Roncalli Opened the Windows and His Successors Continue to Praise the Fillth That Has Blown Their Way, part one

One of the chief goals that crapulous old Rosicrucian and Sillonist named Angelo Roncalli wanted to accomplish during what he knew was going to be a very short “pontificate” because of his age and his health was “open the windows of the Church to the world” to breathe “fresh air."

Well, the windows of the counterfeit church of conciliarism continue to be wide open to every error and depravity that encourage the wicked and discourage those who are seeking to save their immortal souls by protecting themselves as much as is possible in these times of apostasy and betrayal from the false spirits of the world, the flesh, and the devil:

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV met with the pro-abortion, pro-LGBT punk rock star Patti Smith on Friday morning.

Smith, who is originally from Chicago, like Leo, is a singer, songwriter, and poet sometimes known as the “Godmother of Punk” for her influential early role in shaping punk music. Her fame peaked in the late 1970’s with her biggest hit, “Because the Night,” a sensual song that declares the “night belongs to lust.” One of her best known lyrics is, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.”

The rockstar does not identify with any religion. She has publicly supported legal abortion, claiming in 2018 that “saving the lives of young women is more important than any ideology.” She referred to her belief that legal abortion, which kills unborn babies, “saves the lives” of mothers by preventing them dying by performing abortions themselves.

In 2022, Smith called the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade “terrible” and said it broke her heart.

In 2014, Smith was invited by Pope Francis to play at a Vatican Christmas concert, and she performed at the Vatican again in 2021. 

Father Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education, said a “spark was lit” when Smith met with Pope Leo.

“When that door opened, something happened… a spark was lit – one that came with a few lighthearted moments, but also with a profound sense of emotion and of a shared mission in this challenging world,” wrote Spadaro on X.

“Two Americans. Two Chicagoans. Two remarkable figures whose voices speak hope to a divided world: the “priestess of rock,” as #PattiSmith is often called, and the Holy Father, #PopeLeoXIV.”

LifeSiteNews Editor-in-Chief John-Henry Westen highlighted the fact that Leo took the time to meet with the “Godmother of Punk,” but “couldn’t meet with the SSPX.” (Pope Leo meets pro-abortion singer Patti Smith as Vatican official hails ‘shared mission’.)

Ah, yes, opening the windows to the world, a world where those who promote evil are heroized, idolized, and secularly “canonize” while those who hold fast to the truths of the Holy Faith are castigated and ostracized both by the world and by the lords of conciliarism.

Rock “music” and its variants (“punk,” “rap,” etc.) are evil as these forms of cacophonous noise all designed to agitate and disturb man’s rational faculties and to break whatever resistance, if any, to the impure, indecent, unjust, and obscene. “Rock” music from its inception has been about impurity, plain and simple.

Writing on the anti-sedevacantist Tradition in Action website, an author wrote the following about the horrors of “rock music” after the death of the depraved Michael Jackson in 2009:

It seems everything has now been said about the life and death of Michael Jackson. The news media have been hammering away, day after day, glorifying this man as the greatest star of all times. People have wept and wailed because he is no more. They have even compared him to Mozart.

But wait – why all this glory and adulation? His life doesn’t bear it out. He was a man haunted not by tragedy, but by vice and degeneracy.

The effect that music has on a person is not the subject of new research. It has long been known that music is one of the most powerful arts because it molds the whole human person, body and soul. Indirectly, it plays a role in shaping society either for good or for evil, for the formation of good character or for vice.

As far back as Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, the power of music was recognized. Plato wrote that music is an art that sinks into the depths of the soul and remains there. He firmly believed that music should be used to educate youth because of its capacity to mold character by its power of suggestion.

Recent studies have found that soothing classical music - Mozart, in particular - can develop the intelligences of babies as well as their coordination, memory and concentration, along with a host of other positive results. Bad music, on the other hand, can thwart and deform character, confirming what Plato taught so long ago.

It was not only the words, but also the beat or rhythm, that subverts. Certain rhythms – by the uniformity of their beats – have a hypnotic effect. Researchers found that plants subjected to rock music wilted, while those put near classical music flourished. They found that some rhythms possessed the power to evoke certain body and emotional responses, such as the power to relax or to enervate, to induce calmness or anger, to move persons to love or to hate something, to glorify (as in our patriotic songs) or to trivialize and make vulgar (as in some of our post-Vatican II songs)..

