Blase Cupich Denies Christ the King Before Chicom Sympathizers

As is well known by now, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has sold out the long-suffering Catholics of the underground church in Red China who have been too busy trust trying to keep their faith alive in the midst of Communist totalitarianism to pay much, if any attention, to the fact that the “popes” for whom many of them have died over the years have been no “popes” all.

The process of this monstrous sellout has been documented many times on this website, including in the following articles: A Betrayal Worthy of the Antichrist, Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology, Addendum to Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology, Addendum to Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology, Red Army Inside The Vatican, Still Selling the Rope After All These Years, part two, Disruption Is Of The Very Essence of Modernism, "He Speaks Like A Leftist",  Bergoglio the Red Surrenders Faithful Catholics to Their Persecutors, Neville Bergoglio's Appeasement of the Chicom Monsters, Doubly Betrayed by Jorge and His False Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio: Front Man for the Lockdown State's New World Order, part two, Jorge's Expendables, Merchants of Murder and Mendacity, part two,  and Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" with Diocletian.

Bergoglio’s sanguine acceptance of Communist regimes has come without a work of rebuke for the suppression of dissenting voices, the imprisonment, torture, and execution of various “thought criminals” who have been deemed to be “enemies of the people,” unlimited support for the slaughter of the innocent preborn, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, and the execution of both regular and thought criminals by being vivisected alive without anesthesia for their bodily organs that are placed on the international black market for sale to the highest bidder. Ever the hypocrite, “Pope Francis” has, however, been openly critical of “populism,” which is his code for criticizing the likes of former American President Donald John Trump and Hungarian President Viktor Orban and has been utterly shameless in inviting one high profile pro-abortion, pro-sodomite statist after another for private audiences and photograph opportunities, and he has been assiduous in appointing men after his own darkened, possessed heart to serve in the "hierarchy” of his counterfeit church of conciliarism.

One of the most prominent of these “bishops” is Blase Cupich, the conciliar “archbishop” of Chicago, Illinois, who, like Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself, has made the slaughter of the innocent preborn a matter of moral equivalence with the “rights” of those who have entered the country illegally, the protection of the environment, the “justice of the Federal budget, and other matters that do not pertain to the Sacred Deposit of Faith.

The release of videos of Planned Parenthood physicians discussing the market for tissue harvested in abortions has produced varied and strong reactions, and has, ironically, given us a reason for hope and an opportunity as a nation.  

The tapes have generated a visceral reaction independent of how they were made or whether Planned Parenthood was making a profit. Rather, the widespread revulsion over the tapes arose because they unmasked the fact that, in our public conversation about abortion, we have so muted the humanity of the unborn child that some consider it quite acceptable to speak freely of crushing a child's skull to preserve valuable body parts and to have that discussion over lunch.

Yet, the outrage expressed by many at the physicians' callous and flippant attitude toward trafficking in human body parts is evidence that American hearts have not been irreparably hardened by the steady devaluing of human dignity in our society. This awakening of our conscience gives hope that deep within the hearts and souls of Americans there still resides the truth that an unborn child manifestly is a human being, entitled to rights and respect.

This newest evidence about the disregard for the value of human life also offers the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment as a nation to a consistent ethic of life. While commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive, we should be no less appalled by the indifference toward the thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness and want; who pay the price of violence in gun-saturated neighborhoods; or who are executed by the state in the name of justice.

The open and generous nature of the American people has the capacity to astonish and push boundaries. We crowdfund, sign petitions, dump buckets of ice on ourselves and embrace new ways of relating to our environment. Can we use our shared outrage at all these affronts to human dignity to unite us and begin a national dialogue on the worth of human life? (Blase Cupich op-ed: Planned Parenthood and the humanity of the unborn child.)

To equate the direct, intentional killing of the preborn with the “rights” of those who enter this country illegally or with joblessness) or with access to medical care is indecent. There are four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance: willful murder, the sin of Sodom, withholding the day laborer’s wages and defrauding a widow. These sins are more heinous than other evils save for those that directly attacking the honor and majesty and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity (such as the sins of the apostates in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who promulgate falsehoods about God and His Sacred Deposit of Faith while staging a “liturgy” that is both Protestant and Judeo-Masonic, if not pagan in an increasing number of instances).

As noted above, there is no kind of “national conversation” that supposed Catholic “bishops” are to have concerning matters of supernatural and moral truth. Truth must be proclaimed. Sinners must be exhorted to convert. Laws that are “settled” wrongly must be unsettled. It is that simple.

There is no need for any kind of “hermeneutic of continuity” with respect to these remarks as there is no kind of rupture, apparent or otherwise, between what was taught by Joseph Louis Bernardin at Fordham University nearly forty-one years ago now and what is being preached at present by Jorge Mario Bergoglio with such maniacal devotion. Blase Cupich is a clone of Joseph Louis Bernardin, who was following a “tradition” of “social action” in Chicago that had been blazed as a result of the alliances formed by Samuel Cardinal Stritch and Albert “Cardinal” Meyer and that continued under his, Cupich’s, immediate predecessor, Francis “Cardinal” George, O.M.I.:

As the third largest archdiocese in the country, the Catholic Church in Chicagoland has been a major player in social reform in the United States for decades. This was no different under George’s leadership. As his former director of the Office for Peace and Justice for seven years, I believe one of George’s most notable legacies will be his consistent promotion and support of the Catholic social tradition. While his predecessor, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, was portrayed as a peacebuilder, Cardinal George would forge his own way on questions of social injustice, guided by his missionary charism. George stands as a bridge to the socially conscious Cupich, with his empirical development of social justice infrastructure, just as Pope Emeritus Benedict was a continuum of the Catholic social doctrine between Saint John Paul II and Pope Francis with social encyclicals such as “Caritas in Veritate.” Their personal styles may have differed, but more surprising is the continuity of social doctrine pastorally applied.

I was in college during the halcyon days of the economics and peace pastorals of the U.S. bishops. I took social ministry positions in the Archdiocese of Washington and then the Campaign for Human Development (before the Catholic was added, CCHD) at the U.S. Catholic Conference. Cardinal Bernardin and the Archdiocese of Chicago provided a model for engagement in social action that was well deserved. The image is ingrained in my mind of a cancer-ridden Joseph Bernardin rising from his wheelchair to give an impassioned plea for human dignity and solidarity at the 25th anniversary of Catholic Campaign for Human Development in downtown Chicago. (Social Justice Ministry in Chicago: From Bernardin to Cupich.)

The author of the words above, although wrong about his praise for Joseph Louis Bernardin’s proselytizing on behalf of Sillonistic-Judeo-Masonic notion of “social teaching” that has nothing to do with the teaching of the Catholic Church, was certainly correct when noting the continuum or “bridge” that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was between Karol Josef Wojtyla and Jorge Mario Bergoglio. (By the way, there is a book dealing with this continuum. Gee, what’s the name of the book? Ah, yes, I’ve got it: No Space Between Ratzinger and Bergoglio: So Close in Apostasy, So Far From Catholic Truth. Sure, it was published nine years ago and is out of date as much as happened since then, but the continuum is there for all to see.)

