Pacificist Bob Prevost Believes in a False God Who Has Never Commanded Wars to be Fought in His Holy Name

For all their differences, President Donald John Trump and Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV have this in common: neither believes in the Just War Theory: Trump believes in preemptive war, which is strictly forbidden by the Just War Theory (which I explicated most recently in Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini, Hosanna in Excelsis, part twenty-nine), and that a war he has started should end when he “feels it in my bones”; Prevost, on the other hand, does not believe that there is any such thing as a just war.

Thus, Donald John Trump and Robert Francis Prevost reject the Just War Theory, although for entirely different reasons.

Stipulating that joint American-Israeli war of choice against the Islamic Republic of Iran is unjust, immoral and unconstitutional, “Pope Leo XIV” has just little regard for the teaching of the Catholic Church that he believes that in a false “god” who does not hear the prayers of leaders who take their countries to war:

King of Peace. While he was burdened with our sufferings and pierced for our sins, Jesus “did not open his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent” (Is 53:7). He did not arm himself, or defend himself, or fight any war. He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.

Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15). (Palm Sunday: Passion of the Lord – Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem and Fake Mass, 29 March 2026.)

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ certainly did not raise up an army to keep Him from undergoing His fearful Passion and Death. This is quite true.

However, Our Lord is the same God of Revelation now as He was in the Old Testament when He commanded Moses to drown the Pharaoh, his chariots and charioteers as he waved his rod to close the waters of the Red Sea that he had commanded to be parted to permit the Chosen People to pass safely out of their slavery in Egypt on their journey to desert en route to the Promised Land after having first struck down the first-born of the Egyptians during the first Passover:

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:  2 Speak to the children of Israel: Let them turn and encamp over against Phihahiroth which is between Magdal and the sea over against Beelsephon: you shall encamp before it upon the sea.  3 And Pharao will say of the children of Israel: They are straitened in the land, the desert hath shut them in.  4 And I shall harden his heart, and he will pursue you: and I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in all his army: and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so.  5 And it was told the king of the Egyptians that the people was fled: and the heart of Pharao and of his servants was changed with regard to the people, and they said: What meant we to do, that we let Israel go from serving us?

 6 So he made ready his chariot, and took all his people with him.  7 And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots that were in Egypt: and the captains of the whole army.  8 And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharao king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel: but they were gone forth in a mighty hand.  9 And when the Egyptians followed the steps of them who were gone before, they found them encamped at the sea side: all Pharao's horse and chariots, and the whole army were in Phihahiroth before Beelsephon.  10 And when Pharao drew near, the children of Israel, lifting up their eyes, saw the Egyptians behind them: and they feared exceedingly, and cried to the Lord.

 11 And they said to Moses: Perhaps there were no graves in Egypt, therefore thou hast brought us to die in the wilderness: why wouldst thou do this, to lead us out of Egypt?  12 Is not this the word that we spoke to thee in Egypt, saying: Depart from us that we may serve the Egyptians? for it was much better to serve them, than to die in the wilderness.  13 And Moses said to the people: Fear not: stand and see the great wonders of the Lord, which he will do this day: for the Egyptians, whom you see now, you shall see no more for ever.  14 The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.  15 And the Lord said to Moses: Why criest thou to me? Speak to the children of Israel to go forward.

16 But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch forth thy hand over the sea, and divide it: that the children of Israel may go through the midst of the sea on dry ground.  17 And I will harden the heart of the Egyptians to pursue you: and I will be glorified in Pharao, and in all his host, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen.  18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in his chariots and in his horsemen.  19 And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removing, went behind them: and together with him the pillar of the cloud, leaving the forepart,  20 Stood behind, between the Egyptians' camp and the camp of Israel: and it was a dark cloud, and enlightening the night, so that they could not come at one another all the night.

21 And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground: and the water was divided.  22 And the children of Israel went in through the midst of the sea dried up: for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left.  23 And the Egyptians pursuing went in after them, and all Pharao's horses, his chariots and horsemen through the midst of the sea,  24 And now the morning watch was come, and behold the Lord looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, slew their host.  25 And overthrew the wheels of the chariots, and they were carried into the deep. And the Egyptians said: Let us flee from Israel: for the Lord fighteth for them against us.

26 And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and horsemen.  27 And when Moses had stretched forth his hand towards the sea, it returned at the first break of day to the former place: and as the Egyptians were fleeing away, the waters came upon them, and the Lord shut them up in the middle of the waves.  28 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the army of Pharao, who had come into the sea after them, neither did there so much as one of them remain.  29 But the children of Israel marched through the midst of the sea upon dry land, and the waters were to them as a wall on the right hand and on the left:  30 And the Lord delivered Israel on that day out of the hands of the Egyptians.

31 And they saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore, and the mighty hand that the Lord had used against them: and the people feared the Lord, and they believed the Lord, and Moses his servant. (Exodus 12: 1-31.)

Did not the same Divine Redeemer Who would redeem us by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, thereby ending man’s enslavement to the devil and eternal death by means of Original Sin, command Moses to drown the Pharoah and the stooges in the Red Sea to end the Jewish people’s four hundred forty years’ captivity to the devil at the hands of the Egyptians?

Does Moses have human blood on his hands, Pacifist Bob?

Or did not Moses only do what God Himself had commanded?

What about King David himself, the king from whose very line Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ took His Sacred Humanity at the Annunciation of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost?

Among many examples of King David slaying his enemies is the following account of his victory over the Philistines in the First Book of Chronicles:

And Noga, and Napheg, and Japhia,  7 Elisama. and Baaliada, and Eliphalet.  8 And the Philistines hearing that David was anointed king over all Israel, went all up to seek him: and David heard of it, and went out against them.  9 And the Philistines came and spread themselves in the vale of Raphaim.  10 And David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I go up against the Philistines, and wilt thou deliver them into my hand? And the Lord said to him: Go up, and I will deliver them into thy hand.

 11 And when they were come to Baalpharasim, David defeated them there, and he said: God hath divided my enemies by my hand, as waters are divided: and therefore the name of that place was called Baalpharasim.  12 And they left there their gods, and David commanded that they should be burnt.  13 Another time also the Philistines made an irruption, and spread themselves abroad in the valley.  14 And David consulted God again, and God said to him: Go not up after them, turn away from them, and come upon them over against the pear trees.  15 And when thou shalt hear the sound of one going in the tops of the pear trees, then shalt thou go out to battle. For God is gone out before thee to strike the army of the Philistines.

 16 And David did as God had commanded him, and defeated the army of the Philistines, slaying them from Gabaon to Gazera.  17 And the name of David became famous in all countries, and the Lord made all nations fear him. (1 Chronicles 14: 6-14.)

Admitting that King David was to have the blood of the innocent on his hands when he set up Urias to be killed on the front lines of battle so that he, David, could have Bathsheba as his own wife, he only did God’s Holy Will by slaying the Philistines, one among a number of heathens (Syrians, Moabites, Edomites, and a certain chap named Goliath, of course) he was called upon to defeat).

Did not God command King David to do as He did with the Philistines, Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, you who so readily confers "legitimacy" on all that is illegitimate?

What about Joshua and Gideon, Pachama Bobby boy?

Let us take a look at the inerrant words of the Book of Judges:

1 After the death of Josue the children of Israel consulted the Lord, saying: Who shall go up before us against the Chanaanite, and shall be the leader of the war?  2 And the Lord said: Juda shall go up: behold I have delivered the land into his hands.  3 And Juda said to Simeon his brother: Come up with me into my lot, and fight against the Chanaanite, that I also may go along with thee into thy lot. And Simeon went with him.  4 And Juda went up, and the Lord delivered the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite into their hands: and they slew of them in Bezec ten thousand men.  5 And they found Adonibezec in Bezec, and fought against him, and they defeated the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite.

 6 And Adonibezec fled: and they pursued after him and took him, and cut off his fingers and toes.  7 And Adonibezec said: Seventy kings having their fingers and toes cut off, gathered up the leavings of the meat under my table: as I have done, so hath God requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.  8 And the children of Juda besieging Jerusalem, took it, and put it to the sword, and set the whole city on fire.  9 And afterwards they went down and fought against the Chanaanite, who dwelt in the mountains, and in the south, and in the plains.  10 And Juda going forward against the Chanaanite, that dwelt in Hebron (the name whereof was in former times Cariath-Arbe) slew Sesai, and Ahiman, and Tholmai:

11 And departing from thence he went to the inhabitants of Dabir, the ancient name of which was Cariath-Sepher, that is, the city of letters.  12 And Caleb said: He that shall take Cariath-Sepher, and lay it waste, to him will I give my daughter Axa to wife.  13 And Othoniel the son of Cenez, the younger brother of Caleb, having taken it, he gave him Axa his daughter to wife.  14 And as she was going on her way her husband admonished her to ask a field of her father. And as she sighed sitting on her ass, Caleb said to her: What aileth thee?  15 But she answered: Give me a blessing, for thou hast given me a dry land: give me also a watery land. So Caleb gave her the upper and the nether watery ground.

 16 And the children of the Cinite, the kinsman of Moses, went up from the city of palms, with the children of Juda into the wilderness of his lot, which is at the south side of Arad, and they dwelt with him.  17 And Juda went with Simeon his brother, and they together defeated the Chanaanites that dwelt in Sephaath, and slew them. And the name of the city was called Horma, that is, Anathema.  18 And Juda took Gaza with its confines, and Ascalon and Accaron with their confines.  19 And the Lord was with Juda, and he possessed the hill country: but was not able to destroy the inhabitants of the valley, because they had many chariots armed with scythes.  20 And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, who destroyed out of it the three sons of Enac. (Judges 1: 1-20.)

And he divided the three hundred men into three parts, and gave them trumpets in their hands, and empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers.  17 And he said to them: What you shall see me do, do you the same: I will go into one part of the camp, and do you as I shall do.  18 When the trumpet shall sound in my hand, do you also blow the trumpets on every side of the camp.  19 And Gedeon, and the three hundred men that were with him, went into part of the camp, at the beginning of the midnight watch, and the watchmen being alarmed, they began to sound their trumpets, and to clap the pitchers one against another.  20 And when they sounded their trumpets in three places round about the camp, and had broken their pitchers, they held their lamps in their left hands, and with their right hands the trumpets which they blew, and they cried out: The sword of the Lord and of Gedeon;

 21 Standing every man in his place round about the enemies' camp. So all the camp was troubled, and crying out and howling they fled away.  22 And the three hundred men nevertheless persisted sounding the trumpets. And the Lord sent the sword into all the camp, and they killed one another,  23 Fleeing as far as Bethsetta, and the border of Abelmahula in Tebbath. But the men of Israel shouting from Nephtali and Aser, and from all Manasses pursued after Madian.  24 And Gedeon sent messengers into all mount Ephraim, saying: Come down to meet Madian, and take the waters before them to Bethbera and the Jordan. And all Ephraim shouted, and took the waters before them and the Jordan as far as Bethbera.  25 And having taken two men of Madian, Oreb and Zeb: Oreb they slew in the rock of Oreb, and Zeb in the winepress of Zeb. And they pursued Madian, carrying the heads of Oreb and Zeb to Gedeon beyond the waters of the Jordan. (Judges 7: 16-20.)

Did Joshua have innocent blood on his hands, Leo the Lefty Lip Bob Prevost?

Did Gideon have innocent blood on his hands, Poster Boy for All the Idolatries and Apostasies of Conciliarism Robert Francis Prevost?

Or did Joshuan and Gideon only do what God Himself had commanded of them?

What about Judas Macabbeus?

