(But it does take his kind of courage to brave God’s people for it. – ed.)
by Roberto de Mattei – Rome On the morning of Sunday, August 2, 1903, the third ballot to elect Pope Leo XIII’s successor began in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, the late pontiff’s former secretary of state, could count on a majority of the votes and was about to be elected, when Cardinal Ian Puzyna, archbishop of Krakow, asked for the floor and, on behalf of His Apostolic Majesty Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, declared an exclusionary veto against his candidacy. The exclusion veto, which was abolished after this conclave, was an ancient privilege granted not only to the Austrian Empire but also to the Catholic kingdoms of France and Spain. Rampolla’s election foundered, and on the evening of Monday, August 3, on the seventh ballot, Patriarch Giuseppe Sarto of Venice was elected Pope with the name Pius X. The new pontiff begged the conclave’s secretary Msgr. Rafael Merry del Val to remain at his side as secretary of state. Under their leadership, for eleven years, the Catholic Church experienced one of the most fruitful eras in its history, interrupted by another unpredictable event: the assassination of the Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914.
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Reform of the Reformer 