The daily slaughter of the preborn, both by chemical and surgical means, continues in this country precisely because of the “reconciliation” that the counterfeit church of conciliarism has made with the false, naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religious indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles that made possible the rise of the Judeo-Masonic state of Modernity. It is impossible to fight moral evils with doctrinal errors. Impossible.

Those such as Blase Cupich and others, including Bergoglio himself, who want to find “common ground” between the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment that prohibit the direct, intentional taking of innocent human life and those who believe in a “woman’s right to choose” (to kill a baby) in order to pursue the path of a Saul Alinsky-inspired version of “social justice” must reckon with these words of Pope Pius XII contained in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930:

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 30, 1930.)

Such is not the language of conciliar “dialogue.” Such is the language of Catholic truth spoken prophetically by a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

A false church with false doctrines, false and sacramentally barren liturgical rites and false pastoral practices has helped to devastate one formerly Catholic country after another. This devastation was long in the planning by the adversary, and it has taken over fifty years of careful propagation to prepare the way for what is only the logical public manifestation of what was intended all along: the overthrow of the Catholic Faith in favor of a naturalistic “religion of man.”

Blase Cupich is merely a product of what has gone on before him and a mirror image of what Jorge Mario Bergoglio intends to do with the time that the adversary has given him to lead the false church of universal apostasy that most people in the world believe is the Catholic Church. Jorge has made it impossible for believing Catholics who are still attached to the structures of their false church to "appeal to Rome" about such men as Cupich as he is doing precisely what his "pope" wants done. This is simply the convergence of the forces of Modernity in the world and of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Cupich has consistently reiterated the existence of a false moral equivalence between the slaughter of innocent babies and matters upon which men of good will can disagree. Here is a reminder of what he said in 2017 about the “injustice” of the State of Illinois annual budget:

In his statement on the recent Sutherland Springs, Texas, shooting, Cupich seemed to join the crowd of celebrities and left-wing politicians in taking a swipe at those who offer “thoughts and prayers” after such a tragedy.

“Once again we must extend our condolences to families suffering the horrific loss of loved ones to an act of madness,” said Cupich. “It would dishonor those lost and those who mourn to simply participate in the routine exchange of sympathies underpinned by the sense of futility and hopelessness that has befallen our country.”

He continued:

We must recognize that the factors that produce these tragedies will not change unless we take direct action to change them.

Comprehensive national gun control policies will not prevent every shooting but it will prevent some.

Access to mental health care — in legislation founded on the principle that health care is a right not a privilege — will not prevent every shooting but it will prevent some and will mean we will have fewer podium speeches about our thoughts and prayers.

Let it be our firm resolve to act and to advocate and to end this hideous blot upon our nation.

Honor the memories of the many thousands of gun violence victims by holding accountable those who could have done something  and did not, who called for study instead of steps toward progress, and who gave those Pope Francis has called merchants of death more regard than the dead children, the dead men and women we mourn today.

The time to demand action is now.

No mention of Jesus, salvation, hope, or even “mercy.” Just pure political talking points about gun control.

Compare that with what Cupich said after the Governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, promised to veto a bill mandating taxpayer-funded abortions (Rauner didn’t keep his promise, but this statement was released before that).

Cupich said:

Last Friday, Governor Rauner promised to veto House Bill 40. This legislation, which is pending in the General Assembly, would use public dollars, through Illinois’ Medicaid and employee health insurance programs, to fund elective abortions at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. I thank him for this principled stand. Abortion is a controversial issue in this country, but using public money to provide abortions should not be. The federal government prohibits the practice, and polls show a substantial segment of the American public reject it.

I pray that this divisive issue will be put behind us and our government officials will now concentrate on the many difficult challenges facing Illinois. Most importantly, our political leaders must find a way to cooperate and craft a budget that serves all our people. It is essential that we unite in this effort, and I stand ready to help in any way.

Got that? Abortion is a “controversial issue.” It needs to be “put behind us” so the government can focus on its budget.

The statement suggests taxpayer-funded abortion is wrong because “the federal government prohibits the practice” and most Americans don’t like it.

Your Eminence, abortion is immoral because it kills a whole, distinct, living human being and therefore violates the Church’s prohibition on murder. Even if abortion wasn’t “controversial,” and everyone in the country thought it was an acceptable solution to an inconvenient baby, it still wouldn’t be morally OK.

No matter how concerned you are about the “budget” and political leaders “cooperating” to craft that budget to your liking, what you consider bad economics may be a social ill, but abortion will always remain an intrinsic evil.

St. John the Baptist didn’t talk to Herod about his tax policies or whether he was giving enough government benefits to the shepherds.

No, Jesus’ cousin told him the truth, that Herod was committing adultery. And he lost his life for it. (Duelling statements show Cdl. Cupich’s glaring double standard on guns and abortion.)

Although the author of the article published on LifeSite News nearly seven years ago believed that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a true pope and that Blase Cupich is an “eminence” deserving of the respect as a putative prince of the Catholic Church, her essential points were very correct, noting that the killing of children is not wrong because Holy Mother Church teaches it but because she, as the infallible teacher of the Divine Positive Law and the infallibly authoritative interpreter of the Natural Law, is only enunciating what has been revealed and exists in the very nature of things.

Nevertheless, of course, Blase Cupich has persisted in his defense of Joseph Louis Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life," which is why he took issue very publicly with a statement issued by the so-called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops upon the inauguration of the pro-abortion, pro-sodomite sellout named Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., as the President in Name Only of the United States of America:

WASHINGTON — Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, used Twitter to issue a scathing criticism of the USCCB’s official statement on the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

In his four-part Twitter thread on Wednesday, Cardinal Cupich said that “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued an ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden’s inauguration. Aside from the fact that there is seemingly no precedent for doing so, the statement, critical of President Biden, came as a surprise to many bishops, who received it just hours before it was released.”

“The statement was crafted without the involvement of the Administrative Committee, a collegial consultation that is a normal course for statements that represent and enjoy the considered endorsement of the American bishops,” he said.

“The internal institutional failures involved must be addressed, and I look forward to contributing to all efforts to that end, so that, inspired by the Gospel, we can build up the unity of the Church, and together take up the work of healing our nation in this moment of crisis,” the cardinal said.

The overt criticism of the USCCB came after Cardinal Cupich published a separate statement on his website that did not include these critiques. It follows a flurry of public reactions from his fellow U.S. bishops, who have supported the USCCB statement.

Three different bishops speaking on background to CNA said they were aware that Cardinal Cupich wanted a more supportive, clearly pro-Biden statement, and that he spent most of Wednesday trying to get the support of other bishops to come up with an alternative statement.

The USCCB statement to which Cardinal Cupich was responding was originally expected to be released at 9 a.m. Eastern time. However, it was delayed and published only after Biden was sworn in to office and around the time Pope Francis published a message to the new president.

