Specifics of Canonization Activities of Pope Pius X within the Framework of the Socio-Political Doctrine of the Catholic Church

The article presents a brief theological and chronological analysis of canonization and beatification activities of Pope Pius X (1903–1914), the second bishop of Rome after Leo XIII, who followed the new socio-political doctrine of the Catholic Church. His pontificate preceded World War I and was complicated by a variety of social and spiritual problems. Because of certain parallels with the modern era that is also complicated by the challenges of Western post-Christian civilization, the study of the works of Pius X may be of scientific interest as a classic example of how to overcome existing problems, relying on the doctrine and without any concessions to the secular power. The study analyzes the lives of Catholic saints and blesseds canonized by Pius X. The names of most of them were not previously mentioned in Russian theological and church-historical scholarship, including those who lived in the era of the undivided Church. During the study, it was found out that the main problems of the pontificate of Pius X — the persecution of the Catholic Church in different countries, the general decline in religiosity and acute socio-economic problems of the society — had directly affected this pontiff’s activities, which made it possible to draw conclusions about a certain politization and socialization of the process under consideration. In addition, the overwhelming number of the Catholic saints and the blesseds he glorified belonged to monasticism, and this fact testifies to the role Pius X assigned to the “institutions of God-devoted life” in spreading and popularizing Catholicism in the era of active opposition of the Roman Church to the secular anti-clerical political system.