029 – $5.95

Duties of the Catholic State
Justice and reason forbid the State to be godless.

Cardinal Ottaviani, in a 1953 lecture, explains why the Church teaches that the State has the duty
of professing the Catholic religion and that rulers are to insure that the moral principles of the
True Religion inspire the social activity and the laws of the State.
This is the true Catholic doctrine trampled upon by the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae.

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or call 1-800-966-7337

Christian Culture

Is
Congregational
Singing
Catholic?
by Fr. Peter Scott, SSPX

The question here does not concern the singing
of vernacular hymns by Catholics before or after
Mass, or during processions or Benediction of
the Blessed Sacrament, or other non-liturgical
functions. It concerns the singing of the common
Latin chants of the Mass, such as the Kyrie,
Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and the
responding to the priest when he sings Dominus
vobiscum, per omnia saecula saeculorum, etc.
Several objections are given to singing by the
congregation of such liturgical texts. The first
and most convincing is quite simply that in some
places in the English-speaking world it simply
is not the custom, and has not been the custom
within living memory, or even for generations.
Would it not be a modernist imposition to force it
on the people who are trying to pray their Mass?
The second is that being a liturgical action, the
48

The Angelus

May - June 2014

chant at Mass should be reserved to the clergy
and not allowed to all the faithful. For St. Pius X
states in his 1903 motu proprio on Church music
Tra le Sollecitudini that “the cantors in church
fill a true liturgical office” (§13). A third is that St.
Pius X likewise forbids women singing in church,
and women obviously make up a large part of the
congregation: “Women, not being capable of that
office cannot be admitted to form a part of the
choir or schola” (ibid.). A fourth reason is that,
as St. Pius X points out in the above-mentioned
motu proprio, Gregorian chant must be “a true
art, for if it was otherwise, it could not have on
the mind of the hearers the beneficial influence
that the Church wants it to have in using it in its
liturgy” (ibid., §2). A final reason is the abuse of
active participation by the liturgical movement,
which was not St. Pius X’s intention in the above

mentioned motu proprio, since the Latin text
does not have the word active, but simply the
word participation (Introduction and §3).
A little investigation will show that the
opposition to congregational singing is largely a
historical and cultural one, and not one related
to the Church’s teaching. Let us take, first of all,
the often quoted motu proprio of Saint Pius X on
Church music. This text is fundamental to the
liturgical movement, for it gives the principle of
an orthodox understanding of the importance
of Holy Mass and the Divine Office, and the
refutation of the modernists. For St. Pius X the
Mass and Divine Office are theocentric, directed
towards Almighty God and the worship of His
Divine Majesty. For the modernists they are
anthropocentric, directed towards man, his
instruction, his education, his feelings. The
focus is entirely different. Active participation
in the liturgy is for St. Pius X both internal
and external, uniting oneself with the divine
victim interiorly, and also playing one’s role in
the external ceremonies. This text is from the
introduction to the motu proprio:
“Filled as We are with a most ardent desire
to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every
respect and be preserved by all the faithful, We
deem it necessary to provide before anything
else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in
which the faithful assemble for no other object
than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost
and indispensable font, which is the active
participation in the most holy mysteries and in
the public and solemn prayer of the Church.”
It is true that when one looks at the Latin
version of the text contained in the Acta Sanctae
Sedis, Vol. XXXVI, p. 388, one does not find the
word active, but simply the word participation.
Does this mean that the translation that uses
the word “active” is inaccurate, although it
is translated this way in all the vernacular
languages? Not at all, for if one checks the Acta
Sanctae Sedis, one will find this remark, in Latin:
“The official text, written in Italian, can be found
in this volume on page 329.” On that page, another
note will be found confirming that this text
was indeed written by the Roman Pontiff in the
Italian language, but that it is also given in Latin

because it concerns the entire Catholic world.
The official Italian text is very clear, and speaks
about “active participation,” of which the above is
a literal and correct English translation. Clearly,
then, St. Pius X was not speaking about a passive
participation, simply being present, but about an
active participation.
This is confirmed in §3 of the same document,
which states: “Special efforts are to be made to
restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the
people, so that the faithful may again take a
more active part in the ecclesiastical offices,
as was the case in ancient times.” You will note
that the Pope makes reference to an ancient
custom, lost in much of the English-speaking
world, of the faithful themselves singing the
Gregorian chant. To the objection that the word
active is not present in the Latin version, it must
be answered that this is simply a question of
translation, and that the Latin translator thought
that the use of this word was not necessary to
convey the meaning, already contained in the
words participatio and participes in Latin. In
fact, the Italian, the official and original version
is very explicit: “affinché i fedeli prendano
di nuovo parate più attiva all’officiatura
ecclesiastica…” and the English translation is
certainly correct.
However, lest we be in any doubt as to
the mind of the Pope, it is to be interpreted by
another Pope, and one not modernist at all, one
who wrote a magistral encyclical to condemn and
refute the deviations of the liturgical movement.
It was Pope Pius XII in 1947, who in Mediator
Dei spelled out the meaning of this active
participation, pointing out that it is first of all an
interior participation in and union with Christ’s
offering of Himself to His heavenly Father, which
requires great purity of soul to be victims in our
own turn (§98-104). However, then he describes
the outward means that are apt to bring about
this internal participation, and in which active
participation, the singing of the Gregorian chant
is to be included:
“Therefore they are to be praised who with
the idea of getting the Christian people to take
part more easily and more fruitfully in the
Mass, strive to make them familiar with the
49

Christian Culture
Roman Missal, so that the faithful, united with
the priest, may pray together in the very words
and sentiments of the Church. They also are to
be commended who strive to make the Liturgy
even in an external way a sacred act in which all
who are present may share. This can be done in
more than one way, when for instance, the whole
congregation in accordance with the rules of the
Liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly
and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the
different parts of the Mass, or do both, or finally
in High Masses when they answer the prayers
of the minister of Jesus Christ and also sing the
liturgical chant” (§105).
Every traditional Catholic finds it quite
normal that all the faithful should have a Missal
to follow the prayers of the Mass. Why would
he not also want to sing the responses and the
common chants? Essentially because he is not
familiar with this custom. It is true that in the
Latin Rite the custom was in many places lost
and sometimes discouraged, on account of
the inability of the people to sing correctly the
chants. However, anybody with an elementary
knowledge of the Eastern Rites will confirm that
the custom of the whole congregation singing
was never lost. The problem in the Latin Rite was
not a doctrinal one, but a practical one. In fact, it
was long before St. Pius X that the bishops of the
United States strove to encourage congregational
singing and to bring a remedy to this practical
difficulty, as this quote from the Catholic
Encyclopedia of 1912 establishes:
“The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore
(1866) expressed (No. 380) its earnest wish that
the rudiments of Gregorian chant should be
taught in the parish schools, in order that ‘the
number of those who can sing the chant well
having increased more and more, gradually
the greater part, at least, of the people should,
after the fashion still existing in some places
of the Primitive Church, learn to sing Vespers
and the like together with the sacred ministers
and the choir.’ The Third Plenary Council of
Baltimore (1884) repeats (No. 119) the words of
the Second Council, prefacing them with ‘Denuo
confirmemus.’
“The words of the quoted councils and of
50

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May - June 2014

the pope imply a restoration of congregational
singing through instruction in Gregorian chant,
and therefore clearly refer to the strictly liturgical
offices such as solemn or high Mass, Vespers,
Benediction (after the Tantum Ergo has begun).
Congregational singing at low Mass and at other
services in the church, not strictly ‘liturgical’
in ceremonial character, has always obtained,
more or less, in our churches. With respect to the
strictly liturgical services, it is to be hoped that
the congregation may be instructed sufficiently
to sing, besides the responses to the celebrant
(especially those of the Preface), the Ordinary
(i.e. the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus,
Agnus Dei) of the Mass in plain chant; leaving
the Introit, Gradual or Tract sequence (if there
be one), Offertory, and Communion to the choir;
the Psalms and hymns at Vespers, leaving the
antiphons to the choir. The singing might well
be made to alternate between congregation and
choir” (M. T. Henry).
Having laid out these principles, we are now
in a better position to answer the legitimate
objections. Clearly the Church has not and
does not oblige congregational singing, so that
the custom of the faithful not singing is not
reprobated or against the law of the Church, nor
does the pastor have grounds in Canon Law to
oblige any individual or congregation, or impose
any punishment for refusal to do so. Certainly,
there are persons and congregations who simply
cannot sing suitably even the Ordinary of the
Mass. However, persons who have the ability to
do so ought to follow the mind of the Church, and
to co-operate when encouraged by their pastor.
Moreover, they cannot invoke the local custom
that this has not been done, even for centuries,
since the Church has made it quite clear that
the absence of the chant by the people is not
something desirable, but a decadence due to
ignorance and inability and one that ought to be
corrected, when and if possible.
To the objection that the singing of chant is a
liturgical function, a distinction must be made.
The singing of the Propers of the Mass, which St.
Pius X foresees be done by the schola cantorum,
is properly speaking a clerical function, just