The statement was from Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the bishops’ conference.

Archbishop Gomez stressed that the bishops’ job is not to be political, but to preach the truth. He said that while there are numerous issues of concern to the bishops’ conference, abortion is the preeminent issue that cannot be ignored.

Archbishop Gomez said that “abortion is a direct attack on life that also wounds the woman and undermines the family. It is not only a private matter, it raises troubling and fundamental questions of fraternity, solidarity, and inclusion in the human community. It is also a matter of social justice. We cannot ignore the reality that abortion rates are much higher among the poor and minorities, and that the procedure is regularly used to eliminate children who would be born with disabilities.”

"Rather than impose further expansions of abortion and contraception, as he has promised, I am hopeful that the new President and his administration will work with the Church and others of good will. My hope is that we can begin a dialogue to address the complicated cultural and economic factors that are driving abortion and discouraging families,” he continued.

“My hope, too, is that we can work together to finally put in place a coherent family policy in this country, one that acknowledges the crucial importance of strong marriages and parenting to the well-being of children and the stability of communities,” Archbishop Gomez said. “If the President, with full respect for the Church’s religious freedom, were to engage in this conversation, it would go a long way toward restoring the civil balance and healing our country’s needs.” (In Unprecedented Move, Cardinal Cupich Criticizes USCCB Statement on Joe Biden.)

Blase Cupich, however, prefers “dialogue” with the likes of Biden even though fifty years of such “dialogue” has not only failed to change the reprobated traitor but has emboldened him to harden his support for unrestricted baby-killing along with his unapologetic support for sodomy, child-mutilation and a host of other unspeakable perversities.

Blase Cupich, who was appointed by Karol Joszef Wojtyla/John Paul II on July 7, 1998, to replace “Bishop” Charles H. Chaput, O.F.M., Cap., as the conciliar “bishop” of Rapid City, South Dakota, after the latter had been promoted to be the conciliar “archbishop” of Denver, Colorado, has a long and very consistent history of condemning baby-killing while equating it with the ever evolving list of issues considered to make up a contemporary “consistent ethic of life” (seamless garment) approach to indemnify pro-abortion, pro-sodomite politicians, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, in public life. Cupich has been particularly outspoken about the junk science ideology of “climate change”:

Second, climate change threatens our planet—and therefore, the future of humanity itself. We are seeing the dramatic alterations in our weather patterns taking place before our very eyes, from the recent hurricanes battering Mexico and California to the horrific wildfires on Maui and the tragic flooding in Libya. We know why this is happening. The continued use of fossil fuels and industrial practices that increase harmful emissions are trapping more and more heat in the lower atmosphere. In a particularly painful way, the Canadian wildfire smoke that choked so much of the American Midwest and the East Coast this past summer reminds us of humanity’s interconnectedness, as an environmental crisis in one part of the world can harm people many thousands of miles away.

Indeed, millions of women, children and men have become climate refugees, forced to flee their homelands because of environmental disasters. The World Health Organization has called climate change the greatest threat to global health and life in the new millennium. Every year, according to the W.H.O., about 13 million people die from environmental factors, a number that will rapidly increase if global warming continues unchecked. (Cupich on retrieving the Consistent Ethic of Life.)

The so-called “consistent ethic of life” has long been a cover by which anti-family population control Marxist have sought to insinuated Communism under the guise of “environmental justice.” As is the case with Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself, Blase Cupich is a willing accomplice in this fraud who is unwilling to look honestly at the facts as recounted in so many scholarly studies and commentaries, including Climate Change, Abortion and the Sexual Revolution, Climate Change Crime – Depopulation in the Name of Human Rights, Follow the Science: Biden Climate Policy Is a Fraud, and Here's the Climate Dissent You're Not Hearing About Because It's Muffled by Society's Top Institutions. Then again, facts do not matter to ideologues.

Moreover, the North American Bergoglio, Cupich, has sought to undermine the pro-life movement, including peaceful sidewalk counseling, in front of abortuaries, by claiming that “confrontation” changes the minds of no one even though sidewalk counseling, which was pioneered and championed by the late Joseph Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action Network, has indeed save thousands upon thousands of lives and, more importantly, the souls of the mothers who sought to kill their preborn children:

Then another issue arose. For the last few years, a national group called 40 Days for Life had protested abortion by praying outside abortion clinics. Compared to groups that blockaded abortion clinics in Spokane a decade ago — or groups that yell scripture over megaphones today — 40 Days for Life aimed to be tame. No blockades, no gory signs. Traditionally, about a dozen Catholic priests in Spokane joined in. Several seminarians would come out every Friday, in front of Spokane’s Planned Parenthood clinic, and lead a group in praying the Catholic rosary.

In 2008, Bishop William Skylstad, Cupich’s predecessor, endorsed the campaign, writing, “I commend this effort and pray that abundant fruits flow from it.”

That was why the movement’s local leader, John Weingarten, was so surprised to hear rumors last fall that Cupich had banned priests and seminarians from praying outside clinics.

Weingarten found it “terribly upsetting” and started an online petition in protest. Meanwhile, the controversy lit up a network of conservative Catholic blogs and the anti-abortion news service LifeSite News.

“It concerned me. I don’t understand what he’s doing,” Seattle Catholic blogger Mark Shea says of Cupich. “The rest of the Catholic bishops not only had no problem with 40 Days for Life. [Some] participated in it themselves.”

Finally, the diocese issued a clarifying statement on behalf of Cupich.

“The present political environment has become very toxic and polarizing,” especially about abortion, the statement said.

While Cupich wouldn’t forbid priests from praying outside the clinic, he asked priests to keep their role of “teacher” the priority. Decisions about abortion, the statement read, are not usually made in front of clinics — they’re made at “kitchen tables and in living rooms and they frequently involve a sister, daughter, relative or friend who may have been pressured or abandoned by the man who fathered the child.”

Priests are the public face of the church, Cupich says. He would never want a priest’s public actions to endanger their credibility and community impact.

But the church’s critics, on both ideological sides, aren’t satisfied. Karl Easterland, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, is critical, not just of the bullying that women at the clinic can face, but of the Catholic Church’s stance against contraception. Planned Parenthood, with its contraception efforts, he says, does more than any other organization to prevent abortion.

Weingarten, meanwhile, says that even if priests or seminarians were technically allowed to participate, none have during the campaign this spring. He feels they’ve been discouraged. Also, the Inland Register, the diocese’s paper, used to allow 40 Days of Life to advertise, but this spring, Weingarten was told that “because of the controversy for the 40 Days for Life campaign I ran this by Bishop Cupich and he said no to advertising.”

“Please understand that I have absolutely nothing personally against the bishop, and he is in my prayers regularly,” Weingarten says in an email. “However, my goal is to save as many lives as possible, and having our bishop get in the way of that is troublesome.”

In his third-floor office next to the red towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes, Cupich, in black-and-white priestly dress, expands on his philosophy in a calm, ruminating baritone.

