Boy, If Only Leo Knew, Huh?

My short-term memory is not as good as it once was. However, my long-term memory is still very sound, although perhaps not as ironclad as had been for most of my life prior to the last decade or so ago.

However, I do remember that I wrote a two-part series nearly fifteen years ago to mock the insistence of some within the “resist while recognize” movement that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict was surrounded by bad advisors and he could be excused for knowing all the bad things going on in what they believed was the Catholic Church under his watch of benign neglect. The title of that series, Boy, If Only The "Pope" Knew and Boy, If Only The "Pope" Knew, partie deux, is the basis of this current commentary as there are likely to be defenders of Rober Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, who prays in Latin and wore the mozzetta when he appeared on the loggia of the Basilica of Saint Peter, on Thursday, May 8, 2025, the Feast of the Apparition of Sain Michael the Archangel and the Commemoration of the Octave of the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, in light of the fact that the man he appointed to replace Vincenzo Paglia as the president of the so-called “Pontifical” Academy for Life, “Monsignor Renzo Pegoraro, was Paglia’s trusted lieutenant and is just as bad, if not worse, as Vincenzo Paglia himself.

Prevost/Leo was not speaking gratuitously when he said he wanted continuity with the “pontificate of his corrupt predecessor, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He meant what he said, and Renzo Pegoraro’s appointment only adds an exclamation point to what I have written about the seventh in the current line of antipopes in the past three weeks. (Has it only been three weeks?)

Here is a story about the Pegoraro appointment that provides the details. I will interject at various points:

On May 27, 2025, Leo XIV appointed Monsignor Renzo Pegoraro as the new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Pegoraro, a bioethicist and physician, has served as chancellor of the Academy since 2011 and helped engineer its transformation under Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia from a defender of life into a post-Christian bioethics think tank. His promotion is a coronation for bioethical subversion.

Public Support for Assisted Suicide

In 2022, Pegoraro publicly justified assisted suicide as a “lesser evil” in secular legislation. While admitting that neither assisted suicide nor euthanasia represent the Catholic position, he nevertheless called for legalizing the former under certain conditions, an action flatly condemned by Evangelium Vitae, which declares assisted suicide “never excusable, even if requested by the person seeking assistance” (EV 65–66).

Pegoraro proposes a legal framework for institutionalizing a mortal sin and now leads the Vatican body once created to prevent exactly that.

Institutionalized Betrayal of Evangelium Vitae

John Paul II’s landmark encyclical treated cooperation with assisted suicide as a grave injustice. Yet the Academy now promotes precisely what the encyclical condemned. The teaching is clear. The new regime is clearer: it doesn’t care.

Interjection Number One:

Boy, if only Leo knew, huh?

Guess what, all you Perry Masons or Robert Ironsides within the conciliar structures.

Leo knows.

Leo would not have appointed Renzo Pegoraro without knowing where he stands as he, Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, has been in Rome long enough to know who’s who and who believes what.

Now, to the principal point of this interjection, which is this: It is laughable to think Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Vincenzo Paglia, or Robert Francis Prevost would have any more respect for the “canonized” Polish Phenomenologist’s Evangelium Vitae when Karol Joszef Wojtyla, whose one hundred eighth birthday, May 18, 2025, passed without comment on the day of Prevost/Leo’s “installation” service, had no respect for the binding dogmatic decrees of the Council of Florence, the Council of Trent, and the [First] Vatican Council while also holding of no account Pope Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, and Singuari Nos, June 25, 1834, Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors  Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, and Iam Vos Omnes, September 14, 1868, Pope Leo XIII’s Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 29, 1894, Pope Saint Pius X’s Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, Praestantia Scripturae, November 18, 1907, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, and The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910, Pope Pius XI’s Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, Divinum llius Magistri, December 31, 1929, and Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, or Pope Pius XI’s Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, Address to Italian Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951, and Ad Sinarum Gentem, October 7, 1954, Ad Apostolorum Princeps, June 29, 1958, and Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958. It is impossible to defended a supposedly “correct” interpretation of documents of the “Second” Vatican Council or the “magisterial” teaching of the the postconciliar popes against being dismissed by the likes of a Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Vincenzo Paglia, Renzo Pegoraro once one admits the false principle of dogmatic evolutionism by means various euphemisms (Karol Joszef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s “living tradition” or Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity”) to dismiss the Catholic Church’s condemnation of the errors of conciliarism that outlined in sketch form two days ago in An Old Cottage Industry is Reborn: What Did Leo Really Mean to Say? Indeed, it is laughable to engage in such absurdity at this late date.

All right, back to the article lamenting Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV’s appointment of Renzo Pegoraro to the presidency of the “Pontifical” Academy for Life:

A History of Subversion at the Academy

Pegoraro’s betrayal doesn’t end with assisted suicide. Under his chancellorship, the Academy has:

• Blurred the line between public health and Catholic morality, praising experimental COVID-19 vaccination (developed from aborted fetal cell lines) as a form of “communal salvation.”
• Hosted pro-abortion speakers and tolerated heterodox views within its own ranks.
• Retweeted articles calling for “rethinking” the Church’s condemnation of contraception.
• Contributed to a 2022 volume (Theological Ethics of Life) proposing pastoral “flexibility” on contraception and assisted reproductive technologies—effectively advocating the soft repeal of Humanae Vitae.

In short, Pegoraro’s Academy has not only ceased to defend life. It has become a laboratory for moral relativism.

Interjection Number Two:

No one should be surprised that the “Pontifical” Academy has become a “laboratory for moral relativism” when the counterfeit church of conciliarism was founded upon dogmatic evolutionism, which relativized, if not entirely rejected, Holy Mother Church’s condemnation of false ecumenism, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, and her reiteration of the superseding of the Old Covenant by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s New and Eternal Covenant and the fact that the Church of Christ is coextensive with the Catholic Church, not that the “Church of Christ” subsists in her.

Back to the article about Vincenzo Pegoraro’s appointment:

The Quiet Push for Contraception and Reproductive Engineering

The 2022 Academy book, which Pegoraro helped organize, included essays explicitly questioning whether Humanae Vitae’s teaching on contraception could be “re-evaluated” in light of “lived experience.” These proposals were not published by secular dissidents, they were published by the Vatican’s own bioethics arm.

Meanwhile, Pegoraro has participated in multiple conferences discussing artificial reproductive technologies. While publicly cautious of IVF, he has advanced a technocratic ethic that sees reproductive medicine not through the lens of natural law, but through modern utility. The emphasis is no longer on whether a technique violates God’s plan for marriage and procreation; it’s whether it serves human autonomy, alleviates suffering, or reduces psychological trauma.

In 2012, Pegoraro lamented that “the idea that technology can offer a solution without trying to resolve the real problem of infertility” could lead to “missing solutions.” But his critiques are anthropological, not theological. The doctrine of the Church, even reaffirmed in post-Conciliar documents like Donum Vitae and Dignitas Personae, declares that all techniques which dissociate procreation from the marital act are intrinsically immoral. Pegoraro’s work subtly reframes this teaching as a question open to debate.

Interjection Number Three and an Extensive Digression:

As I will never tire of reminding this site’s readers, the entirety of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s false teaching on the ends proper to Holy Matrimony inverts the truth and substitutes a lie in its place:

Can.  1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized. (Canon 1055.1.)

This is in direct contradiction to the 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law and the Natural Law itself:

856. The primary object of marriage is the procreation and education of offspring; the secondary purpose is mutual assistance and the remedy of concupiscence. (This can be found on page 205 of the following link, which is the 1917 Code of Canon Law in English:  1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law.)

The entire fabric of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s teaching on the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is built on the fabric of the inversion of the ends of marriage that was condemned personally by Pope Pius XII on March 29, 1944, a condemnation that he cited and reiterated in the strongest terms possible in his aforementioned Address to Italian Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession:

Certain publications concerning the purposes of matrimony, and their interrelationship and order, have come forth within these last years which either assert that the primary purpose of matrimony is not the generation of offspring, or that the secondary purposes are not subordinate to the primary purpose, but are independent of it.

In these works, different primary purposes of marriage are designated by other writers, as for example: the complement and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual participation in life and action; mutual love and union of spouses to be nurtured and perfected the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.

In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words in the current documents of the Church (as for example, primary, secondary purpose), which does not agree with these words according to the common usage by theologians.

This revolutionary way of thinking and speaking aims to foster errors and uncertainties, to avoid which the Eminent and Very Fathers of this supreme Sacred Congregation, charged with the guarding of faith and morals, in a plenary session on Wednesday, the 29th of March, 1944, when the question was proposed to them: “Whether the opinion of certain writers can be admitted, who either deny that the primary purpose of matrimony is the generation of children and raising offspring, or teach that the secondary purposes are not essentially subordinate to the primary purpose, but are equally first and independent,” have decreed that the answer must be: In the negative. (As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 2295, pp. 624-625.)

Pope Pius XII amplified this condemnation when he delivered his Address to Italian Midwives on the Nature of their Profession, October 29, 1951:

"Personal values" and the need to respect such are a theme which, over the last twenty years or so, has been considered more and more by writers. In many of their works, even the specifically sexual act has its place assigned, that of serving the "person" of the married couple. The proper and most profound sense of the exercise of conjugal rights would consist in this, that the union of bodies is the expression and the realization of personal and affective union.

Articles, chapters, entire books, conferences, especially dealing with the "technique" of love, are composed to spread these ideas, to illustrate them with advice to the newly married as a guide in matrimony, in order that they may not neglect, through stupidity or a false sense of shame or unfounded scruples, that which God, Who also created natural inclinations, offers them. If from their complete reciprocal gift of husband and wife there results a new life, it is a result which remains outside, or, at the most, on the border of "personal values"; a result which is not denied, but neither is it desired as the center of marital relations.

According to these theories, your dedication for the welfare of the still hidden life in the womb of the mother, and your assisting its happy birth, would only have but a minor and secondary importance.

Now, if this relative evaluation were merely to place the emphasis on the personal values of husband and wife rather than on that of the offspring, it would be possible, strictly speaking, to put such a problem aside. But, however, it is a matter of a grave inversion of the order of values and of the ends imposed by the Creator Himself. We find Ourselves faced with the propagation of a number of ideas and sentiments directly opposed to the clarity, profundity, and seriousness of Christian thought. Here, once again, the need for your apostolate. It may happen that you receive the confidences of the mother and wife and are questioned on the more secret desires and intimacies of married life. How, then, will you be able, aware of your mission, to give weight to truth and right order in the appreciation and action of the married couple, if you yourselves are not furnished with the strength of character needed to uphold what you know to be true and just?

The primary end of marriage

Now, the truth is that matrimony, as an institution of nature, in virtue of the Creator's will, has not as a primary and intimate end the personal perfection of the married couple but the procreation and upbringing of a new life. The other ends, inasmuch as they are intended by nature, are not equally primary, much less superior to the primary end, but are essentially subordinated to it. This is true of every marriage, even if no offspring result, just as of every eye it can be said that it is destined and formed to see, even if, in abnormal cases arising from special internal or external conditions, it will never be possible to achieve visual perception.

It was precisely to end the uncertainties and deviations which threatened to diffuse errors regarding the scale of values of the purposes of matrimony and of their reciprocal relations, that a few years ago (March 29, 1944), We Ourselves drew up a declaration on the order of those ends, pointing out what the very internal structure of the natural disposition reveals. We showed what has been handed down by Christian tradition, what the Supreme Pontiffs have repeatedly taught, and what was then in due measure promulgated by the Code of Canon Law. Not long afterwards, to correct opposing opinions, the Holy See, by a public decree, proclaimed that it could not admit the opinion of some recent authors who denied that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of the offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinated to the primary end, but are on an equal footing and independent of it.

Would this lead, perhaps, to Our denying or diminishing what is good and just in personal values resulting from matrimony and its realization? Certainly not, because the Creator has designed that for the procreation of a new life human beings made of flesh and blood, gifted with soul and heart, shall be called upon as men and not as animals deprived of reason to be the authors of their posterity. It is for this end that the Lord desires the union of husband and wife. Indeed, the Holy Scripture says of God that He created man to His image and He created him male and female, and willed—as is repeatedly affirmed in Holy Writ—that "a man shall leave mother and father, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh".

All this is therefore true and desired by God. But, on the other hand, it must not be divorced completely from the primary function of matrimony—the procreation of offspring. Not only the common work of external life, but even all personal enrichment—spiritual and intellectual—all that in married love as such is most spiritual and profound, has been placed by the will of the Creator and of nature at the service of posterity. The perfect married life, of its very nature, also signifies the total devotion of parents to the well-being of their children, and married love in its power and tenderness is itself a condition of the sincerest care of the offspring and the guarantee of its realization.

To reduce the common life of husband and wife and the conjugal act to a mere organic function for the transmission of seed would be but to convert the domestic hearth, the family sanctuary, into a biological laboratory. Therefore, in Our allocution of September 29, 1949, to the International Congress of Catholic Doctors, We expressly excluded artificial insemination in marriage. The conjugal act, in its natural structure, is a personal action, a simultaneous and immediate cooperation of husband and wife, which by the very nature of the agents and the propriety of the act, is the expression of the reciprocal gift, which, according to Holy Writ, effects the union "in one flesh".