like serving at the altar. Clearly only men can
sing in the Gregorian schola, just as only men
can serve at the altar. However, the singing of
the Ordinary of the Mass, which comprises the
parts of the Mass that belong to the faithful,
is their function in virtue of the sacrament of
baptism, which gives them a small participation
in the priesthood of Christ, and enables them
to participate actively in the Mass by offering
themselves with the divine victim, by receiving
Holy Communion, and also by saying or singing
the responses and the Ordinary chants. This is
what Pope Pius XII teaches when he explains
the priesthood of the faithful and condemns the
modernist confusion between this priesthood and
the ordained priesthood: “It is therefore desirable,
Venerable Brethren, that all the faithful should
be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic
Sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity,
and that not in an inert and negligent fashion,
giving way to distractions and daydreaming,
but with such earnestness and concentration
that they may be united as closely as possible
with the High Priest…” (Mediator Dei, §80). He
goes on to explain how the outward and interior
forms of active participation are to be closely
united one to another: “Their aim (these methods
of participation in the Mass) is to foster and
promote the people’s piety and intimate union
with Christ and His visible minister, and to
arouse those internal sentiments and dispositions
which should make our hearts become like to
that of the High Priest of the New Testament”
(ibid., §106).
The answer concerning the objection about
women immediately follows, and is confirmed by
Canon Law. Women are not to sing the liturgical
chant, that is the Gregorian chant, which is
properly speaking a liturgical act reserved for
the clergy, in which men can participate, but not
women. The only exception to that is for women
religious, following their own rules, provided
that they are not easily visible (Canon 1264,
§2). However, this does not mean that women
cannot sing compositions that are not properly
liturgical, such as hymns and polyphony, for
which the Church shows a certain toleration,
and which has become quite frequent due to the

absence of competent male singers. This is the
remark of Bouscaren & Ellis, Canon Law, p. 650:
“The motu proprio of Pius X was quite severe
in excluding women from all part in liturgical
singing. However, the S. C. of Rites has since
shown the mind of the Holy See to be rather
lenient in yielding partly to local customs in this
matter. A decree addressed to the Archbishop
of New York in 1908 permits women to sing in
church choirs, but requires that women and girl
choristers occupy a separate place from the men
and boys.”
All the more does it not follow from the fact
that women cannot sing the Proper liturgical
chants that they cannot sing what the entire
congregation sings. St. Paul’s command to women
not to speak in Church does not refer to singing,
but to teaching, as is clearly evident from the text
of I Cor. 14:34: “Let the women keep silence in the
churches: for it is not permitted them to speak,
but to be subject, as also the law saith.” It is not
proper for them to take a position of leadership,
as is teaching. But this is not at all the case
with congregational singing, sung by everybody
together.
Remains the objection that Gregorian chant
is a true art, and that although the singing of the
Ordinary chants is not difficult, as is the singing
of the Propers, it still must be done correctly if it
is to be done for the greater glory of God. Hence
the duty of the priests to teach the chant to all
the children, as the Second Council of Baltimore
requested, that the ancient custom of singing so
as to pray twice might be restored everywhere
in the Latin Rite, and not just in certain fervent
parishes.

51

Just as St. Philip Neri
spontaneously sang the
prayers of the last Mass
which he celebrated, so
is all true religious music
but an exalted prayer—
an exultant expression
of religious feeling.
Prayer, song, the playing
upon instruments, and
action, when arranged by
authority, constitute the
elements of public worship,
especially of an official
liturgy.

Christian Culture

Qui Bene Cantat

Pope
St. Pius X
on Sacred Music

by Bibiana Gattozzi

54

1

St. Augustine of Hippo,
Exposition on Psalm 74, 1.

2

This decree was entitled
Quam Singulari and was
promulgated in 1910.

The Angelus

May - June 2014

“He who sings praises, not only praises, but praises joyfully.”1 This saying
by St. Augustine was taken to heart by St. Pius X who sought throughout
his pontificate to augment the sacred quality of the music used in the Mass
of all time and to communicate that sacredness to all. He did this first by
lowering the first communion age so that children who had reached the age
of reason but were still in the prime of their innocence could receive the
Body and Blood of Our Lord.2 In this vein, on the Feast of the Immaculate
Conception in 1903, St. Pius X wrote a motu proprio or letter to the Cardinal
Vicar of Rome, His Excellency Pietro Respighi, about the sacred music to
be used during the Sacrifice of the Mass. As stated in the motu proprio, Pius
X’s main goal was “maintaining and promoting the decorum of the House of
God in which the august mysteries of religion are celebrated, and where the
Christian people assemble to receive the grace of the Sacraments, to assist
at the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, to adore the most august Sacrament of the
Lord’s Body and to unite in the common prayer of the Church in the public
and solemn liturgical offices.”
The motu proprio, called Tra le Sollecitudini, was both a reform of the
music used in the Sacred Liturgy as well as a clarification of the function

3

Igino Giordani, Pius X:
A Country Priest, tr. Rt.
Rev. Thomas J. Tobin
(Milwaukee: The Bruce
Publishing Co.), p. 172.

4

Cardinal Merry del Val,
Memories of Pope Pius X.

5

Giordani, Pius X, p. 173.

6

“Gregorian Chant: History,”
St. Peter’s Abbey of
Solesmes.

7

Pope Pius XII, Musicae
Sacrae, Encyclical of
December 25, 1955.

8

Dom Pierre Combé,
O.S.B., The Restoration
of Gregorian Chant:
Solesmes and the Vatican
Edition, tr. Theodore
Marier and William Skinner
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America
Press, 2003), pp. 386-416.

of liturgical music that had already been established during the Council of
Trent in the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, with the passage of time the
regulations of the Council of Trent were slowly neglected due to “succeeding
changes in tastes and habits with the course of time, or to the fatal influence
exercised on sacred art by profane and theatrical art, or to the pleasure that
music directly produces, and that is not always easily contained within the
right limits, or finally to the many prejudices on the matter.”
So abuses in the practice of sacred music used in the liturgy prompted St.
Pius X to promulgate Tra le Sollecitudini, but as historical circumstances
and the biography of St. Pius X himself show, this was only one of a
confluence of influences that led to the creation of this motu proprio. As
Giuseppe Sarto, Pope St. Pius X always had an attraction for music, and
knew how to recognize the good from the bad.3 In his book Memories of Pius
X, St. Pius X’s secretary Merry del Val recounts how “One of his [St. Pius
X’s] most cherished wishes was to promote congregational singing wherever
possible, for he held it to be most instructive for people of all classes and
a powerful means of arousing an intelligent interest in the beauties of our
sacred liturgy, especially in regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”4 Even
before becoming Pope, as a parish priest St. Pius X established scholae
cantorum and encouraged new composers to follow the model of Palestrina
when composing polyphonic Masses, such as those by Fr. Lorenzo Perosi.5
He had already been in touch with the Benedictine monks at Solesmes, who
from the nineteenth century under the direction of Dom Prosper Guéranger
had sought to revive liturgical chant from a scientific standpoint as practiced
in the medieval Church.6 In 1911 St. Pius X created the Advanced School
of Sacred Music in Rome. Later popes took up the cause of Sacred Music,
thanks to St. Pius X’s lead, as Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical Musicae
Sacrae: “It can rightly be said that Our predecessor of immortal memory, St.
Pius X, made as it were the highest contribution to the reform and renewal of
sacred music.”7 Their efforts would lead to the creation of the Vatican edition
of the Gradual.8 We can thus say that it is thanks to St. Pius X that we still
hear the wealth of sacred music, from Gregorian chant to sacred polyphony,
in our churches today.
Tra le Sollecitudini is divided into nine sections which address both the
repertoire appropriate for use in the Mass and the manner of singing. After
introducing the problems and abuses then current in sacred music in the
section “General Principles,” Pius X makes it clear that this motu proprio is
to have the force of law “as to a juridical code of sacred music” and to apply
to “every local church.” He then reminds the readers that the “proper aim
[of sacred music] is to add greater efficacy to the text” and must “exclude
all profanity.” Only in this way can the sacred music truly become a prayer
for the greater glory of God and efficacious for the faithful. To finish the
outline of the general principles, Pius X points out that much variation in
type of sacred music is allowed, given the variety of national traditions and
uses of sacred music, but that nevertheless his decree is universal since,
“while every nation is permitted to admit into its ecclesiastical compositions
those special forms which may be said to constitute its native music,
still these forms must be subordinated in such a manner to the general
55

Christian Culture
characteristics of sacred music that nobody of any nation may receive an
impression other than good on hearing them.”
When speaking about the “Different Kinds of Sacred Music,” Pius X
extols Gregorian chant not only as the primary musical form appropriate
for accompanying the Sacred Liturgy but also as an integral part of

congregational singing. As a general rule, he proposes that music is
appropriate to the liturgy in the degree to which it resembles Gregorian
chant. He also mentions classical polyphony as an appropriate type of music
for the Mass, such as those polyphonic Masses composed by Palestrina.
56

