Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 23, 2025 / 08:00 am

The Catholic Church celebrated the feast of St. Pius X on Aug. 21 — an influential pope at the turn of the 20th century whose warnings about the heresy of “modernism” help shine light on the deterioration of faith in the West today and the disregard of Church teaching, according to one Catholic scholar.

Pius, who reigned as pope from 1903 to 1914 after the death of Pope Leo XIII , took charge of the Church in the aftermath of the Enlightenment era, which had spurred rationalist and liberal movements throughout Europe and the Americas.

Several of Pius’ predecessors combatted certain Enlightenment-era philosophies, which appeared to be a predominantly outside threat to the Church. This included Pope Gregory XVI’s rebuke of liberalism

See Full Page