[Catholic Caucus] St. Pius X: Defending Tradition Without Abandoning the Church

On September 3, the 1962 Roman Calendar exhorts Catholics to commemorate St. Pius X, a pope whose very name has become a banner for those who believe the one true Catholic Faith must be preserved and defended in its entirety.

In a church beleaguered by doctrinal confusion, moral chaos, and the persecution of faithful Catholics who love the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), the feast of St. Pius X is not merely a liturgical footnote but acts as a clarion call to holiness, doctrinal clarity, and moral rectitude, while not abandoning the Papacy even when the torrential waves of Modernism appear all set to devour Holy Mother Church.

The Saint of the Catechism and the Mass

Upon his election as pope in 1903, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, the former patriarch and cardinal of Venice, took the name “Pius” in honor of Pope Pius IX, who had previously condemned the notion that “the Roman pontiff can and should reconcile and harmonize himself with progress, with liberalism, and with recent civilization.”

With an ardent desire to defend Catholic doctrinal integrity against the errors of Modernism, the new pope’s motto was as clear as it was simple: “Instaurare omnia in Christo”—”to restore all things in Christ.”

And sure enough, Pope Pius X indeed undertook a broad-based restoration of the Church that was placed under his stewardship—in sacramental, liturgical, and catechetical aspects.

For example, the pontiff lowered the age of First Communion and promoted the regular reception of the Holy Eucharist, particularly after getting inspired by the moving story of the Irish child mystic, Little Nellie of Holy God. Moreover, the pope encouraged a renewal of sacred music in his Motu Proprio “Tra le sollecitudini” (“Among the cares”) and gave the Church a succinct catechism that ordinary lay Catholics could access and live by. In an era marked by assaults on the Faith and on the Church by secular anti-clerical forces, the pontiff maintained that Catholic truth be learned, taught, and loved.

In light of the achievements of St. Pius X, it is no wonder that the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a priestly fraternity founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970, saw in this pope a great example of resistance to the liturgical and doctrinal pandemonium that ensued after the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Where St. Pius X labored to defend the Faith from those who tried to water it down, the SSPX has contended that its mission is to labor to shield the Faith from those who, from its standpoint, would obscure it or even use the banner of Vatican II to replace it altogether.

The Crisis: Not Only Outside, but Within

Unless one is living under a rock, it is evident that Holy Mother Church is in crisis. Mass attendance has dramatically crumbled in the West, such as in formerly Catholic countries like the Republic of Ireland and France; vocations in the mainstream Church have collapsed, and catechesis in many parishes around the world is doctrinal and moral illiteracy donned in religious garb. Tragedies like sex abuse scandals have eroded Catholics’ trust in their shepherds, the latter being the very people meant to lead the laity in matters of faith and morals. Strikingly, the greatest crisis is not merely statistical but theological: a dwindling awareness of the sacred, a muddled comprehension about the very nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and an insidious relativism that regards dogma as “optional” and sin as an issue of personal “discernment.”

Yet in spite of this bleak situation embattling the Church, faithful Catholics attached to the TLM and to the traditional notion of the Catholic priesthood have frequently found themselves not as faithful sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church but as “problems” to be controlled.

Notably in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum” acknowledged the legitimacy of their convictions regarding the old form of the Roman Rite, thus liberating priests to celebrate it without special permission. For a period of time, it appeared that Rome adopted a conciliatory stance regarding the traditional liturgy, not as a museum relic relegated to the annals of history, but as a vibrant school of the Catholic Faith.

Then, all of a sudden, during the pontificate of Pope Francis in 2021, “Traditionis Custodes” dropped on the Catholic world like a bomb. This document sought to abrogate the norms fortified by his predecessors by proclaiming that the post-conciliar liturgical books are the “unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”

Consequently, the TLM was subject to permissions, restrictions, and, in many dioceses, total suppression.

Whatever the actual intention of Pope Francis (which only God can judge), the effect of “Traditionis Custodes” has been deleterious on many TLM communities worldwide. Priests who had spent years establishing communities centered around the TLM found themselves unable to celebrate it in parish churches. Likewise, young families with their kids in tow were sidelined and compelled to drive long distances to attend the TLM in another parish. Cardinal Robert Sarah, a prelate who is by no means a die-hard TLM supporter, nevertheless had this to say about “Traditionis Custodes”:

“It did not strike me as a wise or respectful choice. But Benedict, a man as meek as a lamb, allowed himself to be humiliated, and thus, in silence and prayer, offered his suffering to God to better identify with Christ’s pain for his Church and to purify her.”

“If a rite did not serve the faith, it would die out on its own; if, on the contrary, it preserves and promotes the faith, let us not limit it, because we would be limiting the preservation and spread of the faith itself,” Cardinal Sarah elaborated.

Questioning the SSPX as “Schismatics”

Against this tense backdrop, the SSPX has once again stepped up its game—not with mere rhetoric, but with actions.

In 1988, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ordained four men to the episcopate without the pope’s authorization. The Holy See deemed the consecrations as a “schismatic act” and said that they brought about automatic excommunication.

