PIUS X

(August 4, 1903 — August 20, 1914)

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise

Encyclical Vehementer Nos (February 11, 1906), 3.

	AG Obv.: PIVS • X • PONT • \| MAX • ANNO • V • (on the shoulder of the bust:) BIANCHI Bust of the Pope, r., wearing zucchetto, mozzetta and stole.
	Rev.: MODERNISMI • ERRORE • DAMNATO (in exergue:) VI • ID • SEPT • MCMVII • The Pope on the right, holding the Encyclical Pascendi in his left hand, preaching to characters representing each of the continents. On the Pope's left, trampling on books labelled BIBLIA, TRADITIO and SCHOLASTICA, is a seven-headed beast. .

The medal commemorates the papal Encyclical Pascendi gregis, issued on September 8, 1907. "Modernism" was a 'system' of theological, philosophical, and social 'errors' invented by the Vatican to define all that was hateful in the Renaissance, Enlightment, and post-Napoleonic secularism; it looked back to the Syllabus of Errors (1864) of Pius IX for its inspiration, as seen in the Encyclical Lamentabili sane of July 3, 1907. The event initiated a period of persecution of liberal Catholic intellectuals. See Paul Sabatier, Modernism. The Jowett Lectures, 1908 (New York 1908) [with translations of the encyclicals]. Malachy Martin, The Jesuits (New York 1987), chapter 12.

	AG Obv.: PIVS • X • PONT • \| MAX • ANNO • VIII • (belowf the bust:) BIANCHI Bust of the Pope, r., wearing zucchetto, mozzetta and stole.
	Rev.: AMPLIOREM • IN • HORTIS • VAT • \| MIHI • SEDEM • ADORNAVIT • MDCCCCXI • The Muse of Astronomy, seated on a garden bench, books in her lap, on the bench, a celestial globe, telescopes, an hourglass, and books at her feet. She points at the new building at right, built into a tower of the Leonine Wall of the Vatican.

AE

Obv.:

PIVS • X • PONT • | MAX • AN • IX

(on the shoulder of the bust:) BIANCHI

Bust of the Pope, r., wearing zucchetto, mozzetta and stole.

Rev.:

STVDIIS • SCRIPTVRAE • SACRAE | PROVEHENDIS

(in exergue:) MCMXII

Moses, at left, seated, holding the Ten Commandments [representing the Old Testament]; St. Peter, at right, standing, holding in his left hand, the Keys of the Kingdom [representing the New Testament]. In the background, a building in Renaissance classical revival style, the residence of the Pontifical Biblical Institute .

The Pontifical Biblical Institute was founded by Pius X in 1909.]

The Pontifical Biblical Institute offices

The Pontifical Biblical Institute,
Via della Pilotta, 25, Roma

December 9, 2013 10:47 PM

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