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May - June 2014

He states that “this too must therefore be restored largely in ecclesiastical
functions, especially in the more important basilicas, in cathedrals, and in
the churches and chapels of seminaries and other ecclesiastical institutions
in which the necessary means are usually not lacking.” Pius X also allows
modern music to be used and composed for the liturgy, as long as it also
corresponds to the requirements of reverence laid out in previous sections.
He warns against the most common abuse at the time, the introduction of
the “theatrical style” into church music.
In the section on the “text,” Pius X states that the primary language for
sacred musical texts is Latin as long as the words of the Mass are used in
the composition. However, during the Offertory and Communion, motets
may be sung even in the vernacular. When Pius X speaks about “external
forms of the sacred composition,” He emphasizes that the forms of different
parts of the Mass must be maintained and must resemble the forms of their
equivalents in Gregorian chant; music composed as part of the Mass or
the Divine Office must not stand on their own like pieces of secular music.
When Pius X speaks of “Singers,” he states that even if the singers of the
non-celebrant portions of the liturgy are laymen, their essence must still
be choral so that solo singing should not predominate though it is allowed.
Moreover, the singers of the choir should be of the most upright moral
character.
As far as “Organ and Instruments” are concerned, St. Pius X warns that
instruments such as the piano and accompaniment by a band, except for
in cases of an outdoor procession, are prohibited, and that “as the singing
should always have the principal place, the organ or other instruments
should merely sustain and never oppress it.” As regards the “length of the
chant,” St. Pius X recommends that the priest and the choir work together so
that the priest is not waiting at the altar for the music to finish, nor does he
prevent the choir from singing the sacred music. He warns that “the music is
merely a part of the liturgy and its humble handmaid.”
The final two parts of the motu proprio, “Principal Means” and
“Conclusion,” are more didactic in nature. Here, St. Pius X wants to ensure
that his reforms are put into place. He therefore first recommends that “the
Bishops, if they have not already done so, are to institute in their dioceses
a special Commission composed of persons really competent in sacred
music, and to this Commission let them entrust in the manner they find most
suitable the task of watching over the music executed in their churches.
Nor are they to see merely that the music is good in itself, but also that it is
adapted to the powers of the singers and be always well executed.” Thus the
Church leaders are to take an active role in the promulgation of good sacred
music. He states his desire that scholae cantorum and institutions for the
advanced study of sacred music be everywhere established.
As the Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini shows, Pope St. Pius X took an
active interest in the reformation of sacred music. Thanks to his diligent
championing of good sacred music, today we can boast of having at our
disposal not only a large amount of chant and polyphony to use during the
Mass, but also the guidance necessary to show us how music is to beautify
the Sacred Liturgy.
57

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Thinking It Over

Relaxing
with a Good
Movie
by Fr. Bernard de Lacoste

‑1

Vigilanti Cura, June
29, 1936 [online at www.
vatican.va].

Watching a movie for relaxation is a pleasant pastime, but is it always
morally permissible? Movies can be divided into three categories: the clearly
good, the obviously bad, and the in-between.

The Good
Clearly good movies are ones inspired by Catholic principles. Pope Pius
XI had this to say on the subject: “The problem of the production of moral
films would be solved radically if it were possible for us to have production
wholly inspired by the principles of Christian morality. We can never
sufficiently praise all those who have dedicated themselves or who are to
dedicate themselves to the noble cause of raising the standard of the motion
picture to meet the needs of education and the requirements of the Christian
conscience...”1 A Catholic can watch such movies with a tranquil conscience.
However, we have to admit that such films are extremely rare today. Movies
like Monsieur Vincent or For Greater Glory about the Cristeros, in spite of
their faults and historical omissions, can be placed in this category.
Some wonder whether evil and sin may be depicted in a truly Catholic
59

Christian Culture
2

Speech to the
Representatives of the
Italian Film Industry,
Audience of June 21, 1955.

3

Cf. Galatians, 6:1.

4

Exhortation on Television,
AAS 46 (1954), p. 21
[citation quoted by Pius
XII in the Encyclical Letter
Miranda Prorsus, on the
Communications Field:
Motion Pictures, Radio, and
Television, Sept. 8, 1957].

5

Apostolic Exhortation to
Representatives of the
Cinema World (Audience of
June 21, 1955).

film. Pope Pius XII replied affirmatively to this question.2 He explained
that sin can be the main object of a good movie just as it can be the object
of a work of literature, provided that the evil not be dissimulated by
misleading veils, nor exalted, nor justified, but that it should be enveloped
in an atmosphere of decency and purity thanks to which the spectator is
unabashedly incited to condemn the evil. Such a film can help people to be
more perspicacious and lead them to tell themselves, “Consider yourself, lest
you also be tempted.”3

The Bad
Obviously bad movies are those that contain at least one scene contrary
to the virtue of purity or that directly or indirectly incite spectators to vice,
as well as movies that ridicule virtue or the true religion. Movies that present
sin as normal or acceptable also fall into this category. This classification
applies to the majority of movies today shown in theaters and on television.
Watching such movies constitutes a sin which, in certain cases, could be
mortal. Pope Pius XII said on this subject: “Should we not shudder when we
reflect attentively that through television shows all can inhale, even within
the home, the poisoned air of those ‘materialistic’ doctrines which diffuse
empty pleasures and desires of all kinds, just as was done over and over
again in motion-picture theaters?”4

The In-Between
Some films do not fall into either of these two categories. They don’t
have any scenes that wound the virtue of purity or incite to vice. But the
Christian ideal is absent. It is about such motion pictures as these that Pope
Pius XII put people on guard: “Even films morally above reproach can yet
be spiritually harmful if they offer the spectator a world in which no sign is
given of God or of men who believe in and worship Him, a world in which
people live as though God did not exist.”5 We have to be prudent. Such
movies can never legitimately be viewed frequently. They habituate the soul
to a naturalistic, pagan outlook on life. Besides, the spectator naturally tends
to admire the adventure hero he’s watching. And so, equally naturally, he
will be inclined to imitate him. But if the hero, even if he is not immoral or
anti-Christian, is animated by a misguided ideal, the danger for the spectator
is quite real. Nevertheless, if there is a proportionate reason, then in some
circumstances one may watch such movies. When the spectator is mature
and well-educated, capable of analyzing the film with a critical eye, viewing
such a movie may sometimes be a good act.

The Silver-Lining
It may be objected that these criteria are extremely restrictive. Applying
60

The Angelus

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6

Mt. 11:12 (Douai-Rheims
version). [The Knox version
reads: “...the kingdom of
heaven has opened to force;
and the forceful are even
now making it their prize.”]

them will inevitably lead to tossing out lots of DVDs. The number of good
movies can be counted on one’s fingers. It becomes impossible to watch
one movie a week and difficult to watch one movie a month! We willingly
concede the objection: good movies are rare. But look on the bright side: by
respecting the rules given above, you’ll find so much time. It is somewhat
paradoxical to hear Christians complain about not having enough time for
prayer or their duties when they watch movies twice a week, is it not?
Besides, how many sins would be avoided if films were more carefully
selected! A single movie is sometimes enough to wound a soul for life, and
sometimes even to condemn it eternally.
Moreover, we often rightly complain that our young people lack a sense
of effort and the spirit of sacrifice. But is it by settling our children in a
comfortable seat in front of a screen that we will help them progress? Our
Lord told us: “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent bear
it away.”6
We emphatically advise Catholics desirous of becoming saints to spend
less of their time in front of screens and to limit their movie-going to the
exceptional occasion. We advise Christian parents desirous of helping their
children become saints to show discernment and firmness. There are many
recreational activities more enriching and less dangerous for souls: playing
a musical instrument, sports, arts and crafts, discussions with family and
friends, board games, reading, and so forth. Certainly, these activities
require more effort than watching movies, but shall we not at least try to
make our lives sublime?
May the Blessed Virgin Mary give us the fortitude to make the sacrifices
needful if we want to advance every day on the path to heaven.

Translation of “Se détendre avec un bon film?” Letter to Parents, Friends and Benefactors of St. Bernard’s School of Bailly,
France, May 2014. Translated by A. M. Stinnett.

Fr. Bernard de Lacoste was ordained at Ecône in 2003. He is presently the headmaster of St. Bernard’s School of Bailly,
Picardy, about 60 miles northeast of Paris.