That is much more than the union of two genes, which can be effected even by artificial means, that is, without the natural action of husband and wife. The conjugal act, ordained and desired by nature, is a personal cooperation, to which husband and wife, when contracting marriage, exchange the right.

Therefore, when this act in its natural form is from the beginning perpetually impossible, the object of the matrimonial contract is essentially vitiated. This is what we said on that occasion: "Let it not be forgotten: only the procreation of a new life according to the will and the design of the Creator carries with it in a stupendous degree of perfection the intended ends. It is at the same time in conformity with the spiritual and bodily nature and the dignity of the married couple, in conformity with the happy and normal development of the child".

Advise the fiancée or the young married woman who comes to seek your advice about the values of matrimonial life that these personal values, both in the sphere of the body and the senses and in the sphere of the spirit, are truly genuine, but that the Creator has placed them not in the first, but in the second degree of the scale of values. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

Yet it is that Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI not only defended the very errors condemned by Pope Pius XII and the Holy Office in 1944, but he also used them as a means to justify what became known as “natural family planning,” thereby ceding ground to the contraceptive mentality that Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968, aimed to oppose.

Falsehoods beget falsehoods, and the 2022 book produced by the “Pontifical” Academy of Life alluded in the article from which I have been quoting would not have been possible if the ends proper to Holy Matrimony, which are irreformable as they part of the Natural Law itself, had not been overthrown by the conciliar revolutionaries.

This is what I wrote in 2022 when America magazine published a review of Vincenzo Paglia’s and Renzo Pegoraro’s book “canonizing” moral and ethical relativism:

A recent article in America magazine provided a favorable review of the “process” by which “theologians” associated with the so-called Pontifical Academy for Life are “reevaluating” Catholic teaching on contraception, abortion, sterilization, in vitro fertilization, the starvation and dehydration of brain-damaged human beings, “brain death”/human organ vivisection and transplantation, and “palliative care”/hospice. It is worth the exercise to analyze this effort to rationalize sin as the foundation of what purports itself to be “Catholic” moral teaching. Various interjections will be offered where appropriate.

Here is the first segment of the article in America:

Pope Francis has encouraged a process of theological renewal on many fronts but perhaps nowhere more significant than in the realm of theological ethics and moral theology. In four of his landmark papal documents—“Evangelii Gaudium” (2013), “Laudato Si’” (2015), “Amoris Laetitia” (2016) and “Veritatis Gaudium” (2018)—and in countless speeches, catechetical talks and homilies throughout his papacy, he has revived the church’s longstanding tradition of the primacy of an individual’s informed conscience and, among others, the role of discernment in moral decision-making.(Birth control, IVF, euthanasia: The Vatican encouraged dialogue on polarizing life issues. Is a papal encyclical next?)

Interjection:

Evangelii Gaudium was, as noted earlier in this commentary, an insidious effort to make it appear that there is a dichotomy between Catholic doctrine and mercy. (Please see  Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part one, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part two, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part three, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part four, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part five, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part six, Jorge and Oscar's False Gospel of False Joy, part seven, as well as An Evangelii Gaudium Primer (or Understanding Robert Francis Prevost's Having Made Jorge's Magna Carta His Very Own and An Evangelii Gaudium Primer (or Understanding Robert Francis Prevost's Having Made Jorge's Magna Carta His Very Own), part two.)

Laudato Si’ was a screed on behalf of a pantheistic, globalist view of the created world to which men must subordinate themselves. (Please see: Dance, Dance, Eco Jorge part one, Dance, Dance, Eco Jorge, part two.)

Amoris Laetitia, March 19, 2016, was an effort to normalize adultery, fornication, adulterous marriages and other “imperfect” or “irregular” situations in the name of “accompaniment” while distorting and misrepresenting the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas. (Please see: Jorge's Exhortaion of Self-Justification Before Men, part three, The Conciliar Chair of Disunity and Division, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part four, Inspector Jorge Wants to See Documents, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part five, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part six, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part seven, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part eight, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part nine, Jorge's Exhortation of Self-Justification Before Men, part ten, THE END!)

Veritatis Gaudium, December 27, 2017, was an “apostolic” constitution that reformed Catholic universities, which have been in conciliar custody for over sixty years now, according to the “mind” of the Bergoglian antipapacy.

Each of these documents have been issued by an agent of Antichrist who is actively seeking, yes, even as approaches his eighty-sixth birthday in five months, to eradicate anything even remotely recognizably Catholic within the theology, liturgy, or pastoral practice of a false religious sect, starting with the celebration of the “primacy of individual conscience” even though individual consciences must be informed by and docilely submissive to the teaching of Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to Faith and Morals.

Well, we return now to the America justification of theological subjectivism:

The pope’s teachings in these authoritative documents have influenced how theology is taught in Catholic universities and seminaries throughout the world and have also given church scholars much sought-after permission and freedom to explore new horizons in Catholic theology. Under the present papacy, theologians are empowered to ask complex questions that touch on the messy, real-life issues that affect the faithful without fear of being silenced. But the pope’s efforts to revitalize the Catholic Church’s understanding and approach to the moral life could take yet another major leap forward. (Birth control, IVF, euthanasia: The Vatican encouraged dialogue on polarizing life issues. Is a papal encyclical next?)

“New horizons in Catholic theology.”

This calls to mind the eagerness with which theologians during the last few years of Pope Pius XII’s life looked forward to a “liberal” pope who would give them the “freedom” to examine new approaches to supposedly “complex” issues that are not complex at all as it is never “complex” to obey God and the teaching He has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for its infallible explication and eternal safekeeping.

Father John C. Ford, S.J., who was instrumental in convincing Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Montini/Paul VI not to endorse contraception in Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968, even though it contained an inversion of the ends proper to Holy Matrimony and endorsed what became known as “natural family planning” (Catholic contraception) was one of those who sought more “freedom” to explore supposedly “complex” moral issues but had to wait until the death of Pope Pius XII.

Father Ford's own protege, the late Dr. Germain Grisez, noted this as so in a glowing tribute to him that is filled with very interesting factual details of the work of the "papal" "birth control" commission:

Though Ford never publicly criticized Pius XII or the Roman Curia, he shared the dissatisfaction then common among theologians with the overly cautious attitude of the Holy See toward innovations of any sort. He also thought Pius XII had attempted to settle some difficult moral questions without adequate study and reflection. Thus, Ford was pleased by the more open approach of the new pontificate [Angelo Roncalli] and looked forward to the coming Council in the hope that it would pave the way for needed renewal in the Church, not least in moral theology. (John C. Ford, S.J.)

We can see with greatly clarity what this so-called “renewal” hath wrought.

Back to the America article:

A new essay titled “Rileggere l’etica teologica della vita,” which translates to English as “Re-reading the theological ethics of life” and was published June 30 in La Civilta’ Cattolica—the Jesuit-led periodical whose content is approved by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State before publication—could place renewed emphasis on this often fraught area of reflection in the life of the church. Interesting times lie ahead if the reflections reported in the essay speak to what may be afoot at the Vatican.

“It is legitimate to ask if Pope Francis will give us a new encyclical or apostolic exhortation on bioethics that might be called ‘Gaudium Vitae.’ [‘The Joy of Life’],” said Jorge José Ferrer, S.J., the author of the essay, a priest and professor of moral theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Were such a papal document forthcoming it would spark a wide-ranging reflection on the ethics of human life that could lead to a new and definitive papal teaching document on issues as polarizing as contraception, assisted procreation and palliative care. (Birth control, IVF, euthanasia: The Vatican encouraged dialogue on polarizing life issues. Is a papal encyclical next?)

Interjection:

Although the issue of contraception will be examined later in this commentary, suffice it say for the moment that the conciliar revolutionaries desire to pronounce that which is evil good, and to this they must make it appear as though what has been taught as objective moral truths can no longer be seen as such in light of the “changed” circumstances in which people live at the present time.

In order to accomplish this mission from the depths of hell, the authors of the Pontifical Academy for Life’s book made sure to use the language of the adversary in many instances, including by referring to the morally illicit practice of in vitro fertilization as “assisted procreation” while at the same time endorsing the frustration of procreation as the natural end of the generative powers given unto man by God by means of contraceptive pills and devices, each of which serve as abortifacients and asserts the “sovereignty” of man over the sanctity and fecundity of the marital gift, which can be used, the revolutionaries have long asserted, in supposedly “loving” and “stable” relationships that, though “imperfect,” are said to be based in a true commitment one sinner to the other.

Even the so-called Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then under the stewardship of Joseph Alois “Cardinal” Ratzinger, condemned, albeit the very-sickening advertences to “human dignity” and not the law of God, in vitro fertilization in Donum Vitae, February 22, 1987, which is the authors of the Pontifical Academy for Life’s book listed Donum Vitae’s condemnation of in vitro fertilization as one of the subjects that must be “reevaluated” in a “bold and courageous “freedom of speech”:

The essay offers an overview of the contents of a 528-page book that contains the proceedings of a three-day interdisciplinary seminar convened by the Pontifical Academy for Life at the Vatican from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 in 2021 and was published last month by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican publishing house, under the title Etica teologica della vita: Scrittura, tradizione, sfide, pratiche (Theological Ethics of Life: Writing, Tradition, Practical Challenges).

The departure point for this seminar was to listen attentively to the magisterium of Pope Francis and, after careful study, to reflect on theological ethics, and bioethics in particular, in a truly dialogical way, while still recognizing the decisive role of the pope’s teaching authority.

“We followed a path of study and reflection that led us to see the issues of bioethics in a new light, starting with the role of discernment and the formed conscience of the moral agent,” Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said in an interview about the book with Vatican Media. “We did this not only in an atmosphere of parrhesia [a bold and courageous freedom of speech] that stimulates and empowers theologians, academics and scholars. But also with a procedure similar to the quaestiones disputatae: to pose a thesis and open it up to debate.” The quaestiones disputatae is a medieval method of philosophical and theological discussion to dispute issues pertinent to society, where one scholar presents a thesis and another responds in dispute.

More than 20 theologians, among them clerics, consecrated religious, lay women and men, gathered for the seminar. Most of the participants were from Europe, but two were from Latin America, one from Africa and one the United States. Two consultors from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—which under the new reform of the Roman Curia is now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith—were present at the seminar as well as three cardinals: Luis Antonio Tagle (Philippines), Mario Grech (Malta) and Marcello Semeraro (Italy).

The seminar was itself convened as a response to the work of eight theologians (men and women) who had been commissioned by the same pontifical academy a year before the seminar to reflect on fundamental aspects of the moral theology of life and bioethical concerns that touch on such contentious issues as contraception, in vitro fertilization and the suspension of nutrition and hydration for terminally ill persons. It also took account of what the different disciplines of modern science and technology had to contribute to the discussion at hand.  (Birth control, IVF, euthanasia: The Vatican encouraged dialogue on polarizing life issues. Is a papal encyclical next?)

The paragraph just above is fraught with gratuitous assertions as the mere fact that moral truths are “contentious” in the minds of those who do not want to observe them and/or find some theological rationalization for violating with a clear “conscience” does not lessen the obligation of anyone to observe them faithfully.

To wit, although I have written extensively about the illicit nature of the suspension of nutrition and hydration from brain-damaged or those said to be “terminally-ill,” it is important to remind readers here that a brain-damaged person is not suffering from a terminal illness, The provision of nutrition and hydration, no matter how administered, is a mandatory requirement for those who cannot feed themselves, something that is true with infants who must be fed and those who have been injured in an accident and/or have suffered a stroke later in life who need assistance to eat and drink. The provision of food and water is nothing burdensome to the patient nor costly to himself and/or his relatives. There is only thing that can occur when food and water are withdrawn from a living human being: death.

No action that has as its only end the death of an innocent human being is morally licit, and those who continue to insist that it is licit must reckon with the fact that the medical industry today, far from wanting to keep people alive until they become “one hundred twenty-five year-old headless corpses,” has been basing medical care on the basis of subjective” “quality of life” determinations made by teams of “professionals” trained in programs funded by the anti-life Robert Wood Johnson and George Soros foundations. The starvation and dehydration of innocent human beings” is being employed by medical “professionals” to play God, which is exactly what they did in the case of Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo seventeen years (see Ten Years Later) and what they are doing every day of the year without making headlines as most people accept this cruel killing of their relatives as “normal” because the “professionals” have said that is the “merciful” thing to do. There is nothing “merciful” about starving and dehydrating an innocent human being to death.

Moreover, one has to recognize that the myth of “brain death” was invented by a team of “ethicists” at the Harvard Medical College in 1968 to provide an ex post facto justification for the killings of Denise Darvall in the first heart transplant cases:

Enter South African surgeon Christian Barnard who had received part of his post graduate medical studies in the United States at the University of Minnesota. It was here that he first met Dr. Norman Shumway, who did much of the pioneering research leading up to the first human heart transplant. Barnard performed the first kidney transplant in South Africa in October 1967, but his primary interest was cardiac surgery. He wanted to do a human heart transplant.

In November 1967, Barnard found a 54-year-old patient by the name of Louis Washkansky who agreed to participate in the medical experiment as a heart recipient.