His writings and statements, he says, are constantly themed with references to bringing sides together, striking up dialogue, “defusing hot wires.” He sees these hot-button social issues as just one thread in a larger religious tapestry.

“I want to make sure that the message we have is very clear,” Cupich says. “It begins with the unborn, it doesn’t end there.” (Calling for Calm.)

Blase Cupich, who has been outspoken on behalf of the “rights” of those engaged in perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, is a quintessential leftist ideologue who is very confrontational about the “rights” of sodomites and illegal immigrants while urging “civility” and “debate” on a matter that is beyond debate of any kind: the slaughter of innocent babies.

This bifurcated, hypocritical approach of moral equivalence and equivocation was on full display when he gave the following “invocation” at the beginning of the 2024 Democratic National Convention on Monday, August 19, 2024, the Feast of Saint John Eudes, without once mentioning the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Our Divine Redeemer and King:

We praise you, O God of all creation. Quicken in us a resolve to protect your handiwork. You are the source of every blessing that graces our lives and our nation.

Interjection Number One:

Abject religious indifferentism.

Judeo-Masonry of the sort that it calls to mind the following religiously indifferentist remarks made by the anti-Incarnational likes of the Deist George Washington, the Unitarian John Adams, and the Deist-Rationalist named Thomas Jefferson:

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend. (First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789; there was no reference to God at all in his second inaugural address, March 4, 1793.)

The Nation's first chief executive took his oath of office in April [1789] in New York City on the balcony of the Senate Chamber at Federal Hall on Wall Street. General Washington had been unanimously elected President by the first electoral college, and John Adams was elected Vice President because he received the second greatest number of votes. Under the rules, each elector cast two votes. The Chancellor of New York and fellow Freemason, Robert R. Livingston administered the oath of office. The Bible on which the oath was sworn belonged to New York's St. John's Masonic Lodge. The new President gave his inaugural address before a joint session of the two Houses of Congress assembled inside the Senate Chamber. (A description of Washington's First Inaugural.)

Let us unite, therefore, in imploring the Supreme Ruler of Nations to spread his holy protection over these United States; to turn the machinations of the wicked to the confirming of our Constitution; to enable us at all times to root out internal sedition and put invasion to flight; to perpetuate to our country that prosperity which his goodness has already conferred, and to verify the anticipations of this Government being a safeguard of human rights. (George Washington, State of the Union message, 1794.)

I trust I do not deceive myself when I indulge the persuasion that I have never met you at any period when more than at the present the situation of our public affairs has afforded just cause for mutual congratulation, and for inviting you to join with me in profound gratitude to the Author of all Good for the numerous and extraordinary blessings we enjoy. (George Washington, State of the Union message, 1795.)

The situation in which I now stand for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced, and I can not omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on the success of the experiment, nor to repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations that His providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved, and that the Government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual. (George Washington, State of the Union message, 1796.)

The nation's second president, John Adams, who served from March 4, 1797, to March 4, 1801, was militantly anti-Catholic. As a politician, however, Adams knew that most of the people in the United States of America belonged to one of the many sects of Protestantism, which is why he made a favorable reference to Christianity generically in his one and only inaugural address on March 4, 1797. He also revealed his true religion, rationalism, in that same address: 

If an unshaken confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people, on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age; and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect.

With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no doubt of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared without hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support it to the utmost of my power.

And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence. (John Adams; if you think that my sentences are long, look in the actual text of this speech to find where the sentence quoted in the first paragraph above begins!) 

Here, just for a little "refresher course," are some of the views of John Adams about Our Lord and His true Church:

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away {with} all this artificial scaffolding…" (11 April, 1823, John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson, Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. Lester J. Cappon, II, 594).

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? (John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821)

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! (John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, quoted in 200 Years of Disbelief, by James Hauck)

Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, a man who believed that God set the world in motion and then withdrew from its daily activities (also known as the "watchmaker" view of God), and a rationalist who took out all of the miracles of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in his own translation of the New Testament. It was his desire, expressly stated in a letter dated just ten days before his death, July 4, 1826, to rid the country of "monkish superstition," meaning to rid the country of the Catholic Faith. His two inaugural addresses, first of which was an elegy of praise to the founding principles, are thus redolent of the Judeo-Masonic spirit even though he was not Mason himself: 

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.

Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity. (Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801.)

 I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens have again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice, but the weaknesses of human nature and the limits of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence which I have heretofore experienced from my constituents; the want of it will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.(Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805.) 

Again, just for a refresher course, here are some of Jefferson's Anti-Catholic statements:

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December, 1813.)

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Roger Weigthman, June 24, 1826, ten days before Jefferson's death. This letter is quoted in its entirety in Dr. Paul Peterson’s now out-of-print Readings in American Democracy. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall-Hunt, 1979, pp. 28-29.)

Why did I use so many quotations from the “founders” in a commentary about Blase Cupich?

The answer is quite simple.

I have stating for at least three decades now that the Judeo-Masonic foundation of Americanism is, along with the anti-Theism of the French Revolutionism and then, a century later, the Sillonists’ “gospel of religious indifferentism, is one of the most important building blocks of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s worldview. The late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself told us nineteen years ago that the American concepts of separation of Church and State and religious liberty made essential contributions to a “new” understanding of the relationship between Church and State:

In the meantime, however, the modern age had also experienced developments. People came to realize that the American Revolution was offering a model of a modern State that differed from the theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

Although the "model of a modern State" that emerged from the American Revolution did indeed differ from the "theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution," that difference was only a matter of degree, not of kind. The anti-Theism of the French Revolution even in its first phase from 1789 to 1792 was direct, open and violent, although not as bloodthirsty as the second phase's Reign of Terror under Maximilian Robespierre and The Directory.

The American Revolution's anti-Theism was more subtle in that it paved the way for our current circumstances of complete chaos by bestowing irreligion with protected "constitutional rights," thus making it impossible to stop such things as the open worship of the devil (as opposed to the more subtle forms of devil worship found in other false religions) in the chapels of the armed forces of the United States of America and elsewhere, and of the advances of the adversary’s agenda (divorce, contraception, abortion, “population control,” “family planning,” environmentalism, statism, and a whole array of unnatural vices).

Blase Cupich’s indifference about the Holy Name of Jesus in public is no accident as it is a natural byproduct of the Americanist legacy of Archbishops John Carroll, John Ireland, Richard Cushing, and James “Cardinal” Gibbons, and this indifference has carried over into his sanguine belief that that sins against Holy Purity are not only not serious but are actually no sins at all:

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, February 9, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Amoris Laetitia is “nothing short of revolutionary,” a “hermeneutical shift,” and is “[forcing] a paradigm shift” in Catholic practice, Cardinal Blase Cupich said today.

Cupich told this to the Von Hügel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry at Cambridge University today and made additional brief comments about it to the dissident National Catholic Reporter.

Pope Francis’ letter to Argentine bishops approving their interpretation of Amoris Laetitia “offered a pathway forward” in regards to unrepentant adulterers being given Holy Communion, Cupich said.

