Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV's Magnificent Sillonism, part two

Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas, May 15, 2026, reaffirms the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s rejection of the following truths of the Catholic Faith that Holy Mother Church has taught from time immemorial and can never be “reformed” or become “outdated” because of changing historical circumstances.

The Catholic Church is the one and only true means of human sanctification and salvation.
The first law of the Catholic Church is the salvation of souls.
The Catholic Faith is infused into souls at the moment of Baptism and does not spring from the “inner consciousness” of “believers.”
The immutability of the Most Holy Trinity.
The immutability of Catholic doctrine, which has been revealed by God to be infallibly taught and eternally safeguarded by His Holy Catholic Church.
False religions have no ability to sanctify and save the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem.
All problems in the world are caused by Original Sin and the Actual Sins of men and can be ameliorated only by the daily conversion of men to scale the heights of personal sanctity as members of His Catholic Church.
The moral law is irreformable and can never altered, attenuated, or replaced by a different set of mutable “norms” that correspond to how individual sinners choose to ignore it and to live in defiance of it to their own personal and eternal detriment and to that of their communities, nations, and the world.
The Catholic Church is the supreme power on the face of the earth and has the right and the duty to direct men in all that pertains to Faith and Morals and to assure that those who hold positions of temporal authority must pursue the common temporal good in light of man’s Last End, the possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of the Most Holy Trinity by fostering those conditions conducive to the salvation of souls and rooting all out state-sponsored incentives to sin as far as is possible in this passing mortal vale of tears.
The Catholic Church has a divinely established mission to seek with urgency the conversion of all non-Catholics to her maternal bosom.
The following definition of the proper relationship between the Church and the civil state as provided 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. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

The fact that the conditions favorable to a Catholic state do not exist at this time does nothing to detract from the immutability of the Catholic teaching explicated so clearly by Pope Saint Pius X.

Indeed, the fact that the conditions favorable to a Catholic state do not exist at this time is the result of the proliferation of a deliberate, planned attack by the adversary himself upon it by using the combined, interrelated errors of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry to uproot the Holy Cross as the foundation of personal and social order in Europe and to make sure it was not the foundation of such order here in the United States of America.

Father Denis Fahey made this exact point in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

By the grace of the Headship of the Mystical Body, our Lord Jesus Christ is both Priest and King of redeemed mankind and, as such, exercises a twofold influence upon us. Firstly, as a Priest, He communicates to us the supernatural life of grace by which we, while ever remaining distinct from God, can enter into the vision and love of the Blessed Trinity. We can thus become one with God, not, of course, in the order of substance or being, but in the order of operation, of the immaterial union of vision and love. The Divine Nature is the principle of the Divine Vision and Love, and by grace we are ‘made partakers of the Divine Nature.’ This pure Catholic doctrine is infinitely removed from Masonic pantheism. Secondly, as King, our Lord exercises an exterior influence on us by His government of us. As King, He guides and directs us socially and individually, in order to dispose all things for the reception of the Supernatural Life which He, as Priest, confers.

Society had been organized in the thirteenth century and even down to the sixteenth, under the banner of Christ the King. Thus, in spite of deficiencies and imperfections, man’s divinization, through the Life that comes from the sacred Humanity of Jesus, was socially favoured. Modern society, under the influence of Satan, was to be organized on the opposite principle, namely, that human nature is of itself divine, that man is God, and, therefore, subject to nobody. Accordingly, when the favourable moment had arrived, the Masonic divnization of human nature found its expression in the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789. The French Revolution ushered in the struggle for the complete organization of the world around the new divinity–Humanity. In God’s plan, the whole organization of a country is meant to aid the development of a country is meant to aid the development of the true personality of the citizens through the Mystical Body of Christ. Accordingly, the achievement of true liberty for a country means the removal of obstacles to the organized social acceptance of the Divine Plan. Every revolution since 1789 tends, on the contrary, to the rejection of that plan, and therefore to the enthronement of man in the place of God. The freedom at which the spirit of the revolution aims is that absolute independence which refuses submission to any and every order. It is the spirit breathed by the temptation of the serpent: ‘For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened; and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ Man decided then that he would himself lay down the order of good and evil in the place of God; then and now it is the same attitude. (Father Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, p. 27.)

Although Holy Mother Church accommodates herself to the concrete realities in which her children live, she makes no concession to errors that have resulted in the triumph of religious indifferentism and overt hostility to the true Faith.

Robert Francis Prevost’s Magnifica Humanitas, May 15, 2026, is based on a rejection of Holy Mother Church’s Divine Constitution, and he specifically posits a view of the Catholic Church that stresses “listening” rather than teaching, of “dialogue” rather than correcting error and exhorting sinners who are baptized Catholics and non-Catholics to convert to the true Faith before they die:

Secondly, building for the common good means accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected. Today, the human desire for fullness of life is at risk of being misled by deceitful goals, such as the prospect of a technology that promises to free us from all weakness, and models of wellbeing that leave behind entire populations. All too often, we place our hope in unlimited “upgrades,” in forms of progress that exacerbate inequalities, and in immediate solutions incapable of healing people’s wounds. As a result, while some pursue the illusion of unlimited self-assertion, many are deprived of basic necessities. The Church reminds us, with a firm yet humble voice, that true fulfilment is not achieved by eliminating weakness but through harmonious growth. It is found where freedom and responsibility are intertwined with mutual care and true solidarity, and where progress is measured by the dignity of each person and the good of all peoples. (Encyclical Letter Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, May 15, 2026.)

So much for Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s instructing us to be ye perfect as thy Heavenly Father is perfect and Saint Paul the Apostle’s Second Epistle to Saint Timothy:

Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5: 8.)