Once again, we turn to Sacred Scripture, wherein is found the Book of Maccabees:

Then Gorgias took five thousand men, and a thousand of the best horsemen: and they removed out of the camp by night.  2 That they might come upon the camp of the Jews, and strike them suddenly: and the men that were of the castle were their guides.  3 And Judas heard of it, and rose up, he and the valiant men, to attack the king's forces that were in Emmaus.  4 For as yet the army was dispersed from the camp.  5 And Gorgias came by night into the camp of Judas, and found no man, and he sought them in the mountains: for he said: These men flee from us.

 6 And when it was day, Judas shewed himself in the plain with three thousand men only, who neither had armour nor swords.  7 And they saw the camp of the Gentiles that it was strong, and the men in breastplates, and the horsemen round about them, and these were trained up to war.  8 And Judas said to the men that were with him: Fear ye not their multitude, neither be ye afraid of their assault.  9 Remember in what manner our fathers were saved in the Red Sea, when Pharao pursued them with a great army.  10 And now let us cry to heaven: and the Lord will have mercy on us, and will remember the covenant of our fathers, and will destroy this army before our face this day:

 11 And all nations shall know that there is one that redeemeth and delivereth Israel.  12 And the strangers lifted up their eyes, and saw them coming against them.  13 And they went out of the camp to battle, and they that were with Judas sounded the trumpet.  14 And they joined battle: and the Gentiles were routed, and fled into the plain.  15 But all the hindmost of them fell by the sword, and they pursued them as far as Gezeron, and even to the plains of Idumea, and of Azotus, and of Jamnia: and there fell of them to the number of three thousand men.

 16 And Judas returned again with his army that followed him,  17 And he said to the people: Be not greedy of the spoils: for there is war before us:  18 And Gorgias and his army are near us in the mountain: but stand ye now against our enemies, and overthrow them, and you shall take the spoils afterwards with safety.  19 And as Judas was speaking these words, behold part of them appeared looking forth from the mountain.  20 And Gorgias saw that his men were put to flight, and that they had set fire to the camp: for the smoke that was seen declared what was done.

 21 And when they had seen this, they were seized with great fear, seeing at the same time Judas and his army in the plain ready to fight.  22 So they all fled away into the land of the strangers.  23 And Judas returned to take the spoils of the camp, and they got much gold, and silver, and blue silk, and purple of the sea, and great riches.  24 And returning home they sung a hymn, and blessed God in heaven, because he is good, because his mercy endureth for ever.  25 So Israel had a great deliverance that day.

 26 And such of the strangers as escaped, went and told Lysias all that had happened.  27 And when he heard these things, he was amazed and discouraged: because things had not succeeded in Israel according to his mind, and as the king had commanded.  28 So the year following Lysias gathered together threescore thousand chosen men, and five thousand horsemen, that he might subdue them.  29 And they came into Judea, and pitched their tents in Bethoron, and Judas met them with ten thousand men.  30 And they saw that the army was strong, and he prayed, and said: Blessed art thou, O Saviour of Israel, who didst break the violence of the mighty by the hand of thy servant David, and didst deliver up the camp of the strangers into the hands of Jonathan the son of Saul and of his armourbearer.

 31 Shut up this army in the hands of thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in their host and their horsemen.  32 Strike them with fear, and cause the boldness of their strength to languish, and let them quake at their own destruction.  33 Cast them down with the sword of them that love thee: and let all that know thy name, praise thee with hymns.  34 And they joined battle: and there fell of the army of Lysias five thousand men.  35 And when Lysias saw that his men were put to flight, and how bold the Jews were, and that they were ready either to live, or to die manfully, he went to Antioch, and chose soldiers, that they might come again into Judea with greater numbers.

 36 Then Judas, and his brethren said: Behold our enemies are discomfited: let us go up now to cleanse the holy places and to repair them.  37 And all the army assembled together, and they went up into mount Sion.  38 And they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burnt, and shrubs growing up in the courts as in a forest, or on the mountains, and the chambers joining to the temple thrown down.  39 And they rent their garments, and made great lamentation, and put ashes on their heads:  40 And they fell face down to the ground on their faces, and they sounded with the trumpets of alarm, and they cried towards heaven.

 61 And he placed a garrison there to keep it, and he fortified it to secure Bethsura, that the people might have a defence against Idumea. (1 Maccabees 4: 1-61.)

Did Judas Maccabeus do only what God had commanded?

Absolutely.

Ah, but Pacifist Bob Prevost might contend that the Old Testament was a time of “harshness” and that the New Covenant is the time of mercy.

First, it was both just and merciful for Our Lord to command the death of the enemies of His Chosen People to teach us, the children of the New Dispensation, that we do violence to ourselves to put the devil and his minions to flight in our own daily lives.

Second, the likes of Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David and Judas Machabeus, did only what God commanded them to do, meaning that God Himself had authorized the use of armed force as a matter of His Divine Justice. Yes, Pacifist Bob Prevost, God Himself has directly sanctioned just wars and battles to be fought.

Third, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself, in Whom there can be no contradiction as He is the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, has indeed authorized wars to be fought in His Holy Name through the history of His Holy Church when justice required that such wars be waged as an absolutely last resort, not in the “preemptive” manner used by Donald John Trump and his puppeteers, the murderous Zionists of the State of Israel.

Even though the conciliar “popes,” blasphemers that they have been and, in the person of Robert Francis Prevost, continue to be have “apologized” for the Crusades, the First Crusade was called for by Blessed Pope Urban II to protect Catholics and the shrines of the Holy Land from the persecutions they were facing from the bloodthirsty Mohammedans, who, like the Jews, have souls that are captive to the devil by means of Original Sin:

"If among the churches scattered about over the whole world some, because of persons or location, deserve reverence above others (for persons, I say, since greater privileges are accorded to apostolic sees; for places, indeed, since the same dignity which is accorded to persons is also shown to regal cities, such as Constantinople), we owe most to that church from which we received the grace of redemption and the source of all Christianity. If what the Lord says namely, 'Salvation is from the Jews,' accords with the truth, and it is true that the Lord has left us Sabaoth as seed, that we may not become like Sodom and Gomorrah, and our seed is Christ, in whom is the salvation and benediction of all peoples, then, indeed, the very land and city in which He dwelt and suffered is, by witnesses of the Scriptures, holy. If this land is spoken of in the sacred writings of the prophets as the inheritance and the holy temple of God before ever the Lord walked about in it, or was revealed, what sanctity, what reverence has it not acquired since God in His majesty was there clothed in the flesh, nourished, grew up, and in bodily form there walked about, or was carried about; and, to compress in fitting brevity all that might be told in a long series of words, since there the blood of the Son of God, more holy than heaven and earth, was poured forth, and His body, its quivering members dead, rested in the tomb. What veneration do we think it deserves? If, when the Lord had but just been crucified and the city was still held by the Jews, it was called holy by the evangelist when he says, 'Many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many,' and by the prophet Isaiah when be says, 'It shall be His glorious sepulchre,' then, surely, with this sanctity placed upon it by God the Sanctifier Himself, no evil that may befall it can destroy it, and in the same way glory is indivisibly fixed to His Sepulchre. Most beloved brethren, if you reverence the source of that holiness and I . you cherish these shrines which are the marks of His footprints on earth, if you seek (the way), God leading you, God fighting in your behalf, you should strive with your utmost efforts to cleanse the Holy City and the glory of the Sepulchre, now polluted by the concourse of the Gentiles, as much as is in their power.

"If in olden times the Maccabees attained to the highest praise of piety because they fought for the ceremonies and the Temple, it is also justly granted you, Christian soldiers, to defend their liberty of your country by armed endeavor. If you, likewise, consider that the abode of the holy apostles and any other saints should be striven for with such effort, why do you refuse to rescue the Cross, the Blood, the Tomb? Why do you refuse to visit them, to spend the price of your lives in rescuing them? You have thus far waged unjust wars, at one time and another; you have brandished mad weapons to your mutual destruction, for no other reason than covetousness and pride, as a result of which you have deserved eternal death and sure damnation. We now hold out to you wars which contain the glorious reward of martyrdom, which will retain that title of praise now and forever.

"Let us suppose, for the moment, that Christ was not dead and buried, and had never lived any length of time in Jerusalem. Surely, if all this were lacking, this fact alone ought still to arouse you to go to the aid of the land and city -- the fact that 'Out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem!' If all that there is of Christian preaching has flowed from the fountain of Jerusalem, its streams, whithersoever spread out over the whole world, encircle the hearts of the Catholic multitude, that they may consider wisely what they owe such a well-watered fountain. If rivers return to the place whence they have issued only to flow forth again, according to the saying of Solomon, it ought to seem glorious to you to be able to apply a new cleansing to this place, whence it is certain that you received the cleansing of baptism and the witness of your faith.

"And you ought, furthermore, to consider with the utmost deliberation, if by your labors, God working through you, it should occur that the Mother of churches should flourish anew to the worship of Christianity, whether, perchance, He may not wish other regions of the East to be restored to the faith against the approaching time of the Antichrist. For it is clear that Antichrist is to do battle not with the Jews, not with the Gentiles; but, according to the etymology of his name, He will attack Christians. And if Antichrist finds there no Christians (just as at present when scarcely any dwell there), no one will be there to oppose him, or whom he may rightly overcome. According to Daniel and Jerome, the interpreter of Daniel, he is to fix his tents on the Mount of Olives; and it is certain, for the apostle teaches it, that he will sit at Jerusalem in the Temple of the Lord, as though he were God. And according to the same prophet, he will first kill three kings of Egypt, Africa, and Ethiopia, without doubt for their Christian faith: This, indeed, could not at all be done unless Christianity was established where now is paganism. If, therefore, you are zealous in the practice of holy battles, in order that, just as you have received the seed of knowledge of God from Jerusalem, you may in the same way restore the borrowed grace, so that through you the Catholic name may be advanced to oppose the perfidy of the Antichrist and the Antichristians then, who can not conjecture that God, who has exceeded the hope of all, will consume, in the abundance of your courage and through you as the spark, such a thicket of paganism as to include within His law Egypt, Africa, and Ethiopia, which have withdrawn from the communion of our belief? And the man of sin, the son of perdition, will find some to oppose him. Behold, the Gospel cries out, 'Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.' 'Times of the Gentiles' can be understood in two ways: Either that they have ruled over the Christians at their pleasure, and have gladly frequented the sloughs of all baseness for the satisfaction of their lusts, and in all this have had no obstacle (for they who have everything according to their wish are said to have their time; there is that saying: 'My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready,' whence the lustful are wont to say 'you are having your time'). Or, again, 'the times of the Gentiles' are the fulness of time for those Gentiles who shall have entered secretly before Israel shall be saved. These times, most beloved brothers, will now, forsooth, be fulfilled, provided the might of the pagans be repulsed through You, with the cooperation of God. With the end of the world already near, even though the Gentiles fail to be converted to the Lord (since according to the apostle there must be a withdrawal from the faith), it is first necessary, according to their prophecy, that the Christian sway be renewed in those regions either through you, or others, whom it shall please God to send before the coming of Antichrist, so that the head of all evil, who is to occupy there the throne of the kingdom, shall find some support of the faith to fight against him.

"Consider, therefore, that the Almighty has provided you, perhaps, for this purpose, that through you He may restore Jerusalem from such debasement. Ponder, I beg you, how full of joy and delight our hearts will be when we shall see the Holy City restored with your little help, and the prophet's, nay divine, words fulfilled in our times. Let your memory be moved by what the Lord Himself says to the Church: 'I will bring thy seed from the East and gather thee from the West.' God has already brought our, seed from the East, since in a double way that region of the East has given the first beginnings of the Church to us. But from the West He will also gather it, provided He repairs the wrongs of 1 Jerusalem through those who have begun the witness of the final faith, that is the people of the West. With God's assistance, we think this can be done through you.