Notably, the publication of “in Acta Apostolica Sedes of his letter to the bishops of Buenos Aires…confirms that their interpretation of Amoris authentically reflects his mind as being official Church teaching,” he said. “It will now be up to all in the Church … to respond in a spirit of affective and effective collegiality with the Successor of Peter.”

Because the Catholic Church teaches that Holy Communion is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, only practicing Catholics in a state of grace may receive it. Therefore, the Church has always taught that someone who unrepentantly persists in sin – such as sleeping with someone who is not their spouse – should not receive it.

Cupich implied that the Catholic Church’s traditional teachings and pastoral practices have been inadequate. He said sometimes “the voice of God” will tell people to continue living in situations that do not meet the moral “ideal.”

'New direction' of 'accompaniment'

According to the cardinal, Amoris Laetitia rejects “an authoritarian or paternalistic way of dealing with people that lays down the law, that pretends to have all the answers, or easy answers to complex problems, that suggests that general rules will seamlessly bring immediate clarity or that the teachings of our tradition can preemptively be applied to the particular challenges confronting couples and families.”

“A new direction will be required, one that envisions ministry as accompaniment,” said Cupich. This “accompaniment” will be “marked by a deep respect for the conscience of the faithful.”

He condemned “pretending to have a general rule that’s going to satisfy every particular case” about people living in invalid sexual unions receiving Holy Communion.

Instead, Cupich said, “I think that accompanying means first of all that you have to get to know the person and walk with them. It would be against the accompaniment model of ministry if in fact you began to speak about particular questions in general ways.” (Cardinal Cupich lays out why Amoris Laetitia is 'revolutionary' for Catholic teaching.)

Blase Cupich, therefore, was right at home at the rabidly pro-abortion, pro-sodomite crowd of Chicom-influenced freaks and freak wannabees where Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of an overtly Marxist economist father from country of Jamaica, said the following about the killing of the innocent preborn:

Well, instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans. Friends, I believe America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives, especially on matters of heart and home. But tonight in America, too many women are not able to make those decisions.

And let’s be clear about how we got here. Donald Trump handpicked members of the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom. And now he brags about it. In his words, “I did it and I’m proud to have done it.”

Well, I’ll tell you, over the past two years, I’ve traveled across our country, and women have told me their stories. Husbands and fathers have shared theirs. Stories of women miscarrying in a parking lot, developing sepsis, losing the ability to ever again have children, all because doctors are afraid [that] they may go to jail for caring for their patients.

Couples just trying to grow their family, cut off in the middle of IVF treatments. Children who have survived sexual assault, potentially being forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

This is what’s happening in our country because of Donald Trump and understand he has not done. As a part of his agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion, and enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress. And get this, get this, he plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions.

Simply put, they are out of their minds. And one must ask, one must ask, why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well, we trust women. We trust women. And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.

In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake. The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities, and places of worship. The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others – the freedom to vote. (Tucker Carlson, others react to Kamala Harris' acceptance speech: 'A liar on the deepest level'.)

Leaving aside that the fact that, as readers of this site should be quite aware, former President Donald John Trump supports contraception, in vitro fertilization, is opposed to a Federal ban on baby butchery, and has said recently that he would not enforce existing Federal law forbidding using the United States Postal Service to distribute baby-killing pills, Blase Cupich’s invocation at the Democratic National Convention five days ago omitted any reference to the most pressing moral issue of our time—the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn by chemical and surgical means, one of the four sins try cry out to Heaven for vengeance—and he is thus guilty of the sin of omission and, by doing so, has given “episcopal” imprimatur to Catholics to vote with a “clear conscience,” which he is consonant with the will of God, for candidates who fully support the shedding of innocent blood under the cover of the civil law.

As one will see below, the next part of Blase Cupich’s infamous invocation called upon the delegates at the organized crime family of naturalism’s celebration of indecency, impurity, immodesty, statism, socialism, sodomy, baby butchery, and outright deceit to be instruments of “peace.” Alas, no one can be an instrument of peace in the world if his own immortal soul is at war with Christ the King by means of a persistence in what are, objectively speaking, Mortal Sins:

We pray that you help us to truly understand and answer the sacred call of citizenship. We are a nation composed of every people and culture, united not by ties of blood, but by the profound aspirations of life, freedom, justice, and unbound hope. These aspirations are why our forebears saw America as a beacon of hope. And, with your steady guidance, Lord, may we remain so today.

In every generation, we are called to renew these aspirations, to re-weave the fabric of America. We do so when we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts, but also when we confront our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially those created by moral blindness and fear of the other.

We pray for peace, especially for people suffering the senselessness of war. But as we pray, we must also act, for building up the common good takes work. It takes love.

And so we pray: May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together. And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God’s peace.

Guide us, Lord, in taking up our responsibility to forge this new chapter of our nation’s history. Let it be rooted in the recognition that for us, as for every generation, unity triumphing over division is what advances human dignity and liberty.

Let it be propelled by the women and men elected to serve in public life, who know that service is the mark of true leadership.

And let this new chapter of our nation’s history be filled with overwhelming hope, a hope that refuses to narrow our national vision, but rather, as Pope Francis has said, “to dream dreams and see visions” of what by your grace our world can become.

We ask all of this, trusting in your ever provident care for us. AMEN (Text of Cardinal Cupich’s invocation at the Democratic National Convention.)

Final Interjection:

Everyone who listened to the reprehensible Blase Cupich’s reprehensibly reaffirm pro-aborts and pro-sodomites as veritable instruments of “peace” knew full well that his reference to the “fear of the other” was a slap at former President Donald John Trump’s criticism of the current administration’s open borders policy that has flooded this country with over ten million people who have entered in violation of just laws governing the orderly process of immigration to protect legitimate public health concerns and national security. Cupich believes that those who support grave moral evils can be instruments of peace and of hope.

What kind of peace?

What kind of hope?

Not the peace of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Whose Holy Name Cupich chose not to invoke lest he offend unbelievers or outright atheists?

Indeed, Our Lord told us that, quite to the contrary of Blase Cupich’s desire to avoid confrontation in order to mean social peace, He came to bring variance on the basis of belief in and a firm profession of His Holy Name by faithful adherents of His Holy Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, and without which there can be no true and legitimate social order:

Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.  35 For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

As Bishop Richard Challoner commented in his translation of the Douay-Rheims Bible:

[35] "I came to set a man at variance": Not that this was the end or design of the coming of our Saviour; but that his coming and his doctrine would have this effect, by reason of the obstinate resistance that many would make, and of their persecuting all such as should adhere to him.

Continuing with Chapter Ten of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew:

36 And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household.  37 He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.  38 And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me.  39 He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it.  40 He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.

 41 He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet: and he that receiveth a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man.  42 And whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (Matthew 10: 36-42.)