[1] I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Timothy 1: 1-5.)

Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV does not endure sound doctrine. He has rebelled against it and mocked it his entire life. He has heaped unto himself only those who are his fellow mockers and blasphemers of all that is sacred, all that is pure, all that is just. He is a worthy successor of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was the most prolific manufacturer of fables since Aesop.

This shows once again that the conciliar revolutionaries, who are forever invoking the “Holy Spirit” as the source of their false beliefs, is moved by only one spirit, Antichrist, as everything they say and do is truly anti-Christ and His Divine Revelation. The conciliar “popes” have been and continue to be chosen instruments of perdition to complete the course of destruction that began with the “election” of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on October 28, 1958, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, and his call nearly three months later, January 25, 1959, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, for the “Second” Vatican Council.

In this regard, therefore, consider the following passages from Magnifica Humanitas concerning “integral human development,” which was promoted by the thought of the progressivist named Jacques Maritain, whose beliefs were referenced constantly by his friend, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montiini/Paul VI and endless time by Karol Jozsef Wojtyla/John Paul, including in the following remarks he gave in India in January of 1986:

From this vision comes the incentive to undertake the struggle to remedy and improve man’s condition, and to pursue relentlessly his integral human development. From it comes the strength to persevere in the cause, as well as the clarity of thought needed to find concrete solutions to man’s problems. From a spiritual vision of man is derived the inspiration to seek help and to offer collaboration in promoting the true good of humanity at every level. Yes, from this spiritual vision comes an indomitable spirit to win for man – for each man – his rightful place in this world.

Despite all the powerful forces of poverty and oppression, of evil and sin in all their forms, the power of truth, will prevail – the truth about God, the truth about man. It will prevail because it is invincible. The power of truth is invincible! "Satyam èva jayatè – Truth alone triumphs", as the motto of India proclaims.

4. The full truth about man constitutes a whole programme for world-wide commitment and collaboration. My predecessor Paul VI returned over and over again to the concept of integral human development, because it is based on the truth about man. He proposed it as the only way to bring about man’s true progress at any time, but especially at this juncture of history.

In particular Paul VI looked upon integral human development as a condition for arriving at that great and all pervasive good which is peace. Indeed, he stated that this development is " the new name for peace" .

To pursue integral human development it is necessary to take a stand on what is greatest and most noble in man: to reflect on his nature, his life and his destiny. In a word, integral human development requires a spiritual vision of man.

If we are to further the advancement of man we must identify whatever obstructs and contradicts his total well-being and affects his life; we must identify whatever wounds, weakens or destroys life, whatever attacks human dignity and hinders man from attaining the truth or from living according to the truth.

The pursuit of integral human development invites the world to reflect on culture and to view it in its relationship to the final end of man. Culture is not only an expression of man’s temporal life but an aid in reaching his eternal life.

India’s mission in all of this is crucial, because of her intuition of the spiritual nature of man. Indeed India’s greatest contribution to the world can be to offer it a spiritual vision of man. And the world does well to attend willingly to this ancient wisdom and in it to find enrichment for human laving.

5. The attainment of integral human development for mankind makes demands on each individual. It requires a radical openness to others, and people are more readily open to each other when they understand their own spiritual nature and that of their neighbour.

The Second Vatican Council perceived in our world "the birth of a new humanism in which man is defined above all by his responsibility towards his brothers and sisters and towards history" . It is indeed evident that there is no place in this world for "man’s inhumanity to man". Selfishness is a contradiction. By his nature man is called to open his heart, in love, to his neighbours, because he has been loved by God. In Christian tradition as expressed by Saint John’s Letter we read: " Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another... If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us" .

The building of a new world requires something deeply personal from each human being. The renewal of the world in all its social relations begins in the heart of every individual. It calls for a change of heart and for repentance. It calls for a purification of heart and a real turning to God. And what is deeply personal is supremely social, because "man is defined above all in his responsibilities to his brothers and sisters...". Christians cherish the fact that, in teaching his followers how to pray, Jesus told them to approach God by calling him "Our Father ".

While speaking of my own convictions, I know that many of them are in accord with what is expressed in the ancient wisdom of this land. And in this wisdom we find today an ever old and ever new basis for fraternal solidarity in the cause of man and therefore ultimately in the service of God.

The spiritual vision of man that India shares with the world is the vision of man seeking the face of God. The very words used by Mahatma Gandhi about his own spiritual quest echo the words quoted by Saint Paul when he explained that God is not far from each of us: " In him we live and move and have our being " .

6. Religion directs our lives totally to God, and at the same time our lives must be totally permeated by our relationship to God – to the point that our religion becomes our life. Religion is concerned with humanity and everything that belongs to humanity, and at the same time it directs to God all that is human within us. I would repeat what I wrote at the beginning of my Pontificate: "Inspired by eschatological faith, the Church considers an essential, unbreakably united element of her mission this solicitude for man, for his humanity, for the future of men on earth and therefore also for the course set for the whole of development and progress" . As religion works to promote the reign of God in this world, it tries to help the whole of society to promote man’s transcendent destiny. At the same time it teaches its members a deep personal concern for neighbour and civic responsibility for the community. The Apostle John issued a challenge to the early Christian community which remains valid for all religious people everywhere: " I ask you, how can God’s love survive in a man who has enough of this world’s goods yet closes his heart to his brother when he sees him in need?" .