One month later, on December 3, 1967, the father of Denise Darvall, a young woman who was seriously injured in a car accident that killed her mother, gave his permission to have his daughter's heart excised and transplanted to Mr. Washkansky. That same day, the world's first human heart transplant operation took place. Bernard was assisted by his brother, Marius. The operation lasted 9 hours and employed a team of 30 medical personnel.

The immediate problem facing Barnard was that, although Denise's brain was damaged, her heart was healthy and beating, indicating she was still alive by traditional whole body standards. So what would make her heart stop so that it could be legally excised? Barnard later told reporters that he had waited for her heart to stop naturally before cutting it out, but this was a lie. It was not until 40 years later that the public learned the truth.

At Marius's urging, after his brother had cleaved open the chest cavity, Christian had injected a concentrated dose of potassium to paralyze Denise's heart, thus rendering her "technically" dead. (2) Everything had already been prepared so Bernard proceeded to quickly cut the major vessels, cool the heart and sew it into the recipient. Denise was alive before her heart was excised. She was truly dead after it was cut out of her body.

Three days after the Barnard murder, not to be outdone by a doctor in South Africa, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, a surgeon at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn cut a beating heart out of a live 3-day-old baby and transplanted into an 18-day-old baby with heart disease. At the end of the day both babies were dead. (Don't Give Your Vital Organs - Part I.)

Mrs. Engel's article, which was published in 2010 on the Tradition in Action website, detailed the gruesome aftermath of the killing of Denise Darvall in Cape Town, South Africa: 

The controversy following the Kantrowitz killings was instrumental in the formation of the Harvard Medical School ad hoc Committee to study "brain death" as the new criteria for death.

The obvious conundrum facing transplantation surgeons was that organs taken from cadavers do not recover from the period of ischemia (loss of blood supply to organs) following true death. After circulation and respiration has stopped, within 4 to 5 minutes the heart and liver are not suitable for transplantation. For kidneys the time is about 30 minutes.

Equally clear was the realization that in order to continue unpaired vital organ transplantation it would be necessary to redefine death, that is, to establish a new criterion for death that would legally permit the extraction of vital organs from living human beings. Such a redefinition would permit transplantation surgeons to kill with legal immunity.

In August 1968, the Journal of the American Medical Association published "A Definition of Irreversible Coma: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death." (3) No authors were listed. (4)

The Harvard Committee cited two reasons for establishing "brain death" as the new criteria for death. The first was the problems surrounding the use of resuscitation and other supportive measures to extend the life of severely injured persons. The second reason was "obsolete criteria for the definition of death can lead to controversy in obtaining organs for transplantation."

It should also be noted that the criteria of "brain death" did not originate or develop by way of application of the scientific method of observation and hypothesis followed by verification. The Committee presented no substantiating data either from scientific research or case studies of individual patients. The Committee did not determine if irreversible coma was an appropriate criterion for death. Rather, its mission was to see that it was established as a new criterion for death. In short, the report was made to fit the already arrived at conclusions. (Don't Give Your Vital Organs - Part I.)

Dr. Paul Byrne explained in his interview fifteen years ago now with Mrs. Randy Engel in The Michael Fund Newsletter that the medical industry invented the myth of "brain death" to justify this killing less than a year after Christian Barnard "opened shop" for the body snatching industry that has killed untold thousands upon thousands of innocent human beings:

Editor: When we speak of vital organs, what organs are we talking about?

Dr. Byrne: Vital organs (from the Latin vita, meaning life) include the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and pancreas. In order to be suitable for transplant, they need to be removed from the donor before respiration and circulation cease. Otherwise, these organs are not suitable, since damage to the organs occurs within a brief time after circulation of blood with oxygen stops. Removing vital organs from a living person prior to cessation of circulation and respiration will cause the donor’s death.

Editor: Are there some vital organs which can be removed without causing the death of the donor?

Dr. Byrne: Yes. For example, one of two kidneys, a lobe of a liver, or a lobe of a lung. The donors must be informed that removal of these organs decreases function of the donor. Unpaired vital organs however, like the heart or whole liver, cannot be removed without killing the donor.

Editor: Since vital organs taken from a dead person are of no use, and taking the heart of a living person will kill that person, how is vital organ donation now possible?

Dr. Byrne: That’s where “brain death” comes in. Prior to 1968, a person was declared dead only when his or her breathing and heart stopped for a sufficient period of time. Declaring “brain death” made the heart and other vital organs suitable for transplantation. Vital organs must be taken from a living body; removing vital organs will cause death.

Editor: I still recall the announcement of the first official heart transplant by Dr. Christian Barnard in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967. How was it possible for surgeons to overcome the obvious legal, moral and ethical obstacles of harvesting vital organs for transplant from a living human being?

Dr. Byrne: By declaring “brain death” as death.

Editor: You mean by replacing the traditional criteria for declaring death with a new criterion known as “brain death”?

Dr. Byrne: Yes. In 1968, an ad hoc committee was formed at Harvard University in Boston for the purpose of redefining death so that vital organs could be taken from persons declared “brain dead,” but who in fact, were not dead. Note that “brain death” did not originate or develop by way of application of the scientific method. The Harvard Committee did not determine if irreversible coma was an appropriate criterion for death. Rather, its mission was to see that it was established as a new criterion for death. In short, the report was made to fit the already arrived at conclusions.

Editor: Does this mean that a person who is in a cerebral coma or needs a ventilator to support breathing could be declared “brain dead”?

Dr. Byrne: Yes.

Editor: Even if his heart is pumping and the lungs are oxygenating blood?

Dr. Byrne: Yes. You see, vital organs need to be fresh and undamaged for transplantation. For example, once breathing and circulation ceases, in five minutes or less, the heart is so damaged that it is not suitable for transplantation. The sense of urgency is real. After all, who would want to receive a damaged heart?

Editor: Did the Harvard criterion of “brain death” lead to changes in state and federal laws?

Dr. Byrne: Indeed. Between 1968 and 1978, more than thirty different sets of criteria for “brain death” were adopted in the United States and elsewhere. Many more have been published since then. This means that a person can be declared "brain dead" by one set of criteria, but alive by another or perhaps all the others. Every set includes the apnea test. This involves taking the ventilator away for up to ten minutes to observe if the patient can demonstrate that he/she can breathe on his/her own. The patient always gets worse with this test. Seldom, if ever, is the patient or the relatives informed ahead of time what will happen during the test. If the patient does not breathe on his/her own, this becomes the signal not to stop the ventilator, but to continue the ventilator until the recipient/s is, or are, ready to receive the organs. After the organs are excised, the “donor” is truly dead.

Editor: What about the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA)?

Dr. Byrne: According to the UDDA, death may be declared when a person has sustained either “irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions” or “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.” Since then, all 50 states consider cessation of brain functioning as death.

Editor: How does the body of a truly dead person compare with the body of a person declared “brain dead”?

Dr. Byrne: The body of a truly dead person is characterized in terms of dissolution, destruction, disintegration and putrefaction. There is an absence of vital body functions and the destruction of the organs of the vital systems. As I have already noted, the dead body is cold, stiff and unresponsive to all stimuli.

Editor: What about the body of a human being declared to be “brain dead”?

Dr. Byrne: In this case, the body is warm and flexible. There is a beating heart, normal color, temperature, and blood pressure. Most functions continue, including digestion, excretion, and maintenance of fluid balance with normal urine output. There will often be a response to surgical incisions. Given a long enough period of observation, someone declared “brain dead” will show healing and growth, and will go through puberty if they are a child.

Editor: Dr. Byrne, you mentioned that “brain dead” people will often respond to surgical incisions. Is this referred to as “the Lazarus effect?”

Dr. Byrne: Yes. That is why during the excision of vital organs, doctors find the need to use anesthesia and paralyzing drugs to control muscle spasms, blood pressure and heart rate changes, and other bodily protective mechanisms common in living patients. In normal medical practice, a patient’s reaction to a surgical incision will indicate to the anesthesiologist that the anesthetic is too light. This increase in heart rate and blood pressure are reactions to pain. Anesthetics are used to take away pain. Anesthesiologists in Great Britain require the administration of anesthetic to take organs. A corpse does not feel pain. (The Michael Fund Newsletter.)

“Brain death” is a lie and “palliative care” is euthanasia disguised under various euphemisms to disguise the reality of what it does: to kill a person by the use of various pharmaceutical cocktails designed to cause a person to become disoriented and seemingly aggressive before the protocols for the final doses of what can be called the hemlock treatment to be administered, sometimes at home by a patient’s own relatives in the belief that they are “relieving” of a loved one from pain when they are actually serving as unwitting accomplices in deaths that are the result of decisions made by men, not by God. We are to accept the suffering that comes out way at every moment of our lives, which is why we pray for the grace to bear the sufferings of whatever kind of death God has willed for us to undergo so that we can pay back perhaps a small amount of the punishment that we owe because of our sins.

One must recognize the simple fact that those who have given the world what has become common life-taking practices are not motivated by a love of God and His Holy Commandments. Instead, of course, the monsters of Modernity desire to play God, and we have seen this with especial clarity in the ongoing fear mongering and actual medical malfeasance with respect to what is called “Covid-19” as well as the development of gene therapy treatments (“vaccines”) that are injuring and killing hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

The monsters of Modernity are indistinguishable from the monsters of the German Third Reich, the monsters of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the monsters of Red China at this time.

Indeed, Pope Pius XII explained that it was vital to know who developed and/or propagated various medical experiments or treatments in order to understand whether Catholics could cooperate with them legitimately, focusing principally on the necessity of respecting innocent human life and avoiding subordinating to alleged “needs” of the “community”:

Nevertheless, for the third time we come back to the question: Is there any moral limit to the “medical interests of the community” in content or extension? Are there “full powers” over the living man in every serious medical case? Does it raise barriers that are still valid in the interests of science or the individual? Or, stated differently: Can public authority, on which rests responsibility for the common good, give the doctor the power to experiment on the individual in the interests of science and the community in order to discover and try out new methods and procedures when these experiments transgress the right of the individual to dispose of himself? In the interests of the community, can public authority really limit or even suppress the right of the individual over his body and life, his bodily and psychic integrity?

23. To forestall an objection, We assume that it is a question of serious research, of honest efforts to promote the theory and practice of medicine, not of a maneuver serving as a scientific pretext to mask other ends and achieve them with impunity.

24. In regard to these questions many people have been of the opinion and are still of the opinion today, that the answer must be in the affirmative. To give weight to their contention they cite the fact that the individual is subordinated to the community, that the good of the individual must give way to the common good and be sacrificed to it. They add that the sacrifice of an individual for purposes of research and scientific investigation profits the individual in the long run.

25. The great postwar trials brought to light a terrifying number of documents testifying to the sacrifice of the individual in the “medical interests of the community.” In the minutes of these trials one finds testimony and reports showing how, with the consent and, at times, even under the formal order of public authority, certain research centers systematically demanded to be furnished with persons from concentration camps for their medical experiments. One finds how they were delivered to such centers, so many men, so many women, so many for one experiment, so many for another. There are reports on the conduct and the results of such experiments, of the subjective and objective symptoms observed during the different phases of the experiments. One cannot read these reports without feeling a profound compassion for the victims, many of whom went to their deaths, and without being frightened by such an aberration of the human mind and heart. But We can also add that those responsible for these atrocious deeds did no more than to reply in the affirmative to the question We have asked and to accept the practical consequences of their affirmation.

26. At this point is the interest of the individual subordinated to the community’s medical interests, or is there here a transgression, perhaps in good faith, against the most elementary demands of the natural law, a transgression that permits no medical research?

27. One would have to shut one’s eyes to reality to believe that at the present time one could find no one in the medical world to hold and defend the ideas that gave rise to the facts We have cited. It is enough to follow for a short time the reports on medical efforts and experiments to convince oneself of the contrary. Involuntarily one asks oneself what has authorized, and what could ever authorize, any doctor’s daring to try such an experiment. The experiment is described in all its stages and effects with calm objectivity. What is verified and what is not is noted. But there is not a word on its moral legality. Nevertheless, this question exists, and one cannot suppress it by passing it over in silence. (Pope Pius XII, The Moral Limits of Medical Research, September 14, 1952.)

Parenthetically but not unimportantly, though, it should be noted that there are even some fully traditional Catholic prelates and priests who continue to accept uncritically the claims by “medical science” about “brain death/vital organ vivisection,” the starvation and dehydration of brain-damaged people, “palliative care” and even the well-documented effort on the part of those are acting under the demands of the “Global Reset” to keep pushing poisoned potions as a means to avoid or at least mitigate the effects of man-made bioweapons designed to depopulate the earth. It is morally and theologically irresponsible to pass over these things in silence and to surrender one’s intellectual judgment to physicians who are part and parcel of what Dr. Paul Byrne rightly calls our “system of death.”

Pope Pius XII further explicated on this point in his allocution:

28. In the above mentioned cases, insofar as the moral justification of the experiments rests on the mandate of public authority, and therefore on the subordination of the individual to the community, of the individual’s welfare to the common welfare, it is based on an erroneous explanation of this principle. It must be noted that, in his personal being, man is not finally ordered to usefulness to society. On the contrary, the community exists for man.