Blase Cupich wants a false peace with a world in the name of a “respectful dialogue” even though the social problems he believes can be “resolved” through government programs have arisen precisely because of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King by the Protestant Revolution and the subsequent rise of Judeo-Masonry’s warfare against family life that left children bereft of the love that Our King desires them to realize in the sanctuary of the domestic cell of the Church that is the family. Cupich’s support of the very evils that have brought about the social problems he believes government can “resolve” demonstrates that he does not possess the Catholic Faith and has no concern for the sanctification and salvation of human souls upon which the entirety of social order depends.

Here are some antidotes Blase Cupich’s refusal to invoke the Holy Name of Jesus at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, August 19, 2024:

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to them: Ye princes of the people, and ancients, hear: If we this day are examined concerning the good deed done to the infirm man, by what means he hath been made whole: Be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by him this man standeth here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4: 8-12)

If the proclamation of the Holy Name was good enough for Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's parents and for the Apostles, then it is good enough for us. We must never fear the consequences of proclaiming His Holy Name, especially in "mixed company." Remember Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's own words:

For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mk. 8: 38)

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ used the occasion of the discourse at the Last Supper to remind the Apostles that the world would hate them on account of His Name, but that they had to rely upon the help of the Holy Ghost to remain steadfast in loyalty to Him:

If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.

But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake: because they know not him who sent me. If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. But that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: They hated me without cause.

But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me.And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning. (Jn. 15: 18-27)

Do not be surprised, therefore, that the world will hate us as much as it hated Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who told us in the Sermon of the Mount that those who were persecuted for His Name's sake would have a blessed reward: 

Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. (Mt. 5: 11-12)

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ repeated this in the Sermon on the Plain as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Luke:

Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For according to these things did their fathers to the prophets. (Lk. 6: 22-23)

The first Pope wrote the following in his first Epistle to instruct us to be ready to suffer for the sake of the Holy Name of Jesus: 

If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honour, glory, and power of God, and that which is his Spirit, resteth upon you. (1 Pt. 4: 14)

The Acts of the Apostles records the courage of the Apostles, headed by the first pope, Saint Peter, when they were brought before the Sanhedrin:

[26] Then went the officer with the ministers, and brought them without violence; for they feared the people, lest they should be stoned. [27] And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, [28] Saying: Commanding we commanded you, that you should not teach in this name; and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and you have a mind to bring the blood of this man upon us. [29] But Peter and the apostles answering, said: We ought to obey God, rather than men. [30] The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging him upon a tree.

[31] Him hath God exalted with his right hand, to be Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. [32] And we are witnesses of these things and the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to all that obey him. [33] When they had heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they thought to put them to death. [34] But one in the council rising up, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, respected by all the people, commanded the men to be put forth a little while. [35] And he said to them: Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do, as touching these men.

[36] For before these days rose up Theodas, affirming himself to be somebody, to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all that believed him were scattered, and brought to nothing. [37] After this man, rose up Judas of Galilee, in the days of the enrolling, and drew away the people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as consented to him, were dispersed. [38] And now, therefore, I say to you, refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought; [39] But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God. And they consented to him. [40] And calling in the apostles, after they had scourged them, they charged them that they should not speak at all in the name of Jesus; and they dismissed them.

[41] And they indeed went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus.[42] And every day they ceased not in the temple, and from house to house, to teach and preach Christ Jesus. (Acts 5: 26-42.)

The conciliar revolutionaries believe that it is virtuous to be silent about the Holy Name of Jesus before men, a veritable requirement to be a "good citizen" of the United States of America and, of course, of the "world." 

Far from the warped, twisted minds of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Blase Cupich, anti-apostles who keep silent about the Holy Name of Jesus in “mixed company," Saint Bernardine of Siena, whose preaching about the Name above all other Names was responsible for the feast celebrated annually each January 2, explained that the Holy Name of Jesus is the glory of preachers:

The name of Jesus is the glory of preachers, because the shining splendor of that name causes his word to be proclaimed and heard. And how do you think such an immense, sudden and dazzling light of faith came into the world, if not because Jesus was preached? Was it not through the brilliance and sweet savor of this name that God called us into his marvelous light? When we have been enlightened, and in that same light behold the light of heaven, rightly may the apostle Paul say to us: Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.

So this name must be proclaimed, that it may shine out and never be suppressed. But it must not be preached by someone with sullied mind or unclean lips, but stored up and poured out from a chosen vessel. That is why our Lord said of Saint Paul: He is a chosen instrument of mine, the vessel of my choice, to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. In this chosen vessel there was to be a drink more pleasing than earth ever knew, offered to all mankind for a price they could pay, so that they would be drawn to taste of it. Poured into other chosen vessels, it would grow and radiate splendor. For our Lord said: He is to Carry my name.

When a fire is lit to clear a field, it burns off all the dry and useless weeds and thorns. When the sun rises and darkness is dispelled, robbers, night-prowlers and burglars hide away. So when Paul's voice was raised to preach the Gospel to the nations, like a great clap of thunder in the sky, his preaching was a blazing fire carrying all before it. It was the sun rising in full glory. Infidelity was consumed by it, false beliefs fled away, and the truth appeared like a great candle lighting the whole world with its brilliant flame.

By word of mouth, by letters, by miracles and by the example of his own life, Saint Paul bore the name of Jesus wherever he went. He praised the name of Jesus at all times, but never more than when bearing witness to his faith. Moreover, the Apostle did indeed carry this name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel as a light to enlighten all nations. And this was his cry wherever he journeyed: The night is passing away, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves honorably as in the day. Paul himself showed forth the burning and shining light set upon a candlestick, everywhere proclaiming Jesus, and him crucified.

And so the Church, the bride of Christ strengthened by his testimony, rejoices with the psalmist, singing: 0 God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. The psalmist exhorts her to do this, as he says: Sing to the Lord, and bless his name, proclaim his salvation day after day. And this salvation is Jesus, her savior."  (Saint Bernardine of Siena, (Sermo 49, De glorioso Nomine Iesu Christi, cap 2: Opera omnia, 4. 505-506) 

To be silent about the Holy Name of Jesus for fear of offending men is a grave sin as it offends God by showing one prefers the respect of mere creatures to giving the true God of Divine Revelation His due no matter the venue.

Similarly, Pope Leo XIII exhorted us in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, to defend and to proclaim the truths of the Catholic Faith at all times without fail:

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

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

Alas, to call to mind a metaphor used by a conciliar priest to exculpate himself for a massive rainfall on Easter Sunday over four decades ago now, the likes of Blase Cupich are "in sales, not management." That is, these sanctimonious men who prefer human respect are just following the example set by the conciliar "popes," each of whom, starting with Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, has denied Christ and His true Church before men.

Today is the Feast of Saint Bartholomew, who was skinned alive for the Holy Faith. Blessed Jacobus de Voragine, O.P., provided an account, appended below, of this Apostle’s holy life and martyrdom in The Golden Legend.