7. In the world today, there is a need for all religions to collaborate in the cause of humanity, and to do this from the viewpoint of the spiritual nature of man. Today, as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees and Christians, we gather in fraternal love to assert this by our very presence. As we proclaim the truth about man, we insist that man’s search for temporal and social well-being and full human dignity corresponds to the deep longings of his spiritual nature. To work for the attainment and preservation of all human rights, including the basic right to worship God according to the dictates of an upright conscience and to profess that faith externally, must become ever more a subject of interreligious collaboration at all levels. This interreligious collaboration must also be concerned with the struggle to eliminate hunger, poverty, ignorance, persecution, discrimination and every form of enslavement of the human spirit. Religion is the mainspring of society’s commitment to justice, and interreligious collaboration must reaffirm this in practice.

8. All efforts in the cause of man are linked to a particular vision of man, and all effective and complete efforts require a spiritual vision of man. With Paul VI I repeat the conviction that " there is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute and is conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning... Man can only realise himself by reaching beyond himself" .

The late President of India, Dr Radhakrishnan, was right when he said: " Only a moral and spiritual revolution in the name of human dignity can place man above the idols of economic production technological organisation, racial discrimination and national egotism" . And again "The new world of peace, freedom and safety for all can be achieved only by those who are moved by great spiritual ideals" .

The wisdom of India will contribute incalculably to the world by its witness to the fact that increased possession is not the ultimate goal of life. The true liberation of man will be brought about, as also the elimination of all that militates against human dignity, only when the spiritual vision of man is held in honour and pursued. Only within this framework can the world adequately face the many problems of justice, peace and integral human development that call for urgent solutions. And within this framework of the truth of man, the holiness of God will be made manifest by the rectitude and uprightness of human relations in the social, political, cultural and economic spheres of life.

9. This is the humanism that unites us today and invites us to fraternal collaboration. This is the humanism that we offer to all the young people present here today and to all the young people of the world. This is the humanism to which India can make an imperishable contribution. What is at stake is the well-being of all human society – the building up of an earthly city that will already prefigure the eternal one and contain in initial form the elements that will for ever be part of man’s eternal destiny. . . .

However we describe our spiritual vision of man, we know that man is central to God’s plan. And it is for man that we are all called to work – to labour and toil for his betterment, for his advancement, for his integral human development. A creature and child of God, man is, today and always, the path of humanity – man in the full truth of his existence! (Meeting with the representatives of the different religious and cultural traditions in the «Indira Gandhi» Stadium (February 2, 1986)

How was this significantly different in tone from the Abu Dhabi “Declaration on the Fraternity of All People”?

How is this different from anything contained in Magnifica Humanitas?

It is not any different, which why Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV referenced non-Catholic Christians and outright pagans as examples in fostering “integral human development” rather than the promotion of the sanctification and salvation of souls. He could not name one saint who fostered “integral human development,” which Maritain’s late protégé, Dr. German Grisez, was the ultimate end of human existence, not the Beatific Vision.

How do I know this?

Because Dr. Grisez told me this personally when I approached him point blank if his integral human development was the end of human existence rather the Beatific Vision after class on moral theology at Mount Saint Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland one day in the Fall of 1981.

Grisez turned me smugly and said, “Yes!”

The goal of the true religion, Catholicism, is to sanctify and thus help to save the souls of all men, not engage in the sort of Judeo-Masonic naturalism and, despite all the protestations of the conciliar revolutionaries to the contrary, religious indifferentism that leaves adherents of false religions perfectly content in their diabolically inspired ways until the day the die.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Abu Dhabi declaration can be seen as a prescinding directly from the respect that Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI paid to false religions, each of which is a tool of the devil himself, as instruments of “peace” in the cause of Jacques Maritain’s and Germain Grisez’s “integral human development” and in the name of “human fraternity,” and Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas is but another “contribution” to this body of perverse teaching.

In essence, “integral human development” was Jacques Maritain’s effort to convince the Catholic Church to accept the secularization of the temporal realm and to make its “reconciliation” with pluralistic democracies by emphasizing the development of a “humanism” that could be used as a common ground to perfect social order despite differences of religions and cultures by using “Christian values” in a general way that would be reflected in public life and politics.

A philosophical evolutionist, Maritain believed that personalism and the lived “experience” of men could shape an understanding of “human dignity” and thus of “fraternity” with others, thus providing the foundation for both Wojtyla/John Paul II’s and Bergoglio’s constant references to “human dignity” and “fraternity” that Bergoglio expressed in the Abu Dhabi statement of February 4, 2019.

The adaptation of Maritain’s integral human development to the so-called “care of creation” is thus only a logical extension of his thought as the conciliar revolutionaries, having achieved their “official reconciliation” with the world in defiance of the warnings given by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864, have been seeking in recent decades to seek a “reconciliation” with the created world that was rent asunder by Original Sin and is affected by the Actual Sins of men.

God created the world, which will end on His terms, not man’s terms. The world has always had environmental problems. Forest fires caused smoke pollution after lightning strikes. Flies and other pests abounded in the streets of urban areas in the days when the horse was the only major means of locomotion. The disposal of human waste has posed a problem that is still not resolved.

There has never been a time since the Original Sin entered the world as a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve that a perfect ecological balance existed. The delicate balance that existed in the physical world prior to the sin of our first parents was rent asunder by their rebellion against the One who had created them, making man the steward of everything on the face of the earth. The fact that men may despoil the environment more at one time than another is the result of fallen human nature, and a believing Catholic understands that fallen human nature is completely out of control in this era of state-sponsored and state-mandated bloodshed of the innocent and the celebration of indecency, blasphemy, and perversion as legitimate “human rights” from which no can dissent legitimately.