 The mob at a rock concert begin to sway as the beat overwhelms and overtakes the sensibilities, leaving reason and constraint far behind. Then add to this mix the thundering words fostering SatanismThe hypnotic effects of these rhythms unlock the subconscious and make a person more open to the ideas suggested in the words. This makes a serious connection of music with revolution, revolt, immorality, addiction to drugs, tendency to suicide and practice of Satanism – all so prevalent in today’s world.

Aristotle, the great competitor of Plato, also had much to say on the subject. Music works on the will, he explains, through representation. He noted that music directly represents the passions or states of the soul: gentleness, courage and temperance – as well as their opposite qualities.

Hence, when one listens to music that represents a certain passion, one is invited to experience that same passion. If, over a long period of time, one habitually listens to the kind of music that arouses ignoble passions, one’s whole character will be strongly inclined to those passions. Both Plato and Aristotle believed that music affects almost everything, having some indirect influence even over the governance of the State.

Church Fathers and Saints, such as St. Gregory the Great, have confirmed those principles when setting out rules on the sacred music appropriate to be played in churches. Think about the elevation and serenity of the Gregorian Chant, so called in honor of that great Pontiff. This early concern for appropriate sacred music was always present in the Church. An author who presents the qualities of polyphonic chant quite well is Palestrina, whose serious and elegant music befits the presence of God in the Tabernacle: "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46: 10)

This short inspection into the subject shows that music has an enormous power over the sensibilities and will of man, and that this power can be used to form either good or evil characters, a healthy or a degenerate society. It was once believed that the culture and art of a society were mirrors that reflected its health. With this in mind, it's frightening to see the direction in which our society is headed.

Jackson’s ambience of hypnotic frenzy

When we look at what the "genius" of Michael Jackson has done, not much needs to be said about the bad influence of the beat of his music has over the fans during his concerts. The loud, hard, driving, relentless pounding of drums and synthesizers sets up an ambiance of hypnotic frenzy. It opens the soul to the messages of the songs, delivered at a volume almost unendurable to the human ear. For the common person, that noise crowds out any possibility of analyzing or rejecting the messages the words transmit. Only acceptance is possible, immorality, revolution, suicide, violence, and drugs and the visual image of a man grasping himself and dancing in an overtly immoral manner - and you have a picture of the message of this "great star.”

Can a youth come home from a concert unchanged? No, it's not possible. The youth now has a different idea of authority and morals in the Church, country and family. All that the Catholic Church and parents have taught and fostered concerning purity has been countered. Revolutionary images are left in the youth's mind that perhaps will remain there forever.

Our Lady of Fatima said to the three children, "The sins that will carry the most souls to Hell will be sins against purity." One can only imagine how many sins of impurity can be laid at the feet of this "great star," his music and his dance.

Reject rock'n roll

We should have the courage to take the necessary steps to protect our families and ourselves from rock'n roll and all that surrounds it. The entire rock culture and its revolutionary "stars" must be totally rejected. We must make a resolution not to allow any of it in our homes or ambiences so that our families can develop in a healthy and pure atmosphere. Nothing will change for our families or our country unless we begin to change its morality, dress code, and customs at our own homes. With this effort and the protection of Our Lady, our beloved country will have a hope for the restoration we all long for. (The High Moral Damage of Rock Music.

This is a very good summary of the fundamentally diabolical nature of everything to do with “rock music” that has nevertheless been endorsed in the higher echelons of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, starting with one of Annibale Bugnini’s own acolytes, “Archbishop” Piero Marini, who personally planned antipapal extravaganza “liturgies” during the late Karol Jozef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s that featured “rock music” and, where it was deemed culturally “relevant,” scantily clad natives performing ritual “dances” during purported celebrations of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

While Karol Jozef Wojtyla/John Paul II may not have personally liked contemporary “music,” he tolerated it and permitted it to be performed at his liturgical hootenannies, the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his baby-boomer successor, Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, have expressed their support for this lowest “art” form to the extent that it matters not that the performers they praise open endorse and promote grave moral evils, including each of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.