"If neither the words of the Scriptures arouse you, nor our admonitions penetrate your minds, at least let the great suffering of those who desired to go to the holy places stir you up. Think of those who made the pilgrimage across the sea! Even if they were more wealthy, consider what taxes, what violence they underwent, since they were forced to make payments and tributes almost every mile, to purchase release at every gate of the city, at the entrance of the churches and temples, at every side journey from place to place: also, if any accusation whatsoever were made against them, they were compelled to purchase their release; but if they refused to pay money, the prefects of the Gentiles, according to their custom, urged them fiercely with blows. What shall we say of those who took up the journey without anything more than trust in their barren poverty, since they seemed to have nothing except their bodies to lose? They not only demanded money of them, which is not an unendurable punishment, but also examined the callouses of their heels, cutting them open and folding the skin back, lest, perchance, they had sewed something there. Their unspeakable cruelty was carried on even to the point of giving them scammony to drink until they vomited, or even burst their bowels, because they thought the wretches had swallowed gold or silver; or, horrible to say, they cut their bowels open with a sword and, spreading out the folds of the intestines, with frightful mutilation disclosed whatever nature held there in secret. Remember, I pray, the thousands who have perished vile deaths, and strive for the holy places from which the beginnings of your faith have come. Before you engage in His battles, believe without question that Christ will be your standard-bearer and inseparable forerunner."

The most excellent man concluded his oration and by the power of the blessed Peter. absolved all who vowed to go and confirmed those acts with apostolic blessing. He instituted a sign well suited t so honorable a profession by making the figure of the Cross, the stigma of the Lord's Passion, the emblem of the soldiery, or rather, of what was to be the soldiery of God. This, made of any kind of cloth, he ordered to be sewed upon the shirts, cloaks, and byrra of those who were about to go. He commanded that if anyone, after receiving this emblem, or after taking openly this vow, should shrink from his good intent through base change of heart, or any affection for his parents, he should be regarded an outlaw forever, unless he repented and again undertook whatever of his pledge he had omitted. Furthermore, the Pope condemned with a fearful anathema all those who dared to molest the wives, children, and possessions of these who were going on this journey for God. . . .  (Guibert de Nogent: Historia quae dicitur Gesta Dei per Francos.)

Blessed Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade a little over nine hundred nineteen years ago was premised upon a denunciation of the unjust wars that Christian soldiers had fought on behalf of territorial gain and/or the conquest of raw political power. Blessed Pope Urban II was calling upon these soldiers to put their military skills to use in a just war against the Mohammedans who were treating their coreligionists with barbaric cruelty and holding the shrines of the Holy Faith captive as part of their ill-gotten gains won by the spread of Mohammedanism at the point of the sword throughout northern Africa and the Near East at the beginning of the Seventh Century and thereafter.

Among many other examples, of course, we have that of Saint Joan of Arc, who was praised by Popes Saint Pius X and Benedict XV in their respective bulls of beatification and canonization as follows:

For everlasting memory. The name of a young maiden of Orleans, noble for all time, that has already been given over to immortality and that will be inscribed officially among the blessed in Heaven, is a witness to divine power, which "has chosen what is weak in the world to confound what is strong" (1 Cor 1:27). For when in the year of our salvation 1428, civil upheavals and internal conflicts, not briefer nor less serious than a war with the English, pointed to the widespread and swift destruction of France, and no refuge or hope of rescue for the defeated seemed possible, God, who with a unique love constantly attended to this most noble of nations, called forth a woman "to free her people and gain for herself an everlasting name" (1 Macc 4:44). The whole life of the magnanimous and most patriotic Joan of Arc, called the maid of Orleans, seems to have been a fortuitous sign. Born in the town of Domremy, within the boundaries of the diocese of Toul, Joan would tend the sheep of her father near a shady grove that was once a sanctuary for the superstition of Druidism, but in that place, this uneducated and poor farm girl who had not yet completed her fifteenth year, beholding the wide view of the valley below, used to lift up her mind to him who furnished the mountains and the forests, the fields and the thickets, with such splendid adornment that they by far surpass any luxurious pomp and any lavishness of the royal purple. The only care of this girl, ignorant of the world, was to decorate the plain altar of the Virgin with flowers that she had picked, and the uproar of so terrible a war had barely reached her ears. But, when the siege of Orleans at its overthrow sapped both the town itself and the fortune of King Charles VII - for the nobles of the province of France had already yielded to the English invasion - it was, in these dire straits, to Joan attending to her usual duties in the family orchard, that the voice of Michael, the prince of the heavenly host, was heard, even as it once sounded to Judas Machabbeus, "Take up the holy sword, which is a task given by God, with which you will slay the adversaries of my people Israel" (2 Macc 15:16). This daughter of peace was roused to the things of war. At first, the maiden was astounded and afraid, but after the voices from Heaven continued, as if the divine spirit had been breathed into her, she did not at all doubt that she ought exchange the spinning wheel for the sword, and the shepherds' pipes for the sounding of trumpets.

Neither the concern of her parents nor the danger of the long journey kept her from working for God. Wherefore with simple but sublime speech, she stood in the sight of potentates and asked to be led to the king, and despite the opposing customs, rejections, and doubts, revealed to king Charles the mandate which she regarded as divinely given to her, and, relying on heavenly signs, she promised that she would free Orleans from the siege. Then God, "who gives strength to the weak, and multiplies fortitude and power for those who are not," (Is 40:29) graced this poor farm girl, who did not even know her letters, with such wisdom, teaching, military expertise, and even knowledge of the hidden things of God, that no one could deny that in her lay the salvation of the people. A following of people of various sorts from every place broke out. Soldiers well-versed in wars, rulers, and leaders, overjoyed at their newfound hope, followed the girl with praise and rejoicing. She, bearing her maiden's body upon a horse, laden with the arms of men, girded with a sword and waving in her hand a white banner interwoven with golden lilies, charged at the English, who took pride at their repeated victories. In that noble battle, not without the present assistance of God, the enemy forces were driven back and overthrown by fear, and this victorious maiden, on May 7, 1429, recovered for the people of Orleans the walls that had previously been taken. But, before she launched an assault against the invading English, Joan urged the soldiers to hope in God, to love their country, and to keep the precepts of the holy Church. Gentle, just as she had been in the care of the flock, and heroically brave, she was fearful to the enemy, but she could scarcely hold back her tears when she saw men dying. She went into battle as a leader but slew no one with the sword, remaining pure and unstained by blood, even amid the slaughter and the licentiousness of camp. Thus, it became quite clear what faith can do! The people soon took heart anew from an unexpected source, and love for their country and restored piety toward God gave added strength in the face of egregious crimes. The girl, unconquered in such great endeavors, challenged the English in many battles and finally scattered and drove back their army near the town of Patay in that most celebrated battle. She then led her king, Charles VII, in splendid triumph to Rheims to be anointed in his solemn consecration as king in that temple where Clovis I king of the Franks was washed in the purifying waters by the holy Remigius and laid the foundation of the nation of France. Thus were the enemies of the name of France fought against by Heaven. Thus, having saved her country by divine aid, the maiden of Arc fulfilled her mission. She, who was humble of heart, wanted only to return to her sheepfold and her poor dwelling, but, already fit for Heaven, she could not possess her own will. Only a short time later, while fighting, she was captured by some enemies, who could not bear that they had been defeated by a girl, and, bound in chains, she was led after various trials to be harshly imprisoned within the enemy camp, until at last in Rouen after six months, like an expiatory victim for the redemption of France, she was condemned to fire. Yet splendidly brave and merciful even in her last trial, she beseeched God to forgive those who put her to death and to keep her country and her king safe. Put on a stake and enveloped in the consuming flames, she kept her gaze fixed on Heaven, and the venerable and sweet names of Jesus and Mary were the dying girl's last words. And so, the renowned maiden achieved immortal glory, but the tale of her sanctity and the memory of her deeds has lived on in the mouths of men, especially in the city of Orleans, even up to the secular honors that have recently been given to her, and it will live on for future generations always fresh with new praise. Indeed, the praise first given to Judith seems to fall appropriately to her also, "In every nation that hears your name, the God of Israel will be magnified on your account" (Judith 13:31).

    Only in more recent times has her cause begun to be pursued under the supervision of the Sacred Congregation of Rites to declare that the honors of the blessed in Heaven belong also to the Maiden of Arc, and this indeed has come to pass by divine confirmation. For in the present time, in which the Catholic world sees and is saddened by so many great evils and in which so many who hate the name of Christian feign love for their homeland because of the ruin both of state and religion, it pleases Us to celebrate the glorious example of that most courageous Maiden, so that these might remember that "to do and to undergo powerful things is characteristically Christian." We therefore have the sure hope that this venerable servant of God, now counted among the blessed in Heaven, will pray for her homeland, for which she has excellently merited the strengthening of the ancient faith, and that she will pray for the Catholic Church, for which she was most zealous, to be comforted by the return of so many of her sons who go astray. For this reason, in the year after the decree issued 6 January, 1904, after careful examination correctly undertaken according to the law, we declared by a solemn decree that the virtues of the venerable servant of God Joan of Arc, called the Maid of Orleans, reached the heights of heroism. Investigation then began regarding the miracles, which were accomplished through her intercession and at God's command, and when everything had been carried out according to the law, We, by a decree given in the vernacular on 13 December, 1908, declared the authenticity of the three miracles with supreme apostolic authority. Once a judgment had been made regarding her virtues and the three miracles, it remained to be determined whether the venerable servant of God should rightly be counted among the blessed in Heaven. Our beloved Son Ferrata, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, the secretary for her cause, presented this in a general meeting held before Us at the Vatican on 13 January last year, and all those cardinals who oversee the regulation of the sacred Rites and all those who were present as fathers consultors responded with unanimous agreement in the affirmative. But, in a matter of such serious importance, We refrained from making known Our mind, and We deferred the final judgment to another day, so that we could first pray most fervently for heavenly light. Once we had done this without hesitation, at last on 24 January of this year, on the most joyful day of the celebration of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, after solemnly offering the eucharistic sacrifice, with Cardinal Seraphino Cretoni, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Our beloved Son Ferrata, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, the secretary for her cause, and also our venerable Brother Diomede Panici, titular Archbishop of Laodicia and secretary of the same Congregation of Rites, and the Most Reverend Father Alexandro Verde, Promoter of the holy faith, in attendance We solemnly pronounced that We could rightly proceed to the solemn beatification of the venerable servant of God Joan of Arc.

    Such as things are, and moved by the opinions and votes of the Sacred Bishops of all of France and of other regions, with Our apostolic authority, by force of this letter, We grant the faculty that the venerable servant of God Joan of Arc, called the Maiden of Orleans, shall henceforth be called blessed, and that images of her should be decorated with halos. Therefore by Our same authority we grant that in her honor the Office may be recited and the Mass celebrated every year from the common of Virgins with proper prayers approved by Us. We also grant that the celebration of the Mass and the recitation of the Office may take this form in the diocese of Orleans by all the faithful, whether secular or regular, who are bound to recite the canonical hours, and, as far as the Mass is concerned, by all priests coming to churches in which the same feast occurs, in accordance with the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (3862, Urbis et Orbis), given on 9 December, 1895. And finally, we grant the faculty to celebrate the rites for the beatification of the venerable servant of God Joan of Arc in the diocese and the aforementioned churches according to the norm of the decree and instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of 16 December, 1902, concerning solemn celebrations on three days within a year of the beatification, which We establish may be done on days to be designated by the Ordinary within the year, once the same rites have been celebrated in the patriarchal Vatican basilica.

 Notwithstanding the constitutions and apostolic ordinances and decrees given on non-veneration, and whatever else is to the contrary.

We will that altogether the same faith should be given to the printed copies of the present letter in judicial determinations as is given to this letter as a manifestation of Our will, as long as they are undersigned by the hand of the Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites and stamped with the seal of the Prefect. (Given in Rome at St Peter beneath the ring of the Fisherman, on 11 April 1909. The sixth year of Our pontificate. Pope Saint Pius X.)