61

Questions and Answers

by Fr. Peter Scott, SSPX

Can a Catholic believe
in the “rapture”?
You will not find any discussion on the
rapture in any Catholic catechism. However, you
will often find it mentioned by fundamentalist
Protestant preachers, by Jehovah’s Witnesses
and Seventh Day Adventists, and the concept has
been popularized in novels and movies as well.
The idea of a rapture is based upon an
interpretation of this text of St. Paul’s in his first
62

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Letter to the Thessalonians: “…the dead in Christ
will rise up first. Then we who live, who survive,
shall be caught up together with them in clouds to
meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall ever be
with the Lord” (4:17). The followers of the rapture
take this to mean that Christ would come before
the end of the world, that is before His Second
Coming, and that at that time the righteous would
be “raptured,” that is caught up into the air with
Christ, while sinners would remain on the earth
for a period of great tribulation. It would then
be after this that Jesus would come on the earth

to rule for a thousand years, after which finally
there would be the end of the world and the
General Judgment.
The idea of the rapture is consequently closely
intertwined with the theory of millenarism,
which was embraced by a few isolated
ecclesiastical authors, such as Papias, St.
Justin and Tertullian, and later rejected by the
Church, notably by the Council of Ephesus, but
has been adopted by these sects. This theory
of millenarism is in turn based upon a literal
interpretation of Chapter 20 of the Apocalypse,
which speaks of the victory of Christ over Satan,
holding him bound for a thousand years (v. 3),
during which time the souls of those who refused
the mark of the beast “reigned with Christ a
thousand years,” “but the rest of the dead did not
come to life till the thousand years were finished”
(v. 5). In a response dated July 21, 1944, the Holy
Office condemned millenarism as an error that
“cannot safely be taught” (in Renié, Manuel
d’Ecriture Sainte, V, §314), and the same year a
work of Fr. Manuel Lacunza was placed on the
Index of Forbidden Books on account of the same
error.
However, it is interesting to know why these
ideas are false and how a false understanding of
Sacred Scripture lies behind them. The text of
St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is very clear
in the context of the preceding verses. It refers
to the end of the world, to the second coming
and to the general judgment, and for this uses
the images already employed by the prophet
Daniel to describe the end of the world. Hence
the preceding verse: “For the Lord himself with
cry of command, with voice of archangel, and
with trumpet of God will descend from heaven;
and the dead in Christ will rise up first. Then,
we who live, who survive…” (I Thess. 4:16). The
promise is to be victorious with Christ on the
last day, and this is what is consoling, not that
we might be snatched away for a period, or even
that we might rule with Him on earth for one
thousand years. Moreover, we are repeatedly told,
but by our Divine Savior and also by His apostles,
that we are not to know the day or the hour of
His coming, but that He will come when least
expected. “But of that day or hour no one knows,

neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the
Father only” (Mk. 13:32). Or “But the day of the
Lord will come as a thief” (II Pet. 3:10), just to
quote a couple of examples. This could hardly be
the case if there were to be a rapture.
The interpretation of the Apocalypse to mean
a thousand physical years’ reign on this earth
is likewise based upon a view of the Sacred
Scriptures which fails to take into account
the various literary genres. The Apocalypse
is a prophetic work, and consequently uses
the literary style of prophecy, which is full of
imagery, which, although truthful, is not intended
to be chronological nor to give an historical
account. The thousand years is symbolic of the
long period of time that follows the Resurrection,
in which Satan is chained in his control of the
faithful who are baptized, at least relatively
speaking. It is at the end of the long period during
which the Church Militant fights against all
kinds of persecution that finally the devil will be
released, the time of the Antichrist will come, and
then rapidly will take place the Last Judgment,
as is described in the last verses of Chapter 20 of
the Apocalypse (11-15). To interpret these images
in a physical manner so as to indicate a thousand
years of peace with Christ is to miss the entire
point of the passage, which is to show that this
time is a preparation for the Last Judgment, a
time for us to combat the devil, to crush evil, to
persevere in good works, that our names might
be “found written in the book of life” (v. 15). A
literal, physical interpretation of these images
and texts is just as grossly materialistic as were
the Pharisees in their desire for a Messias who
would rule over a temporal kingdom.
Rather than a millennium of peace and earthly
comfort for those who consider themselves
to be just, it will be a time of loss of faith, of
apostasy, in which the good will have to suffer
along with the wicked, which is to precede the
General Judgment. This is described by St. Paul:
“Let no one deceive you in any way, for the day
of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy
comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the
son of perdition” (II Thess. 2:3); and by Our Lord
Himself: “There will be great earthquakes in
various places, and pestilences and famines,
63

Questions and Answers
and there will be terrors and great signs from
heaven. But before all these things they will
arrest you and persecute you.…By your patience
you will win your souls” (Lk. 21:11-19).
Consequently, there is no doubt that the
fantasy of a rapture is incompatible with
Catholic doctrine and spirituality, as also is the
millennialist dream. The struggle of our earthly
life, lived for the love of God is the time of
preparation for the harvest, and this preparation
will continue until the day on which Our Divine
Savior comes in glory to render judgment to every
man “according to his works, whether good or
evil” (II Cor. 5:10):
“He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
The field is the world; the good seed, the sons of
the kingdom; the weeds, the sons of the wicked
one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.
But the harvest is the end of the world, and the
reapers are the angels. Therefore, just as the
weeds are gathered up and burnt with fire, so will
if be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will
send forth his angels, and they will gather out of
his kingdom all scandals and those who work
iniquity, and cast them into the furnace of fire,
where there will be the weeping and gnashing of
teeth. Then the just will shine forth like the sun
in the kingdom of their Father” (Mt. 33:38-43).

Why do crucifixes show
Our Lord as woundless,
with the exception of His
hands, feet, and side?
The manner of representing Christ on the
Cross has changed over the centuries. During
the first centuries of our era, when the horror
of crucifixion was still known, Christ was
never depicted on the Cross. It would have been
too horrifying to depict the full extent of His
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sufferings as a crucified man when people could
still see and recall how brutally cruel this really
was. The Cross was depicted alone as the symbol
of the Faith, especially after the victory of
Constantine at the Milvian Bridge in 312, when he
beheld in the heavens, above the sun, a cross of
light, around which were the words “In this sign
you shall conquer.” It was soon thereafter that
the Church ornamented and decorated it with
precious jewels.
It was only in the Middle Ages, when
crucifixion was no longer known, that crucifixes
began to depict Christ dying on the Cross. But
even then, they were very stylized, such as the
well-known crucifix of St. Francis, and there was
no attempt to depict even the due proportions of
His body, let alone the depth and extent of the
human sufferings of Christ.
Since the Renaissance, various schools have
attempted to depict the physical sufferings of
Christ much more accurately, including the five
principal wounds. However, the aim was to show
symbolically the sufferings of the Lamb of God,
upon whose shoulders the Lord God laid “the
iniquity of us all” (Is. 53:6). It did not pretend
to be a literal representation of everything He
suffered. In the past century, however, studies on
the shroud of Turin, our Divine Savior’s winding
sheet, have enabled artists to depict our Divine
Savior’s sufferings more accurately. They can,
for example, place the nails precisely at the
right place, at the wrist, and the feet one over
the other. They can include some of the many
scourges, with which our Divine Savior’s body
was lacerated, as well as the wounds from the
crown of thorns and the falls on the Way of the
Cross. However, few have been able to capture
all the pain and agony of those hours on the
Cross, and none (with the shameful exception
of Michelangelo) have dared to depict our
Divine Savior as He really was, bearing the utter
humiliation of being entirely stripped and naked.
If there is certainly a place for depicting more
accurately our Divine Savior’s sufferings, it is not
the only nor even the principal purpose of the
Crucifix. It is to show the instrument on which
God-made-man vanquished the devil; it is to
show the depth of His love, the grandeur of His

humility, the kindness of His Holy Face. It is most
importantly a symbol of the heroic virtue and
charity by which our Divine Savior purchased
us back from our sins. Consequently, it does not
have to show all His anguish and sufferings as
much as it must clearly indicate His ineffable
goodness.

May one pray to have
someone else’s painful disease
transferred to oneself?
The love of the Cross is an integral and
essential part of our Catholic life, as our Divine
Savior Himself stated, “If any man will come after
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross
daily, and follow me” (Lk. 9:23); and as St. Paul
also teaches: “God forbid that I should glory, save
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom
the world is crucified to me and I to the world”
(Gal. 6:14). It is also true that physical suffering
is one of the most difficult of crosses to bear
without resentment and with love. Theoretically,
also, it would be a great act of charity to ask for
another’s suffering to be transferred to oneself in
order to relieve the other person.
However, there is a huge difference between
embracing the sufferings that God, in His
goodness, deigns to send us, and actually and
positively willing that such sufferings should
come upon us. It is the difference between
the second and third degrees of humility as
described by St. Ignatius in his book of Spiritual
Exercises. The second degree of humility is
that of indifference, namely the acceptation and
embracing of whatever the Good Lord sends us,
whether it be sickness or health, poverty or riches
etc. “I neither desire nor am I inclined to…” The
third degree is entirely heroic, and consists in
actually choosing or desiring poverty or suffering

or insults rather than the contrary “whenever
the praise and glory of the Divine Majesty would
be equally served, in order to imitate and be in
reality more like Christ, our Lord…” (ibid.).
However, it must be acknowledged that such
a desire and such a prayer is the will of God only
when it is the fruit of a soul that has attained
to perfection. This is what Fr. A. Tanquerey
has to say in his treatise entitled The Spiritual
Life: “The desire and love of suffering…is the
degree proper to perfect souls and especially to
apostolic souls, to religious, priests and devout
men and women. Such was the disposition that
animated Our Blessed Lord when He offered
Himself as victim at His entrance into this
world.…Out of love for Him and in order to
become more like Him, perfect souls enter into
the same sentiments” (§1091).
In any other soul, however, such a prayer or
desire could be a form of self-deception, and even
a temptation of the devil to ultimately produce
discouragement. Father Tanquerey continues
to ask himself if it is appropriate for a soul to
formally ask God for extraordinary sufferings,
as in the prayer to take somebody else’s disease
upon oneself. Here is his answer: “No doubt
some of the Saints have done so and in our day
there are still generous souls who are moved
to do likewise. However, generally speaking,
such requests cannot be prudently counseled.
They may easily lead to illusions and are often
the outcome of some ill-considered impulse of
generosity which has its origin in presumption.…
Therefrom issue violent temptations to
discouragement and even to complaints against
God’s Providence.…Hence we must not take
it upon ourselves to ask for extraordinary
sufferings or trials….If one feels oneself drawn
thereto, one must take counsel with a judicious
director of souls and do nothing without his
approval” (ibid., §1092).
There lies the answer to the question: one
ought only pray such a prayer after having
discerned that it is the will of God because one is
called to perfection, and one’s spiritual director
is in full agreement.