However, the ever-passive German “new theologian” and much vaunted “restorer of tradition,” Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, permitted L’Osservatore Romano to publish an editorial praising the blasphemous promoters of marijuana and impurity known as the “Beatles” on November 28, 2008:

Here is the story from the Catholic News Service about the "rehabilitation" of the Beatles by the conciliar Vatican:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican newspaper said the musical compositions of the Beatles were far more creative than the "standardized and stereotyped" pop music of today.

The Beatles' songs have demonstrated "remarkable staying power, becoming a source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians," it said.

The newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published a lengthy and laudatory retrospective on the Beatles Nov. 22 to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the "White Album," the group's groundbreaking double-record set.

"Forty years later, this album remains a type of magical musical anthology: 30 songs you can go through and listen to at will, certain of finding some pearls that even today remain unparalleled," it said.

With rock songs like "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Helter Skelter," ballads like "Julia" and "Blackbird," and dreamlike pieces like "Dear Prudence," the album represents the "creative summit" of the Beatles' career, it said.

What characterized the "White Album" and the Beatles best music in general was an inventiveness that stands in stark contrast with popular music today, the newspaper said.

"Record products today seem mostly standardized and stereotyped, far from the creativity of the Beatles," it said. The modern pop music industry is too willing to sacrifice originality and fantasy in order to satisfy the consumer models it has adopted and promoted, it said.

The newspaper also recalled that the Beatles were recording with rudimentary tools compared to those used by the high-tech recording industry today. Even so, "a listening experience like that offered by the Beatles is truly rare," it said.

As for John Lennon's famous quip in 1966 that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, the Vatican newspaper dismissed it as youthful bragging.

"The phrase that provoked profound indignation, especially in the United States, after so many years sounds merely like the boast of a working-class English youth faced with unexpected success," it said.  (Vatican newspaper: Beatles' music better than today's pop songs.)

The alleged musical "creativity" of the Beatles was nothing other than a continuation of the musical revolution begun by Ludwig von Beethoven, who said that he wrote music to please himself and for no one else, including God and His Holy Church. The Beatles used this "creativity" to propagandize in behalf of a social revolution against Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Sacred Teaching, helping to convince millions upon millions of young people to "indulge" themselves and to believe in a sense of world "peace" absent a subordination of men and their nations to the true Church that Our Lord founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. (For an excellent discussion of "rock" "music" in the general and the Beatles in particular, please see Michael Matt's Gods of Wasteland) And to dismiss John Lennon's blasphemy against Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as nothing other than "youthful bragging" is beneath contempt. Then again, it is easy to dismiss the blasphemy of a "pop culture" when one has been accustomed to "rock music" in "papal" "Masses" and when one makes a living justifying abominations as a putative "pope" esteeming the symbols of false religions with his own priestly hands.

Michael Matt's Gods of Wasteland discusses the truly revolutionary nature of the Beatles:

Music has proven to be a most dominant influence over the physical and mental health of human beings. It has been use by tyrants and it has been used by statesmen and kings--is power is very real. Martin Luther used it against the Catholic Church in his Protestant Revolution, an even the heresiarch Arius used his famous "Book of Song" way back in the fourth century to spread the Arian Heresy across most of the known world in record time. Hitler used it, especially marching music and patriotic anthems within the Hitler Youth Movement. The French Revolutionaries used it, as did the Americans in 1776. And men and women who harbor no love for Christianity use rock music today in yet another revolution--the Cultural Revolution.

Only a fool says, "Music can't hurt me" or "Music doesn't affect me." Consider companies such as Coca-Cola, Nike, McDonald's, IBM, or Microsoft--have you ever seen an advertisement on TV for any one of these companies which was not accompanied by music (most often rock music)? Big business and world marketers know the influence music has on the consumer/viewer. What's more, they also are aware of the lasting impression an audio stimulus can leave on the mind--in some cases being more unforgettable than a visual image.

Have you ever had some melody on your mind that you just can't get out of your head? I'll bet you never had a movie stick to you like that. Right? This is because the message that is transmitted to the mind through the medium of music has a greater effect and leaves a longer-lasting impression than any other stimuli. For, in effect, your brain--your imagination--processed that sound directly into your consciousness.

After minimal study of musicology, few people will dispute that music has an almost super-human influence over us all. Yet, how often do we listen to rock music (or do we let our children listen to it) and keep telling ourselves that it's "just music," and that its message of immorality and Kantian encouragement to do whatever "feels good" will have no effect on our lives as Christians?