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. (Pope Benedict XV, Bull of Canonization for Saint Joan of Arc, May 16, 1920.)

Hey, Leo the Lefty Lip, are you still out there and reading this?

Sure, that was a purely rhetorical question, but the point is this:

Once again, Saint Joan of Arc only did as Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, His Most Blessed Mother, Saint Michael the Archangel, and Saints Catherine and Margaret had commanded her to do.

Many other examples, of course, can be given, most notable among those being Pope Saint Pius V’s calling upon the whole Christian world to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary for the victory of the combined Christian naval fleet against the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto:

The Papal influence was all in favor of fighting, whatever the odds. The invincible spirit of the old saint in the Vatican was perhaps the decisive factor. When Bishop Odescalchi, his nuncio, came to bless the fleet and to give a large portion of the True Cross for distribution among the crews, each vessel having a grain of the Precious Wood, he also brought to Don Juan the solemn assurance of Pope Pius V that, if he offered battle, God would give him the victory. If they were defeated, the Pope promised "to go to war himself with his gray hairs, to put idle youth to shame." But with courage they could not fail. Had not several revelations, including two prophecies by Saint Isidore of Sevilla, described such a battle and victory as seemed imminent, won by a youth closely resembling Don Juan?

At the Holy Father's suggestion, Don Juan adopted a modus operandi seldom if ever taught in naval academies. No women were allowed aboard the ships. Blasphemy was to be punished with death. While waiting for a good wind and the return of his scouting squadron with news of where the Turks were, the Generalissimo fasted for three days. All his officers and crews did likewise. Contemporary accounts agree that not one of the 81,000 sailors and soldiers failed to confess and to receive Holy Communion. Even the galley slaves were unshackled from their long benches and led in droves ashore, to confess to the numerous priests who toiled day and night at the Jesuit College helping the chaplains of the galleys.

Saint Francis Borgia and his Society played an important part in the preparation for the voyage. Six Spanish-speaking Jesuits were chaplains of the Spanish fleet. Of the three chaplains on board the Real, two were Jesuits. While Borgia was on his way to Spain with the Pope's nephew to perpetuate the League and to try to settle all differences between the Holy See and Spain, his followers, with Dominicans, Franciscans, Capuchins and others, were going among rough men, some of them offscourings and sweepings of the vilest cities, some criminals condemned to the galleys for foul crimes, urging them to lift up their hearts and cast all sin out of God’s fleet and God's army.

When the last of the Venetians had arrived, the Armada began to put to sea, September fifteenth, in the order agreed upon. Doria led the vanguard with 54 galleys of the right wing, flying green banners. Don Juan followed next morning with the batalla or center, under azure banners, with the blue standard of Our Lady of Guadalupe over the Real. (The Pope’s Standard of the League was reserved for battle.) Marcantonio Colonna, on the flagship of the Pope, was on his right. Veniero, a cantankerous old Venetian sea-dog, at his left. The third squadron of the Venetian Barbarigo followed, with yellow banners: and the Marques of Santa Cruz (Don Alvaro de Bazan) brought up the rear with thirty Spanish galleys and some of Italy, all under white flags.

It was a sight to remember—the papal nuncio, a flaming figure in scarlet from head to foot, standing on the mole with hand uplifted to bless each ship as it passed, the crusaders kneeling on the decks, the knights and men-at-arms glittering with steel, the sailors in red suits and caps, the rowers with dark naked backs glistening with sweat, the brown sails bellying out to catch the first breeze; and on the lofty prow of the flagship, Don Juan in golden armor, like an avenging angel under the outflung blue banner of her who had trodden on the serpent's head. Thus they passed into the open Mediterranean and formed in ranks, two by two. The six great Venetian galeasses, each a bristling fort with 44 heavy guns, led the way into the sapphire-studded morning light. The galeasses kept a full mile ahead, to open the fray with a heavy bombardment. Two by two the whole Armada followed, almost in battle order, according to a plan carefully worked out by old paralyzed Don Garcia de Toledo. 6 The plan was somewhat modified, apparently, to leave spaces between the squadrons, so that Santa Cruz could intervene where his help might be needed. "In this disposition," says Cabrera, "Gianandrea Doria took the leading part, with certain contradictions from those who sought thereby to gain reputation in what they knew least about." 7

Was Don Juan the target of this innuendo of the usually well-informed chronicler? He was certainly the least experienced and most cocksure of the generals. He quarrelled with most of them. He had come to despise Requesens on the voyage from Barcelona to Genoa, when he found him always at his elbow, even at meal times; for Don Luis had had instructions from the King to keep the young hero constantly under supervision. 8 Cardinal Pacheco also had a watchful eye on him. Cardinal Espinosa, whom he heartily detested, had no high opinion of him, nor had Granvelle. Neither the King nor his ministers had much co nfi dence in the capacity of Don Juan for real leadership. The Morisco campaign had shown more courage in him than judgment, and Philip had no intention of leaving the fate of so costly a fleet and the lives of 81,000 men in the hands of an impetuous and inexperienced youth. He wrote his brother that he must attach particular weight to the opinion of Gianandrea Doria; and that he must not risk a battle without the unanimous consent of Doria, Requesens, and Santa Cruz. 9

The wisdom of these precautions was demonstrated on October first, when the fleet was becalmed off the coast of Albania. A quarrel had broken out on one of the Venetian ships, where Don Juan had placed Spanish soldiers. Captain Curcio Anticocio and three of his soldiers were involved, and old Veniero in a rage ordered them hanged on a lateen yard. When Don Juan saw the four bodies in ghastly relief against the sky he was almost beside himself with anger, and would probably have thrown himself upon the seventy-year old Venetian if Colonna, Doria and Requesens had not restrained and calmed him. The Spanish soldiers were all for giving battle immediately to the Venetians. Doubtless, with such a fiery leader as Don Juan, they would have ruined the expedition, if wiser and more moderate heads had not been ready, through the foresight of the King, to intervene. As itwas, Don Juan refused to let Veniero come anymore to his Council. 1

A brief stop at Corfu restored the morale of the fleet. The Turks had been there, and had left the usual mementoes: charred ruins of churches and houses, broken and defiled crucifixes, mangled bodies of priests, women and children, feasted on by dogs and vultures. The sight was enough to remind the Christians of the object of their quest. Informed by scouts that the Turkish fleet had withdrawn to the Gulf of Corinth, preparatory to making their return to Constantinople before the autumn storms began, they set off in pursuit. Ali Pasha was then at Preveza. According to some captured corsairs, Aluch Ali, the best of the Moslem navigators, had returned with his 73 galleys to Algiers. This news seemed to indicate that the odds in favor of the enemy would not be overwhelming.

Don Juan left Corfu on September twenty-eighth. While the Turkish fleet was skirting the southern shore of Aetolia, making for the Gulf of Corinth (or Lepanto) the Christian Armada, using oars because the wind was contrary, nosed through the waters of the Ionian Sea, with the Albanian shore off the port bows, past Nicopolis and that stretch of sea lying off Actium where the spirit of the East had fled from the spirit of the West in the jaded galleys of Antony and Cleopatra, and around the coast of Santa Maura to Cephalonia, with the narrow isle of Ithaca hugged under its lee shore, still fragrant with the memory of Penelope and the unconquerable fortitude of Odysseus.

It was October fifth when the fleet cast anchor among the Curzolares. That day a brigantine from Candia came by with news of the fall of Famagosta, and the horrible atrocities perpetuated by Mustapha upon the helpless Christians who had surrendered. A quiver of rage passed through the floating city of armed men. Nothing could have been better timed to make them fight like holy madmen.

The wind was east, the sky overcast, the sea gray with fog. All day Saturday and well into the night, the fleet remained inactive, not knowing that the wind which kept them there had brought the Turkish fleet across the Gulf of Patras to the Albanian shore, and that Aluch Ali, with all his Algerian galleys, was still with them With the falling of the starless night a dead silence settled over the sea.

About two o'clock in the morning of Sunday, the seventh, there came up a fresh steady wind from the west, across the Ionian Sea, sweeping the stars and the wide bay clear of the wraiths of fog. Don Juan, lying sleepless in the cabin of his Real, saw that he was in the middle of what seemed a huge lake, flooded with moonlight. He gave the word, the great anchors were weighed and the sails unfurled, the whips cracked over the straining backs of the galley slaves, the great ships hove through the choppy water, as if racing the dawn to the Albanian coast. When the sun came flaming up over the Gulf of Lepanto, Doria's lookout, in the vanguard, sighted a squadron of the enemy about twelve miles away, returning from a scouting trip to Santa Maura. The signal flag agreed upon was on the masthead of the royal frigate, where Doria was on watch.

"We must conquer or die here," said Don Juan, exultantly, and ordered a green banner displayed as a sign for all to get in battle array. The multiple banks of oars on the six great Venetian galeasses plunged into the sea, driving the massive hulks to their positions, two of them a mile in front of each of the three sections of the battle-line.

The Venetian Barbarigo, with sixty-four galleys, veered as closely as possible to the Aetolian shore, to prevent an encircling movement by the enemy on the north. Don Juan commanded the center or batalla of sixty-three galleys, with Colonna and Veniero on either side of him, and Requesens in the ship behind him Doria's squadron of sixty took the right wing, nearest the open sea, the most dangerous post of all. Thirty-five vessels were held in reserve in the rear under the Marques of Santa Cruz, with orders to give help wherever it might be needed. Thus the great fleet advanced into the Gulf of Patras, in a long arc extending over a league-and-a-half of sea and gradually stiffening into a straighter line as the enemy came in sight.

The Turks, having a total of 286 galleys (for HascenBey had just arrived with 22 extra ones from Tripoli) against 208, had decided to fight, and were clearing their decks for action. Mohammed Siroco with 55 galleys opposed Barbarigo. Ali Pasha and Pertew with 96 faced the batalla of Don Juan. Aluch Ali with 73 took the side nearest the open sea, opposite Gianandrea Doria. There was also a squadron of reserve in the rear. The wind had shifted to the east, bringing on the Turks with bellied sails, while the Christians had to use their oars. Toward noon it almost died away. Four hours passed while both fleets made their preparations for combat.

Doria meanwhile came back in a swift frigate to consult with Don Juan and the others. According to one account he was averse, at the start, to giving battle to an enemy with so large a preponderance of heavy ships. He wanted a council of war, at least. But Don Juan cried, "It is time to fight now, not to talk"; and so it was agreed. Cabrera says Doria not only drew up the final battle-order of the fleet, but suggested that the Generalissimo have the espolones cut away from the bows of his galleys. These were sharp spurs, fourteen feet long, which could crash through the side of an enemy ship, doing great damage when propelled by the arms of a hundred galley-slaves. It was obvious that in fighting at close quarters, hand-to-hand, ship locked to ship, they would be useless. Without them, too, Don Juan could place his bow guns lower, and hit the Turkish hulks nearer the waterline. The plan was adopted. One after another down the long line the espolones splashed into the calm sea.

The young Admiral, now in his golden armor, went in a fast frigate from ship to ship, holding up an iron crucifix for all to see. "Hey, valorous soldiers!" he cried. "Here's the chance you wanted. I have done my part. Do you now humble the pride of the enemy and win glory in this holy fight. Live or die, be conquerors; if you die, you go to Heaven." 11 The sight of the gallant young figure and the sound of his fresh voice had an extraordinary effect. A mighty shout answered him from each ship. There passed across the sparkling sea a long broken cheer as the Pope's banner of the League, with the image of Christ Crucified catching the glint of the high sun, rose above the Real beside the blue flag of Our Lady of Guadalupe. On the forward mast of his flagship Don Juan had hung a crucifix which alone of all his effects survived the fire in his house at Alcala.

