Pius X: First of the Great Reformers

He Spoke Like a Traditionalist, He Acted Like a Modernist.

"What the world needs are not reformers or revolutionaries, but men of Tradition."  These words, ironically, are ascribed to the first of the Great reformers, Pius X (son of Polish immigrants)

Pius X, more than any other pope, insisted on the power of the Petrine Office.  He insisted that not only are Catholics to be faithful to the dogmatic and moral decrees of Holy Mother Church...

But he even insisted that Catholics are to be subservient to the political and societal wishes of the Roman Pontiff, giving their consent to all his programs and aspirations.  His first encyclical...

E Supremis, Pius X waxes poetic :"Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant"

Applying these words of Jeremiah to himself, after having just protested his unworthiness of the office, is the philosophical equivalent of doing a U-turn on the interstate while burning rubber.

After a few short, successive paragraphs bewailing the present evils of the world, he wonders if the Antichrist has not already been born.  Finally, he hits the nail right square on the head...

"[Man] has contemned God's majesty and, as it were, made of the universe a temple wherein he himself is to be adored."  In forthrightly condemning modern and progressivist man... He is a good guy...

Right?  Well, as Our Lord Jesus Christ said, by their fruits you will know them.  And so, in that light, we are going to look at the fruits of this pontificate, and ask- Was this the intent??...

The first fruit of this pontificate was the dramatic reduction in the number of Holy Days of Obligation, with the corresponding abolition of the vigils where one was obligated to fast and abstain...

Pius X gave St John the Baptist, Candlemas, Michaelmas, The Annunciation, St Anne, St Joseph, St Stephen, The Nativity of Our Lady, and all twelve apostles, among others, the hatchet.  The Reason??

The "high cost of living" and the "necessity of caring in due season for crops".  For this was the beautiful cycle of fasts and feast stricken from the lives of the faithful, even as the Revolution..

...everywhere threatened the liturgical life of the faithful.  Meanwhile, quite predictably, the consequences are a lessened devotion to the apostles (can your child name all twelve if asked?)...

...and the great liturgical feasts of Our Lady.  (Groundhog day- any of you turkeys out there?)  Of course, the need to care for crops and work long hours has not stopped the proliferation of...

"Feast days" in the secular cycle, as we now have about as many "bank holidays" as what we had feasts on the ancient liturgical calendar.  Funny how the "jungle" always asserts itself, and human...

culture always tends towards an equilibrium even if the church authorities think that it is within their purview to change "times and seasons".  Meanwhile, the Revolution can only thank Pius X.

We now turn our attention to the subject of vernacular missals.  In his famous, and most highly recommended, work on the Liturgical Year Dom Propser Gueranger gave the following diclaimer:

"In order to conform with the wishes of the Holy See, we do not give, in any of the volumes of our Liturgical Year, the literal translation of the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass".  The reason?

It was expressly forbidden by Canon Law, according to the mind of the Council of Trent.  That Holy Council had become well acquainted with the dangers of familiarity with what is most sacred.

"Let all mortal flesh keep silence and with fear and trembling stand; ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in his hand Christ, our God, to earth descending, comes our homage to command."

These ancient words from the Liturgy of St James well encapsulate the mind of Holy Mother Church concerning the most sacred action possible in heaven or on earth.  So, how the dramatic reversal?

Cracks came from two disparate sources.  The first, concessions for use of the vernacular in mission lands, particularly China, and an indult granted by Pius IX where he allowed bishops to publish...

vernacular missals.  The subsequent proliferation of vernacular missals was then largely ignored by Leo XIII.  (we see here a pattern that persists over and over- 1.  Implied consent is given by ...

some official.  2.  Disobedience and confusion run rampant.  3.  Official recognition and approval is given to the "will of the people".)  Then, finally, Pius X gives not only approval, but actively

promotes the practice.  Listen to these epochal words of Pius X, totally at odds with Trent, and see if you cannot detect here the germs of the liturgical anarchy that was to shortly follow...

"The Holy Mass is a prayer itself, even the highest prayer that exists. It is the Sacrifice, dedicated by our Redeemer at the Cross, and repeated every day on the Altar. If you wish to hear Mass...

"as it should be heard, you must follow with eye, heart, and mouth all that happens at the Altar. Further, YOU MUST PRAY WITH THE PRIEST THE HOLY WORDS SAID BY HIM. You have to associate your...