We should pray to Bartholomew to have but a fraction of his apostolic zeal for souls and his desire to endure all manner of horrible tortures to advance the cause of honor and glory of the Most Holy Trinity and thus of the Holy Faith and the good of souls, and although not on the general calendar of the Roman Rite, Holy Mother Church does permit a commemoration today of Our Lady under title of the Health of the Sick, a devotion that we should have to ask her intercession for heal our bodies from all ailments and, more importantly, to heal our souls from the sicknesses that make us less capable of shining forth the bright light of her Divine Son, Christ the King in a world that sick unto its demise from the afflictions of Modernity and Modernism.

The only true path of out the abyss is through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which is why it is important to use the final days of this month of August to renew our own consecrations to Our Lord through His Most Blessed Mother’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart so that we will offer up all that we must suffer here below to advance the cause of the Triumph of that same Immaculate Heart of Mary and thus of the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter.

That is the only kind of realism that matters!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us! 

Saint Joseph,  pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us. 

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

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

The Life of Saint Bartholomew, From The Golden Legend

Bartholomew is expounded the son of abovehanging the waters, or son of overhanging the sea. He is said of bar, that is as much to say as son, and tholos, which is as much to say as sovereignty, and of moys, that is to say water. And hereof is said Bartholomew, as a son hanging over the waters. That is of God, which enhanceth the minds of doctors on high, for to shed and bespring beneath the waters of doctrine. And it is a name of Syriac and not of Hebrew. And the first three suspendings that he had, ought to be noted: He was suspended or taken up from the love of the world, and he was suspended, that is to say ententive, in heavenly love, and he was suspended, that is to say wrapped, in the grace and in the aid of God. Not by his merits his life shone, but by the aid of God. Of the second came the deepness of his wisdom, of which deepness of wisdom Denis saith, in his mystical theology: The divine Bartholomew, of whom is much divinity and right little, and that the gospel is broad and great, and also it is short. And after the entent of S. Denis, Bartholomew will show that all things may be affirmed and showed of God under one consideration, and by another consideration may be more properly denied.

Of S. Bartholomew the Apostle.

S. Bartholomew, the apostle, went into India, which is in the end of the world. And therein he entered into a temple where an idol was which was named Astaroth, and he, as a pilgrim, abode there. In that idol dwelt a fiend that said that he could heal all manner sicknesses, but he lied, for he could not make them whole, but might better them but for a while. And the temple was full of sick people, and could have no answer of that idol, wherefore they went in to another city whereas another idol was worshipped named Berith, and they demanded him wherefore Astaroth gave to them no answer. And Berith said: Your god is bound with chains of fire that he neither dare draw breath ne speak after that Bartholomew, the apostle of God, entered into the temple. And they said to him: Who is that Bartholomew? And the devil said: He is the friend of God Almighty, and he is come into this province for to avoid all the gods of India. And then they said: Tell us some tokens and signs that we may know him and find him. And the devil said to them: He hath his hairs black and crisp, his skin white, eyes great, his nostrils even and straipht, his beard long and hoar a little, and of a straight and seemly stature. He is clad in a white coat, and a white mantle, which in every corner hath gems of purple and precious stones therein. And it is sith twenty-six years that his clothes never waxed old ne foul. He prayeth and worshippeth God on his knees a hundred times a day, and a hundred times by night. The angels go with him, which never suffer him to be weary ne to be an hungered, he is always of like semblant, glad and joyous. He seeth all things tofore, he knoweth all things, he speaketh all manner languages, and understandeth them, and he knoweth well what I say to you. And when ye seek him, if he will he may show himself to you, and if him list not, not shall ye find him. And I pray you, when ye find him, that ye pray him that he come not hither, that his angels do not to me as they have done to my fellow. Then they went and sought him diligently and busily two days, and found him not

On a day, one that was beset with a devil cried, and said: Apostle of God, Bartholomew, thy prayers burn me. And the apostle said: Hold thou thy peace and come thence. And anon he was delivered. And when Polemius, king of that region, heard this thing, which had a daughter lunatic, he sent to the apostle, praying that he would come to him and heal his daughter. And when the apostle was come to him and saw that she was bound with chains, and bit all them that went to her, he commanded to unbind her. And the ministers durst not go to her. And he said: I hold the devil fast bound that was in her, and therefore be not afeard; and then anon she was unbound and delivered. And then would have presented to the apostle camels charged with gold and silver and precious stones, but he could not be found in no manner. And on the morrow following, the apostle appeared to the king, alone in his chamber, and said to him: Wherefore soughtest thou me yesterday with gold and silver and precious stones? Those things be necessary to them that covet things worldly, but I desire no things terrien ne carnal. Then S. Bartholomew began to say many things, and inform the king of our redemption, and among other things how Jesu Christ vanquished the devil by marvellous and convenable puissance, justice, and wisdom. For it was convenable that he that overcame the son made of the earth, that was Adam, while he was yet a virgin, should be overcome of the son of the virgin. He overcame him then mightily, when he threw him puissantly out of his lordship which had thrown out by force our forefather. And thus, as he that overcometh some tyrant, sendeth his fellows tofore for to set up his sign over all, and to cast out tyrants, in like wise Jesu Christ sent his messengers over all for to take away the honour and the worshipping of the devil righteously. For it is right that he that vanquished man by eating, and held him, that he should be overcome by a man fasting, and hold man no longer. For it is rightful that he which by the art of the devil was despised, that by the art of Jesu Christ he should be vanquished. And like as the falcon taketh the bird, right so took he Jesu Christ in desert because he fasted, and would assay if he had hunger; and if he had hunger, that he might have deceived him by meat, and if he had no hunger, then knew he well without doubt that he was God. But he might not know him, for he had hunger, and consented nothing to him ne to his temptations.

And when he had preached the sacraments of the faith, he said to the king that, if he would receive baptism, he would show him his god bounden with chains. And the day following, when the bishops sacrificed within the palace of the king, the devils began to cry and say: Cease, ye cursed wretches, to do sacrifice to us, lest ye suffer worse than I that am bounden with chains of fire by the angels of Jesu Christ, whom the Jews crucified and supposed to have brought to death. Which death, that is our queen, he hath imprisoned, and hath bound our prince in chains of fire. And anon then they set cords on the image for to pull down and overthrow the idol, but they might not. The apostle then commanded the devil that he should issue and go out and break the idol all to pieces, and he issued out and destroyed and brake all the idols of the temple. And anon the apostle made his prayer, saying: O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, which hast given to us such power that we enlumine the blind, and cleanse the lepers, I desire and require that this multitude might be healed, and they all answered, Amen. And forthwith all the sick people were cured and healed. And then the apostle did do hallow and dedicate that temple, and commanded the devil to go in to the desert. Then the angel of our Lord appeared there, and flew round about the temple, and ensigned and graved with his finger the sign of the cross in four corners of the temple, saying: Our Lord saith this: Like as I have you cured and made you clean of all your sickness, so let this temple be made clean of all filth and ordure. but I shall show him of all filth and ordure. But I shall show him to you that dwelleth therein tofore, to whom the apostle hath commanded to go in to desert. And doubt ye not to see him, but make in your forehead such a sign as I have graven in these stones. And then he showed to them an Ethiopian more black than thunder, the face sharp, the beard long, his hairs hanging unto his feet, his eyes flaming as hot fire, and cast out sparkles of fire, and casting out of his mouth flames of sulphur, and his hands bound with chains of fire behind his back. And then the angel said to him: Because that thou hast heard that the apostle hath commanded, and hast broken all the idols of the temple, I shall unbind thee; go in to such a place whereas dwelleth no man, and be thou there unto the day of judgment. And when he was unbound he went his way with a great braying and howling, and the angel of our Lord mounted up to heaven in the sight of them all. And then was the king baptized, with his wife and his children and all his people, and left his realm and was made disciple of the apostle.