The truth is, of course, that it is the sins of men that unleash the wrath of God upon us as He let loose the forces of nature to chastise us as our sins deserve, teaching us of the necessity of reforming our lives and of making reparation to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our sins and those of the whole world. The chastisements of nature are visited upon us by God are reminders of his Omnipotence over us, His rational creatures, and of the very created world in which we live in order to give Him honor and glory as the consecrated slaves of Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Such chastisements remind us of our nothingness before the Most Blessed Trinity and of our absolute need to pray with fervor to be kept safe unto eternity from the moral perils of the day that are celebrated by the lords of Modernity in the world and by Jorge and his band Modernists in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Original Sin is the remote cause of all human problems. The Actual Sins of men are the proximate causes of all human problems. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, to save souls, not to “save the earth.” While the Seventh Commandment obliges us to be good stewards of the created world, there can be no possibility of a rightly-ordered world when men are in open rebellion against God by means of celebration and seeking to have clothed with the status of “legal right” the very thing that caused His Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to suffer unto the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross.

As Silvio Cardinal Antoniano noted in the Sixteenth Century:

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.)

Pope Leo XIII noted the exact same thing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

32. So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

The naturalist dunderheads of the false opposite of the “left” or the “right” do not believe this, and neither does Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV as his “saints” are the following:

124. Certain events make it clear that history can also change when individuals truly take the dignity of everyone seriously: the civil rights movement in the United States of America, closely associated with the testimony of Martin Luther King Jr., or the end of apartheid in South Africa following the release of Nelson Mandela and his decision not to surrender the future to hatred. In different contexts, many courageous and generous women have also stood out, including Saint Laura Montoya, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Maria Montessori, Elisabeth Elliot, Wangari Maathai, Benazir Bhutto and countless others from every continent whose commitment has contributed to making history more humane.

125. Alongside these public signs, there is a more hidden but decisive story. We see it in religious communities that choose to serve in poor and dangerous places. We also see it in the martyrs of fraternity and justice, such as Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Saint Oscar Romero and Blessed Enrique Angelelli; and in those witnesses who embodied the hope of the Gospel as well as human dignity amidst harsh, often inhumane conditions, such as Venerable Francis-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận. Above all, it is visible in the “martyrs of everyday life” who care for, educate, accompany and comfort without fanfare, such as parents, nurses, doctors, volunteers and those who remain alongside an elderly person or an outcast. Their testimony demonstrates that goodness does not advance automatically, but requires the perseverance, memory and interior conversion necessary to begin anew, even after defeat.

126. It is this intertwining of just institutions, credible witnesses and daily fidelity that sustains hope and provides clear direction for technological progress without allowing the heart to regress. For this reason, humanity — in all its grandeur and woundedness — must never be replaced or surpassed. We can embrace the technological progress that alleviates suffering and unlocks new possibilities, provided that we do not abandon the very essence of our humanity, namely the capacity for relationship and love. This leads to a crucial question: if an authentic “more than human” exists, where is it to be found? The Christian faith answers that question by pointing to a fulfilment that does not arise from a technological divinization, but through God’s grace received in Christ.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe was not a martyr for the Judeo-Masonic concept of “fraternity” and “justice” as he was the champion of the City of Mary Immaculate who proclaimed that “today’s ecumenism” was the enemy of the Immaculata:

"Only until all schismatics and Protestants profess the Catholic Creed with conviction, when all Jews voluntarily ask for Holy Baptism – only then will the Immaculata have reached its goals.”

“In other words” Saint Maximilian insisted, “there is no greater enemy of the Immaculata and her Knighthood than today’s ecumenism, which every Knight must not only fight against, but also neutralize through diametrically opposed action and ultimately destroy. We must realize the goal of the Militia Immaculata as quickly as possible: that is, to conquer the whole world, and every individual soul which exists today or will exist until the end of the world, for the Immaculata, and through her for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.” (Father Karl Stehlin, Immaculata, Our Ideal, Kansas City, Missouri, Angelus Press, 2007, p. 37.)

Father Maximilian Kolbe had condemned “today’s ecumenism” as being “no greater enemy of the Immaculata and her Knighthood” while urging members of the Militia Immaculata to neutralize and ultimately destroy, prophetic words that the conciliar “popes” have ignored as though they were never uttered so that can pursue the very opposite of what Father Kolbe condemned.

Father Kolbe chose to launch the Knights of the Immaculata when he saw a group of Freemasons marching in Rome on January 20, 1917, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady in the image of Immaculata as she appears on the Miraculous Medal to the Catholic-hating Jew named Alphonse Ratisbonne at the Church of San Andrea delle Fratte.

Although the account below from Dr. Robert Royal’s The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century erroneously associates the January 20, 1917, date with the seventy-fifth anniversary of Our Lady’s first apparition to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in the Grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, France (which took place on February 11, 1858, sixteen years after Our Lady appeared to the future Father Maria-Alphonse Ratisbonne), it does contain information concerning why Father Kolbe launched the Knights of Immaculata and thus, inadvertently for Dr. Royal, proves what Bergoglio and friends seek to destroy Father Kolbe’s Mariology of the City of Mary Immaculate:

But perhaps the most far-reaching of [then-seminarian] Kolbe's activities during his stay in Rome was the founding of the Militia Immaculatae, the Army of Mary Immaculate. The immediate inspiration came to him on January 20, 1917, the day that the seventy-fifth anniversary of the apparition of Lourdes was being celebrated in Rome. The simple group devoted itself evangelizing under the aegis of the Virgin as Christ's immaculate mother. It was approved by Kolbe's superiors in Rome when it still consisted of only six members, plus Kolbe. By the time he was arrested by the Nazis twenty years later, Kolbe would have enrolled tens of thousands of members in his little army from countries all around the world. Though the group's name sounds conventionally pious and somewhat odd to modern ears, those who collaborated with Kolbe on this and his other projects did so with wild dedication and enthusiasm--and fun. Like his patron Saint Francis, Kolbe seems to have had a gift for doing humble work, organizing large enterprises, and practicing poverty with a rare spirit of joy that communicate itself to large numbers of people.