65

Lourdes

The Society of St. Pius X is organizing an
international pilgrimage to Lourdes on
October 25 and 26, 2014, “for the triumph of
Christ the King, for the glory of Mary, and
for our sick.” It is also the occasion of the
centenary of St. Pius X’s pontificate.

Saint Anne de Beaupré
Behind the great statue where pilgrims and visitors kneel and implore
Good Saint Anne, we find the consecrated chapel of Saint Anne. This is
where a relic of Saint Anne is exhibited.
During the vigil of the Feast of Saint Anne celebrated in 2013, the
first statue of Saint Anne brought by Monsignor de Laval in 1662, and
worshipped by pilgrims for centuries, was placed on the left, in front of
the Saint Anne Chapel altar.

Two other shrines dedicated to Saint Anne
Finally, the two large windows of the transepts, the arms of the cross,
are also dedicated to Saint Anne, evoking two large shrines—that of
Sainte-Anne-D’Auray in Brittany and that of Sainte-Anne-de-Jerusalem.

Church and World
The Vatican Library to Digitize Its Archives
The digitization of the Vatican Library’s
manuscripts will accelerate thanks to the
agreement signed at the Vatican with the Japanese
company NTT Data, on March 20, 2014. Bishop
Cesare Pasini, prefect of the Apostolic Library of
the Vatican, added that 6,800 works have already
been digitized, and that some are available on
the library’s website. But this agreement, in a
preliminary 4-year phase, will allow 3,000 more
manuscripts to be scanned and archived with the
help of high-precision material by a team of about
thirty people. In the end, the Vatican Library aims
at digitally archiving 82,000 manuscripts that will
then be made available on its website, in order to
allow researchers to work without having to travel
to the originals.
The cost of the NTT Data project is estimated
at about 18 million euros and should be partially
covered by a donations campaign. The Japanese

company, whose reputation will benefit from
this partnership with the Vatican, will offer the
services of several of its specialists free of charge.
The Apostolic Library of the Vatican is one
of the oldest libraries in the world, having been
opened to the public in the middle of the 15th
century by Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455), and then
institutionalized in 1475 by Sixtus IV (1471-1484).
It has nearly 1.6 million ancient and modern
works, 8,300 of which were printed in the period
between the beginning of printing in the Western
world, around 1450, and the end of the first
century of typography, before 1501. Its inventory
includes several dozen parchments, over 150,000
manuscripts and archived documents, 100,000
printed documents and incisions, 300,000 coins
and medallions and 20,000 works of art.
(Sources: Apic/I.Media/VIS – DICI, No. 295, April
4, 2014)

Reactions to John XXIII’s and John Paul II’s Canonizations
A crowd of 7 million, then 3 million pilgrims
was expected for John XXIII’s and John Paul II’s
canonization ceremony in Rome; in the end, there
were 800,000 pilgrims there on April 27, 2014.
To show that it was indeed Vatican II that was being
canonized in the person of the man who summoned
the Council in 1962, John XXIII’s feast day was set on
October 11, the day of the Council’s opening; John
Paul II’s feast day is on the day of the inauguration
Mass of his pontificate, October 22, 1978.
On April 22, 2014, while severely criticizing
Bishop Bernard Fellay’s latest Letter to Friends
and Benefactors (see DICI, May 25, 2014), Maurice
Page, editor-in-chief of the agency Apic, declared:
“Canonizing John XXIII and John Paul II means
canonizing Vatican II, writes Bishop Fellay. We could
not agree more. Vatican II brought to the Roman
Church a decisive progress: religious freedom,
ecumenism, collegiality of the bishops, human rights,
liturgical reforms, a reading of the ‘signs of the
times.’ ”
In listing the “decisive progress”—according to
him—brought about by the Council, Mr. Page forgot to

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mention interreligious dialogue. But the World Jewish
Congress (WJC) did not forget it, and its president
Ronald Lauder, pointed out the “contribution of Popes
John XXIII and John Paul II,” who played an important
part in improving the relations between Jews and
Catholics and in “vanquishing anti-Semitism in the
Catholic Church.” The WJC recalled: John XXIII
summoned Vatican Council II, whose declaration
Nostra Aetate served as a foundation for JudeoChristian dialogue; under this impulse Israel and the
Holy See undertook to create diplomatic relations
with each other. As for John Paul II, he was the first
pope to visit a synagogue; during his long pontificate,
he was behind numerous interreligious initiatives
and paid particular attention to Judaism; in 2000,
he officially begged forgiveness for the Catholic
Church’s faults and historical errors over the last two
millennia.
While refraining from making the slightest
intrusion into the domain of Catholicism, Ronald
Lauder could not help expressing his gratitude for this
double canonization: “While the canonization of these
two men is an internal event of the Church and has

nothing to do with interreligious dialogue, we rejoice
with the millions of Catholics in Rome and everywhere
in the world who are celebrating this event.”
In order to understand more clearly the intention
behind this emphatic homage, allow us to recall that
the World Jewish Congress represents the Jewish
communities of almost 100 countries all over the
world, and that it was founded in 1936, in Geneva, to
defend in particular the Jewish interests in the face of
governments and organizations.
Less optimistic, because better informed than
many journalists, historian Roberto de Mattei
declared on April 29, to the Catholic Family News
which asked him “But you, do you maintain that the
last Popes are not saints?”: “Allow me to give my
opinion on the pope that I know better as an historian,
John XXIII. After studying Vatican Council II, I looked
more deeply into his biography and consulted the
acts of his beatification process. When the Church
canonizes a soul, she not only wants to be sure
that the deceased is in heavenly glory, but she also
offers him to us as a model of heroic virtue. It can
be a religious, a parish priest, a perfect father of a
family, and so on. In the case of a pope, in order to be
considered a saint, he has to have exercised heroic
virtue in accomplishing his mission as sovereign
pontiff, as was the case, for example, with St. Pius V
or St. Pius X. As far as John XXIII is concerned, I hold
the well thought-out conviction that his pontificate
worked an objective damage in the Church, and that

Syria: Facing the
Country’s Destruction
Jesuit Father Frans van der Lugt, aged 75,
who lived in the martyred town of Homs, was
assassinated on the morning of April 7, per an
announcement by Fr. Alex Basili, Provincial of
the Jesuits for the Middle East and the Maghreb.
Father Van der Lugt was executed by two bullets
to the head in front of the Jesuit residence in
Homs, in the district of Boustan al-Diwan, which is
held by the rebels.
Fr. Van der Lugt had arrived in Syria in 1966.
During the three years of the current war he lived

it is therefore impossible to speak of sanctity on
his account. A man who knew what he was talking
about in matters of sanctity, the Dominican Father
Innocenzo Colosio, considered to be one of the
greatest spirituality historians of modern times, said
so before me in a famous article published in the
Rivista di Ascetica e Mistica (Journal of Ascetic and
Mystical Theology).”
In any case, less than 15 days after this double
canonization, on May 9, Pope Francis authorized the
promulgation of the decree recognizing a miracle
attributed to Paul VI’s intercession, when he received
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation
for the Causes of Saints. And the Holy See’s press
agency has announced the date of the beatification:
October 19, at the closing of the first Bishops’ Synod
on the Family. According to the agency I.Media, the
pope who concluded Vatican Council II could be
canonized the following year, since Pope Francis
could dispense Paul VI from a second miracle, as he
did for John XXIII, and allow thus his canonization in
2015, just 50 years after the closing of Vatican II.
Faced with these rapid canonizations, historian
Philippe Chenaux asked in La Croix on May 12:
“Are all the popes of the 20th century going to be
canonized?” The Remnant had already given the
answer on April 15: “But Pius XII still must wait!”
(Sources: La Croix/I.Media/Apic/The Remnant/
CFN – DICI, No. 296, May 16, 2014)

in a monastery located in the ancient city of Homs,
where for the last year and a half the situation
had deteriorated terribly. Several weeks ago
Father Frans had launched an appeal by means
of a video on YouTube. “The biggest problem is
hunger, because the people cannot find anything to
eat,” he said in his appeal. “All of us, both Muslims
and Christians, are living in difficult, painful
conditions; we are suffering a lot but especially
from hunger,” the Dutch religious stressed. “It is
impossible to continue like this. We need genuine
aid, and our problems have to be taken into
account. We have been shut in for a year and a
half,” he declared.
69