29. The community is the great means intended by nature and God to regulate the exchange of mutual needs and to aid each man to develop his personality fully according to his individual and social abilities. Considered as a whole, the community is not a physical unity subsisting in itself and its individual members are not integral parts of it. Considered as a whole, the physical organism of living beings, of plants, animals or man, has a unity subsisting in itself. Each of the members, for example, the hand, the foot, the heart, the eye, is an integral part destined by all its being to be inserted in the whole organism. Outside the organism it has not, by its very nature, any sense, any finality. It is wholly absorbed by the totality of the organism to which it is attached.

30. In the moral community and in every organism of a purely moral character, it is an entirely different story. Here the whole has no unity subsisting in itself, but a simple unity of finality and action. In the community individuals are merely collaborators and instruments for the realization of the common end.

31. What results as far as the physical organism is concerned? The master and user of this organism, which possesses a subsisting unity, can dispose directly and immediately of integral parts, members and organs within the scope of their natural finality. He can also intervene, as often as and to the extent that the good of the whole demands, to paralyze, destroy, mutilate and separate the members. But, on the contrary, when the whole has only a unity of finality and action, its head-in the present case, the public authority-doubtlessly holds direct authority and the right to make demands upon the activities of the parts, but in no case can it dispose of its physical being. Indeed, every direct attempt upon its essence constitutes an abuse of the power of authority.

32. Now medical experiments-the subject We are discussing here immediately and directly affect the physical being, either of the whole or of the several organs, of the human organism. But, by virtue of the principle We have cited, public authority has no power in this sphere. It cannot, therefore, pass it on to research workers and doctors. It is from the State, however, that the doctor must receive authorization when he acts upon the organism of the individual in the “interests of the community.” For then he does not act as a private individual, but as a mandatory of the public power. The latter cannot, however, pass on a right that it does not possess, save in the case already mentioned when it acts as a deputy, as the legal representative of a minor for as long as he cannot make his own decisions, of a person of feeble mind or of a lunatic.

33. Even when it is a question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to live.

34. We cannot refrain from explaining once more the point treated in this third part in the light of the principle to which one customarily appeals in like cases. We mean the principle of totality. This principle asserts that the part exists for the whole and that, consequently, the good of the part remains subordinated to the good of the whole, that the whole is a determining factor for the part and can dispose of it in its own interest. This principle flows from the essence of ideas and things and must, therefore, have an absolute value. (Pope Pius XII, The Moral Limits of Medical Research, September 14, 1952.)

This, of course, means nothing to the conciliar revolutionaries, who are always at the beck and call of the globalists and their schemes to subordinate us all to the so-called exigencies of the “global community.”

An interview given by “Father” Carlo Casalone, S.J., to America magazine emphasized the perverse teaching of “Pope” Francis to reevaluate even the definition of life itself and what he called as the “need” for a “moral theology” that responds to the changed circumstances in which people live today:

Our aim is to listen to what Pope Francis is saying to theologians in a more comprehensive way, and since we are moral theologians dealing mainly with global bioethical issues, we try to make explicit what “Evangelii Gaudium,” “Amoris Laetitia,” “Laudato Si’” and “Veritatis Gaudium”—the document for the renewal of the universities and theological studies—mean for our theological reflection.

Father Casalone noted that people, not infrequently, take a sentence or statement from what Francis says but fail to grasp his organic vision.

The problem is that we only listen to some things Francis says but not to others. And sometimes we take his remarks out of context. The question is: Are we able to give a holistic listening to what Francis says?

When I noted that Francis appears to have revolutionized the approach to many questions in moral theology and the ethics of life, the Jesuit theologian, seeking to be more precise, said:

I would rather say that Francis has highlighted aspects of the patrimony of the tradition of moral theology which were overlooked in the interventions of the recent magisterium. This becomes clear if you go beyond merely thinking that Francis has made what appear to be only small changes and consider instead the broader implications of those changes with a systemic approach; then you will understand that they are indeed very major changes. If you put together all that Francis has said, then you will see that there are very new accentuations, for example, in relation to conscience versus the norm [and] ethical discernment (in its connection with spiritual discernment), and this is both new and in continuity with tradition. This is what we are trying to say.

He recalled that the preliminary text for discussion sought to present the magisterium of Pope Francis in an integrated and comprehensive way. To this end, he said, the participants addressed such fundamental issues as “the relation between nature and culture,” “the understanding of conscience in relation to law and discernment,” “the use of an approach to the characteristics of phenomena through the various disciplines,” “the inseparable link of theology and pastoral experience,” “the understanding of history in the elaboration of moral theology” and “the relativityof all language—since it cannot pretend to fix forever the understanding of the faith.”

The group also reviewed controversial bioethical issues that have arisen since the promulgation of three previous papal teaching documents: “Humanae Vitae” (1968), on responsible parenthood and contraception, “Donum Vitae” (1987), which deals with the relationship between natural moral law and reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization, and “Samaritanus Bonus” (2020), on the care of persons in the terminally and critically ill stages of life.

“As moral theologians,” Father Casalone said:

We must ask ourselves the reasons why these vexed issues continue to be a motive for unease and even desolation among believers. We realized that to reach a better understanding of these questions we had to open a dialogue; and in this dialogical approach we must take into consideration what the people of God understand and feel about them....

Moreover, we saw it necessary for us to listen to each other as theologians, and then let the magisterium do its work. It is not for the academy to make a magisterial statement....

[At the pontifical academy,] we felt the right thing to do at this moment in history is to open a dialogue, including on these controversial issues because the space for this type of open discussion was not there in past decades. Indeed, it was not easy to debate these questions openly.

Father Casalone appeared to be alluding to the fact that since “Humanae Vitae” and, especially, during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, it was not easy to find a space to discuss such themes as contraception, I.V.F. and end-of-life treatment in a calm and reasoned way, as one risked being judged unorthodox by the mere raising of questions regarding such subjects.

By inviting to the seminar theologians “with different, even contrasting approaches to those issues,” Father Casalone said, the pontifical academy opened a space for such free discussions following the logic of synodality as encouraged by Pope Francis. Therefore, the resultant publication of the seminar’s proceedings, he said, “is not the presentation of a one-sided approach to moral theology of these controversial issues.”

“We intended to create a dialogue,” Archbishop Paglia said in the interview, “between different opinions on even controversial topics, proposing many insights for discussion.” The academy’s role “is not limited to explaining texts of the magisterium,” he said. “Our perspective was to render a service to the magisterium by opening up a space for dialogue that makes research possible and encourages it.”

Pope Francis, according to Archbishop Paglia, had been fully informed of the process and knew about the preliminary text and the discussion at the seminar, and agreed that its proceedings be published in book form. The reflection was also prompted in part by the 25th anniversary of “Evangelium Vitae.” The archbishop said the academy wanted to commemorate this milestone by “rereading the main topics covered in St. John Paul II's encyclical after so many years,” and “by inviting theologians and experts in different fields to a study seminar.”

The book is divided into 12 chapters, Father Casalone explained, and each chapter is structured according to the themes presented in the preliminary text.

The subject that is likely to draw most attention is the revisiting of the question regarding the use of artificial contraceptives, discussed in the seventh chapter. The use of contraceptives was rejected by “Humanae Vitae,” but that teaching was to a large extent not accepted in much of the Catholic world. Both in the seminar and in the book it is affirmed that a couple can make a “wise choice” by having recourse to contraceptive techniques, “obviously excluding those that are abortive,” in situations where the “conditions and practical circumstances would make it irresponsible to choose to procreate.” Whether Pope Francis will endorse this position remains to be seen.

Father Casalone noted the first chapter, on the joy of human life, collects the most significant statements of Pope Francis on this subject and seeks to bring them together in an organic synthesis that inspires and directs the rest of the reflection. The second chapter reviews what the Old and New Testament teach about life, culminating in the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus. (Birth control, IVF, euthanasia: The Vatican encouraged dialogue on polarizing life issues. Is a papal encyclical next?)

As has been noted previously in this commentary, Humanae Vitae was a revolutionary document in and of itself, which is why an analysis of its text served as the first selection contained in Life, Death, and Truth: Under Attack by Medicine and Law (which had been previously published in 2011 and 2018 on this site).

Contraception was promoted by Margaret Sanger and her fellow eugenicists in the early Twentieth Century to destabilize marriage, especially among black families so as to make them wards of the civil state who would be dependent upon the government’s programs of social engineering for their very survival, by creating such widespread immorality as to make marriage an “outdated” institution to be replaced by new species of unions that were not dependent upon the commitments required of matrimony and the begetting and rearing of children. Contraception is a denial of the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage, and it is no accident that Protestantism, which gave birth to the theological revolutionism of which Modernism is but a species.

Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV has now made the work of Vincenzo Paglia and Renzo Pegoraro his very own.

Boy, if only Leo “knew,” huh?

Back to the final part of the article that serves as the basis of this commentary:

Dissent Inside the Academy

Not all members of the Pontifical Academy for Life have remained silent. Orthodox members have criticized the Academy for promoting confusion, sidelining moral absolutes, and legitimizing sin under pastoral slogans. Reports of internal division, such as those documented by the SSPX and other traditional outlets, reveal a body no longer committed to Catholic doctrine but fractured by ideological civil war.

And now that civil war is over. Modernism won.

The New Religion: Bioethics without God

1. Global Bioethics and Secular Humanism

Pegoraro has partnered with secular and interreligious networks such as the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights. These institutions promote a model of “global bioethics” rooted in pluralism, consensus, and therapeutic humanism rather than divine Revelation. Pegoraro’s collaborations with secular bioethics organizations reflect a shift from divine command to dialogical consensus. The Gospel of Life is slowly being rewritten in the idiom of the United Nations.

2. Anthropocentrism and Language Drift

In talk after talk, Pegoraro returns to a now-familiar arsenal of pastoral euphemisms: “accompaniment,” “compassion,” “conscience,” and “complexity.” These terms, while appearing benign, are often weaponized to soften absolute norms and baptize moral deviance. Pegoraro’s bioethics is heavy on accompaniment, but light on authority. Compassion becomes code for compromise, and complexity becomes cover for capitulation.

3. Silence on Abortion in Official Statements

Though he leads an institution named for life, Pegoraro’s public record is remarkably quiet on abortion. While eager to speak on climate change, vaccine policy, and social justice, he rarely issues clear condemnations of abortion as murder. In an age of daily slaughter in the womb, his silence is complicity.

Conclusion: Apostasy in White Coats

A Pontifical Academy for Life that rethinks contraception, defends vaccination campaigns built on aborted tissue, and proposes legal frameworks for assisted suicide is not Catholic. It is not “pastoral,” or merciful; it is apostate.

This is what Rome now promotes. This is what Leo XIV ratifies. And this is what the faithful must reject. (Academy for Death: Leo XIV Appoints Assisted Suicide Advocate to Head Pro-Life Office.)

Fine, except for the fact that the “faithful” are not free to reject what a true “pope” decides nor to reject anything taught by Holy Mother Church, she who is the spotless, virginal mystical spouse of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head, and Mystical Bridegroom. 

It is clear that men such as the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Vincenzo Paglia, Renzo Pegoraro, and perhaps even Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV himself do not believe that all the problems of the world, bar none and including disese, sickness, and disability, are the consequences of both Original Sin and of the Actual Sins of men.

Thus, these revolutionaries have no understanding of redemptive suffering and that there is nothing that any human being can suffer in this passing, moral vale tears is the equal of one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that caused His Most Blessed to suffer in perfect compassion with Him as Our Co-Redemptrix, Advocate, and Mediatrix as she stood so valiantly at the foot of His Holy Cross. Our Lord's graces, which flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is indeed the Mediatrix of All Graces, are more than sufficient to help us to bear our crosses for the honor and glory of God and to make reparation for our own sins as well as to help those around us to carry their own crosses, whether light or heavy.

Catholics do not seek to escape the cross! 

Catholics must embrace the cross, love the cross, and to carry it with joy, love, and gratitude.

Although it is probably not necessary for me to do so, perhaps someone in the “resist while recognize” movement will see those words of Pope Saint Pius X and take them to heart:

And how must the Pope be loved? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate. [Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth - 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a person, one tries to adhere in everything to his thoughts, to fulfill his will, to perform his wishes. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, “si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit,” [if any one love me, he will keep my word - Jn xiv, 23] therefore, in order to demonstrate our love for the Pope, it is necessary to obey him.

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

This is the cry of a heart filled with pain, that with deep sadness I express, not for your sake, dear brothers, but to deplore, with you, the conduct of so many priests, who not only allow themselves to debate and criticize the wishes of the Pope, but are not embarrassed to reach shameless and blatant disobedience, with so much scandal for the good and with so great damage to souls. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: (“Love the Pope!” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)

Whoever is holy cannot dissent from the pope.

This means that those who dissent from “Pope Francis” in the belief that he is a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter are not holy, or that “Pope Francis” is no pope at all as it would never be necessary to oppose him and to dissent from his false teachings if he were such.