Some have described his gift as naïveté combined with deep spirituality: others, more charitably, as a deep simplicity that recognized no limitations on what he felt he was called upon to do, not even when the objections came from other Franciscans who thought Kolbe's activism a disturbance to traditional Franciscan life. He returned from Rome to Cracow to become a professor of church history at the seminary he had once attended. But academic life was not a full enough challenge for a man with Father Kolbe's talents, energy, and dedication. Soon he was engaged in spreading the word of salvation to the world. As he later described his mission: "The earth needs to be flooded with a mighty deluge of Christian and Marian literature, written in every language and reaching every country, so as to dawn in the waves of truth all those voices of error that have been using the printing press as their most powerful ally. The globe must be enriched by words of life in printed form, so that the world may once again experience the joy of living.

Awash in a glut of information generated by the ease of desktop publishing and access to the Internet, we may find it hard to appreciate Kolbe's achievement and how it appeared to his contemporaries. But it is worth looking at carefully. He formed Marian "focus groups" in Cracow for university students, women, and soldiers. He wore himself out giving lectures to groups and taking the time to talk with unbelieving individuals--with astounding effects. But he soon felt the need of a publication and, therefore, a printing press. HIs Franciscan superior did not oppose the idea. In fact, he thought it a good one, "but only on the condition that you raise the necessary funds yourself, because the community is too poor to help you."

So in the great tradition of the poverello of Assisi, Kolbe went out and begged for the money to start up his enterprise. The first issue of The Knight of the Immaculate came out in January 1922, even though the country was going through an economic crisis that forced the closing of established publications. Kolbe had big dreams, but he was honest with his readers. "Due to financial difficulties, we cannot guarantee that our readers will receive the magazine regularly. The magazine relies on free offerings." Indeed, owing to a sharp devaluation of the currency, he did not have enough money to pay for the second issue. His Franciscan superiors could not help; in fact they more or less chided him "we told you so." Kolbe went and prayed in front of the statue of the Virgin. Whether by miraculous intervention or coincidence, when he returned later he found an envelope on the altar with the exact amount he needed marked, "For you, my Immaculate Mother." In similarly uncertain fashion, five thousand copies of The Knight wound up in print every month for two years.

Kolbe decided he need a printing press of his own. Many of the Franciscans believed owning such machinery, even for good purposes, was contrary to Franciscan poverty. Their job was to pray and care for the poor, not to build publishing houses, however modest. But another providential help to Kolbe's enterprises came at this moment. An American Franciscan, Father Lawrence Cyman, was travelling through Poland and stopped at Cracow. When he heard Kolbe's plans, he offered one hundred dollars toward the press. Kolbe was allowed to buy a rickety old machine that had to be cranked by hand. But to remove a potential source of distraction, the Cracow Franciscans also suggested that Kolbe move the entire operation to another friary in the distant city of Grodno.

It moved and turned into a enormous success. If the work was grueling--writing and turning the press crank for long hours--it paid off, at least in terms of influence. Subscriptions increased with every issue. But because Poland was experiencing runaway inflation, Kolbe actually lost more money, the more subscriptions he got. Still, he was successful because he appeared to common Poles in common language. Sometimes he made the arguments easier to follow by casting them as dialogues among several characters. Something in the formula must have touched a neve among the Polish population. By 1936, The Knight of the Immaculate had a circulation of eight hundred thousand and had given birth to two related publications, also with large circulations. And an almanac he published for the Holy Year in 1925 was such a financial success that he brought another, more modern press. (Robert Royal, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 2000, pp. 201-203.)

After establishing the City of the Immaculata on a tract of land outside of Warsaw that was given to him in 1927 by Prince John Drucki-Lubecki that he called Niepokalonow, Father Kolbe set off for Asia in 1930. He purchased six acres of land outside of Nagasaki, Japan (one can see why the devil directed his minions in the government of the United States of America to target Nagasaki on August 9, 1945), calling it the Garden of the Immaculate. The great Father Kolbe returned to Niepokalonow on a permanent basis in 1936 at a time when the City of the Immaculate had grown to include five hundred religious. By this time, as described in Dr. Royal's book, the "Nazi menace was becoming palpable." His first arrest occurred shortly thereafter, followed by the arrest that would take him to Auschwitz, where he gave up his life to save a Jewish man who had been chosen for execution in retribution for prisoners who had escaped.

The Nazis, steeped in the Satanic occult, hated the work of Father Kolbe as it was opposed to the spread of the Nazi ideology just as much as it was opposed to all other forms of naturalism. Dr. Royal's book describes the events that led up to Father Kolbe's arrests:

But Kolbe was not a man to rest on past achievements. He drew up a new plan for the city to make it more effective both as a spiritual center and as a public apostolate. In 1938, The Knight reached a circulation of 800,000. Two susbsidiaries--Young Knight and Little Knight--sold 170,000 and 30,000 copies respectively each month. He was sending out 15,000 copies of an international quarterly in Latin for priests. A "mission bulletin" sought to reach non-Catholics. The city itself published a weekly paper, and soon a daily national Catholic paper, Maly Dryiennik ("The Little Journal") was arriving at 135,000 homes during the week and 225,000 on Sundays. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1938, a radio station went on the air, and Kolbe was making plans for producing Catholic films.