When we say, "Music can't really affect us," we betray our own poor understanding of musicology  . . . . and that is all. The Egyptians would never have proffered such an ignorant statement, nor would the ancient Greeks or the Romans, nor the sales consultants for Nike, Microsoft, or MTV. The fact is that the Catholic Church, the pro-life movement, the NFL, Martin Luther King, Jr.,  and the Civil Rights Movement, the homosexual activist lobby, the NBA, the Communists, big business, etc., know perfectly well what music is capable of. So why do so many Christians deny that rock music could be a significant problem?

The "new creed" that is being taught to a fourth grader, for example, through rock music today is something he will never forget and may never overcome. I repeat--don't every say, "It's just music; it can't hurt me." Rock music hurts children in your society; therefore it hurts the future of your society and thus your own children. It hurts you, all right. . . . It's just a question of when and how much. . . .

The "British Invasion" is generally considered to have begun in earnest in 1964. It featured the rise to unprecedented pop culture fame in America of some of the most influential rock bands from the United Kingdom--spearheaded, of course, by the Beatles. 1960s British "rock n' roll" was to become a global phenomenon of staggering impact on America teenagers. . . . You just had to be a part of it, "man," if you didn't want to be regarded as totally "unhip." When the Beatles landed, millions of America's teens found their lives literally changed forever.

To a lesser extent, several UK bands had considerable success on the American rock music charts, though many of them didn't survive the test of time as well as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. These bands has names such as the Dave Clark Five, the Searches, Peter and Gordon, the Animals, Chad Stuart, Jeremy Clyde, and the Nashville Teens.

Constantly working on their image of hidden imagery (i.e., the much publicized "Paul is Dead" games) and cult references, the Beatles were the quintessential "rock n' roll band. Drugs, [impurity of conduct], revolution were the message, and rock n' roll was the game. Being more subtle than many rock bands, the Beatles were also more talented musically, and, thus, more effective. Their nihilism was packaged in catchy lyrics, encrypted poetry, quick, upbeat tunes, and a message that consisted of thinly veiled Socialism and plenty of outright hedonism. Songs such as "Eleanor Rigby"--so defeatist, so cutting and demoralizing--were literally memorize by millions, and became worldwide hits for the Beatles. Pay careful attention to the last line of the following lyrics; it's a cynical mock of the Christian teaching on the salvation of the soul and the part the Catholic priesthood plays in that process:

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from ?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong ?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working. darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father Mckenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

The Beatles were not innocent. They were revolutionaries who experienced global success in the war against Christianity and the spread of the drug culture. (Michael Matt, Gods of Wasteland, pp. 40-41; 53-55.) 

How is it going to be possible for a parent attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to convince his children not to listen to any kind of "rock" "music," including that of the Beatles, when the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican in its conciliar captivity, endorses this rot from Hell?

And how is it possible for any true priest who makes no concessions at all to conciliarism to be silent about this evil and not to warn his parishioners that it is a Mortal Sin to listen volitionally to "rock music" of any type? Silence about this evil serves the interests of the devil, not the honor and glory of God and the eternal good of souls, and pastors of souls would be well-advised to consider what Saint John Mary Vianney and Padre Pio would do in our circumstances today, namely, to insist that Catholics not only not listen to "rock music" but to destroy any and all records, tapes, compact discs or videos in their possession containing this diabolical "art" form. This is not Jansenism. This is Catholicism.

As noted earlier in this commentary, the counterfeit church of conciliarism has used "rock music" in its liturgies, including at "Papal" "Masses," especially those for World Youth Day. L'Osservatore Romano's praise of the Beatles eighteen years ago demonstrated yet again that the errors of Modernity have found quite a home in the nooks and crannies of the Modernists who run the counterfeit church of conciliarism. 

Our true popes confronted the evils of Modernity.