Bishop Emile Bougaud, who served as the ordinary of Laval, France, from November 16, 1887, to his death on November 7, 1888, mocked those possessed of the Gallican mentality that teaches the falsehood that bishops and others can "sift" the words of a true:

The violent attacks of Protestantism against the Papacy, its calumnies and so manifest, the odious caricatures it scattered abroad, had undoubtedly inspired France with horror; nevertheless the sad impressions remained. In such accusations all, perhaps, was not false. Mistrust was excited., and instead of drawing closer to the insulted and outraged Papacy, France stood on her guard against it. In vain did Fenelon, who felt the danger, write in his treatise on the "Power of the Pope," and, to remind France of her sublime mission and true role in the world, compose his "History of Charlemagne." In vain did Bossuet majestically rise in the midst of that agitated assembly of 1682, convened to dictate laws to the Holy See, and there, in most touching accents, give vent to professions of fidelity and devotedness toward the Chair of St. Peter. We already notice in his discourse mention no longer made of the "Sovereign Pontiff." The "Holy See," the "Chair of St. Peter," the "Roman Church," were alone alluded to. First and alas! too manifest signs of coldness in the eyes of him who knew the nature and character of France! Others might obey through duty, might allow themselves to be governed by principle--France, never! She must be ruled by an individual, she must love him that governs her, else she can never obey.

These weaknesses should at least have been hidden in the shadow of the sanctuary, to await the time in which some sincere and honest solution of the misunderstanding could be given. But no! parliaments took hold of it, national vanity was identified with it. A strange spectacle was now seen. A people the most Catholic in the world; kings who called themselves the Eldest Sons of the Church and who were really such at heart; grave and profoundly Christian magistrates, bishops, and priests, though in the depths of their heart attached to Catholic unity,--all barricading themselves against the head of the Church; all digging trenches and building ramparts, that his words might not reach the Faithful before being handled and examined, and the laics convinced that they contained nothing false, hostile or dangerous. (Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Published in 1890 by Benziger Brothers. Re-printed by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 24-29.)

Thus, the man believed by those in the “resist while recognize” movement to be “Pope Leo XIV” is entirely correct to state that Catholics who believe him to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter must follow the teaching of the “Second” Vatican Council and the magisterium of the postconciliar “popes” faithfully and unquestioningly.

I, for one, find it remarkable that many in the “resist while recognize” movement can cite the following story about how Pope Saint Pius X removed a Sillonist-supporting French bishop even after the Holy Father had condemned The Sillon in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

As Pope, St. Pius X had to correct and reprimand several bishops and priest who had fallen into heresy or were flirting dangerously close to that edge. Some of the French prelates who supported the Sillon (a precursor to modern Liberation Theology) were particularly problematic. One bishop who had been reprimanded continued to act against the Catholic Faith. Pope Pius X called him to Rome. When the bishop entered he made the customary genuflection before the Pope and waited to be acknowledged so he could rise. Pope Pius X remained busy at his desk ignoring the bishop for three quarters of an hour. This was a small penance which the saintly pontiff was imposing. At last, Pope Pius raised his eyes and looked the bishop directly in the eyes, holding his gaze steady and stern. Without a word he rose and walked over to the kneeling figure. Then he greeted him: “Good morning, your Excellency.” Before the Bishop could arise, Pope Pius X swiftly removed the zucchetto from the Bishop’s head and placed it on the edge of his desk. He then dismissed him, “Have a good day, Father.” And that was the end of the meeting. No more words had to be spoken. This great pope had sent a very clear warning shot across the bow of the Bark of Peter letting all know what the fate would be of those bishops, successors to Judas, who refused to resist and denounce heresy. (Stories About Pope Saint Pius X.)

Those who believe that Robert Francis Prevost is “Pope Leo XIV” must obey him as to call for “resistance” to a man once accepts as legitimate Sovereign Pontiff is, to call to mind the words that Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., used in his panegyric in honor of Pope Saint Clement I, “to oppose God Himself.”

Let those who have eyes see truth and reject the counterfeit church of conciliarism lock, stock and apostate barrel.

Today, May 30, 2025, is the second day within the Octave of the Ascension of Our Lord and the Commemoration of Pope Saint Felix I and, in some places, of King Saint Ferdinand III, King of Leon and Castile, and of our beloved Saint Joan of Arc.

It is instructive to contrast the chaos, hatred and violence of the present moment that has been engendered in no small measure by conciliarism’s “reconciliation” with the anti-Incarnational Judeo-Masonic principles of Modernity with the example of the King of Castile and Leon, Saint Ferdinand III, a first cousin of Saint Louis IX, who always understood that he had to rule in a manner befitting Christ the King, to whom he would have to make an accounting for his stewardship over his subjects.

King Saint Ferdinand III was born in 1199, precisely one hundred years after the death of his famous ancestor, Rodrigo Diaz—El Cid, and God favored him with many important victories over political rivals in other Spanish kingdoms and, of course, against the Moors themselves. It was King Saint Ferdinand III who captured Cordoba in 1236 for Christ the King and His true Church.

In all conflicts, however, the only thing that mattered to King Saint Ferdinand III was to do the will of God and to restrain his own passions so that everything he did would be of God. He sought only the honor and glory of God, not his own.

Moreover, he sought to establish a just rule of law after he had conquered Seville on December 22, 1248, that was modeled on the one had had promulgated in Toledo. As one can see in the text quoted below, Saint Ferdinand III sought to give honor and glory to the Most Blessed Trinity above all else. He was quite a contrast to the naturalists of the false opposites of the “right” and the “left” today whose minds are but a jumble of erroneous ideas and beliefs and whose souls are readily inclined to surrender to passionate, unrestrained anger and bitterness:

In addition to these plans, the King was simultaneously working, helped by his son Don Alfonso and his twelve councilors, on the great undertaking of unifying the laws. He wanted the Code of Laws of Seville to be finished when the kingdom representatives met.

He prayed much during those days and nights in which he studied, discussed and drew up the immortal document. One of the last discussions dealt with the style that should be used in writing the Code. The King, who was usually more concerned with the content than the language, until then had used the familiar style of daily conversation. His son Don Alfonso and his secretary Father Remondo insisted, however, that this code of law should be written with a great majesty proportional to the importance of the conquered city. “Also, Lord, know that in Rome the popes and the great princes use a higher form of language,” said the secretary.

The King smiles at their insistence, but since he like to follow the advice of prudent men, and the good Don Remondo was very prudent, he pleased him by using the serious and solemn “we.”

The King and his notary were both sitting at their work table, the latter with his pen in his hand ready to write. After a few moments of silent prayer during which he often made a great Sign of the Cross, the noble King of Castile and Leon began to dictate:

“In the name of Him Who is the true and everlasting God, Who in one God with the Son and with the Holy Ghost, and one Lord in Three Persons and one in substance; and Who gave us His glory; and if we believe this of Him and in His Son and in the Holy Ghost, then we believe in the true, everlasting god, and we adore the Three Persons, the unity in essence and the equality in the divinity; and in the name of this Trinity with which we begin and end all of the good deeds we perform, we call upon Him to be the beginning and the end of this our work. Amen.”

Don Ferdinand remained suspended for some time in ecstasy, unable to tear his soul from Him Who captivated it whenever He was invoked. Returning to his senses, he continued:

“All those who see this document should remember the great benefits, the great graces, the great favors, the great honors and the great happiness granted by Him Who is the beginning and source of all good, to all Christendom and especially to Castile and Leon in the days and the time of Don Ferdinand, who, by the grace of God, is King of Castile, of Toledo, of Leon, of Galicia, of Seville and of Jaen. All should understand and know that the many benefits He gave and showed to us Christians and against Moors are not because of our merits but because of His great kindness and His great mercy, and because of the intercession of the prayers and merits of Holy Mary, whose servant we are, and because,  and because of the help she gave us with her blessed Son, and because of prayers and merits of St. James, whose lieutenant we are and whose standard we carry, and who always helped us to conquer and to do good, and who showed his favor to us and all our sons and our noblemen and our vassals, and all of the people of Spain, He made and ordered and ordained that we who are His knights, and through our labors and with the help and advice of Don Alfonso our first son, and Don Alfonso our brother, and our other sons, and with the help and advice of the other noblemen and our loyal vassals of Castile and Leon we conquered all of Andalusia for the service of God and the expansion of Christianity more generously and completely than it was conquered by any other king or man; and though He honored and showed great favor in the other conquests of Andalusia, we believe He showed us His grace and His favor more abundantly and more generously in the conquest of Seville, which we accomplished with His help and with His power, as Seville is greater and more noble than the other cities of Spain. And because of this, we, the King Don Ferdinand, servant and knight of Christ, because we received so many benefits and so many favors and in so many ways from Him Who is all good, we want, by right and reason, to share those benefits that God granted us with our vassals and with the prelates who inhabited Seville for us; and because of this, we, the King Don Ferdinand, joined by the Queen Dona Joan, our wife, and our sons Don Fadrique and Don Henry, we grant and give this Code of Law and these freedoms expressed in this document.”

He then proceeded to dictate the Code, copied from that of Toledo, which was celebrated by all for the many freedoms it granted. It first declares the rights of those who are knights and grants honors to those having a horse worth fifty marks giving them freedom from the King's service for at least eight months during the year. It continues by stating the privileges that would be enjoyed by those living in the suburb of the Francos, allowing then ample freedom to buy and sell without paying duties and exempting them from standing guard duty which, during those times without permanent armies, the citizens were obliged to serve. Further, they could not be obliged to lend money to the King by force, they were granted the honor of knighthood, and had the duty of forming an army for him on the same conditions as the men from Toledo.

It covers the area of the men of sea, first creating the post of mayor to be held by a man knowledgeable in the matters related the sailors' trade. Their litigation and common offenses were to be judged by the mayors of Seville, but if those involved did not agree with the sentence, the mayor has “to look for six good men knowledgeable in the Code of 'sea laws' and review the litigation with them, notifying the plaintiff of what they believed to be right; and if the plaintiff does not like the judgment agreed upon by the mayor and those six good men, let his appeal to us.” Afterward, it made the same concessions to the sailors as it had to those in the suburb of Francos in respect to selling, buying and trading.

After giving them the honor of knighthood, the code determined the conditions of their service, which reads as follows: “The are obliged to serve the King with their ships and their weapons for three months. If the King needs them for a longer tour, he shall pay them.” This obligation of forming an army on the sea spared them the obligation of serving on land, with the exception that it should be for the town's benefit, in which case they were required to serve with the others. As see, the ships were equivalent to horses in the King's mind, and his son and successor used the same criteria when he says, “The ships are the riding animals of those who go by sea just as the horses are for those who go by land.” It also granted them the right to have a butcher's shop in their suburb with the duties paid by the King.

And lastly, it orders all of the inhabitants of Seville, knights, merchants, and sailors, to pay him ten percent from the gardens and farms on the surrounding lands of the Guadalquiver “as this . . . is our right. And we order that from the bread and the wine and the cattle and from all the other things, you pay your due obligation to the Church as it is done in Toledo.” The code ends by threatening he who dares decrease the freedoms of that code of law with “provoking the wrath of God and my own,” and ordering him to “pay to us and to whoever reigns after us one hundred marks of gold.” (Sister Maria del Carmen Fernandez de Castro Cabeza A.C.J., The Life of the Very Noble King of Castile and Leon Saint Fernando III, pp. 267-270.)

This is the kind of justice lacking in a world that has overthrown the Social Reign of Christ the King. This is the kind of justice that even the conciliar revolutionaries reject precisely because it was based upon the very face of expanding Christendom and of governing according to the teaching of Christ the King as He had revealed Himself exclusively to men through His true Church, the Catholic Church. It is because this kind of justice—Catholic justice according to the mind of Christ the King—is lacking today that once proudly Catholic Ireland has fallen into the abyss along with the rest of the so-called “civilized” world.

It is also instructive to consider the words of Pope Saint Pius X about Saint Joan of Arc when he beatified her:

Pope Pius X insisted in most appealing fashion upon the need for courage on the part of Catholics in the modem world, in the discourse he pronounced on the 13th December 1908 at the beatification of Joan of Arc. To St. Joan’s mind the coronation and anointing of the King of France were ever present, because that anointing did homage to the universal Kingship of Christ and linked up political power with the government of the Lord Jesus. She was the saint sent to remind the world, at the decline of the Middle Ages, of the formal principle of order in the world, the acknowledgment of the Kingship of Christ. The saintly Pope spoke of the heroism of Blessed Joan, and contrasted it with the timidity of so many Catholics in our day: “In our time more than ever before, the chief strength of the wicked lies in the cowardice and weakness of good men . . . All the strength of Satan’s reign is due to the easy going weakness of Catholics. Oh! if I might ask the Divine Redeemer, as the prophet Zachary did in spirit: What are those wounds in the midst of thy hands? the answer would not be doubtful: With these was I wounded in the house of them that loved me. I was wounded by my friends, who did nothing to defend me, and who, on every occasion, made themselves the accomplices of my adversaries. And this reproach can be levelled at the weak and timid Catholics of all countries.” (Father Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, pp.269-272; 274- 277.)

The true popes of the Catholic Church fought naturalism. The "popes" and "bishops" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have embraced "naturalism" by endorsing international organizations bent on global governance and by endorsing (over and over and over again) the errors of religious liberty and the separation of Church and State. Angelo Roncalli/John XIII "opened the windows" of the conciliar church to the world. Behold the refuse that now comes through those open windows as the "bishops" of once totally Catholic Ireland close their eyes to the truth about the European Union in order to endorse an entity that is as opposed to the restoration of Christendom as they are.