Church and World
The religious had often denounced the lack
of medication, foodstuffs, and assistance for the
besieged civilians, insisting that it was urgent to
reach an agreement so as to be able to intervene
on behalf of sick, exhausted, and starving
civilians. He declared to the French news agency
AFP last February: “We have very, very little to
eat. The people in the street have gaunt, jaundiced
faces....There is a famine here, but the people
also thirst for a normal life. A human being is not
merely a stomach; he has a heart, too, and the
people need to see their loved ones,” he explained.
Whereas the Syrian people continue to endure
sufferings and incalculable losses, archeological
sites are the object of systematic pillaging,
and trafficking in cultural goods has reached
unprecedented proportions, according to a

communiqué by three members of the U.N. and
UNESCO. “According to some alarming reports,
the Syrian heritage is deliberately being targeted
for ideological reasons…by extremist groups
determined to obliterate these unique traces of the
rich cultural diversity of Syria….Not one stratum
of Syrian culture—pre-Christian, Christian,
Islamic—has been spared.”
The Syrian ambassador in Russia, Riad
Haddad, declared on March 26 that 98 Christian
churches and 1,900 mosques had been destroyed,
damaged or pillaged since the start of the conflict
in Syria. To these statistics it is necessary to add
1,600 schools and 60 percent of the hospitals, he
explained.
(Sources: Apic/UNorg/Interfax/fides/
radiovatican/AFP – DICI, No. 295, April 25, 2014)

Canada: Inhabitants of Quebec Are Less and Less Catholic
The chapel of Tadoussac in Quebec, called Indian
Chapel, is one of the oldest wooden churches in
North America. The first construction was in 1615.
According to a poll taken by the French-speaking
Center for Research on Public Opinion (CROP) for
Radio-Canada, Church membership has sharply
decreased among inhabitants of Quebec. The poll
is entitled “Do Quebeckers have No Religion?” The
results of it, which were published on March 30 in
the radio program “Second Look,” show that fewer
than 60 percent of Quebeckers still call themselves
Catholic. In 2001, however, they made up 83 percent
of the population of Quebec. Today 82 percent
declare that they never go to church except on
special occasions such as funerals, baptisms, Easter,
Christmas, or weddings. For only 46 percent of
those polled, Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God,
whereas for the others he is “an ordinary man”
(24%), “a prophet” (14%), “a philosopher” (10%), an
enlightened man” (7%).
Furthermore, 58 percent of the individuals
polled think that religion is “not important or not
very important” in their life. As for the Catholic
respondents, only 32 percent say that they are
Catholics because they have faith, and only 40
percent of them speak “regularly” or “occasionally”

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about religion to their children.
During an interview by the website www.radiocanada.ca on March 28, Martin Meunier, a sociologist
of religions at the University of Ottawa, said that
Quebeckers “used to be Catholics and now are

disaffiliating themselves from that institution.” He
goes on to say: “Just as quickly, we see that we have
entered into a new phase.”
(Sources: Apic/Radio-Canada – DICI, No. 295,
April 25, 2014)

Two of the Great Encyclicals of
Pope St. Pius X
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Pascendi Dominici Gregis

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On the Restoration of
All Things in Christ
E Supremi Apostolatus
Blueprint of a saint's papacy. Submission to God equals admitting His kingship in
all things. True renewal.

www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337
Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

Priestly Ordinations 2014

Winona

Ecône

Zaitzkofen
With the new set of annual ordinations,
the SSPX draws closer to the 600 mark
for the number of priests belonging to its
priestly society of common life.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, on Saturday,
June 13, ordained seven deacons in Winona
to the priesthood, and five subdeacons
were ordained deacons.
On the Feast of the Sacred Heart, Friday,
June 27, at St. Pius X Seminary in Ecône,
Switzerland, Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta
ordained eight deacons. He also ordained
seven subdeacons to the diaconate.
Another ordination ceremony for the
SSPX took place on the Vigil of SS. Peter
and Paul, Saturday, June 28, at Sacred
Heart Seminary in Zaitzkofen, Germany.
Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
ordained five priests and two deacons.

Theological Studies

On
Modernism
Past and
Present
by R.-Th. Calmel, O.P.

The classic heretic—Arius, Nestorius, Luther—
even if he has a velleity to stay in the Catholic
Church, does what is needed to incur exclusion
from it: he fights openly against the revealed truth
of which the living deposit is safeguarded by the
Church. The heretical, or rather apostate, modernist—a Reverend Loisy or a Father Teilhard de
Chardin—consciously rejects the whole doctrine of
the Church, but he cherishes the will to stay in the
Church, and he takes the means necessary to do so:
he dissembles, he pretends, in the hope of achieving his design to transform the Church from within,
or as the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin wrote, to rectify
the faith. The characteristic, specifying note of the
modernist is hypocrisy. The modernist, it can never
be sufficiently borne in mind, is an apostate who is
also a traitor.
You may ask: Given the fundamentally dishonest
position adopted by the modernist, how is it possible for him to stick with it his whole life without it
disturbing his internal equilibrium? Is psychologi-

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cal balance compatible with indefinitely prolonged
duplicity regarding the ultimate questions? As
regards the leaders, the answer must be in the affirmative. For the great number, the followers, the
question of psychological equilibrium within sustained hypocrisy is no doubt less acute. Especially
since the followers, when they are priests, which
is frequent, generally end up marrying, which puts
an end to their need to dissimulate. Once married,
they may still be apostates, but they are no longer
modernists. Things become clear concerning them;
they no longer need to counterfeit the appearance
of the Catholic priest. For the leaders, for the prelates placed in important posts, if the modernism is
practicable without too much psychological distress
it is undoubtedly because they are diverted by restless accomplices or by unflagging flatterers. Being
thus distracted from ever returning within their own
heart, they can evade the tormenting questions of a
lingering moral conscience.

Ceaselessly Changing Modernity
For the modernist, as the name suggests, religion
is essentially modern. It does not dominate time. It
is entirely immersed in history, in the adventures
of mankind on the move. There is no revelation
given once and for all to teach the divine mysteries.
There is no sacrifice meriting grace once and for
all. There is no new and eternal testament. There is
indefinite evolution. It is in this sense that religion is
said to be modern by the modernists. For them, the
Catholic religion is purely and simply human, not
received from God in an infinitely merciful initiative,
by perfect Revelation, and the plenary grace of the
Lord Jesus, but a simple product of human progress. The Catholic religion is no doubt a particularly
precious and refined product, but still it has nothing
to do with what are called grace and revelation. It is
strictly contained and enclosed within the limits of
the human spirit; it does not exceed the virtualities
of mankind in the making, for its virtualities have no
fixed limits. When a modernist pronounces Christian
vocables—divine intervention, revelation, or grace—
he does not understand them in a Christian sense.
He reinterprets them, astutely reducing them so
that they do not exceed the natural. God is not transcendent. The modernist does not say in the same
sense as we do, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” no
more than he says in a Catholic sense that Jesus is
the incarnate Son of God, Redeemer. For the modernists, it is not true that God so loved the world as to
give His only-begotten son born of the Virgin Mary.
From this particular conception of religion, or
rather from this radical negation, the modernism of
the time of St. Pius X and present-day modernism
differ on many points. Nevertheless, the essence is
identical; the variations do not bear on the essential.
In this heresy, or rather in this apostasy, one principle is immutable: religion must be modern. One
procedure is invariable: disguise in order to stay in
the Church and change it from within. It is because
the Catechism on Modernism of Father Lemius1
focuses intently on this principle and this procedure
that it remains useful fifty years after its publication,
regardless of the differences that may exist between
the second modernism and the first.

The Strategy of Modernism
The basic ideas of modernism have nothing
original. These apostates have not devised a new
philosophy, but they have attempted to align religion
on a false philosophy—the subjectivism and idealism
that have been poisoning the world for the last three
centuries. You will not find among the modernists
a thinker on the order of a Descartes or a Regel.
Teilhard de Chardin, who was in vogue for a while,
did nothing more than produce variations on the
well-worn theme of evolutionary monism. As far as
theories go, the second modernism, the one prevailing since Vatican II, adds to the first the confused
notion, never clearly justified, of unrestrained ecumenism, a false ecumenism at once religious and
humanitarian, that would first de-dogmatize and
then fuse beliefs and rites.
This is why it is not the genius of a few great
thinkers that has given modernism its power, but its
perfection of the techniques of infiltration and domination. The procedures themselves are copied from
those of secret societies, notably the various rites of
Freemasonry. These are the old methods, described
by Augustin Cochin in his Abstraction révolutionnaire et réalisme catholique,2 that had already proved
successful in the French Revolution, and that have
been applied to the Church for its devastation. The
distinctive characteristics are well known: first and
foremost, a shadow authority.3 The real authority
belongs to various organisms, difficult to describe
precisely, unofficial, while the official authority is
reduced to serving as their screen and to get their
anti-Christian directives accepted by the people.
To get an idea of the destructive power of a shadow
authority, recall the speed with which the devastating practice of the new rites of communion, the new
“Eucharistic prayers,” and the new liturgy in general,
prevailed. The form par excellence of the shadow
authorities is post-conciliar collegiality. The total victory of the Church over modernism will come by the
suppression of collegiality.