That would remain one of Kolbe's few unrealized dreams. The Nazis invaded Niepokalanow the following year. For reasons of safety, Kolbe had dispersed almost all his flock back to their families before the Nazi arrival. The rest were taken to the Armitz concentration camp. Kolbe's parting words to his people before they went off to face various threats and uncertainties was: "Do not forget love." For some unknown reason, they were all released, again on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, in 1939. Kolbe returned to Niepokalanow with his friends and told them: "Let us pray. Let us lovingly accept all our crosses, and let us love every neighbor, whether friend or enemy, without distinction." It was a twofold rule that Kolbe had lived by all his life, both accepting others as neighbors and accepting all crosses as manifestations of God's will.

These principles were soon put to the test again. Because Kolbe had a German last name, he was offered a Satanic bargain: if he adopted German citizenship, he would be spared any further trouble from the Rich. He refused both on religious and Polish patriotic grounds. Shortly, the SS arrived and were greeted with Kolbe's "Praised be Jesus Christ!" This time, they sent him to another infamous camp at Pawiak. There he was abused and beaten for wearing a crucifix, but did not protest. Before long, he was transferred to Auschwitz. One sign of the impact Kolbe had on Poland through his various activities was that it was noticed when his name was read upon arrival at the camp. Many people, of course, knew about him, and were upset that the Nazis had arrested so eminent and benevolent a figure. But his presence gave courage to the others. One later said," We were glad to have such a real man, a fight--a fighter for truth--with us." But fighter for truth or not, like the other prisoners, he had his head shaved and his warm clothing taken away, and put on the rough, striped prison uniforms at Auschwitz. (Robert Royal, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 2000, pp. 206-207.)

Father Maximilian Kolbe, M.I., willingly accepted suffering and cruel treatment for the sake of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and Maria Regina Immaculatae. He was willing to die for the Faith, and it was for his defense of the Holy Faith that he was placed in Auschwitz even if he had not specifically given up his life for It when volunteering to take the place of a married Jewish man who had been chosen for execution by starvation and dehydration. Father Kolbe accepted the cruel death to which he was subjected with love and serenity. He was hated by the Nazis for his devotion to the City of Mary Immaculate, which has no place in the pantheon of conciliarism and its false principles of “reconciliation with the world.”

Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV is thus continuing the long and very wretched legacy of his false religious sect to misrepresent, distort, and deconstruct the lives and teachings of our true Saints.

As to Mother Teresa, please see Incompatible With True Sanctity.

Robert Francis Prevost’s Magnifica Humanitas is redolent with references to a “synodal church.”

Here is one example:

86. In conclusion, I would like to touch on a point that is particularly close to my heart. Social Doctrine is not merely a message addressed to society; it is also an examination of conscience for the Church — a home and school of communion that is always called to ensure that the principles outlined in this chapter are applied, especially within its own structures. In the ecclesial context, the common good takes the form of a synodal approach for mission at the service of the Kingdom. Indeed, the Church is the “communitarian and historical subject of synodality and mission.” [113] This requires attention to the way decisions are taken and responsibilities are exercised. The Final Document of the Synod identifies a culture of transparency, accountability and evaluation as key practices for missionary transformation. [114]

Pure heresy, unless, that is, Pope Boniface VIII was not guided by God the Holy Ghost when he issued the Papal Bull Unam Sanctum on November 18, 1302:

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,‘ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.

We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: ‘Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.’ [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: ‘Feed my sheep‘ [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.’ We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords‘ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard‘ [Mt 26:52]. Therefore, both are in the power of the Church, namely, the spiritual sword and the material. But indeed, the latter is to be exercised on behalf of the Church; and truly, the former is to be exercised by the Church. The former is of the priest; the latter is by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.

However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God‘ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.

For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms‘ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man‘ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven‘ etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff. (Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, November 18, 1302.)

The Catholic Church, unlike the Orthodox churches, is hierarchical, not synodal, of its very nature as she has received from her Divine Founder and Invisible Head the sole power and mission to teach infallibly in His Holy Name and to govern men with divine authority, something that was reiterated by Pope Leo XIII as in the closing passages of Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, and Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943:

In what has been said we have faithfully described the exemplar and form of the Church as divinely constituted. We have treated at length of its unity: we have explained sufficiently its nature, and pointed out the way in which the Divine Founder of the Church willed that it should be preserved. There is no reason to doubt that all those, who by Divine Grace and mercy have had the happiness to have been born, as it were, in the bosom of the Catholic Church, and to have lived in it, will listen to Our Apostolic Voice: “My sheep hear my voice” John x., 27), and that they will derive from Our words fuller instruction and a more perfect disposition to keep united with their respective pastors, and through them with the Supreme Pastor, so that they may remain more securely within the one fold, and may derive therefrom a greater abundance of salutary fruit. But We, who, notwithstanding our unfitness for this great dignity and office, govern by virtue of the authority conferred on us by Jesus Christ, as we “look on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. xii., 2) feel Our heart fired by His charity. What Christ has said of Himself We may truly repeat of Ourselves: “Other sheep I have that are not of this fold: them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice” John x., 16). Let all those, therefore, who detest the wide-spread irreligion of our times, and acknowledge and confess Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the human race, but who have wandered away from the Spouse, listen to Our voice. Let them not refuse to obey Our paternal charity. Those who acknowledge Christ must acknowledge Him wholly and entirely. “The Head and the body are Christ wholly and entirely. The Head is the only-begotten son of God, the body is His Church; the bridegroom and the bride, two in one flesh. All who dissent from the Scriptures concerning Christ, although they may be found in all places in which the Church is found, are not in the Church; and again all those who agree with the Scriptures concerning the Head, and do not communicate in the unity of the Church, are not in the Church” (S. Augustinus, Contra Donatistas Epistola, sive De Unit. Eccl., cap. iv., n. 7).