Consider what Pope Leo XIII wrote in Humanum Genus, June 20, 1884:

Wherefore we see that men are publicly tempted by the many allurements of pleasure; that there are journals and pamphlets with neither moderation nor shame; that stage-plays are remarkable for license; that designs for works of art are shamelessly sought in the laws of a so-called verism; that the contrivances of a soft and delicate life are most carefully devised; and that all the blandishments of pleasure are diligently sought out by which virtue may be lulled to sleep. Wickedly, also, but at the same time quite consistently, do those act who do away with the expectation of the joys of heaven, and bring down all happiness to the level of mortality, and, as it were, sink it in the earth. Of what We have said the following fact, astonishing not so much in itself as in its open expression, may serve as a confirmation. For, since generally no one is accustomed to obey crafty and clever men so submissively as those whose soul is weakened and broken down by the domination of the passions, there have been in the sect of the Freemasons some who have plainly determined and proposed that, artfully and of set purpose, the multitude should be satiated with a boundless license of vice, as, when this had been done, it would easily come under their power and authority for any acts of daring.

What refers to domestic life in the teaching of the naturalists is almost all contained in the following declarations: that marriage belongs to the genus of commercial contracts, which can rightly be revoked by the will of those who made them, and that the civil rulers of the State have power over the matrimonial bond; that in the education of youth nothing is to be taught in the matter of religion as of certain and fixed opinion; and each one must be left at liberty to follow, when he comes of age, whatever he may prefer. To these things the Freemasons fully assent; and not only assent, but have long endeavored to make them into a law and institution. For in many countries, and those nominally Catholic, it is enacted that no marriages shall be considered lawful except those contracted by the civil rite; in other places the law permits divorce; and in others every effort is used to make it lawful as soon as may be. Thus, the time is quickly coming when marriages will be turned into another kind of contract -- that is into changeable and uncertain unions which fancy may join together, and which the same when changed may disunite. (Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884.)

This was not only a very accurate description of the times in which Pope Leo XIII lived during the ninth decade of the Nineteenth Century, it remains a very prophetic warning of the worse things to come that we have seen come to fruition with our own eyes, including the very “canonization” of this Judeo-Masonic spirit at the “Second” Vatican Council sixty years ago and its never-ending incorporation into every nook and cranny of what most people think is the Catholic Church by putative “popes,” “bishops,” “priests,” and all manner of other officials who have held or are holding now some kind of educational or administrative positions sanctioned by the conciliar revolutionaries.

This spirit has been demonstrated abundantly in word, work, and action over the past sixty years, most prominently when Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV himself presided over a display of sacrilegious pagan Hindu and Mohammedan dances featuring displays of the symbols of both false religion in the hideous, thoroughly Judeo-Masonic post-modern Paul VI Audience Hall within the walls of the Occupied Vatican on the West Bank of the Tiber River on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, to conclude a weekend of sixtieth anniversary celebrations of the proclamation of Nostra Aetate at “Second” Vatican Council that was the subject of Robert Francis Prevost: Another Agent of Antichrist's Celebration of Paganism, Inflidelity, and Religious Indifferentism nine months ago now.

Thus, for Robert Francis Prevost to enable such a person as Patti Smith is deplorable, but the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio enabled one promoter of evil after another, such as Emma Bonino, the “Margaret Sanger of Italy, and permitted the likes of Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky, Paul Ehlrich, and even the nefarious Anthony Fauci himself to speak, either in person or virtually, in conferences sponsored by the Vatican in its conciliar captivity, something will be reviewed at length in part two of this two-part series.

Our Lady is our refuge in this time of apostasy and betrayal, and it is to her Immaculate Heart we must turn this month, the month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and every month as we offer up the trials of this passing, mortal vale of tears with complete surrender to Divine Providence as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through the same Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary as we continue to pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now, and at the hour of our death.

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.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

Appendix

Father Francis X. Weninger on the Finding of the Body of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr

After St Stephen, the First Martyr, had been stoned to death by the Jews for having uncontestably proved that Christ, Whom they had Crucified, was the true Messiah, some pious men, filled with deep sorrow, buried him with all due reverence. Foremost among these was St Gamaliel, who had formerly been a rabbi and later a disciple of St Paul. He arranged everything, so that the body of St Stephen was carried, during the night, by some Christians, from the spot in which it lay, to his country-seat, which was a few miles from Jerusalem.