Causes of the Triumph of Modernism
At the beginning of the twentieth century, had
one asked the simple layman what modernism is,
he would probably have been quite hard put to give
an answer. Fifty years later, the simple layman

77

Theological Studies
would have had much less difficulty. He would have
said in essence: It’s a new religion: The Mass is no
longer the same, the new funerals are repugnant,
the new marriages are tomfoolery, people no longer
go to confession, they have all kinds of trouble
getting their children baptized; the pastors only
talk about getting married and their sermons have
become political claptrap; in sum, modernism has
gotten into religion. Similar remarks are becoming
more and more frequent among Catholics. At the
beginning of the century, the simple layman had
not really grasped what modernism was about; fifty
years later he knows it superabundantly, and he is
disgusted. For in the half-century after St. Pius X,
modernism has passed from the chair of the learned
doctors in theology into the Mass celebrated by
the vicar or curate. Aberrant exegesis has become
liturgical ceremony and catechism for children; the
apostasy that was the luxury of a few high-flown intellectuals has become the mass-produced rubbish
within reach of the first priest who comes along,
within reach of the pitiable nuns whom diabolical
priests, quite conscious of their work, deliberately
led astray. In half a century modernism has been
introduced into every sector of the Church: not a
one has escaped. But also in almost every sector,
resistance is emerging.
As to why the virus advanced so far in the organism, we can enumerate three main reasons: firstly,
the imposture of Vatican II, the only one of all the
councils that refused to be doctrinal; secondly, the
progressive occupation of the highest posts by
modernist prelates; thirdly, the debility of the life of
faith, hope, and charity in all the Christian people,
beginning with the head. A council that betrayed,
certain prelates that betrayed, a Christian people
incapable of resisting the betrayal because it was
spiritually debilitated—there at least in part is what
happened between the two modernisms, the one of
the time of St. Pius X, who was a saint; and the one
of Paul VI, who eerily resembles Honorius I.
So saying, I don’t deny that there are other
causes, but I take them to be less decisive. Between
the two modernisms, the world experienced the
Communist revolution and the extension of revolutionary methods. Between the two modernisms,
Masonry made inroads among the ecclesiastics
and even into the ranks of the Vatican Curia: on this
78

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May - June 2014

point, the diagnosis of the Bishop of Regensburg,
Monsignor Rudolf Graber, is one of the most enlightening (Saint Athanasius and the Church of Our Time,
1973). Between the two modernisms there was also
the methodical launching of the books by the Jesuit
Father Teilhard de Chardin. For at least fifteen years,
from 1945 to 1960, the Teilhardian artillery pounded
all the orthodox positions; once the destruction of
the defense works had been achieved they withdrew
the heavy artillery; there’s not been much talk of
Teilhard since the Council. One cannot but notice in
this regard that when the destruction was underway,
the Jesuits knew how to maneuver shrewdly enough
to keep their great man from receiving a categorical
condemnation that would have preserved a good
part of the Church from his influence. There was no
placing on the Index, not by Pius XII, and not by John
XXIII. There was certainly a monitum, but the Jesuits
were not unaware that the effect of a monitum is not
comparable to being placed on the Index.
Anyhow, whatever may be the multiplicity of
causes, the decisive or accidental factors in the
progress of modernism, we ought to be telling ourselves (and doing so in order to draw nearer to God)
that if there had been in the Church greater faith and
fervor, and especially if there had been among us
bishops and priests with a more Christian sense of
the Mass, modernism would not have won as it has
won. In any case, it would not have so easily infected
the holy liturgy everywhere. The Christian people,
the countless throng of pusilli, would not be reduced
to clamoring and crying out: Most Holy Father, give
us back the Mass, give us back the Catechism, give us
back Sacred Scripture.

First Remedy: A Teaching Pope
Is there a remedy? Surely, one or even several
exist. The evil is not incurable, since it is of faith that
the gates of hell shall not prevail (Mt. 16:18), since
the Lord will not leave us orphans (Jn. 14:18), since
no one will take from the Lord the sheep that are
His (Jn. 10:28), since the Lord will continue to offer
His sacrifice through the ministry of His priests
donec veniat, till His return (I Cor. 11:26). So the evil
afflicting the Church is not going to annihilate it. It
is curable. But this time, unlike what happened at
the beginning of the twentieth century, the evil has

deeply penetrated the hierarchy itself. So long as
the hierarchy has not eliminated the poison infecting it, the remedy can only be partial and limited.
Doubtless it is not from the hierarchy alone, nor
from the head alone that the remedy will come. The
body in all its organs must rid itself of the poison.
Nonetheless, a complete recovery requires that the
head return to health.
The search for a remedy against modernism
brings up three chief topics: the head of the Church,
the witness to be given, and theological studies.
It is impossible to avoid the question of the
head, since the current Sovereign Pontiff has been
complicit in the apostasy. The proofs are flagrant:
official recourse to notorious heretics for the
purpose of remaking the rites, and remaking them
in favor of heretics and against faithful Catholics;
public collusion with Freemasons and Communists;
the absence of canonical measures against the
parallel authorities who undermine religion. Faced
with this new way of governing the Church of God,
of what use are the Wednesday talks? This endless
eloquence doesn’t even succeed in misdirection
anymore because it is contradicted by the worst of
innovations in every domain. The question of the
head is posed because of these frightful innovations. The question of the head would only become
tragic if it were to arise within the context of infallibility. But there is nothing of the sort. The upheavals of the current pontiff, which certainly go against
apostolic tradition, not only fall short of infallibility,
but even of regular, specific precepts accompanied
by canonical sanctions. The duty of obedience
therefore does not come up.

On True Obedience
Moreover, the obedience due to any man, even
the pope, cannot be unlimited, unconditional, beyond the bounds of good and evil, of virtue and sin.
In this, obedience to the pope is no exception. It is
not by abstracting from circumstances, and notably
by abstracting from apostolic tradition, that the
word of the Lord that who hears you hears me defines
an obligation for the faithful.
It would be blasphemous to think that, in order
to obey the pope, the Lord would have put us in a
position of having to sin against morals or against

the faith, to give up the Roman Catechism or to accept an equivocal, protestantized rite of Mass after
having sent to the devil the irreproachable, holy rite
that has been handed down intact for more than
fifteen centuries. Just as the qui vos audit me audit
would not have applied in the case of one of these
awful Renaissance Popes who abused his position
to seduce an irresolute, intimidated woman, neither
would it apply when a chimerical pope pretends
to make use of his authority to make us accept
equivocal rites or to treat unrepentant heretics as
Catholics. The pope enjoys legitimate authority only
within the limits of conformity with apostolic tradition, and not in what subtly contradicts it; it follows
that obedience to the pope is contained within the
same limits. That is why the question of a bad head
that becomes a matter of conscience for the faithful
is not insoluble.

Infallibility vs. Impeccability
In part, but only in part, the question of the
authority of the visible head of the Church will be
resolved if we understand that in certain cases the
exercise of his authority can be bad. The dogma of
faith defined by the First Vatican Council obliges
us to distinguish infallibility, which leaves no doubt
under certain conditions, from impeccability, which
is not a papal privilege. Thus a pope can fall, not
only in the order of morals but, up to a point, even in
the order of faith. Should the failings of the pope as
guardian of the faith be serious, should they reach a
certain threshold, we are tested to the limits of our
strength. We know, and now we know from experience, that in order to endure it without wavering,
it is not enough merely to have a correct notion, a
Christian notion of the authority reserved to the
pope and the obedience we owe him. Only prayer
will enable us to welcome this trial coming from
the visible head of the Church, in such wise that we
shall live more than ever of the life of the Church.
Consequent upon the failing of the visible head, we
are obliged more than ever to draw very close to the
invisible and victorious head, our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are obliged more than ever to have recourse
to and take refuge in the Immaculate Heart of the
Mother of the Sovereign High-Priest, the Virgin of
Compassion and of the Cenacle, whose supplica79

Theological Studies
tion is almighty over the heart of her Son.
Prayer will make us understand that the Lord
predicted these times when the abomination of
desolation would stand in the holy place (Mt. 24:15);
He predicted them so that the faithful who would
witness them would not lose courage, but would
become partakers of His victory: Ecce praedixi
vobis (Mt. 24:25). Sed haec locutus sum vobis ut cum
venerit hora eorum, reminiscamini quia ego dixi vobis
(Jn. 16:4). Confidite, ego vici mundum (Jn. 16:33).
The post-conciliar neo-modernist rush would not
have submerged the Church had a great number of
souls among the prelates, priests, and laity stayed
alive, living by the theological virtues and by mental
prayer. Conversely, for modernism to be thrown
off, it is indispensable that the life of prayer once
again flourish in the Church among the laity, still
more among the priests, and still more among the
prelates.