Pope Saint Pius X warned of us these days when he condemned the inter-religious spirit of The Sillon, a spirit that is a true governing force of conciliarism itself:

We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind."

And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

We must pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary as never before. All manner of ominous forces are at work in the world. We must use Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary to protect us from the forces that seek the loss of our immortal souls for all eternity in Hell as we use this weapon that Our Lady gave to Saint Dominic de Guzman, the founder of the Order of Preachers, to convert men and their nations to the Catholic Faith and to seek the restoration of the Church Militant on earth.

We must not live in fear. While we must, as have the saints of the past, take prudent measures to resist evil wherever possible (and Irish voters do have an opportunity to do this in six days), we should also recognize the fact that major Chastisements are being visited upon us. Worse ones are likely to follow. None of of this, however, should disturb our peace in the slightest as we know that the final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary when her Fatima Message for the collegial consecration of Russia is fulfilled by a true pope and all of the world's true bishops.

Remember, the worst thing that can happen to us is die in state of final impenitence, to lose our souls for all eternity. We must, therefore, trust in the tender mercies of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we give ourselves unto this Heart of Hearts through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, being willing to suffer whatever calumnies we must as we reject the naturalism of Modernity and the Modernism of the lords of conciliarism, praying their conversion of all of the enemies of the Faith as we attempt to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Lord through that same Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, pray for us!   

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us. 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Pope Saint Felix I, pray for us.

Saint Ferdinand III, King of Leon and Castille, pray for us. 

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us

Appendix A

On the Feast of Pope Saint Felix I

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., wrote the following about Pope Saint Felix I, whose feast is commemorated today, May 30, 2025, which is also the sixty-sixth anniversary of my First Holy Communion at Saint Aloysius Church in Great Neck, New York:

The holy Popes of the primitive ages of the Church abound during these last days of our Paschal Season. Today, we have Felix the First, a Martyr of the persecution under Aurelian, in the 3rd Century. His Acts have been lost, with the exception of this one detail; that he proclaimed the dogma of the Incarnation, with admirable precision, in a Letter addressed to the Church of Alexandria, — a passage of which was read, with much applause, at the two (Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.

We also learn from a law he passed for those troubled times of the Church, that this holy Pontiff was zealous in procuring for the Martyrs the honor that is due to them. He decreed, that the Holy Sacrifice should be offered up on their tombs. The Church has kept up a remnant of this law, by requiring, that all Altars, whether fixed or portable, must have, amongst the Relics that are placed in them, a portion of some belonging to the Martyrs. We shall have to speak of this custom in a future volume.

The Liturgy gives us this short notice regarding the holy Pontiff.

Felix, a Roman by birth, and son of Constantius, governed the Church during the reign of the emperor Aurelian. He decreed that the Mass should be celebrated upon the shrines and tombs of the martyrs. He held two ordinations in the month of December, and made nine Priests, five Deacons, and five Bishops for divers places. He was crowned with martyrdom, and was buried on the Aurelian Way, in a Basilica which he himself had built and dedicated. He reigned two years, four months, and twenty-nine days.

Thou, O holy Pontiff, didst imitate thy Divine Master in his Death, for thou gavest thy life for thy sheep. Like him, too, thou art to rise from thy tomb, and thy happy soul shall be reunited to its body, which suffered death in testimony of the truth thou didst proclaim at Rome. Jesus is the first-born of the dead; (Apocalypse 1:5) thou didst follow him in his Passion, thou shalt follow him in his Resurrection. Thy body was laid in those venerable vaults, which the piety of early Christians honored with the appellation of Cemeteries, — a word which signifies a place wherein to sleep. Thou, O Felix, wilt awaken on that great day, whereon the Pasch is to receive its last and perfect fulfillment: pray that we also may then share with thee in that happy Resurrection. Obtain for us, that we may be faithful to the graces received in this year’s Easter; and prepare us for the visit of the Holy Ghost, who is soon to descend upon us, that he may give stability to the work that has been achieved, in our souls, by our merciful Savior. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Pope Saint Felix I, May 30.)

Appendix B

On the Feast of Saint Joan of Arc

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., died in 1875, thirty-four years before Pope Saint Pius X beatified Saint John of Arc and forty-five years before Pope Benedict XV canonized her on April 16. 1920. However, there is an entry found in The Liturgical Year that had to be written by another Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Solesmes:

While the angelic hosts acclaim the Incarnate Word as he takes possession of his eternal throne, a virgin at the head of the armies of earth re-echoes the praises of heaven She was a child of the countryside, pious, gentle, and utterly ignorant, especially of the art of war, but Michael the soldier of God trained her with the aid of the Virgin Martyrs Catherine and Margaret, and suddenly like a challenge thrown to modern naturalism in the broad daylight of history, she made her appearance, at the age of seventeen as an incomparable warrior. Her victories, her personal influence and strategical genius equal those of the most famous captains of any times. But she surpasses them all in heroism, in her childlike simplicity, virginal purity, and faith in her Lord Jesus, the Son of St. Mary, for whom she died—even greater at the stake at Rouen than in the days of her triumph. “De par le Roi du ciel” (By order of the King of Heaven) was the motto on her banner. By order of The King of Heaven, her sovereign liege, in whose royal service she is day by day, she calls upon cities to return to their lawful obedience. By the order of the King of Heaven she intimates to the English that she has been sent to drive them out of France. ‘For,’ as she declared to the Dauphin’s representative, ‘the kingdom does not appertain to the Dauphin, but to my Lord. But it is the will of my Lord that the Dauphin should be made king and should hold the kingdom in commendam.’ ‘And who is thy Lord?’ asked Baudricourt. ‘My Lord is the King of heaven.’

To Charles VII she said: “I am called Joan the Maid, and through me does the King of heaven give you to understand that you shall be vice-regent of the king of heaven who is king of France.” To the Duke of Burgundy, who was then in alliance with the enemy,  she said: “I tell you by order of the King of heaven, that all who make war on the said holy kingdom, make war on the king Jesus, the King of heaven and of all the earth.”

Joan came into the world on the feast of the glorious Epiphany, which manifested the divine Child to the world as the Lord of lords. It was during these days of his Ascension, when he takes his seat at the right hand of his Father, that she began her campaigns in 1428, achieved her greatest triumph in 1429, and closed her warlike career in 1430.

She died May 30, 1431, the eve of the Feast of Corpus Christi ― a worthy consummation for a life like hers, a supreme consecration for her cause. As her soul rose from the flames to join Michael and his hosts and the Virgin Martyrs at the court of the immortal King of Ages, she left the church on earth prostrate before Christ, the King, the Ruler of the Nations, who as it were, holds his royal assizes where he is glorified in the mystery of faith.

The following account of her life is given by the Church:

Joan of Arc was born in the town of Domrémy (which was once in the diocese of Toul, but belongs now to that of Saint Dié) in the year of our Lord 1412. Her parents were noted for their virtue and piety. When she was but thirteen years old, and knew nothing but house work, field work, and the first elements of religion, she learnt that God had chosen her to deliver France from her enemies and restore the kingdom to its former independence. She enjoyed familiar intercourse with the Archangel Michael and SS Catherine and Margaret, who during five years, instructed her how to fulfill her mission. Then, desiring to obey the command of God, she addressed herself to the governor of Vaucouleurs, who, after having several times repulsed her, at length gave her and escort to take her to King Charles.

Following in all things the divine commands, she overcame all the difficulties of the long journey, and arrived at Chinon in Touraine, where she furnished the king with proofs that her mission was from God. She proceeded to Orleans, and in a few days inflicted three defeats on the enemy, relieved the town, and raised her banner aloft in triumph. Then, after other military successes in which the assistance of God was clearly manifested, she brought Charles to Rheims, where he was solemnly crowned king. She would not rest even then, but, having learnt from her heavenly voices that God would permit her to fall into the hands of the enemy she went bravely on to meet what was to befall her.

She was taken prisoner at Compiègne, sold to the English, and sent to Rouen for trial. She had to defend herself against many accusations, but her purity was never impugned. She suffered all things with patience for the sake of Lord Jesus Christ. The wicked judges who tried this gentle and innocent virgin, condemned her to be burnt. So, fortified by the holy Eucharist, which she had long desired, and her eyes fixed upon the Cross while she constantly murmured the name of Jesus, she took her flight to heaven on May 30, in the nineteenth year of her age. The holy Roman Church which she had always loved, and to which she had often appealed, undertook, under Pope Calixtus III, her rehabilitation, and towards the end of the nineteenth century Leo XIII gave permissions for the introduction of the cause of beatification. Finally, after diligent examination and approbation of fresh miracles Pius X inscribed her among the Blessed and permitted the diocese of France to keep the feast with a special Office and Mass.

O King of Glory, who dost today ascend above the heights of heaven, thou didst drink of the torrent in the way and therefore dost thou now lift up thy head. Thy ancestor David prophesied it, thine Apostle proclaimed it. Thou didst humble thyself unto death, even the death of the cross, and therefore has God the Father exalted thee on this day, therefore does every knee bow at thy name, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. It was becoming that the law of the Head should be the law also of all those who were to be called to share his glory. Before all ages, in the great Counsel of which, as the Church sings on Christmas Day, thou wert the Angel, the conditions of definitive victory and eternal success were thus laid down.

The Gospel tells us that the hour would come for the disciples of Jesus to give testimony and that men would think to serve God by putting them to death. Joan, like Jesus, was questioned, judged and condemned with all the legal forms and imposing ceremonial of orthodoxy. But, O ye enemies of Joan and of France, ye thought yourselves her executioners, and ye were offering her in sacrifice. France was saved, for God accepted the virginal victim. Her passing mission became a permanent patronage, and the deliverer of her country on earth has become her immortal protectress in heaven. (As found in The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Joan of Arc, May 30. This entry was not written by Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., as he had died in 1875, thirty-four years before Saint Joan of Arc’s beatification.)

Herewith is Pope Benedict XV’s Bull of Canonization of Saint Joan of Arc:

By disposition of divine clemency, after a long period of time, while the terrible war produced so many evils, those miracles offered a new sign of the justice and mercy of God which, worked through the intercession of the Maid of Orleans, definitively sanctioned their innocence, faith, holiness and obedience to the will of God, to observe which he endured everything up to a cruel and unjust death. It is therefore very opportune that Joan of Arc be inscribed today in the number of Saints, so that, from her example, all Christians may learn that obedience to the will of God is holy and devout, and obtain from her the grace to convert their fellow citizens to obtain heavenly life. On February 6 of the year 1412 from the Redemption, Joan was born in the town of Domrémy in Lorraine, by Giacomo d’Arc and Isabella Romé, pious and faithful Catholic peasants. From her early youth, through the care of her mother, pious and upright, fearing God, she was sufficiently instructed in the faith, completely dedicated to a simple and serene life. When he was in his father's house, he helped his family with the work of her hands: she used to spin linen and wool, and sometimes he went with his father to plow and look after the cattle. And not only did he punctually fulfill his duty towards his family, but also what concerned religion and devotion, so much so that he attracted the admiration of all and the parish priest of the town could say that he had never seen or had in her parish, a better than her. Joan always used to receive the divine sacraments very often, observe the prescribed fasts, always attend church, participate every day in the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass, recite fervent prayers in front of the images of Jesus hanging from the cross and of the Blessed Virgin. On feast days, while the other girls were taking rest and giving themselves to dances, she went to church, carrying candles, which she offered to the Blessed Virgin and, out of singular devotion to her, undertook pilgrimages to the solitary church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Bermont. She was also transported by such a great love for God and for the worship due to Him, that in the evening, even when she was in the countryside, as soon as she heard the church bell, her knees bent, she raised her mind to God.

She distinguished herself for her love for her neighbor. In fact, she refreshed the sick and gladly gave alms, housed the poor, to whom she willingly gave up her bed, sleeping herself on the ground. God filled such marvelous virtues with glory and honor in a girl of about 12, and to her he began to reveal his purposes with some heavenly visions, as it is certain that, for his infinite wisdom, he had often acted with others. holy virgins. Joan, at the age of 13, in her father's garden, next to the church, at noon, heard a voice and saw a great splendor. She was then seized with fear, but when she heard it for the third time, she understood that it was the voice of the Angel of God. In these first apparitions, the Angel did not explain the divine mission to Joan, but only persuaded her to cultivate devotion and attending church: so Joan, taken by the joy of heavenly things, consecrated her virginity to God. Finally the Archangel Michael revealed himself to her and commanded her to go to the King to help him, without any fear, after leaving her father's house, because Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret would support him. The humble girl replied that she was a poor daughter, completely incapable of riding and of warlike things; but such was her faith and obedience that, leaving her family, she went to the village of Bureyle-petit, to her paternal uncle Durando Laocardo, asking him to take her to Vaucouleurs, to Duke Robert of Baudricourt, whom she wanted to tell him to go to France to meet to the Dauphin, to be crowned. Full of admiration, his uncle agreed and, on May 13, 1428, took Joan to Vanucouleurs to speak with the Duke of Baudricourt. But he did not believe the girl's words, on the contrary he told her uncle to bring her back to her father and give her a slap. Joan returned to her paternal house and devoted herself to the works of the past, nevertheless having firm confidence that she would soon go to the King. he had Joan entrusted by his parents, on the pretext of helping his wife, but instead he returned again to Vaucouleurs and entrusted Joan to the pious family Le Royer.