“In the course of time and in consequence of the persecution of the Christians in Juda, the location of his tomb was forgotten, until it pleased the Almighty to reveal it, in the time of the Emperor Honorius. There lived, at that period, in the place where St Stephen was buried, a Priest of the Church of Jerusalem, named Lucian. St Gamaliel appeared to this holy man in his sleep and disclosed to him where the bodies of St Stephen, St Nicodemus, his son St Abibon and his own body, were lying, telling him, at the same time, to inform St John, Bishop of Jerusalem, of this fact and to say that it was the will of God that he should exhume them for the benefit of many men. Lucian awakening and fearing it was but a dream, or perhaps even a delusion from Satan, did not tell the Bishop but humbly prayed to God that, if it were a revelation from on high, He would grant him a repetition of the vision. To this effect, Lucian continued in prayer and fasting for eight days, when Gamaliel again appeared to him and repeated all he had said before.

Lucian did not yet obey but, to be more certain, fasted and prayed eight days more. St Gamaliel appeared to him for the third time and, with a severe countenance, reproving him for not believing his words, commanded him to make the Bishop acquainted with the facts immediately, in order that the faithful might no longer be deprived of the benefits which they would obtain by the intercession of St Stephen and the other Saints.

After this third apparition, Lucian could no longer doubt and, betaking himself to the Bishop of Jerusalem, he communicated to him all that had happened. The joy of the holy Bishop was exceedingly great. He called the Bishops and Priests of the neighbouring Churches and, accompanied by them and a great number of Christians, he went to the place indicated and had the satisfaction of finding four coffins, on which were engraven the names of the Saints abovementioned – St Stephen, St Nicodemus, St Abibon, St.Gamaliel. When the coffins were reverently opened, there issued from them a fragrance as if the place had been filled with blooming flowers.

More than seventy persons, some of whom were sick and others possessed by evil spirits, were instantly restored to health, or relieved of their torments, upon touching the Sacred Relics, especially those of St Stephen. The body of the Protomartyr was carried with great solemnity to Jerusalem, and deposited in the Church of Sion, the oldest and largest Church in that City.

During the reign of Theodosius the Younger, it was transported to Constantinople, and thence to Rome in the reign of Pope Pelagius I. The rearkable discovery of the relics of St Stephen and the miracles, which had been wrought at their touch, were soon known all over the Christian world. The heretics, who, at that time persecuted the Church, were ashamed and the faithful strengthened in the True Faith and animated in their veneration for the Protomartyr.

All Countries and Cities applied for portions of the Relics and many were favoured with them, to the great benefit of the people. Many received only some of the earth in which the holy body had rested; others, a piece of linen which had touched his coffin but, by the pious use of them, as many miracles were wrought as by the relics themselves.

In St Augustine, we have an indisputable witness of this, as he lived at the time of the discovery. Among other things, he tells us, in the twenty second book of the “City of God,” of many great miracles wrought, in his presence, by these relics, in the city of Hippo, of which he was bishop, as also in adjacent Countries. A few of these we will here relate.

A blind woman’s sight was immediately restored, by touching her eyes with a flower, which, at her request, had been laid on the Relics of St Stephen. Lucillus, a Bishop, was cured of a dangerous fistula by devoutly carrying the Sacred Relics. Eucharius, a Priest, arose again to life, when they placed upon his corpse, a tunic which had rested on St Stephen’s body. Two men suffering with gout were cured by the same. A lad who was killed by being run over by a carriage, was not only restored to life, but his broken limbs were healed. A nun who had died, retuned to life and health, when her habit was laid upon her, ,after it had touched the Sacred Relics. Eleusinus placed the corpse of his child upon the spot where the Relics of the Saint had rested, and immediately, the child lived again. Upon the head of Marial, a hardened Jew, his brother-in-law–a Christian–laid a flower, which had been on the Altar near the Relics and the next day the Jew requested to be Baptised. Two sisters, who were afflicted with epilepsy, were instantly cured by these relics. Many other miracles are narrated by St Augustine and he concludes with these words: “If I alone were to relate what I know of the miraculous cures performed by St Stephen at Calama and in its neighbourhood, I should have to write many books and yet, not be able to collect all of them!”

What does a non-Catholic think or say on reading or hearing these and many other things which the holy Fathers have written of the Sacred Relics? He rejects all these histories and accuses St Augustine and other great teachers, of falsehood and superstition. But, if he believes even one of these miracles, how can he, according to the doctrines of his religion, condemn the veneration of Relics and the invocation of the Saints!?” (Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., Original, Short and Practical Sermons for Every Feast of the Liturgical Year: Three Sermons for Every Feast, published originally by C. J. H. Lowen, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1882.)