And with the same yearning Our soul goes out to those whom the foul breath of irreligion has not entirely corrupted, and who at least seek to have the true God, the Creator of Heaven and earth, as their Father. Let such as these take counsel with themselves, and realize that they can in no wise be counted among the children of God, unless they take Christ Jesus as their Brother, and at the same time the Church as their mother. We lovingly address to all the words of St. Augustine: “Let us love the Lord our God; let us love His Church; the Lord as our Father, the Church as our Mother. Let no one say, I go in deed to idols, I consult fortune-tellers and soothsayers; but I leave not the Church of God: I am a Catholic. Clinging to thy Mother, thou offendest thy Father. Another, too, says: ‘Far be it from me; I do not consult fortune-telling, I seek not soothsaying, I seek not profane divinations, I go not to the worship of devils, I serve not stones: but I am on the side of Donatus.’ What doth it profit thee not to offend the Father, who avenges an offense against the Mother? What doth it profit to confess the Lord, to honour God, to preach Him, to acknowledge His Son, and to confess that He sits on the right hand of the Father, if you blaspheme His Church? . . . If you had a beneficent friend, whom you honoured daily – and even once calumniated his spouse, would you ever enter his house? Hold fast, therefore, O dearly beloved, hold fast altogether God as your Father, and the Church as your Mother” (Enarratio in Psal. Lxxxviii., sermo ii., n. 14). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

But the chief reason for Our present exposition of this sublime doctrine is Our solicitude for the souls entrusted to Us. Much indeed has been written on this subject; and we know that many today are turning with greater zest to a study which delights and nourishes Christian piety. This, it would seem, is chiefly because a revived interest in the sacred liturgy, the more widely spread custom of frequent Communion, and the more fervent devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus practiced today, have brought many souls to a deeper consideration of the unsearchable riches of Christ which are preserved in the Church. Moreover recent pronouncements on Catholic Action, by drawing closer the bonds of union between Christians and between them and the ecclesiastical hierarchy and especially the Roman Pontiff, have undoubtedly helped not a little to place this truth in its proper light. Nevertheless, while We can derive legitimate joy from these considerations, We must confess that grave errors with regard to this doctrine are being spread among those outside the true Church, and that among the faithful, also, inaccurate or thoroughly false ideas are being disseminated which turn minds aside from the straight path of truth.

9. For while there still survives a false rationalism, which ridicules anything that transcends and defies the power of human genius, and which is accompanied by a cognate error, the so-called popular naturalism, which sees and wills to see in the Church nothing but a juridical and social union, there is on the other hand a false mysticism creeping in, which, in its attempt to eliminate the immovable frontier that separates creatures from their Creator, falsifies the Sacred Scripture . . . .

13. If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ — which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church ¹²— we shall find nothing more noble, morre sublime, or more divine than the expression “the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ” – an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers.

14. That the Church is a body is frequently asserted in the Sacred Scriptures. “Christ,” says the Apostle, “is the Head of the Body of the Church.” If the Church is a body, it must be an unbroken unity, according to those words of Paul: “Though many we are one body in Christ.” ¹⁴ But it is not enough that the body of the Church should be an unbroken unity; it must also be something definite and perceptible to the senses as Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Satis Cognitum asserts: “the Church is visible because she is a body.” Hence they err in a matter of divine truth, who imagine the Church to be invisible, intangible, a something merely “pneumatological” as they say, by which many Christian communities, though they differ from each other in their profession of faith, are united by an invisible bond.

15. But a body calls also for a multiplicity of members, which are linked together in such a way as to help one another. And as in the body when one member suffers, all the other members share its pain, and the healthy members come to the assistance of the ailing, so in the Church the individual members do not live for themselves alone, but also help their fellows, and all work in mutual collaboration for the common comfort and for the more perfect building up of the whole Body.

16. Again, as in nature a body is not formed by any haphazard grouping of members but must be constituted of organs, that is of members, that have not the same function and are arranged in due order; so for this reason above all the Church is called a body, that it is constituted by the coalescence of structurally united parts, and that it has a variety of members reciprocally dependent. It is thus the Apostle describes the Church when he writes: “As in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office: so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” …

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. “For in one spirit” says the Apostle, “were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free.” As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. ¹⁸ And therefore if a man refuse to hear the Church let him be considered — so the Lord commands — as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943.)

Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV believes none of this. His “synodal church” may have everything in common with the various groups of heretics and schismatics of the East who have long abhorred Papal Primacy and who are divided in government and faith even amongst themselves, but it has nothing at to do with the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church teaches what she has received from her Divine Founder, Invisible Head, and Mystical Bridegroom, and thus she does not need to “listen” to the people about “reforming her Divine Constitution nor to seek adjust various doctrines to conform to how people live sinfully rather than exhorting them to reform their lives in cooperation with Sanctifying Grace.

Moreover, contrary to the following passages from Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas, the Catholic Church does not “adjust” her teaching in light of changing circumstances as such circumstances can never change the Divine nature of God and His immorality nor man’s fallen nature and thus his ability to do what he wants rather than what God has clearly commanded:

Starting from this twofold acknowledgment — the autonomy of earthly realities and the distinction between ecclesiastical and political spheres of competence — allows for a clearer understanding of the direction that the Second Vatican Council set for the Church in her relationship with the world. Gaudium et Spes reminds us that “it is the task of the whole People of God, particularly of its pastors and theologians, to listen to and distinguish the many voices of our times and to interpret them in the light of God’s word, in order that the revealed Truth may be more deeply penetrated, better understood and more suitably presented.” [11] Listening to the “many voices” is no mere sociological exercise, but instead requires spiritual discernment. Guided by the Spirit, the People of God come to recognize in cultural and social transformations both the signs of the presence of Christ, who comes and guides history toward its fulfilment, and those aberrations that obscure his face. In this way, the essential core of revealed Truth is not altered, but made explicit and adopted as a living standard for guiding concrete choices, inspiring paths of personal and communal conversion, promoting structural reforms and supporting new forms of evangelical witness in public life. History is thus understood as one of the places in which the Church allows herself to be taught by the Spirit about the humanizing power of the Gospel; and she learns to develop her own teaching at the service of the dignity of every person and the good of all peoples. (Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, May 15, 2026.)

