"Instaurare omnia in Christo," the first and last words of Pope
Pius X, ¹ announced his goal to restore all things in Christ. "Res-
toration" implies a return to a prior condition. What condition
Pius had in mind we shall presently see, but his inaugural let-
ter, E supremi apostolatus of 4 October 1903, stated his rationale:
"We were terrified beyond all else by the disastrous state of
human society today . . . suffering more than in any past age
from a terrible and radical malady which, while developing
every day and gnawing into its very being, is dragging it to
destruction. . . . This disease is apostasy from God." That apos-
tasy Pius characterized generally as "the substitution of man
for God," which meant -- in Counter-Reformation logic -- ra-
tionalism, individualism, Protestantism. His prescribed rem-
edy was to include, first, renewal of priestly holiness among
the ordained, and, second, the "greatest diligence" in "the
right government and ordering" of seminaries "so that they
may flourish both in sound doctrine and upright morals"; but,
third and most important, it summoned bishops and other or-
dinaries to be "co-operators" with Christ's vicar against "that
sacrilegious war which is now almost universally being stirred
up and fomented against God." They were to "exercise the
greatest diligence in preventing members of the clergy from be-
ing drawn into the snares of a certain new and fallacious sci-
ence, which . . . with masked and cunning arguments strives
to open the door to the errors of rationalism and semi-ration-
alism." ²

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