Meanwhile Joan was speaking openly about her mission, saying that she had to go to the Dauphin, because her Lord, King of Heaven, wanted to do so. Duke Robert of Baudricourt, wishing to test the spirit of Joan, who had finally been brought before him, ordered the parish priest to make her swear; which she did, but later regretted this oath. Roberto perhaps still doubted, but he had to give in to the enthusiasm of the citizens. Joan, having obtained pardon from her parents, to whom she said she had to obey the divine will, on 13 February 1429, wearing men's clothes and mounted on horseback, began the journey to go to the King together with some knights, to whom the Duke Robert himself had entrusted to Joan. After eleven days, among many difficulties, with the fear of the English and the Burgundians, he arrived in a prodigious way to the city of Chinon, near the King, and there he had to face other not slight obstacles. In fact, some advisers of the King said that no trust should be given to her, but, a few days later, when the King learned from the Duke Robert that Joan had crossed many rivers, in a prodigious way, among the enemies, in order to be led by he finally granted an audience to the girl. Joan, when the King had distanced himself a little from the sight of the others, showed him reverence and revealed to him the heavenly mission entrusted to her by the King of Heaven, stating that he would be consecrated and crowned in the city of Reims, and that he was destined to do in the place of the King of Heaven, who is the King of France. After many questions, the King told those present that Joan had revealed to him some secrets, known only to God, for which he had great faith in her. But, in such an important matter, he wanted to ask some clergymen for advice and sent the Maid to Poitiers, to be examined by the distinguished doctors of the University. After three weeks, the doctors reported to the King that they had found nothing in Joan hat was contrary to the Catholic faith, and the King ordered that the Maid have men assigned to her and, as almsgiver, Fra 'Giovanni Pasquerel, of the Order of Eremitani di Sant'Agostino, who then always followed her.

A horse and weapons were given to her, but Joan preferred the old sword, adorned with five crosses, which she had indicated to be in the temple of Saint Catherine of Fierbois, as it was actually found; instead he wanted a banner with the image of the Redeemer, which he always carried with him. When asked why she carried the banner, she replied that she did not want to use her sword or kill anyone. Towards the end of April of that year, he went to the city of Blois, where an army of about 12,000 soldiers had been assembled, which had prepared supplies for the city of Orleans, besieged by the English. Joan’s first concern was that good morals be preserved in the army, so she commanded that women of ill repute be removed and severely reproached blasphemers. Then he wanted another banner with the image of Christ to gather the priests, because the aforementioned almsgiver had arranged for them to sing the antiphons and hymns of the Blessed Virgin Mary together with Joan every day, morning and evening. And, before proceeding to the city of Orleans, he commanded that all the priests, armed, gather under that banner.

The Maid wanted to confirm her mission with a sign of peace and for this purpose she sent a letter to Talbot, supreme commander of the English army, in which she said that, if the English had not suspended the siege and had not returned to their kingdom , would have attacked them in such a way as to force them to withdraw completely. But the English, in response, covered the Maid with insults, which she endured with an invincible spirit. But the facts confirmed the prediction; in fact, as appears from the historical documents, known to all, Joan, by divine order, freed the city of Orleans from the English siege with an admirable action that was completely superior to human forces. Then everyone recognized that the Maid had been sent by God and the citizens of Orleans said that if Joan had not come to their aid from God, the city would have come under the dominion and power of the adversaries who were besieging it. Having entered Orleans to the great joy of all the citizens, she was welcomed and greeted as the Angel of God. But Joan, first of all, went to the cathedral, to offer to God her creator the senses of gratitude and due reverence, and she exhorted everyone to hope completely in the Lord.

After particular actions carried out by the Maid in Orleans and other glorious episodes that followed against the English in castles and in various cities, after so many victories, the princes of royal lineage and the Dukes wanted the King to leave not for Reims, but for Normandy; but Joan on the contrary, was always of the opinion that it was necessary to go to Reims, for the King to be crowned and consecrated there, and thus the power of the enemies would be diminished forever. Eventually everyone was of his opinion and the King went to the city of Reims, where he found full obedience and in the old church of the city he was, with solemn ceremonies, anointed with holy oil and crowned with the royal crown. The Maid, when she saw the consecrated King, knelt in front of him and shed abundant tears because God's will was done. After the consecration of the King, although the advice of the Maid, which certainly had a happy outcome, did not originate either from the King or from his courtiers, nevertheless other glorious deeds were performed by her, especially in the city of Saint-Pierre -le-Monstier and in the city of Lagny, where he resurrected a child who died before being baptized, so that, regenerated in the sacred source, he could obtain the life of grace. Finding Joan in Melun in April 1430, she learned by revelation from above that she would be taken prisoner before the feast of St. John the Baptist, although she did not know the day and time. But, faithful to his mission and most obedient to the King, he strenuously defended the city of Compiègne, besieged by the Duke of Burgundy and the English. One day, having listened to Mass in a church in that city and refreshed at the Eucharistic table, she predicted to those present that, betrayed as soon as possible, she would be put to death, so that everyone would pray to God for her. And indeed, on May 24, having left the city to spy on the enemies and, rejected by them, wanting to return to the city, Guglielmo Flavy, governor of that, instead of helping the Maid with her garrison and letting her enter the city, closed the gates, so that, surrounded by the Burgundian army, she was captured with a few others.

Joan's imprisonment brought the greatest joy to the minds of the English, and they wished to remove the Maid from the hands of the Burgundians to have her in their own power. To make this happen more easily according to their wishes, the Duke of Burgundy was first invited by the Vicar General of the Inquisition and by the University of Paris to deliver the Maid to ecclesiastical justice, as a heretic. But since that had not given any answer, the English Regent Duke of Bedford appealed to Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who favored the parts of the English in every way. On July 14, he went to the Duke of Burgundy, saying that the Maid had been captured in the territory of his diocese and therefore, being a matter of faith, he was the legitimate judge. He also offered him a large sum of money, that is, 10,000 gold francs. The Duke of Burgundy agreed and Joan was sold to the English, who, on 24 October of that year, paid this price with the taxes imposed on the citizens of Normandy. Meanwhile the Maid, confident in divine Providence, was sustained by the lively hope that her imprisonment would not prevent God's plans from happily fulfilling. Therefore, with a calm soul, before being sold to the English, it remained for about 4 months in the castle of Beaulieu; then she was sent to the castle of Beaurevoir: it was there that she learned that she had been sold to the English and, having heard that the city of Compiègne would be destroyed as soon as possible, she made an attempt to escape from prison, but it went wrong. However, she was consoled because heavenly voices predicted the liberation of the city of Compiègne before the feast of San Martino; what events confirmed in everything. Later it was taken to the castle of Crotoy, where, in November, by the Duke of Burgundy it was handed over to the English. While he was in these castles, everyone admired his faith and devotion. Finally, in December, she was taken by the British to the castle of Rouen, where the unfair trial against her began.

The English had a mortal hatred for Joan and wanted her death at all costs, because she had come to the aid of the most Christian King of France, and they feared her above all for the victories obtained through her; and, having learned that in France the Maid was considered as sent by God, they tried to send her to the stake as a witch. Shortly before, they themselves had already condemned a poor woman to the stake in Paris, only because she had said that the Maid was holy and had acted by the will of God. the English made every effort to ensure that Joan too was struck by infamy and condemned as a heretic, decreeing the death of the Maid from the beginning. The English King Henry VI, on January 3, 1431, wrote to the judges that, if by chance Joan had not been condemned in the trial as a heretic and a witch, he reserved the right to detain her. And the judges, for their own safety, asked for and obtained a letter of defense from the King of England. All contemporary witnesses, questioned, sincerely declared that the trial had been set up "by the will and pressure of the English", who always kept Joan under their surveillance and did not allow her to be kept in ecclesiastical prisons. Some historians, almost contemporary, wrote that the passion of the Maid began with this process. Eyewitnesses reported that she was in prison, with iron shackles, and locked in an iron cage with bound neck, hands and feet; the keepers of his prison were bad men, with no respect and dirty with every stain of vice. According to not a few witnesses, this process, which lasted four months, was not only unfair, but also defective and null and void.

At that time the Maiden's way of behaving was truly admirable: she, who was not yet twenty years old, remained with such a calm soul, and answered the judges' questions with such prudence, that everyone looked at her in amazement. And the witnesses, regarding her faith and devotion during this period, declared that she always asked to be able to listen to Mass, especially on holidays, and to receive the Holy Eucharist, and it was very painful that she was denied these spiritual comforts. . During the same process the Maid fell ill and the English were seized by the great fear that she might die a natural death, so many doctors were sent to her, one of whom, among other things, reports: "The King had bought her at a high price and did not want her to die if not in condemnation, and burned ». After she was restored to health, but not yet recovered in strength, the process was continued without delay. Joan in her replies declared over and over again that she wanted to submit to the judgment of the Roman Catholic Church in everything, but the judges insinuated that she had to submit to themselves, as representatives of the Church. When asked if she wanted to submit to the Lord Pope, she replied yes, but she did not want to submit to the judges present there, because they were his mortal enemies. This response, which the judges themselves had foreseen, was the basis of the accusation, as she was attributed the false meaning that Joan did not want to submit to the Church.

Another charge gave the judges her visions and revelations, which they said came from an evil spirit, and especially those male robes, which Joan said she wore by divine command. These accusations were collected in twelve articles, and some men, especially from the University of Paris, very hostile to the Maid, although unaware of the trial, expressed an opinion contrary to Joan. However, there were others in France who defended her with all their might: indeed, several requests were prepared at that time for her release. After all, however, the nullity and malice of this process were evident, so much so that, having reached the city of Rouen from Normandy, the famous priest Giovanni Lohier, Dean of the Auditors of the Roman Rota, asked for his opinion on the Maid's trial, in the presence of the Bishop, he claimed that it was void for many reasons. Later other very learned men, also important for ecclesiastical dignity, clearly demonstrated the injustice and nullity of the process and, for the sake of truth and to give them honor, we want to remember Cardinal Elia de Bourdeille, Bishop of Perigueux, Giovanni Gerson , Teodoro de Lellis, Auditor of the Sacra Romana Rota, the Pontano, Advocate of the Sacred Consistory, and other highly authoritative jurists. Until the end of the trial, and even in front of the executioner, the Maid never wanted to deny her visions and revelations, although the judges used every trick to make her reject them as false. And it was really very important for the English that she should declare her visions and revelations false and untrue before being condemned; in fact, if she had remained firm in her affirmations, the opinion would always remain in the people that her mission had been received by God. of the executioner. And on May 24 of the same year 1431, Joan was taken to the square of the burial ground of Saint-Ouen, where, on a platform erected for this purpose, stood the Bishop with the Cardinal of Winchester, the judges, the doctors and many others. The Maid was placed on a pulpit in front of everyone, and she also saw the executioner, who was in the street with a chariot and was waiting for Joan’s body to be declared to be burned.

But first Nicholas Loyseleur, who treacherously betrayed the Maid, told her that she would avoid the danger of death if she did what she was told. Master William Erard made a speech, and against the King of France, among other things, he said this: "O Kingdom of France, you are considered and called very Christian, and your Kings and Princes most Christian: but now by your work, Joan, also your King who calls himself King of France, adhering to you and believing your words, has become a heretic and schism ». The Maid, in her humility, said nothing about herself, but she wanted to defend the King as a good Christian; the aforesaid teacher imposed silence on Joan, and ended the speech. But the Maid affirmed that she had done nothing wrong, that she believed in the twelve articles of faith and in the ten precepts of the Decalogue, and that she wanted to believe in everything that the Holy Church of God believes; then the Bishop told Joan that the Bishops were judges in their diocese and therefore she had to submit to them. Meanwhile, the teacher Erard handed the card of the abjuration to the Maid so that she could sign it, but Joan declared: "Let this card be examined by the clergy and by the Church, in whose hands I must be placed and, if they give me the advice to sign it and to do this that is said, I will do it gladly ». To her the teacher Erard replied: «Do it immediately, otherwise today you will end your days in the fire». And at the same time the reading of the sentence began. Joan, now without strength, terrified by the threats, bewildered by so many advice and exhortations, was forced to yield, putting herself back in the conscience of the judges. Then a small abjuration card was read to her, with which she was ordered not to wear men's clothes, not to carry weapons and other things of this kind. If other things had been written, especially about the Maid's visions and revelations, the judges feared that her conscience would make her withdraw from the matter. But instead of the card which, according to the testimony of Giovanni Massieu and others who were present, reported about eight lines and no more, another much longer one was inserted in the trial.

On the other hand, since Joan did not know how to write, she drew a round sign with a cross, by way of mockery, on the card that was given to her. Then she asked the Promoter if she would be placed in the hands of the Church, as she had been promised; but, on the contrary, she was sentenced to perpetual prison in the same castle of Rouen, under the same custody of the English. Then there was a great uproar among those present, and many stones were thrown. After noon on Thursday, that is the 24th of May, when the Maid, in female dress, returned to the same prison, she had to suffer a lot from the English, who harassed her in many ways, and were so angry, even against the judges, who three days later, some of them having entered the castle to see Joan, unsheathed their swords, were violently rejected by them. Meanwhile, the Maid had put on her male dress again, to better protect her virginity; in fact she was violently tempted by the custodians and also by a man of great authority; and, questioned by the judges as to why he had put on his male suit, he replied that he had done it to defend his purity. Then questioned if she had had other visions, Joan sincerely replied that she had been reprimanded by the heavenly voices because of the abjuration, which, however, she declared that she had emitted under violence and out of fear, because in fact she had not even understood it. Finally questioned if she wanted to put on the women's dress, she replied that she was ready, as long as she was put in a safe place.