As the Turks advanced in a great half-moon he knelt on the prow and in a loud voice begged the blessing of God on the Christian arms, while priests and monks throughout the fleet held up crucifixes before the kneeling sailors and soldiers. The sun was now directly overhead. The clear water, almost unrippled, flashed back a tremulous replica in vivid colors of a thousand standards, streamers, pennons and gonfalons, the cold brilliant glitter of weapons and armor, the gold and silver of armaments, all wavering kaleidoscopically between the blue sea and the dazzling sky. A hush like that which comes just before the consecration of the Mass fell over the whole Armada. The Turkish side replied with the usual blood-curdling chorus of screams, hoots, jibes and groans, the clashing of cimeters on shields, the blaring of horns and trumpets. The Christians waited in silence.

At that moment the wind, which had thus far favored the Turks, shifted to the west, and sped the Christian galleys on to the shock. Ali Pasha, in the Moslem center, opened the battle with a cannon shot. Don Juan answered, with another. As the Turkish oarsmen churned the sea, the six great galeasses of Venice opened fire with their 264 guns. This bombardment was not as devastating as had been expected, but it had the effect of breaking the enemy's line. The Turkish right was racing now to gain the open water between the Venetians and the Aetolian shore. Five ships closed upon the galley of Barbarigo, while the Moorish archers let fly clouds of poisoned arrows, which they preferred to firearms and used with more deadly effect. Ship to ship they were lashed now, fighting hand-to-hand. Huge Barbarigo fought like a lion, until, taking his shield from his face to shout an order, he was pierced through the eye with an arrow.

It was the Christian right that stood the heaviest attack. Doria was held in fear and respect by the Moslems. Moreover, he occupied the most dangerous post, where strategy and good sailing counted. If there was a match for him among the mariners of the Mediterranean, it was Aluch Ali, the Italian apostate. As the Turkish left tried to gain the open sea, to attack by poop and prow, Doria extended his line farther to the right, leaving a space between his squadron and the batalla. Aluch Ali swiftly changed his course and came crashing through the open space with his best ships, while his slower sailing galleys took the Genoese on the side toward the open sea. Doria, heavily outnumbered, fought a magnificent engagement. On ten of his vessels, nearly all the soldiers were killed in the first hour of the conflict. The handful of survivors fought on, desperately holding their ships in the hope of succor.

Santa Cruz reserve, however, had gone to the aid of some of the Venetians on the left, and the whole batalla was locked in a mortal conflict with the Turkish center. As soon as Ali Pasha saw where the holy flags flew over the galley of Don Juan, he drove straight for it. The two enormous hulks crashed prow to prow. Ali's ship was higher and heavier, and manned with 500 picked Janizaries.

The wisdom of Doria's advice to cut away the espolones was now apparent; while the Turk's artillery fired through the rigging of the Real, Don Juan's poured death into the ranks of the Janizaries as the ships grappled. Hand-to-hand they fought from one deck to the other, for two hours. Seven Turkish ships stood by to help the Sultana. As fast as the Janizaries fell on the decks, they were replaced by others from the hulks of reserve. Twice the horde of yelling Turks penetrated the Real to the mainmast, and twice the Spaniards thrust them back. But Don Juan, with heavy losses, had only two ships of reserves. Fighting gallantly in a little ring of chosen Spanish cavaliers, he was wounded in the foot. His situation was extremely perilous, in fact, when Santa Cruz, having saved the Venetians, came to his aid and rushed 200 reserves aboard.

Heartened by this fresh blood, the Spanish threw themselves on Ali and his Janizaries so furiously that they hurled them back into their own ship. Three times the Christians charged, and three times the Turks cast them out over decks now red and slippery with blood, piled with heaps of dead men, ghastly mangled trunks, severed arms and legs still quivering. The two fleets were locked in the embrace of death, ships lashed by twos and threes in water already streaked with crimson from floating bodies and limbs. The din of musketry, screams of rage and pain, clash of steel on steel, thunder of artillery, falling of spars and lashing of bloody waters between rocking timbers resounded horribly all through the Sunday afternoon. Splendid and terrible deeds were done. Old Veniero, seventy years old, fought sword in hand at the head of his men. Cervantes arose from his bed of fever to fight and to lose his left hand. Young Alexander of Parma boarded a Turkish galley alone, and survived the experience.

The moment was critical, and the issue still in doubt, when the magnificent Ali Pasha, defending his ship from the last Christian onslaught, was laid low by a ball from a Spanish arquebus. His body was dragged to the feet of Don Juan. A Spanish soldier triumphantly pounced upon it and shore away the head. One version says that Don Juan reproved him for this brutality. Another, more likely, says that the Prince impaled the head on the end of a long pike and held it up for all to see. Hoarse shouts of victory burst from the Christians on the Real, as they brushed the disheartened Turks into the sea and hoisted the banner of Christ Crucified to the enemy masthead. There was not a single hole in this flag, though the spars and masts were riddled, and the mainmast bristled with arrows like a porcupine. From ship to ship the shout of triumph was taken up, with the word that Ali was dead and the Christians had won. A panic seized the enemy, and he took to flight.

As the sun sank over Cephalonia, Doria's right wing was still furiously engaged with the Algerians. Gianandrea was red from head to foot with blood, but escaped without a scratch. When Aluch Ali saw that the Moslem fleet was getting the worse of it, he skilfully withdrew between the right and the center of the Christians. In the rear of Doria's fleet he came upon a galley of the Knights of Malta, whom he especially hated. He pounced upon it from the stern, slew all the knights and the crew, and took possession of the vessel; but when Santa Cruz attacked him, he abandoned his prize, and fled with 40 of his best ships toward the open sea and the crimson sunset. Doria's fleet pursued him until night and the coming of a storm forced him to desist.

The Christians took refuge in the port of Petala, and there counted their casualties, which were comparatively light, and their booty, which was exceedingly rich. They had lost 8,000 slain, including 2,000 Spanish, 800 of the Pope's men, and 5,200 Venetians. The Turks had lost 224 vessels, 130 captured and more than 90 sunk or burned; at least 25,000 of their men had been slain, and 5,000 captured; 10,000 of their Christian captives were set free. 12 Don Juan at once sent ten galleys to Spain to inform the King, and dispatched the Count of Priego to Rome. But Pius V had speedier means of communication than galleys. On the afternoon of Sunday, October seventh, he was walking in the Vatican with his treasurer, Donato Cesis. The evening before he had sent out orders to all convents in Rome and nearby to double their prayers for the victory of the Christian fleet, but now he was listening to a recital of some of his financial difficulties. Suddenly he stepped aside, opened a window, and stood watching the sky as if astonished. Then, turning with a radiant face to the treasurer, he said, "Go with God. This is not the time for business, but to give thanks to Jesus Christ, for our fleet has just conquered."

He then hurried to his chapel to prostrate himself in thanksgiving. Afterwards he went out, and everybody noticed his youthful step and joyous countenance. The first news of the battle, through human agencies, reached Rome by way of Venice on the night of October twenty-first, just two weeks after the event. Saint Pius went to St. Peter's in a procession, singing the Te Deum Laudamus. There was great joy in Rome. The Holy Father commemorated the victory by designating October seventh as the Feast of the Holy Rosary, and by adding "Help of Christians" to the titles of Our Lady in the Litany of Loreto. (William Thomas Walsh, Teresa of Avila, published originally in 1943 by the Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., Rocford, Illinois, 1987, pp. 513-525.)

The Battle of Lepanto was a victory for Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, for Pope Saint Pius V's indomitable fortiude, and for King Philip  II's calmness and resolve in the midst of the one of the greatest dangers that Christendom had faced from the Mohammedans, who have, not so incidentally, won by immigration and the obsequiousness of the conciliar revolutionaries towards them what they lost at the Battle of Lepanto: effective control of large parts of Europe.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., explained that the Mohammedans were intent on taking advantages of the divisions brought about by Father Martin Luther's revolution against the Divine Plan that God instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church:

Soliman II, the greatest of the Sultans, taking advantage of the confusion caused in the West by Luther, had filled the sixteenth century with terror by his exploits. He left to his son, Selim II the prospect of being able at length to carry out the ambition of his race: to subjugate Rome and Vienna, the Pope and the Emperor, to the power of the Crescent. The Turkish fleet had already mastered the greater part of the Mediterranean, and was threatening Italy when, on the 7th of October, 1571, it came into action, in the Gulf of Lepanto, with the pontifical galleys supported by the fleets of Spain and Venice. It was Sunday; throughout the world the confraternities of the Rosary were engaged in their work of intercession. Supernaturally enlightened, St. Pius V watched from the Vatican the battle undertaken by the leader he had chosen, Don John of Austria, against the three hundred vessels of Islam. The illustrious Pontiff, whose life’s work was now completed, did not survive to celebrate the anniversary of the triumph; but he perpetuated the memory of it by an annual commemoration of our Lady of Victory. His successor, Gregory XIII, altered this title to our Lady of the Rosary, and appointed the first Sunday of October for the new Feast, authorizing its celebration in those churches which possessed an altar under that invocation.

A century and a half later, this limited concession was made general. As Innocent XI in memory of the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski, had extended the Feast of the most holy Name of Mary to the whole Church; so, in 1716, Clement XI inscribed the Feast of the Rosary on the universal Calendar, in gratitude for the victory gained by Prince Eugene at Peterwardein, on the 5th of August, under the auspices of Our Lady of the Snow. This victory was followed by the raising of the siege of Corfu, and completed a year later by the taking of Belgrade. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

Yes, it was but less than one hundred twelve years after the Battle of Lepanto that Polish King Jan Sobieski used Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary to defeat the Turks at the Battle of the Gates of Vienna. That same Rosary would be used by Austrians in the 1950s to pray for the withdrawal of the forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that occupied half of their country, marking only the second time that Soviet forces had withdrawn voluntarily from a country before the events of 1989-1991 (the other time was in late-1946 when Soviet forces withdrew from the Azerbaijan region of northern Iran). Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary continues to vanquish the demons that plague the gates of our very souls, which is why we must be assiduous in a fervent and recollected recitation of at least one set of its mysteries each and every day of our lives without fail.

Our Lady hates what her Divine Son hates. She hate all evil. Although she, as the Mother of Mercy (Mater Misericordia), has compassion on us erring sinners, she hates sin. She wants us to detest all sin and evil, having experienced in the very depths of her Immaculate Heart and soul the horror of what each one of our sins did to her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death. She was sent to three shepherd children in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, nearly ninety years ago as a final effort on the part of her Divine Son to save erring sinners from Hell, explaining to Lucia dos Santos on July 13, 1917, that she desired to have instituted in a most particular way devotion to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart by the practice of the Five First Saturdays. Our Lord, Who gave us His Most Blessed Mother to be our Mother as He was dying as a result of our sins on the wood of the Holy Cross, has sent His Blessed Mother to us in these our own very days to rescue us from sins and lukewarmness and indifference and all of the errors of Modernity in the world, represented by the anti-Incarnational errors of Russia, and of Modernism (which is why the conciliarists have been demonically feverish in helping to deconstruct the Third Secret of Fatima).

As I have noted on other occasions, the late Dr. Ronald M. Stout, who was a longtime professor of public law (administrative and constitutional) and public administration, at the then named Graduate School of Public Affairs of the State University of New York at Albany, was one of my doctoral dissertation advisers fifty years ago. Dr. Stout, who was a faithful Catholic, said that I had “the shoot until nothing moves method of writing,” which I have employed here at length to demonstrate how the Antipope “Leo XIV” is a caricature of a stereotypically ignorant and shallow Modernist.

Oh, how can I say he is an Antipope?

Just read A True Pope to be Reverenced and Obeyed, Not Disparaged and Defied to find out as I would never use mockery and scorn when writing about a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. A true pope is in his very person the guarantor of doctrinal purity, orthodoxy, and integrity. It is ontologically impossible for there to be a “heretical pope,” and claims to the contrary have been disproven by Catholic scholars long before the advent of the conciliar sect on October 28, 1958, something that is discussed at length in the articled link in this paragraph.

