Giuseppe Melchore Sarto was born of humble parents on 2 June 1835, in the small village of Riese near Venice. His father, a village official, and his mother raised Giuseppe in a loving Christian home. It was this home situation which prompted Giuseppe, after his college days in Castelfranco, to enter the seminary in Padua. Giuseppe Sarto was ordained at the age of 23 on 18 September 1858. His first assignment was as curate in the city of Trombolo. After nine years he was transferred to Salzano as pastor, a position he held for eight years. Due to his pastoral and administrative abilities, his bishop named him spiritual director of the diocesan major seminary and chancellor of the archdiocese, a position he held from November 1875, until his elevation to the episcopacy of Mantua in 1884.
After nine years as bishop he was transferred to Venice as the city's patriarch and cardinal. Giuseppe Cardinal Sarto won the hearts of the Venetians through his humble spirit of poverty and his love for the Church, especially in the areas of education, Catholic action and liturgy. After the death of Leo XIII the conclave of 1903 elected Cardinal Sarto pope despite his own hesitancy to accept the office of Vicar of Christ. The new pope assumed the name Pius X.
As Supreme Pontiff, Pius took as his motto the passage from Paul, "To restore all things in Christ, that Christ might be all and in all" (I Cor. 15:28), a goal which was particularly important during that period of the Church's emergence into the modern world.
As a most vigilant guardian of the Faith, he condemned and suppressed Modernism, the sum of all heresies ; as a most zealous defender of the freedom of the Church, he boldly resisted those who strove to bring about her downfall ; he provided for the sound education of clerics, brought the laws of the Church together into one body ; and greatly fostered the cult and more frequent reception of the Eucharist.
He was canonised St. Pius X on 29 May 1954 and in the 1962 calendar his feast is celebrated on 3rd September. He was the first pope in modern times to be canonised.
Saint Pius X : Pray for us!