In 2026, the SSPX once again contended that an emergency within the Church justified consecrating bishops without authorization from the Holy See. In turn, the Vatican lambasted the act as schismatic and warned Catholics against going to the SSPX for sacraments.

Admittedly, episcopal consecration without papal mandate is a gravely illicit act. Yet, the moral and theological questions surrounding the Vatican-SSPX debacle are far from a concrete solution.

Recently, Bishop Athanasius Schneider published a statement defending the SSPX’s intentions, saying:

“The SSPX is virtually the only community in the Church today that openly draws attention to the evident doctrinal ambiguities in certain conciliar statements and in the rite of the New Mass, calling for their unequivocal clarification and, if necessary, even amendment, in accordance with the constant Magisterium of the Church.”

“If the Holy See were to take the SSPX seriously—and, moreover, acknowledge the objective ambiguities in certain statements of the Second Vatican Council and in the rite of the New Mass—it would mark the beginning of the end for the modernist project within the Church,” Bishop Schneider continued.

Not every Catholic is obliged to endorse SSPX’s actions on July 1, 2026, in Écône. Yet if they are honest enough with themselves and the situation of the Church at hand, they should at least acknowledge the disastrous irony that men who see themselves as defenders of the Catholic Faith feel compelled to act against the very Papacy that they wish to honor. It is to ask, with a heavy heart, whether Vatican policies that have sidelined TLM-loving Catholics—with “Traditionis Custodes” as the main culprit among them—have not, in some sense, created the conditions in which such acts can be empathized with.

A Filial Critique: Respect for the Papacy, Sorrow for Its Policies

None of what I stated above is meant to diminish the dignity of the Petrine office. Like all other Catholics, I believe that the Pope is the visible head of the Church, the successor of St. Peter, and the guarantor of true Catholic unity. Yet to raise eyebrows on some of the Vatican policies under recent pontificates (such as under Pope Francis and now Pope Leo XIV) is not to negate papal authority. Rather, the very sorrow acutely felt by Catholics like myself stems from our conviction that the Pope, as the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, matters—that his statements and his leadership influence the direction of the Church in ways no other human authority can.

Strikingly, the reality is that if the Pope matters, the policies of his pontificate matter too. Having said that, once some papal policies treat a legitimate expression of the Church’s liturgical tradition (i.e., the TLM) as a “threat” or “problem” to be managed instead of a gem to be preserved and treasured, they do further entrench existing divisions. When bishops insist that TLM communities “return in due time” to the new Mass, they give the impression that they prize ideology over pastoral sensitivity.

The irony is jarringly sharp. Undeniably, the Roman authorities’ claims to champion mercy, “listening,” and “walking together” demonstrate little of that clemency to traditionally minded Catholics. We have now the conundrum of a church that tries to be friendly with every other religion and ideology but often clamps down Catholics who want to pray as their grandparents prayed. We have a church that alleges to prioritize “inculturation” and “diversity” but proclaims that the Novus Ordo missae is the “unique expression” of the Roman Rite and regards the TLM with distrust.

Such an attitude is not the spirit of Pope St. Pius X. True enough, he was a reformer, but a reformer respectful of the liturgical traditions of the Church and of the deposit of Faith. This saintly pope did not abolish or butcher the liturgy he inherited. Instead, he purified it, enriched it, and made it more accessible to Catholics worldwide. Besides, St. Pius X did not treat Catholics who loved the Faith as enemies; rather, he gave them a catechism they could understand and a Eucharist they could receive regularly. After all, restoration does not necessarily mean “out with the old and in with the new.”

Loving the Church in Truth and Charity

What, then, is to be done? For one, Rome must ask itself whether its present policies towards faithful Catholics (including the SSPX) honor both the truths revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ and Christian charity.

Yet five years after “Traditionis Custodes,” circumstances in the Church indicate otherwise: rifts have deepened (sadly, divisions exist even among SSPX and non-SSPX TLM communities), and the SSPX’s recent episcopal consecrations have been justified by some because of “Traditionis Custodes” itself.

Importantly, on this feast of the great St. Pius X, let us pray for Pope Leo XIV—that he may be fortified in faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, and prompted to be more conciliatory toward those who love traditional Catholic doctrine, liturgy, and morals. Let us pray for the SSPX—that their zeal may be purified and that they always seek to defend and love the Papacy.

Finally, let us also pray for ourselves—that we may never become so trenchant in our critique of the current pope that we forget we are ultimately his filial sons and daughters. May we also, in our fight for the Catholic Faith, always seek the aid of the Immaculate Virgin Mary and never lose confidence in our Lord Jesus Christ’s promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church.

Upon his election as pope in 1903, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, the former patriarch and cardinal of Venice, took the name “Pius” in honor of Pope Pius IX, who had previously condemned the notion that “the Roman pontiff can and should reconcile and harmonize himself with progress, with liberalism, and with recent civilization.”

To: Al Hitan; Fedora; irishjuggler; Jaded; kalee; markomalley; miele man; Mrs. Don-o; ...

2 posted on 09/04/2026 7:06:57 PM PDT by ebb tide (Our Lady, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatriax of All Graces pray for us.)

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