Pascendi dominici gregis ("Feeding the Lord's Flock") was a Papal encyclical letter promulgated by Pope Pius X on 8 September 1907.
The pope condemned Modernism, and a whole range of other principles described as "evolutionary", which allowed change to Roman Catholic dogma. Pius X instituted commissions to cleanse the clergy of theologians promoting Modernism and some of its (liturgical) consequences.
Traditionalist Catholics point to this document as evidence that pre-Vatican II popes were highly concerned about enemies of Christendom infiltrating the human element of the Catholic Church.
The encyclical's ghost writer was Joseph Lemius, procurator general of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.[1]
It enjoined a compulsory Anti-Modernist oath introduced on 1 September 1910, whereby all Catholic bishops, priests and teachers were forced to come to clear terms with what they believed; this oath remained in force until it was abolished by Pope Paul VI in 1967. When Pope John Paul II issued his Apostolic letter Ad Tuendam Fidem in 1998 on church discipline, dissenters claimed it was a second anti-modernist oath. [2]