For the moment, though, there is a final point that I would like to drive home, namely, while conceding full well that Donald John Trump, Marco Rubio, Peter Hegseth, and Benjamin Netanyahu (and his Christophobic minions) do indeed have blood on their hands, Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, much like Jorge Mario “Argentine Apostate” Bergoglio, has consistently indemnified pro-abortion politicians because they support globalism, statism, “economic justice,” open borders, and oppose the death penalty, which is simply part of the Natural Law even though is it is they, the pro-abortion politicians, who have blood of hundreds of millions of children who have been killed by chemical abortifacients (as the Father Paul Marx, O.S.B, the founder of human Life International and the Population Research Institute, said at every opportunity provided to him,  “most contraceptive abort, and most contraceptives all the time), the human pesticide (mifepristone), surgical baby-killing, infanticide after birth, and in vitro fertilization, which has the full support of Donald John Trump—see Donald John Trump's Genocide).

Yet it is that Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV defended the pro-abort, pro-sodomite United States Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), when the nefarious Blase Cupich wanted to give Durbin an award for his work in protecting illegal immigrants, some of whom have committed heinous crimes even in the “sanctuary state” of Illinois”) without a word of condemnation from Durbin’s lips (see Joe Abraham Criticizes Sen Dick Durbin Over Response After Daughter’s Fatal Crash, according to the late. corrupt sodomite Joseph Bernardin's "consistent ethic of life" (seamless garment).. (For a review of the Cupich-Durbin-Prevost scandal, please see This Did Not Just Happen, part one, and This Did Not Just Happen, part two.)

Moreover, neither the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio nor Robert Franicis Prevost ever the permitted the names of the victims of violent crimes to pass through their lips. Thus, while Prevost/Leo speaks incessantly about the nonexist "rights" of foreign nationals. whom Prevost has called "heralds of hope" to enter other countries illegally in violation of just laws that regulate legal migration, he, like Bergoglio before him, had been dead silent about those who have died violently at the hands of foreign nationals who would never have been able to commit those crimes had they not been permitted to do so by Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., Kamala Harris Emhoff, and Alejandro Mayorkas. A false concept of "social justice" is held by the conciliar revolutionaries to be such an inalieneable "right" that that the names of Katie Abraham, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungarary, or scores of others slaughtered by these "heralds of hope." No, the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" continue to exist in a delusional world that is detached from reality as they shed crocodile tears for those who been used by drug and human traffickers to violate the just laws of other nations to regulate immigration and thus to prevent the very sorts of violent crimes that men such as Prevost/Leo refuse to admit have been committed. (See A Beaut of An Antipope.)

Here is a very incomplete list of living Catholics who have used their careers to advance the shedding of innocent human blood and thus have it abundantly on their hands:  Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi, Kathleen Hochul, Lisa Murkowski, Maura Healey, Philip Murphy, Patricia Murray, Susan Collins, Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, Gavin Newsom, Michelle Lujan Grisham, Richard Durbin, Andrew Mark Cuomo, Emanuel Macron, Emma Bonino, Kirsten Gillibrand, Xavier Becerra, Timothy Michael Kaine, Miguel Cardones, et al,)

Not one of them have ever been called out by name by Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, who himself has not said a word about any of the victims killed by the illegal immigrants whom he, Prevost/Leo, following the example of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (see Not Exactly from the Excommunication Scene in Becket, Jorge "Claps Back" at Salvatore Cordileone and Stands Up for Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi and Her Pro-Abort Ilk, Georgie "The Chin" Bergoglio Strikes Again on Behalf of the Pro-Aborts, The Argentine Anti-Apostle’s Biennial Election Interference Campaign Has Begun, and Jorge’s Religious Indifferentism and Election Interference Continue Unabated), has indemnified even though they support the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn (and, in some cases, direct infanticide and euthanasia) as well as sodomy and all its unnatural and perverse consequences). See Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV Indemnifies The Likes of Those Admonished by Pope Pius XI.

A true pope, Pope Pius XI, warned magistrates (public officials) that they will have to answer to the Avenger of Innocent Blood, if they betray the cause of unborn children by supporting their execution under cover of the civil law:

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.) 

Pope Leo XIII told us that it is our duty to oppose all laws and ordinances opposed to the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, and he emphasized that the only way to do this was by defending Catholic doctrine vigorously:

But, if the laws of the State are manifestly at variance with the divine law, containing enactments hurtful to the Church, or conveying injunctions adverse to the duties imposed by religion, or if they violate in the person of the supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus Christ, then, truly, to resist becomes a positive duty, to obey, a crime; a crime, moreover, combined with misdemeanor against the State itself, inasmuch as every offense leveled against religion is also a sin against the State. Here anew it becomes evident how unjust is the reproach of sedition; for the obedience due to rulers and legislators is not refused, but there is a deviation from their will in those precepts only which they have no power to enjoin. Commands that are issued adversely to the honor due to God, and hence are beyond the scope of justice, must be looked upon as anything rather than laws. You are fully aware, venerable brothers, that this is the very contention of the Apostle St. Paul, who, in writing to Titus, after reminding Christians that they are "to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey at a word," at once adds: "And to be ready to every good work."Thereby he openly declares that, if laws of men contain injunctions contrary to the eternal law of God, it is right not to obey them. In like manner, the Prince of the Apostles gave this courageous and sublime answer to those who would have deprived him of the liberty of preaching the Gospel: "If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

Pope Pius XII explained the necessity of resisting unjust laws throughout the course of his nineteen-year pontificate. Here are but two examples:

Everybody knows that the Catholic Church does not act through worldly motives, and that she accepts any and every form of civil government provided it not be inconsistent with divine and human rights. But when it does contradict these rights, Bishops and the faithful themselves are bound, by their own conscience to resist unjust laws. (Pope Pius XII, Allocution on the Cardinal Mindszenty Arrest, as found at: New York Times, February 15, 1949.)

26. We earnestly exhort “in the heart of Christ” (Phil. 1. 8) those faithful of whom We have mournfully written above to come back to the path of repentance and salvation. Let them remember that, when it is necessary, one must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and with greater reason, one must render to God what is God’s (Cf. Luke 20. 25). When men demand things contrary to the Divine Will, then it is necessary to put into practice the maxim of St. Peter: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5. 29). Let them also remember that it is impossible to serve two masters, if these order things opposed to one another (Cf. Matt. 6. 24). Also at times it is impossible to please both Jesus Christ and men (Cf. Gal. 1. 10). But if it sometimes happens that he who wishes to remain faithful to the Divine Redeemer even unto death must suffer great harm, let him bear it with a strong and serene soul.

27. On the other hand, We wish to congratulate repeatedly those who, suffering severe difficulties, have been outstanding in their loyalty to God and to the Catholic Church, and so have been “counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5. 41). With a paternal heart We encourage them to continue brave and intrepid along the road they have taken, keeping in mind the words of Jesus Christ: “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell . . . But as for you, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not be afraid . . . Therefore everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I in turn will disown him before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10. 28, 30-33). (Pope Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentes, October 7, 1954.)

Pope Pius XII also explained that nations not built upon the firm foundation of the Catholic Faith must wind up as places of injustice and iniquity:

4. If we weigh carefully the causes of today’s crises and those that are ahead, we shall soon find that human plans, human resources, and human endeavors are futile and will fail when Almighty God — He who enlightens, commands, and forbids; He who is the source and guarantor of justice, the fountainhead of truth, the basis of all laws — is esteemed but little, denied His proper place, or even completely disregarded. If a house is not built on a solid and sure foundation, it tumbles down; if a mind is not enlightened by the divine light, it strays more or less from the whole truth; if citizens, peoples, and nations are not animated by brotherly love, strife is born, waxes strong, and reaches full growth.

5. It is Christianity, above all others, which teaches the full truth, real justice, and that divine charity which drives away hatred, ill will, and enmity. Christianity has been given charge of these virtues by the Divine Redeemer, who is the way, the truth, and the life,[2] and she must do all in her power to put them to use. Anyone, therefore, who knowingly ignores Christianity — the Catholic Church — or tries to hinder, demean, or undo her, either weakens thereby the very bases of society, or tries to replace them with props not strong enough to support the edifice of human worth, freedom, and well-being.

6. There must, then, be a return to Christian principles if we are to establish a society that is strong, just, and equitable. It is a harmful and reckless policy to do battle with Christianity, for God guarantees, and history testifies, that she shall exist forever. Everyone should realize that a nation cannot be well organized or well ordered without religion. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

We would never be arguing about the inarguable (the inviolability of innocent human life, the fact that there are only two genders, that the sin of Sodom and its related vices are abhorrent and can never enjoy the favor of the civil law nor be celebrated within civil society, etc.) in a country that recognizes the Sovereignty of Christ the King and that acknowledges the authority of the Catholic Church to interpose herself with the civil authorities in all that pertains to the good of souls after exhausting her Indirect Powers of teaching, preaching, exhortation, and admonition to warn such authorities of the consequences for defying the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

A summary of the civil state’s duty to pursue the common temporal good in light of man’s Last End—the possession of the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity in Heaven) was provided to us by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man’s supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. “Between them,” he says, “there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.” He proceeds: “Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them…. As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error.  (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1905.)

These passages summarize the correct relationship between Holy Mother Church and the civil state, and they note the Holy Father’s bitterness at seeing the trust that Pope Leo XIII had placed in the French anti-clericalists shattered shortly after he, Pope Saint Pius X, had ascended to the Throne of Saint Peter. Pope Saint Pius X manfully articulated right principles while at the same time enumerating the specific ways in which the leaders of the French Third Republic were attempting to subjecting everything about the life of the Church in France to their own arbitrary

Alas, we are consigned to arguing about the inarguable and of having mere mortals send other mere mortals to jail for seeking to defend innocent human life as long as nations remain not only indifferent to the religion but, as a consequence, become hostile to those who merely seek to defend the Natural Law without even mentioning the Divine Law. Those seeking to oppose evil on merely natural grounds will forever be straitjacketed into endless confrontations with those who believe that falsehood trumps truth and that sentimentality trumps reason.

Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, explained that:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.) 

Governments that are “religiously neutral,” however, must end up awash in a sewer of evil as men, especially today given the paucity of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Grace caused by the sacramentally barren liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, govern themselves and their nations by means of sentimentality or raw majoritarian impulses. Such governmental systems must place jurists who might know better into making one legal argument after another, no matter how constitutionally or statutorily sound, on a purely naturalistic basis, thus placing into straitjackets from which it is impossible to extricate themselves. One cannot fight naturalism/secularism/humanism with naturalism/secularism/humanism. One can only fight naturalism/secularism/humanism with Catholicism. Nothing else, and Catholic moral teaching applies at all times, not simply when either the likes of Donald John Trump, who knows nothing about Catholic moral teaching, or Robert Francis Prevost, whose understanding of Catholic moral teaching is corrupted and distorted by Modernism, do not understand or accept. (See Money and/or Political Expediency Always Trumps Moral Truth for Donald John Trump, The Delusions of Carnal Men Who Try to Remake the World in Their Own Image, No, the United States of America is Not Exempt from the Moral Law, and Trump Boasts of Having His “Own” Morality in His Own Mind.)

Today, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, is Wednesday of Holy Week, but it is also known as Spy Wednesday, the day on which Judas Iscariot betrayed Our Lord to the Jews for thirty pieces of silver:

The Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he was condemned, repenting himself brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients, – 3. Saying: “I have sinned, in betraying innocent blood.” But they said: “What is that to us? Look thou to it.” – 5. And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and went and hanged himself with an halter. – 6. but the chief priests having taken the pieces of silver, said: “It is not lawful to put them into the corbona; because it is the price of blood.”  – 7. And after they had consulted together, they bought with them the potter's field, to be a burying-place for strangers. – 8. for this cause that field was called Haceldama, that is, the field of blood, even to this day. – 9. then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet saying: “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the prices of him that was prized, whom they prized of the children children of Israel; – 10. And they gave them unto the potter's field, as the Lord appointed to me.” (Matthew 27:3)

How Judas Repents of His Deed

It was the condemnation of Jesus by the Great Council and His being led away to Pilate (Matt. Xxvii. 3) which brought Judas to repentance. He now saw with his own eyes the terrible consequences of his treachery, and began to repent of his deed.

