Le carte del "Sacro Tavolo": Aspetti del Pontificato di Pio X dai documenti del suo archivio privato (review)

The pontificate of Pius X, Giuseppe Melchiore Sarto (1903 to 1914), was characterized by several doctrinal, juridical, and institutional issues, each helping to define the Church as it entered the twentieth century. Wavering between reaction and renewal, Pius X, sometimes referred to as "the pope of the Curia," and his policies have themselves been the subject of controversy and conflicting interpretations. In this collection of documents from the private Vatican archives, the editors offer much insight into both the workings of this pontificate and the personal views and personality of the pontiff himself. This comprehensive and vast correspondence, both to and from Pius X as well as his personal secretaries, in particular Monsignor Giovanni Bressan, who had served the then Bishop Sarto of Treviso since 1885, is expertly organized by the editors to reflect the issues of the pontificate and the person of the pope himself.

The first volume, which includes an extensive introduction, presents the correspondence, which, as the title notes, passed through the papal desk, or "sacro tavolo," in the two categories of "Reforms" and "Large Themes." The former includes reforms in "Sacred Music," "the Universal Catechism," and "Seminaries." The latter deals with the major controversy of "Modernism," "the Catholic Press," "Discipline of Clergy," "Apostolic Visits," and "Intellectual Matters." This last category includes the letters exchanged between Pius X or his secretary and Monsignor Achille Ratti (later Pope Pius XI) in his role as prefect of the Ambrosian Library. Indeed, both volumes of "Sacro Tavolo" include the correspondence of the most prominent names, clerical and non-clerical, of the era, with the section on "Modernism," for instance containing the letters from and to Alfred Loisy.

Volume II organizes correspondences to the pontiff and his staff within the major categories of "Relations with the Episcopate," "Concern for Cultural Patrimonies,""The Cults of Saints and Relics," "Religious Life," "Church and State in Italy," and "The Church in the World," which had correspondence dealing with, in the case of the United States for instance, such issues as the Catholic immigrant communities and missionary activities in Alaska. Also there is the pontiff's correspondence dealing with his great concern for the plight of the "Jews in Russia," and in particular with the case of Menachiel Beilis and calumnious charges of ritual murder. This second volume concludes with a section devoted to "The Person of Pius X" as "Benfactor and Patron, and "Thaumaturge." Once again it presents the correspondence with such personages of this pontificate as Mother Francesca Cabrini and Monsignor Giacomo Della Chiesa, later Pope Benedict XV, and Edward Cardinal Manning, as well as ordinary individuals, who wrote seeking the pontiff's blessing and even his financial assistance.

It can be said then that the scope of this work is to offer to students of the pontificate of Pius X, but obviously not only them, a wide view of the issues dealt with in the papers that crossed the papal desk ("sacro tavolo") and this pope's modus operandi (using the tools of this particular "secretariat"), in a way so as to perceive "from the inside" the climate and culture of the pontificate, and less relatively to its different aspects.

As noted, the archives of this "secretariat," so to speak, from which the materials are drawn have ended up dictating the editorial criteria of the various papers studied in this work. The great variety of the items that daily crossed the pontifical desk, their often unedited and even fragmented nature (in comparison to the equally complex items that the pontiff also received from the various curial offices), their singularity, all do not lend themselves in many cases to an easily organized thematic or chronological sequence. Nevertheless, the editors made an excellent effort to achieve a certain real homogeneity of the subjects. To maintain a sense of unity...