" "...heart with the holy feelings which are contained in these words and in this manner you ought to follow all that happens on the Altar. When acting in this way, you have prayed Holy Mass." 

So much for the theology of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest.  Meanwhile, it can be clearly seen where the "missal thumpers" get their ammo.  Can one see here faint whispers of the New Mass?

Let's face it. Without widespread "hand missals" the "dialog Mass" of Pius XII would have come as a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, causing shock and awe.  The sheeple had be gradually...

...most gradually, attuned to the process to come.  And who better to start that process than a saint in the Vatican?  Pure speculation?  Fertile imagination?  Do read on...

Most of you, of course, are familiar with Pascendi DOMINICI GREGIS, the famous encyclical on "modernism".  Most admirably written, this document gives the impression that "Modernism" is a development

of the last 50 years or so.  Apparently Pius X had never heard of such things as the Synod of Pistoia, which in some places could almost be confused with Vatican II.  Moreover, Pius X acted as though

"Modernism" was largely to be found in stuffy old university classrooms and seminaries infected with the doctrines of the Revolution, but surely not prominent bishoprics or the college of cardinals.

For Pius X, men such as Cardinals Gibbons and Rampolla, and Bishop Ireland, (just to name three on Monsignor Jouin's list) could not have possibly existed, much less need to be named and denounced.

Also not needing to be named and denounced were Darwin's fables of evolution, Newton's fables of heliocentrism, and Bultmann's fables of the "non-immannance" and non-historicity of the scriptures.

Pius X would go on to admit that he had not driven a stake through "modernism" but only driven it underground.  Truer words were never spoken.  The "modernists" were right under his nose all along.

And now... the clot thickens.  Most of you are well aware of the "summer of shame" of 2018 and the whole Cardinal McCarrick debacle, and the desperate damage control Archbishop Vigano would do...

Quite a few are also aware that Cardinal McCarrick was the progeny of Cardinal Francis Spellmen, AKA "The American Pope".  But where did Cardinal Francis Spellman come from?  (You had to ask.)

Francis Spellman came from Boston, and although Archbishop O'Connell at first supported his vocation, he later distanced himself from Spellman, calling him a "popinjay", among other insults.

Now, if Randy Engel's extensive research for the Rite of Sodomy is to be believed, she gathered extensive evidence that Cardinal O'Connell was, in fact, one of those guys, of the Lavender Mafia.

All of which might explain this strange behavior of a Cardinal appointed by Pius X to the Seat of Boston towards the man he may have groomed for high places in Holy Mother Church.

And Cardinal O'Connell was created by Pius X in 1911, after he was appointed to the Seat of Boston by the same pope.  (At the behest of Cardinal Rampolla?  Only on Judgment Day will all the sordid...)

As regards the canonization of Pius X, the story about how the Italian Cardinals pushed for his canonization is...  somewhat exaggerated.  Closer to the truth is the fact that, following his death,

his administration, most notably Cardinal Raphael Merry de Val, were sent packing, and the incoming Benedict XV rapidly consigned the memory of Pius X to the dustbin.  It was a campaign by American..

Prelates, most notably O-Connell's successor, Cardinal Cushing, which gathered signatures for a petition from the Knights of Columbus and Catholic Action that was presented to Pope Pius XII that...

"greased the skids", so to speak, for the canonization process.  Two miracles, both of nuns cured of cancer, were presented as proof Pius X was among the blessed.  Meanwhile, his body is said to...

...be incorrupt.  But no pictures are extant of the corpse exquisitely described when it was exhumed about 1945.  At the tomb, one sees a silver face, lots of clothes, and flowing white hair.

Is there a body somewhere under all the silver and raiments?  Maybe... and, then again, maybe not.  But when you consider all the rot from the 1940's and what Sr Pascalina reported in La Popessa...

One is allowed to be skeptical.  Meanwhile, we did not even discuss the codification of canon law, which appears a grievous mistake, the "reform" of the Divine Office, and other things sundry.

Now I am not saying this poor soul is rotting in hell.  Nor am I accusing anybody of lying.  I just wonder how a church supposedly run by a saint could get so far off track in so short a time...

Just 15 years after the death of this man came the epochal year of 1929, when one war ended, and another began.  Stay tuned...