As regards the nature of his contrition and penance, it seems to have been perfect in many respects – at all events exteriorly. He recognizes the infamy and horror of his crime, and repents of it. He openly confesses it before the chief priests and ancients, who had perhaps remained behind in the house of Caiphas to transact other business, or had gone into the Temple (Matt. Xxvii. 3). He testifies in their presence to the innocence of Jesus, as opposed to the verdict of “guilty” which they had pronounced upon Him, and acknowledges his own guilt, saying that he has betrayed innocent blood and thereby sinned (Matt. Xxvii. 4). Lastly, he tears himself away from his idol, the money that had seduced him to sin, and casts it down in the Temple (Matt. Xxvii. 5). What, then, was wanting to his contrition and penance? It was the important – nay, essential – virtues of hope, confidence, and love. He saw only the magnitude and dreadfulness of his offence, and not the possibility of pardon, and so he despaired, as Cain had once done (Gen. iv. 13). His sorrow was therefore not a sorrow unto life, but unto death (2 Cor. Vii. 9 seq.).

And how was this? Some are of opinion that Judas had thought our Saviour would certainly not be killed, but would contrive to escape from the hands of His enemies, as He had so often done before; but this expectation had not been fulfilled, and so he was the first to be guilty of the blood of our Lord. And therefore he despaired. – But even apart from this, the whole course of what passed in his soul is very natural. At first, blinded by passion and tempted by the devil, he had only seen in the deed the enticing prospect of fain, and now it was accomplished he saw only the horror of it. A complete reaction set in, and so now he could not even endure to keep the money that had had such an attraction for him before. Such is the natural interior course of every sin, and in this case his own fickle, unstable character together with the influence of the devil contributed to bring it all about.

How Judas Was Received By The Priests.

The way in which the priests received Judas is odious for two reasons.

The first of these is their callousness and heartlessness. They meet Judas' repentance and confession of guilt with the answer: “What is that to us? Look thou to it!” (Matt. Xxvii. 4.) they do not comfort him by saying that our Saviour is a blasphemer and false Messias. They throw all the responsibility on him, and leave him to despair. Thus do evil communications bring about their own punishment.

The second odious feature in the conduct of the priests is their hypocrisy. They do not accept the money, in order not to appear to repent of their deed and thus contradict themselves. As a matter of fact, they had not bought Jesus, but had only pain for the act of treachery. On the other hand they will not put the money into the Temple treasury, because it is blood-money and the price of sin (Deut. Xxiii. 18). They reckon this as sin, and take care not to commit it; but they do not hesitate to take upon themselves the actual blood-guiltiness and retain it (Matt. Xxvii. 6 25), although Judas' repentance was an impressive warning to them not to commit the crime. For he did not repent of his deed after the Resurrection, but at the time of the deepest humiliation of Jesus. So at length they hit upon the expedient of purchasing with the money a piece of land known as the “potter's field,” whether because it belong to a potter, or because potter's clay was to be found there. This field was to serve in future as a burying-place for strangers (Matt. Xxvii. 7 8). It was called the “field of blood” (Haceldama), and retains the name to the present day (Matt. Xxvii. 8. Acts I. 19). The place is still distinguishable by the many vaults there. Thus the Jews set up a perpetual memorial of their crime, and fulfilled the prediction of the prophets Jeremias and Zacharias. The latter foretold the price for which the Messias would be sold. (Zach. xi. 12), and the former indicated the field that was to be purchased with the money (Jer. Xviii. 1-3; xix. 1-2; xxxii. 8-14)/ St. Matthew combines both prophesies, because they now found their complete fulfillment (Matt. Xxvii. 9  10). (The words: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet” etc. appears to refer to the purchase of the field, of which Jeremias alone speaks.)

The End of Judas

After Judas had cast the pieces of silver into the Temple he fled, driven by despair and the Evil One, out of the city to the vale of Hinnom. What a terrified glance would he not cast at the Mount of Olives, at the foot of which the Garden of Gethsemani lies! Would he not think of those words of our Saviour's: “Friend, whereto art thou come?” and: “It were better for him, if that man had not been born!” Did he not think too of Absalom, who expired hanging on a tree? Did not the Evil One shout into his ears the terrible execrations and curses that the prophet (as it appears, with reference to him) had foretold: “They repaid Me evil for good, and hatred for My love . . . . May the devil stand at his right hand. When he is judged, may he go out condemned; and may his prayer be turned to sin . . .  May there be none to help him . . . . He loved cursing, and it shall come unto him . . . It went in like water into his entrails, and like oil in his bones . . . . May it be unto him like a garment which covereth him and like a girdle with which he is girded continually” (Ps. cviii. 4 seq.). Overpowered by remorse of conscience and despair, this unhappy wretch hanged himself. The body burst asunder in the midst and fell to the ground. (Acts i. 18).

What an example, and what a terrible lesson! An Apostle ends his days as a suicide – the impeacher and avenger of his own crime! What more is needed to teach us how fatal it is not to resist our evil passions? Is not every passion a very Satan, that can make us miserable for time and eternity? But still even passion and its bitter fruit, sin, could not have compassed his ruin if only he had not lost confidence and despaired. Peter had fallen, too. But he seized the saving Hand of Jesus by his love and trust. How very differently Judas would have been received by Peter, John, and Mary, if he had fled to them in his contrition and cast himself into their arms, instead of going to the chief priests! How great is the evil of losing confidence and falling into despair! (Father Maurice Meschler, S.J., The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Son of God, in Meditations, Volume II, Freiburg Im Breisgau 1928 Herder & Co., Publishers to the Holy Apostolic See, pp. 416-420.)

There is no “hope” for Judas to be found except in the minds of heretics who are likely to join the traitor in hell for all eternity.

Although the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio “wondered” what might have happened if Judas had met Our Lady after he had betrayed her Divine Son, we do know that she did meet him after he had resolved to do so. Here is the account provided in Venerable Mary of Agreda’s The Mystical City of God:

423. The demons, in despair of ever being able to influence Judas, went to the Pharisees. By many suggestions and arguments they sought to dissuade them from persecuting Christ, our Lord and Savior. But the same happened with them as with Judas, and for the same reasons; they could not be diverted from their purpose, nor from the wicked deed which they had planned. Although some of the scribes, from motives of human prudence, were led to reconsider whether what they had resolved was advisable, yet since they were not assisted by divine grace they were soon again overcome by their hatred and envy of the Savior. Hence resulted the further efforts of Lucifer with the wife of Pilate and with Pilate himself. The former, as is recorded in the Gospels, they incited to womanly pity so she might urge Pilate to beware of condemning that just man (Mt. 27:19). By these suggestions and by others which they themselves made to Pilate they induced him to resort to so many different schemes in order to evade passing the sentence of death upon the innocent Savior; of these I shall speak in their proper place (597, 611, 635, 638). Since Lucifer and his satellites were entirely frustrated in their efforts they again changed their purpose, and in their fury now resolved to induce the Pharisees, executioners, and their helpers to heap the most atrocious cruelties upon the Lord, and by the excess of torment to overcome the invincible patience of the Redeemer. All these machinations of the devil the Lord permitted so the high ends of the Redemption would be attained; however, He did not allow the executioners to execute on the sacred Person of the Savior some of the more indecent atrocities to which they were incited by the demons (579).

 424. On the Wednesday following his triumphal entry into Jerusalem Christ our Lord remained in Bethany without going to Jerusalem, and on this day the Pharisees and scribes met at the house of Caiphas in order to plan the death of the Savior of the world (Mk. 14:1). The welcome which the Redeemer had met with among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and which had followed so shortly upon the resurrection of Lazarus and the many other miracles of those days, had excited their envy to the highest pitch; besides, they had already resolved to take away his life under the false pretext of the public good, as Caiphas had prophesied so contrary to his intention (Jn. 11:49). The demon, who saw them thus determined, suggested to some of them not to execute their design on the feast of the Pasch lest the people who venerated Christ as the Messiah or a great prophet cause a disturbance. Lucifer sought by this delay an opportunity to hinder the death of the Lord altogether. Yet since Judas was now entirely in the clutches of his avarice and hatred, and altogether deprived of any saving grace, he came to the meeting of the priests in great disturbance and terror of mind, and began to negotiate with them concerning the betrayal of his Master. He closed the deal by accepting thirty pieces of silver, contenting himself with such a price for Him who contained within Himself all the treasures of heaven. In order not to lose their opportunity the priests put up with the inconvenience of its being so near the Pasch. All this was so disposed by divine Providence directing these events.

 425. At the same time happened what our Savior is recorded as saying in St. Matthew (26:2): You know that after two days shall be the Pasch, and the Son of man shall be delivered up to be crucified. Judas was not present when these words were uttered by Christ, but in the fury of his treason he returned to the Apostles and perfidiously began to inquire of his companions, and even of the Lord and his Blessed Mother, where they intended to go from Bethany and what the Master was to do on the following few days. All this was merely a treacherous preparation of the perfidious disciple for the betrayal of his Master to the chief Pharisees. By these pretenses and concealments Judas, as a hypocrite, sought to palliate his premeditated treachery. But both the Savior and his most blessed Mother well understood the purpose of his feverish activity, for the holy Angels immediately reported to them his shameful contract to which he had bound himself for thirty pieces of silver. On that very day, when the traitor approached the great Lady to ask Her where the Lord proposed to partake of the Pasch, She answered him with ineffable meekness: “Who can penetrate, O Judas, the secret judgments of the Most High?” With that She ceased to warn him against committing the sin, but both She and the Lord tolerated his presence until he himself despaired of his remedy and eternal salvation. But this meekest Dove, now certain of the irreparable ruin of Judas and the delivery of her most holy Son into the hands of his enemies, broke out in most tender lamentations in the presence of the Angels, for they were the only ones with whom She could confer about her heartrending sorrow. In their presence She permitted the sea of her sorrow to overflow, and She gave expression of words of greatest wisdom and affection. She excited the wonder of these holy Angels, who saw such an exalted and new perfection practiced by a mere creature in the midst of most bitter sorrows and tribulations.

INSTRUCTION GIVEN ME

426. My daughter, all thou hast understood and written in this chapter contains great and instructive mysteries for mortals who shall meditate upon it. First, thou must ponder with discretion how my most holy Son came to undo the works of the demon (I Jn. 3:8) and vanquish him so he would not have such powers against men, and for this intention leaving him in the condition of his nature of an angel and the habitual knowledge corresponding to it, nevertheless concealed many things from him (as thou hast already recorded in other places [Inc. 501, 648; Tran. 356, 413]), so by not attaining such knowledge the Most High could restrain the malice of this dragon in the manner most appropriate for the sweet and strong providence of the Most High (Wis. 8:1). Thus the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures was concealed from him, and he drifted into such hallucination regarding this mystery that he confused himself, and was involved in varying discourses and fictitious determinations until in due time my most holy Son made him understand it, and that his divinized soul had been glorious from the instant of his conception. Likewise He permitted the demon to witness some of the miracles of his most holy life, yet concealed from him many others. And the same happens now with some souls, for my most holy Son does not permit the enemy to know all their works, though naturally he could know them; His Majesty hides them in order to attain his high ends for the benefit of souls. Afterwards He allows him to find them out for the greater confusion of the demon, as happened regarding the works of the Redemption, when for his torment and greater oppression the Lord permitted him to become aware of them. For this reason the infernal dragon, the serpent, is continually prowling around souls in order to search into their works, not only the interior ones but also the exterior ones.