Second Remedy: Public Confession of Faith
It is indispensable to confess the faith, to give
public witness to it with as much humility and meekness as pride and patience. For the true confession
of faith is a work of love, humility, and goodness, and
not only of fortitude and courage. We are not ignorant of what new difficulties present themselves in a
period of modernist revolution to hinder the confession of faith and the sacraments of faith from being
a great work of love. But if it were not that, it would
be very insufficient in the sight of God, of angels,
and of men. If our witness to the traditional Catholic
Mass were in the face of the classic persecutors, if
we had to deal as our ancestors did with the tribunals of the Terror or the Directory, we would find
ourselves exposed to a violent death by the mere
fact of attending a Catholic Mass. In such extreme
conditions how could we fail to hear Mass or celebrate it with heightened fervor? The violence would
put us in the near occasion, so to speak, of tending
towards ardent love in order not to commit the sin
of denying the faith. But now we are dealing with the
modernist revolution and not violent persecution.
Bearing witness to the traditional Catholic Mass
no doubt demands of us patient effort, but it does
not force us to tend toward greater charity when
we celebrate or hear Mass. We would not neces80

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May - June 2014

sarily become renegades of the Mass if we were
to continue to go with such mediocre dispositions,
when our forebears in periods of classic persecution
would have become renegades had their interior
dispositions remained mediocre. In fact, there are
laymen and priests who go to much trouble in order
to confess their faith in the traditional Catholic
Mass, but even so it is with an invariable lukewarmness that they persist in celebrating or hearing
it. It does not seem that they bring this great love
that animated the martyrs of the Terror when they
exposed themselves to a death sentence for going
to the Mass of a recusant priest. They bear a certain
witness to the traditional Catholic Mass without being obliged to put much love in their attendance or in
the celebration of Mass.
Today the stimulus no longer comes from
without; but even without exterior provocation, the
interior flame of the theological virtues and of prayer
ought to become intense enough for us to bear witness to the faith and the sacraments of faith with
all the love our Lord expects. Not only the Lord, but
souls of good will expect it; they hope to find it in us
so that they in their turn can summon the courage
to turn towards God and to profess the Catholic faith
and the sacraments of faith.
Charity makes us attentive to the veritable needs
of our neighbor; it makes us perceive the right way
to present the true religion so that, without being
corrupted or compromised, it relates to the present
day. Even when the supreme authority falters and
the general adaptations, far from being effective,
have taken the form of general perversions, even
in these extreme cases, charity makes the simple
priest or even better the bishop discover, within
the proper field of their authority, the best way to
preach sound doctrine and to celebrate the Catholic
Mass in such a way that the faithful participate without anything being lost.
Moreover, examples are not lacking. The priests
who keep the traditional Catholic Mass, Latin
and Gregorian, out of a loving attachment to the
Sovereign Priest and thus, inseparably, out of zeal
for souls, know how to take the faithful in charge for
their holy participation. These same priests captivate the children by teaching them the Catechism
of St. Pius X and do not think they have to concede
anything to modernism in order to find a suitable

pedagogy. Nevertheless, these adapted presentations or this faithful adaptation only happens on two
conditions: first, continual meditation on doctrine
and the traditional rites so as to keep them as
they are without bending or distortion; then, living
united to God in such wise that one’s witness to the
Catholic faith is an effect of love.

Third Remedy: Contemplative Theology
Among the principal means of resisting modernism, we have indicated the teaching of sound
doctrine in such a way that, far from remaining
superficial, it fosters prayer and contemplation. A
few words are in order about teaching a theology
imbued with contemplation, and theological study
that not only enlightens the mind but also disposes
the soul to prayer and prompts preaching.
The primary goal of theology is not to develop the
life of prayer, but to sound the depths of the revealed mysteries we hold by faith, to accustom our
mind to them, and to become capable of expounding them to our neighbor. The first goal of theology
is to form Christians whose minds are steeped in
the supernatural mysteries and who are capable
of preaching them. Even so, in his reflections the
theologian is constantly invited to return to the
mysteries of faith, and so doing he must deepen the
life of prayer in his soul. The principles of theological
thinking are held by faith; how then can this thinking
be carried on without our being inclined to silence in
faith and in loving contemplation? How is it possible
to reach a synthetic view of a theological treatise
or an entire Pars of the corpus theologicum without
experiencing the value of this vision and a sense
of its limits; without a desire quickening in us to let
ourselves be taught by the Spirit of God beyond
words in mental prayer and through sacrifice? How,
moreover, can the theologian defend the truths of
salvation intellectually so as to preach them in all
their purity and not aspire at the same time, for the
sake of this defense, to an increase of the virtues of
fortitude, humility, and mercy? For the defense of
the truths of salvation, for truths of this order, it is so
obvious that the mind’s mastery and the rightness
of the reasoning, needful though they be, are not
enough.
Therefore, the teaching of theology ought to

foster the life of faith and apostolic zeal. But what
is normal is, in fact, not widespread. It is rather rare
that theological work proceeds from prayer and is
turned towards prayer.
Moreover, when the notion of theological faith
itself is marred, how could the study of theology
remain unaffected by troublesome consequences?
Theological faith must be presented not only in its
formal motive, which is of itself supernatural, and not
only by manifesting the worth of the motives of credibility, but by presenting faith in its normal state—its
normal state being to be vivified by charity, to be
the source of contemplation inspired by the gifts of
the Holy Spirit which are inseparable from charity.
Still more, it would be necessary to say a word about
the modern systems that have debilitated theology,
which have contributed, even before the advent of
rationalist textual criticism, to render theology anticontemplative, little capable of favoring prayer and
preaching. Molinism, for example, under the pretext
of safeguarding freedom, is built on a profound
distrust of the mysterious omnipotence of the grace
of Jesus Christ. Besides, some systems of moral
theology are influenced by an unworthy concern to
dispense us from generosity in the love of the Lord,
but also, preoccupied with avoiding serious sin, seek
to assure our salvation by setting aside the observance of the first precept, which is the perfection of
love; perfection that is prescribed not as a matter
to achieve hic et nunc but as the end toward which
to tend in truth and in earnest. The divers systems I
am denouncing have rendered theology anemic and
unfit to nourish our intellect and to make us desire
the superior food of contemplation. On the other
hand, when adequately taught in light of St. Thomas
Aquinas, theology aids us to pray better and to
resist the onslaught of modernist apostasy from an
impregnable rampart.
Our combat against modernism, even if it is sustained by prayer as it should be, even if it employs
the appropriate weapons, remains unequal to the
evil to be withstood. This time apostasy has perfected its methods too well for it to be vanquished without a miracle. Then let us not cease to implore this
miracle from the Immaculate Heart of our Lady. Let
us carry on the fight with all our strength as useless
servants, while having recourse more than ever
81

Theological Studies
to the all-powerful intercession of Mary, ever Virgin
Mother of God, for it is she who will once again be
victorious over heresy. Gaude, Maria Virgo, cunctas
haereses sola interemisti quae Gabrielis archangeli
dictis credidisti.

Translation of “Le Modernisme actuel,” Itinéraires, No. 184, June 1974.
Translated by A. M. Stinnett.

Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P. (1914-75), was a prominent French
Dominican and Thomist philosopher and spiritual director, who made an
immense contribution to the fight for Catholic Tradition through his writings
and conferences, notably as a regular contributor for 17 years to Jean Madiran’s
Itinéraires. His most enduring influence is through the traditional Dominican
Teaching Sisters of Fanjeaux and Brignoles in France, who operate 12 girls’
schools in France and the United States.

82

1

The Rev. J. B. Lemius, O.M.I., A Catechism on Modernism
according to the Encyclical “Pascendi Dominici Gregis” of His
Holiness Pius X (New York: Benziger, 1908; reprinted by TAN
Books & Publishers in 1981).

2

Michel de Boüard, ed. (Paris: Desclée de Brower, 1936, 1960).

3

“une autorité de mensonge”.

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May - June 2014

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Letters to the Editor

Dear Angelus Press,
In the March/April issue of The Angelus, there was a depiction of Our
Lord’s Baptism. Was this appropriate for a Catholic magazine?

Dear Sir,
We are grateful for any feedback on our use of Catholic art in general,
even if it involves some criticism or confusion. In this case, since the issue
was dedicated to Baptism, it was natural to use some of the most famous
depictions from our rich heritage. The image in question is from the 6th
century and is a theme found in many baptistries in Italy from the era.
Needless to say, Christ’s baptism in general draws our attention to the
humanity of Our Lord at the same time as the Trinity is being manifested,
which may explain the more human details found in early Christian
iconography. It is a rather common motif to have Christ depicted thus simply
covered by the waters of the Jordan, in a stylized mosaic. You will find very
similar reproductions in the High Middle Ages, as in Giotto’s Arena chapel in
Padua (from the 14th century).
Why did the Christian age give us reproductions which could be seen as
somewhat “graphic” by our modern sensibilities? Need we say that these
Christian times had a very different purpose in their imagery than what we
are now accustomed to? In our rampantly immoral times, when immodesty
is ubiquitous, perhaps we have come to see all nudity in art as problematic in
itself. It is the Puritan temptation to make no distinctions here and see any
depiction of human flesh as intrinsically disordered and problematic. Yet the
endless reproduction in churches of our first parents in painting, sculpture
and mosaic show indeed the human body as God’s creature, good in itself
and an occasion of sin only because of human disobedience. There are also
the images of the General Judgment in which the damned are always sent to
hell in Adam’s trappings. In other words, there is always a theological bent
to picturing the human body: the deviation of the sexual bodies is intimately
connected with sin, whether original or personal.
The topic of the morality of nudity in art has often been debated, and we
will dedicate a future article to a fuller understanding of the question. It
perhaps suffices to say that if such an image is found scandalous, one can
hardly visit the churches and museums of Europe, full as they are of similar
pictures. The modern world has certainly gone to the libertine extreme,

84

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May - June 2014

but let us not reject the baby with the bath water. Two thousand years of
Christian art are part of our history, even if we may not understand them at
first glance.
Sincerely in Christ,
James Vogel
Editor-in-Chief

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The
Last
Word
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“Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps”
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Saints stand out from the crowd. They far surpass normal Christians in the
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