The Holy Catholic Church does not “develop her own teaching at the service of the dignity of every person and the good of all peoples” as she proclaims what she has received from Christ the King and provides her children with the graces to accept what she proclaims as coming from Christ Himself and thence to conform their minds, hearts, souls, and actions accordingly. This what the ancients would call really basic.

The conciliar revolutionaries can dress up their belief in dogmatic evolutionism all they want, but the fact remains that what they believe, no matter how much they use “nuance” to disguise the truth, has been condemned by the Catholic Church as being both dogmatically heretical and philosophically absurd:

79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. — Allocution “Nunquam fore,” Dec. 15, 1856.

80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution “Jamdudum cernimus,” March 18, 1861.

The faith teaches us and human reason demonstrates that a double order of things exists, and that we must therefore distinguish between the two earthly powers, the one of natural origin which provides for secular affairs and the tranquillity of human society, the other of supernatural origin, which presides over the City of God, that is to say the Church of Christ, which has been divinely instituted for the sake of souls and of eternal salvation…. The duties of this twofold power are most wisely ordered in such a way that to God is given what is God’s (Matt. 22:21), and because of God to Caesar what is Caesar’s, who is great because he is smaller than heaven. Certainly the Church has never disobeyed this divine command, the Church which always and everywhere instructs the faithful to show the respect which they should inviolably have for the supreme authority and its secular rights….

. . . Venerable Brethren, you see clearly enough how sad and full of perils is the condition of Catholics in the regions of Europe which We have mentioned. Nor are things any better or circumstances calmer in America, where some regions are so hostile to Catholics that their governments seem to deny by their actions the Catholic faith they claim to profess. In fact, there, for the last few years, a ferocious war on the Church, its institutions and the rights of the Apostolic See has been raging…. Venerable Brothers, it is surprising that in our time such a great war is being waged against the Catholic Church. But anyone who knows the nature, desires and intentions of the sects, whether they be called masonic or bear another name, and compares them with the nature the systems and the vastness of the obstacles by which the Church has been assailed almost everywhere, cannot doubt that the present misfortune must mainly be imputed to the frauds and machinations of these sects. It is from them that the synagogue of Satan, which gathers its troops against the Church of Christ, takes its strength. In the past Our predecessors, vigilant even from the beginning in Israel, had already denounced them to the kings and the nations, and had condemned them time and time again, and even We have not failed in this duty. If those who would have been able to avert such a deadly scourge had only had more faith in the supreme Pastors of the Church! But this scourge, winding through sinuous caverns, . . . deceiving many with astute frauds, finally has arrived at the point where it comes forth impetuously from its hiding places and triumphs as a powerful master. Since the throng of its propagandists has grown enormously, these wicked groups think that they have already become masters of the world and that they have almost reached their pre-established goal. Having sometimes obtained what they desired, and that is power, in several countries, they boldly turn the help of powers and authorities which they have secured to trying to submit the Church of God to the most cruel servitude, to undermine the foundations on which it rests, to contaminate its splendid qualities; and, moreover, to strike it with frequent blows, to shake it, to overthrow it, and, if possible, to make it disappear completely from the earth. Things being thus, Venerable Brothers, make every effort to defend the faithful which are entrusted to you against the insidious contagion of these sects and to save from perdition those who unfortunately have inscribed themselves in such sects. Make known and attack those who, whether suffering from, or planning, deception, are not afraid to affirm that these shady congregations aim only at the profit of society, at progress and mutual benefit. Explain to them often and impress deeply on their souls the Papal constitutions on this subject and teach, them that the masonic associations are anathematized by them not only in Europe but also in America and wherever they may be in the whole world. (Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)

For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence, but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.

Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.

The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.

Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .

3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.

But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1870.)

They [the Modernists] exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.'' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: 'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason'; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

The conciliar revolutionaries have been bold enough to directly deny Holy Mother Church’s teaching and have openly embraced dogmatic evolutionism (see, for example, Openly Admitting What Has Been the Case From the Beginning), and Magnifica Humanitas is just another document in this sad genre of dogmatic evolutionism.

Part three of this series will focus on Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV’s misrepresentation of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891, and Pope Pius XI’s Quadragesima Anno, May 15, 1931, while part will center on the currently reigning false “pontiff’s” discussions of artificial intelligence and his glancing condemnation of abortion in the context of “human rights” and not as a violation of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as he ignored contraception and sodomy entirely even though both evils are destructive of men and their nations.

Today, Saturday, May 30, 2026, is the final day of the Octave of Pentecost. The Paschal Season, which began with the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday, April 4, 2026, ends after the conclusion of Holy Mass today, which is also the Commemoration of Pope Saint Felix I universally and, in some places, of King Saint Ferdinand III, King of Leon and Castile, and of our beloved Saint Joan of Arc.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Pope Saint Felix I, pray for us.

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

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us

Appendix A

On the Feast of Pope Saint Felix I

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

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

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

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

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

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

Appendix B

On the Feast of Saint Joan of Arc

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV's Magnificent Sillonism, part two

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