427. Such is the love my most holy Son has for souls after He was born and died for them. This benefit would be more general and continuous with many if they did not make themselves unworthy by delivering themselves over to the enemy, listening to his false suggestions and counsels full of malice and error. As the just and chosen ones in sanctity become instruments in the hand of the Lord, who governs and controls them Himself and does not allow another to move them because they submit entirely to his divine disposition, so on the contrary many of the reprobate and those who are forgetful of their Creator and Redeemer, and who deliver themselves into the hands of the demon by repeated sins, are moved and drawn into all kinds of wickedness and are mere tools of his depraved malice. An example of this we have in the perfidious disciple and in the murderous Pharisees persecuting their Redeemer. No mortal has an excuse if they suffer this damage, for just as Judas and the priests by the use of their own free will refused to follow the good advice of the demon and desist from persecuting Christ our Savior, so they could much more easily have refused to join him in persecuting Christ when they were first tempted, for then they were assisted by grace if only they wished to use it, while afterwards they were assisted only by their own free choice and led by their bad habits. That they were in the second instance deprived of the grace and assistance of the Holy Ghost was only just, because they had given themselves up and subjected themselves to the demon in order to obey him in all malice and allow themselves to be governed only by his perverse will, without consideration of the goodness and power of their Creator.

428. Hence shalt thou understand that this infernal serpent can have no power to lead anyone toward the good, but very much toward leading those souls into sin who are neglectful in issuing from their evil state. Truly I say to thee, my daughter, that if mortals would thoroughly understand this danger they would be struck with great terror, for there is no created power which can prevent a soul who has once yielded to sin from casting himself from abyss to abyss. Since the sin of Adam the weight of human nature, burdened with the concupiscible and irascible passions, is drawn toward sin as the stone toward its center. Joined to this tendency are the bad habits and customs, the power of the demon over those who have sinned, and his unceasing tyranny. Who is there who is so much an enemy of his own welfare as to despise these dangers? The Almighty alone can free him, and to his right hand is reserved the remedy. In spite of all this mortals live as secure and forgetful of their ruin as if each one had it in his own power to prevent and repair it at his pleasure. Though many know and openly confess they cannot rise from their own ruin without the help of God, yet they allow this consciousness to become a mere habit and a vague sentiment, and instead of lovingly seeking his aid they offend and irritate God, expecting Him to wait upon them with his grace until they are tired of sinning or are unable to continue their abominable wickedness and ingratitude.

429. Do thou fear, my dearest, this formidable danger, and guard thyself against the first sin, for after the first sin thou shalt be less able to resist the second, and thy enemy acquires strength against thee. Remember thy treasure is most valuable, and the vase in which thou dost carry it most fragile; by one fall thou canst lose it all (II Cor. 4:7). Great is the cunning and sagacity which the serpent uses against thee, and thy insight is but small. Therefore thou must collect thy senses and close them to all outward things; thou must withdraw thy interior within the wall of protection and refuge raised for thee by the Almighty, from whence thou canst repel all the inhuman assaults of thy enemies. To excite this fear in thee it shall be sufficient to consider the punishment of Judas, which has been made clear to thy understanding. In regard to thy imitation of my behavior in other matters, how thou must act toward those who hate and persecute thee, love them and bear with them in charity and patience, and pray for them to the Lord with true zeal for their salvation as I did for the traitor Judas, in all this I have previously often exhorted thee. I desire thee to excel and distinguish thyself therein, and to instruct thy religious, and all those with whom thou hast communication, in this manner of acting, because in view of the patience and meekness of my most holy Son and my own example, the wicked and all mortals shall be covered with unutterable confusion because they have not pardoned each other with fraternal charity. The sins of hatred and vengeance shall be punished with greater severity than other sins on Judgment Day, and in this life these vices shall most quickly drive away the infinite mercy of God and cause eternal punishment of men unless they amend in sorrow. Those who are kind and sweet toward their enemies and persecutors, and who forget injuries, resemble on that account more particularly the incarnate Word, for Christ always went about seeking to pardon and load with blessings those who were in sin. By imitating the charity and meekness of the Lamb the soul disposes itself to receive and maintain that noble spirit of charity and love of God and neighbor which makes it fit for all the influences of divine grace and benevolence. (New English Edition of The Mystical City of God, The Transfixion: Book 6, Chapter VIII.)

Yes, we must pray to Our Lady the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, to help us never to despair of our own salvation as we seek to make reparation for our sins, especially by praying the Sorrowful Mysteries as we enter into the Paschal Triduum with the office of Tenebrae this evening. 

We must also pray constantly for the conversion of heretics such as those in the conciliar structures so that they will not join their beloved Judas in hell for all eternity, remembering as well to offer ready forgiveness for those who we believe have injured us in some way. Nothing anyone does or says to us or causes us to suffer is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Lord to suffer during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that caused those swords of sorrow to be plunged into the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.

We must also pray for the conversion of the Jews as, even though they hate Our Lord and His true Faith, they have immortal souls made in the image of likeness of God that have been redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood of the very Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in Our Lady’s Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost. Our Lord wants us to pray and to sacrifice for the conversion of all non-Catholics, including Jews and Mohammedans, who also hate, mock, and revile Him and His true Church, so that they can join with us at all at Holy Mass as we pray:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dóminus, Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua. Hosánna in excélsis. Benedíctus, qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in excélsis.

May Our Lady, to whose Immaculate Heart the cause of world peace has been entrusted by her Divine Son, help us to be at peace always with her Divine Son by making a good, integral Confession of our sins to a true priest (if one is available where one lives in this time of apostasy and betrayal) and to be earnest in our efforts to reform our lives as we grow in our love for her and her Most Holy Rosary with every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they should be to her Divine Son’s Most Sacred Heart that her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

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 Balthazar, pray for us.

Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.

Appendix

Dom Prosper Gueranger on Wednesday in Holy Week

The Chief Priests and the Ancients of the people are met today, in one of the rooms adjoining the Temple, for the purpose of deliberating on the best means of putting Jesus to death. Several plans are discussed. Would it be prudent to lay hands upon him at this season of the Feast of the Pasch, when the City is filled with strangers who have received a favorable impression of Jesus from the solemn ovation given to him three days back? Then, too, are there not a great number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who took part in that triumph, and whose enthusiastic admiration of Jesus might excite them to rise up in his defense? These considerations persuade them not to have recourse to any violent measure, at least for the present, as a sedition among the people might be the consequence, and its promoters, even were they to escape being ill-treated by the people, would be brought before the tribunal of the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. They therefore come to the resolution of letting the Feast pass quietly over, before apprehending Jesus.

But these blood-thirsty men are making all these calculations as though they were the masters. They are, if they will, shrewd assassins, who put off their murder to a more convenient day, but the Divine decrees, which from all eternity, have prepared a Sacrifice for the world’s salvation, — have fixed this very year’s Pasch as the day of the Sacrifice, and, tomorrow evening, the holy City will re-echo with the trumpets, which proclaim the opening of the Feast. The figurative Lamb is now to make way for the true one; the Pasch of this year will substitute the reality for the type; and Jesus’ Blood, shed by the hands of wicked priests, is soon to flow simultaneously with that of victims, which have only been hitherto acceptable to God, because they prefigured the Sacrifice of Calvary. The Jewish priesthood is about to be its own executioner, by immolating Him, whose Blood is to abrogate the Ancient Alliance, and perpetuate the New one.

But how are Jesus’ enemies to get possession of their divine Victim, so as to avoid a disturbance in the City? There is only one plan that could succeed, and they have not thought of it: it is treachery. Just at the close of their deliberations, they are told that one of Jesus’ Disciples seeks admission. They admit him, and he says to them: What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? They are delighted at this proposition: and yet, how is it that they, doctors of the law, forget that this infamous bargain between themselves and Judas has all been foretold by David in the 108th Psalm? They know the Scriptures from beginning to end—how comes it that they forget the words of the Prophet, who even mentions the sum of thirty pieces of silver. Judas asks them what they will give him; and they give him thirty pieces of silver! All is arranged: tomorrow, Jesus will be in Jerusalem, eating the Pasch with his Disciples. In the evening, he will go, as usual, to the Garden on Mount Olivet. But how shall they, who are sent to seize him, be able to distinguish him from his Disciples? Judas will lead the way; he will show them which is Jesus, by going up and kissing him!

How terrible is this our Defender, who tramples his enemies beneath his feet, as they that tread in the wine-press; so that their blood is sprinkled upon his garments! But is not this the fittest time for us to proclaim his power, now that he is being treated with ignominy, and sold to his enemies by one of his Disciples? These humiliations will soon pass away; he will rise in glory, and his might will be shown by the chastisements, wherewith he will crush them that now persecute him. Jerusalem will stone them that shall preach in his name; she will be a cruel step-mother to those true Israelites who, docile to the teaching of the Prophets, have recognized Jesus as the promised Messias. The Synagogue will seek to stifle the Church in her infancy; but no sooner shall the Church, shaking the dust from her feet, turn from Jerusalem to the Gentiles, than the vengeance of Christ will fall on the City, which bought, betrayed, and crucified him. Her citizens will have to pay dearly for these crimes. We learn from the Jewish historian Josephus (who was an eyewitness to the siege) that the fire which was raging in one of the streets, was quenched by the torrents of their blood. Thus were fulfilled the threats pronounced by our Lord against this faithless City, as he sat on Mount Olivet, the day after his triumphant Entry.

And yet the destruction of Jerusalem was but a faint image of the terrible destruction which is to befall the world at the last day. Jesus, who is now despised and insulted by sinners, will then appear on the clouds of heaven, and reparation will be made for all these outrages. Now he suffers himself to be betrayed, scoffed at, and spit upon; but when the day of vengeance is come, happy they that have served him and have compassionated with him in his humiliations and sufferings! Woe to them that have treated him with contempt! Woe to them who, not content with their own refusing to bear his yoke, have led others to rebel against him! For he is King; he came into this world that he might reign over it; and they that despise his Mercy, shall not escape his Justice.

Again it is Isaias that instructs us, not indeed upon the triumph which our Emmanuel is to win over his enemies, but upon the sufferings of the Man of Sorrows. So explicit is his description of our Lord’s Passion that the holy Fathers have called him the fifth Evangelist. What could be more sublimely plaintive than the language here used by the son of Amos? And we, after hearing both the Old and New Testament upon the sufferings which Jesus went through for our sins—how shall we sufficiently love this dear Redeemer, who bore our infirmities and carried our Sorrows, so as to look as a leper, and as one struck by God, and afflicted?

We are healed by his bruises! O heavenly Physician, that takes upon himself the sufferings of them he comes to cure! But not only was he bruised for our sins; he was also slaughtered as a lamb: and this not merely as a Victim submitting to the inflexible justice of his Father who hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all, but (as the Prophet here assures us) because it was his own will. His love for us, as well as his submission to his Father, led him to the great Sacrifice. Observe too how he refuses to defend himself before Pilate, who could so easily deliver him from his enemies: He shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearers, and he shall not open his mouth. Let us love and adore this divine Silence, which works our Salvation. Let us not pass over an iota of the devotedness which Jesus shows us—a devotedness which never could have existed, save in the Heart of a God. Oh! how much he has loved us—his children, the purchase of his Blood, his Seed, as the Prophet here calls us. O Holy Church! thou long-lived Seed of Jesus, that laid down his life!—thou art dear to him, for he bought thee at a great price. Faithful Souls! give him love for love! sinners! be converted to this your Savior; his Blood will restore you to life, for if we have all gone astray like sheep, remember what is added: The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. There is no sinner, however great may be his crimes; there is no heretic, or infidel, who has not his share in this precious Blood, whose infinite merit is such that it could redeem a million worlds, more guilty even than our own. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Wednesday in Holy Week.)