On May 29 the judges gathered, and the Maiden's death was decreed, as a repeat offender. The following day, early in the morning, two priests were sent by the Bishop to prison, by Joan to prepare her for death. The poor girl, feeling that she had to be burned, began to cry for the malice of men, who burned her inviolate body. But she immediately relieved her anguished soul, placing all hope and trust in God. Having received the sacrament of Penance, she herself asked for the most holy Eucharist, then, surrounded by about 800 English soldiers, she was led to the old market square; on her head, on a card, was written: "Heretic, witch, apostate, recidivist". Along the way, as she shed pious tears, she recommended her soul to God and to the Saints with such devotion that it moved those who heard it to weep. There were three boxes in the square, two for judges and prelates, and a third, where the wood was ready to burn Joan When she arrived on the square, dressed in a long tunic, as she had asked, in front of a great multitude of people, she listened to the speech of Maestro Nicolò Midi, who, when he had finished, said to the Maid: "Go in peace, the Church he hands you over to a secular ». Some councilors rightly asked that the abjuration formula be read again, but there was no way; on the contrary, the sentence of conviction was immediately issued without any opinion of the secular judge, and thus, taken with great violence by the armed English, she was carried out to torture. The Maid, on her knees, renewed her prayers to God; he asked forgiveness from all, and prayed the priests to celebrate, each one a Mass for his soul. He asked for a small cross which an Englishman, who was present, made with a stick; kissed her with the utmost devotion, Joan put her back in her bosom. But he also wanted to have the cross of the Church, and obtained it. Then, after greeting those present, she was pushed by the executioner to climb the pile of wood, which was made like an ambo, and the executioner set the fire from below.

In this supreme hour, the Maid understood well the prediction of her liberation, which she had heard from the heavenly voices: "Bear everything willingly: do not worry and do not be frightened by martyrdom: you will enter the kingdom of Heaven". She clearly understood that death was given to her because of her mission and, commending herself with all her strength not only to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but to Blessed Michael the Archangel, Blessed Catherine and all the Saints, until the last moment of her life she declared that he had done everything by God's will. He begged the confessor to raise the cross of the Lord so that he could see it; which he did; and Joan, embracing her as she shed a large copy of tears, kissed her with great devotion until, constantly invoking the most holy name of Jesus in the flames, she gave back her soul. The holy death of the Maid aroused the admiration of all to such an extent that even her enemies were very frightened, and the same executioner declared that Joan had been sentenced to death iniquitously and that she feared much for herself, because she had burned a holy woman. . And immediately wonders occurred. In fact, many of those present saw the name of Jesus written inside a flame of the fire from which it was burned, and an Englishman, very hostile to the Maid, who had said he wanted to be the one to light the stake, seeing his death, was amazed and motionless and later claimed to have seen a dove flying among the flames. In addition, the heart of the Maid remained unharmed and full of blood, which the executioner himself confirmed. But the English wanted the heart to be thrown into the river Seine along with the ashes of Joan, so that the people could not have her relics. Finally, by God, avenger of innocence and justice, penalties were inflicted on the wicked; in fact, all those responsible for Joan’s martyrdom died a very ugly death; moreover, as the Maid had predicted, the English were expelled from the city of Paris, then from Normandy, from Aquitaine and from all of France.

After the struggles in France, when Charles VII had entered the city of Rouen, he ordered an investigation into the Maid's trial, while the mother and two brothers of the young woman presented a plea on this subject to the Holy See: a plea that Cardinal Legate William himself d'Estonteville delivered to Callixtus III, Pope Maximus, and who on 11 June 1455 obtained a benevolent rescript, with which it was decided to appoint three apostolic judges, in the persons of the Archbishop of Reims, Giovenale Orsini, of the Bishop of Paris, Guglielmo Chartier, and of the Bishop of Coutances, Riccardo de Longueil. In Joan’s homeland, as well as in Orléans, in Paris and in the city of Rouen, judicial inquiries were carried out and 123 witnesses of all ages and conditions were subjected to interrogation, with religious oath, and finally, on July 7 the following year 1456, the judges issued a sentence of rehabilitation, with which the innocence of the Maid and the nullity of the condemnation process are declared, as malicious and malicious, while the abjuration is recognized as false, devious and void. The marvelous virtues of this Servant of God, in which, as long as she lived, she always exercised, and the heavenly gifts, with which she was enriched by God, gave her a very great reputation for holiness, but on all these things it is appropriate to overlook, for love of brevity. Among contemporary historians, who magnified with great praise the holiness of Joan and her mission received from God, we want to remember the aforementioned very famous Giovanni Gerson who, dealing with the events of the Maid, wrote in the year 1429: "This was done by the Lord "; Sant'Antonino, who in his stories considered the Maid "guided by the spirit of God", and Pius II, Pontiff Maximus, who wrote: "A 16-year-old girl, named Joan, daughter of poor peasants, in the territory of Toul, inspired by God, as her actions show… which they envisioned as some divine presence… The judges, when they learned that the Maid had put on men's clothes again, condemned her to the stake as a repeat offender. They threw his ashes into the Seine, so that they would never be honored. Thus died Joan, an admirable and stupendous virgin ».

The great fame of holiness, which the virtues of the Servant of God, and the gifts and celestial charisms had procured her from all, since she was on this earth, after her death became more luminous every day, and grew to such an extent. that well deservedly that passage of Scripture can be applied to her: «Her memory will not disappear and her name will be remembered from generation to generation. The peoples will narrate his wisdom and the Church will proclaim his praise "(From the Ecclesiastical Book, chap. XXXIX, 13-14). And the honors that have always been paid to her and are still being paid to her do not constitute a minor argument in the reputation of holiness of this Servant of God. In fact, from the year 1429 until today, the city of Orléans solemnly celebrates the day of its liberation, that is, May 8 and, after the religious celebration, in the Cathedral, a panegyric is recited in honor of the Maid, then a devout supplication, with the participation of the Bishop, the Chapter and the Clergy of twelve parishes, as well as the Mayor, the Magistrates and the Commanders of the army. Many graces, both spiritual and material, granted by God through her work, and prodigious healings, which are described with all the details in the respective processes, prove the holiness of Joan. Considering all these things, many of Our beloved Sons Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church and venerable Brother Bishops from all over France, and also many Bishops of other Nations, religious communities and most pious Priests, asked the Apostolic See which, as it had once claimed the innocence of the Maid, so he pronounced his sentence and deigned to grant her the honors of the Saints. Thus, after having collected many testimonies from the dioceses of Orléans, Verdun and Saint-Diè, and having delivered them to the Congregation of the Sacred Rites, Pope Leo XIII of happy memory, Our Predecessor, on January 27, 1894, declared that the introduction of the cause.

Subsequently, having premised the apostolic processes according to law, and formally approved their validity, it was a question of the heroic virtues of the Venerable Servant of God in three meetings of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, made which, and having evaluated everything scrupulously, the Pope Pius X of happy memory, also our Predecessor, on the day of the Epiphany of the Lord in 1904, solemnly announced: "It consists of the theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity towards God and neighbor, and of the cardinal virtues, Prudence, Justice , Fortitude and Temperance, and related things, of the Venerable Servant of God Joan of Arc, in a heroic degree, in the case and for the purpose in question, so that we can proceed to further steps, that is to the discussion of the four miracles ». As four miracles were proposed to obtain beatification, three were approved, namely the first: Sister Teresa of St. Augustine's instant and perfect healing of a chronic stomach ulcer; the second: Sister Giulia Gauthier's instant and perfect healing of St. Norbert from an heretical fungal ulcer in the left breast; the third: Sister Giovanna Maria Sagnier's instant and perfect healing of chronic tuberculous osteo-periostitis. The same Pius X, Pontiff Maximus, on the third Sunday of the Advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the year 1908, with a solemn decree declared that these three miracles "consisted", after they had been discussed three times.

This was celebrated in the Vatican Basilica on Sunday in Albis of the same year 1909, with solemn ceremonies and festive celebrations, while in France there was great joy. Since new miracles had occurred, the diligent Postulator of this cause made sure that they were proposed for discussion, and Our Predecessor himself, on February 23, 1910, constituted with his signature the Commission for the resumption of the cause. After having completed, according to the rules, the trials on the proposed miracles and having also made, with regard to one, the third additional process in this city, on April 6, 1918 we solemnly declared: Constering two miracles, the first, that is, instant and perfect healing of Maria Antonia Mirandelle from a disease perforating the sole of the foot; and, the other, the instant and perfect healing of Teresa Belin from peritoneal and pulmonary tuberculosis and from organic lesion of the mitral orifice. Then, on June 17, 1919, we decreed that the solemn canonization of Blessed Joan of Arc could be proceeded with certainty. Having said this, it is established that in the most solemn ceremony all that had been wisely prescribed by Our Predecessors for its solemnity and decorum should be performed; in the first place we summoned the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church to the Consistory on April 22 of this year, who were to give us their opinion; they, after listening to the beloved son Virginio Iacoucci, lawyer of the Consistorial Hall, who recounted the deeds of Blessed Joan of Arc, unanimously exhorted us to the legitimate definition of this cause.

In the meantime, we made sure that, with a letter from the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, not only the closest Bishops, but also the most distant, were warned of such an important event, so that, in case they could also give their opinion, they also participated. These, who came in good numbers from distant regions, after having carefully informed themselves of the cause, both on what had been done up to then, especially in the Public Consistory held in our presence, and on the acts of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, a copy of which had been given to each of them, in the semi-public consistory of May 7 held in our presence, they were of the same opinion as our beloved cardinal sons of SRC; the public deeds of this decision, drawn up by the beloved Notary sons of the Apostolic See, were deposited in the archive of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. We therefore established that the solemn canonization be celebrated on May 16 and, in the meantime, we ardently exhorted the faithful to double fervent prayers, especially in those churches where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed to public adoration according to the prescriptions, so that they might receive more abundant fruits from a celebration so important, and why the Holy Spirit kindly assisted Us, in such a demanding task of Our ministry. The day so desired and awaited has come, the Orders of the clergy both secular and regular, the Prelates and the Officers of the Roman Curia, and Our beloved Cardinal sons of SRC and the venerable brothers Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, present in Rome , gathered in the magnificently decorated Vatican Basilica; behind all of them, who proceeded among solemn prayers, We too entered it.

Then the beloved son Our Cardinal Antonio Vico, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites and in charge of the care of this canonization on the advocacy of his beloved son Virginio Iacoucci, Lawyer of the Consistorial Hall, presented us the votes and prayers of the Bishops so that Blessed Joan would be included. of Arc in the number of Saints. Having repeated this a second and a third time, always with greater insistence, the same Cardinal Antonio Vico and Advocate of Our Consistorial Hall, Noi, fervently implored the light of Heaven, "In honor of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, for the increase and the glory of the Catholic faith, with the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of ours, with thoughtful decision, with the vote of the beloved cardinal sons of SRC and with the advice of the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and of the Bishops, we have declared that the aforementioned Blessed Joan of Arc is a saint ». We have also ordered that the memory of Saint Joan of Arc, to be celebrated every year on May 30, is included in the Roman Martyrology. Finally, we gave thanks to God with all our hearts, the very best for such a great benefit, we celebrated a solemn rite and, after reading the Gospel, we exhorted the overwhelming and exultant multitude to seek the protection of the new Saint. Finally, we imparted the plenary indulgence of sins to all present with great affection. Now therefore the gazes of all Christians turn to the new Saint, who, to carry out divine orders, abandoned her family, left female occupations, took up arms and led the soldiers to battle: then she did not fear death threats or the unjust sentence, which condemned her to be burned. Knowing that she was innocent, and not a heretic, witch, apostate and recidivist, surrounded by flames, she offered prayers and supplications and repeated that she had done everything by God's will, until, finding strength in seeing the cross, she gave up the spirit. But that justice, which was lacking in the process due to the unconsidered passion of men, did not delay and the Supreme Pontiff was soon able to completely reinstate the fame of Joan of Arc, whose example is before the eyes of all those who endure unjust suffering, so that they await reparation from the just and eternal Judge with a serene spirit.

Therefore, after having examined according to the rules everything that had to be looked at, with sure awareness and with the fullness of Our Apostolic Authority, we confirm all and individual things foretold, we validate them and once again we establish them, we decree them and make them known to the whole Catholic Church. We order that this Letter, even in printed editions, provided that it is signed by some Apostolic Notary and bearing the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, has the same reliability that this Ours would have if it were exhibited or shown. If anyone then dares to deny value or to oppose this page of Our definition, command, concession and will, or to oppose it with reckless daring, know that he will meet the indignation of Almighty God and his Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on May 16, 1920, the sixth year of Our Pontificate.