Then all the bishops of the idols assembled them together and went to Astrages the king, and brother to Polemius, and complained of the loss of their gods and of the destruction of their temples, and of the conversion of his brother made by art magic. Astrages was wroth and sent a thousand men armed to take the apostle, and when he was brought tofore him, the king said to him: Art thou not he that hast perverted my brother? And the apostle answered to him: I have not perverted him, but I have converted him; and the king said to him: Like as thou hast made my brother forsake his god and believe in thy God, so shall I make thee forsake thy God, and thou shalt sacrifice to my god. And the apostle said : I have bound the god that thy brother adored, and showed him bound, and constrained him to break his false image, and if thou mayst do so to my God, thou mayst well draw me to thine idol, and if not, I shall all to-break thy gods, and then believe thou in my God. And as he said these words, it was told the king that his god Baldach was overthrown and all to-broken, and when the king heard that, he brake and all to-rent his purple in which he was clad, and commanded that the apostle should be beaten with staves, and that he should be flayed quick, and so it was done. Then the christians took away the body and buried it honourably. Then the king Astrages and the bishops of the temples were ravished with fiends and died, and the king Polemius was ordained bishop, and accomplished the oflfice of a bishop twenty-two years much louably, and after that rested in peace full of virtues.

There be divers opinions of the manner of his passion. For the blessed Dorotheus saith that he was crucified, and saith also: Bartholomew preached to men of India, and delivered to them the gospel after Matthew in their proper tongue. He died in Alban, a city of great Armenia, crucified the head downward. S. Theoderus saith that he was flayed, and it is read in many books that he was beheaded only. And this contrariety may be assoiled in this manner, that some say that he was crucified and was taken down ere he died, and for to have greater torment he was flayed and at the last beheaded.

In the year of our Lord three hundred and thirty-one, Saracens assailed Sicily, and destroyed the isle of Lipari whereas the body of S. Bartholomew lieth, and brake up the sepulchre and threw the bones hither and thither. And it is said that his body came in such wise from India thither into that isle. When the paynims saw that this body and his sepulchre were greatly honoured for the miracles that befell, they had thereof great despite, and laid them in a tomb of lead, and threw them into the sea, and by the will of God they came into this isle. And when the Saracens had departed and thrown the bones here and there, and were departed thence, the apostle appeared to a monk and said to him: Arise up, and go and gather together my bones that be departed. And he said to him: By what reason shall I gather together thy bones, and what honour ought we to do to them, when thou sufferest us to be destroyed? And the apostle said to him: Our Lord hath spared this people here a long while by my merits, but for their sins that they have sinned, which cry vengeance unto heaven, I have not con get pardon ne forgiveness for them. And then the monk said: How shall I among so many bones find thine? And the apostle said to him: Thou shalt gather them by night, and them that thou shalt find shining thou shalt take up. And the monk went, and found them all as he had said, and took them up, and brought them with him in to a ship, and sailed with them to Benevento, which is chief city of Apulia, and thus were they transported thither. And it is said now that they be at Rome, howbeit they of Benevento say they have the body.

There was a woman that brought a vessel full of oil for to put in the lamp of S. Bartholomew, and how well she inclined the vessel for to pour out the oil, there would none issue out, how well she touched with her finger the oil clear. And then one cried and said: I trow this oil be not agreeable to the apostle that it should be in his lamp, wherefore they put it in another lamp and it issued anon.

When that the emperor Frederick destroyed Benevento, and he had commanded that all the churches that there should be destroyed, and enforced them to bear away the goods from that city into another place, there was a man which found men all white shining, and him seemed that they spake together of some secret thing, and he marvelled strongly who they were and demanded them, and then one of them answered and said: This is Bartholomew, the apostle, with the other saints which had churches in this city, that speak and ordain together in what manner and by what pain this emperor should be justified, that hath cast them out of their tabernacles. And they have now confirmed among them by firm sentence that he, without tarrying, shall go to the judgment of God for to answer thereupon. And anon the emperor died an evil death.

It is in a book read of the miracles of saints that, a certain master hallowed solemnly the feast of S. Bartholomew, and the devil in the form of a maid appeared to this master that preached. And when he saw her, he bade her to come and dine with him, and when they were set at the table she enforced her much for to draw him to her love. And then S. Bartholomew came to the gate and prayed that he might come in for the love of S. Bartholomew, and she would not, but sent him bread, and he would none take, but prayed the master by his message that he should say what thing that he supposed was most proper in a man. And he answered: To laugh. And the maid said: Nay, it is sin in which a man is conceived, born and liveth in sin. And S. Bartholomew answered that he had well said, but she had more profoundly answered. And the pilgrim demanded after at the master, where the place was contaimng the space of a foot where had God made greatest miracle. And he said, the sign of the cross, in which God had made many miracles. And she said: Nay, it is the head of a man, in which the little world is. And the apostle allowed the sentence of that one and of that other, and then he demanded the third time: How far it was from the sovereign siege or seat in heaven unto the lowest and deepest place of hell. And the master said that he wist not; and she said: I know it well, for I fell down from that one to that other, and it behoveth that I show it to thee. And the devil fell down into hell with a great bruit and howling, and then they sent for the pilgrim, and he was vanished and gone and away and they could not find him. And in like wise nigh according to this is read of S. Andrew.

The blessed Ambrose saith thus in the preface that he made of this apostle in abridging his legend: Jesu Christ, thou hast vouchsafed to show to thy disciples, preaching, many things of thy divine Trinity in marvellous manner, and thy majesty, among whom thou hast sent the blessed Bartholomew honour by right great prerogative in to a far country. And how be it that he was all far from human conversation, nevertheless he deserved by the increasing of his predications to mark and think in thy sign the beginning of that people. Ah! by what louings is the marvellous apostle to be honoured. And when the hearts of the people of his neighbours sufficed not to him to receive his seed, he through-pierced like in fleeing in to the last countries of the lands of India, and entered in to the temple where there was great company of sick people without number, and made the devil so mute that he gat no remembrance to them that adored him, and the maid that was lunatic by torment of the devil he did unbind and delivered her all whole to her father. Oh, how great was this miracle of holiness, when he made the fiend, enemy to the lineage human, to break and destroy his own idol, and to bring it to nought. Oh, how worthy is he to be numbered to the heavenly company to whom the angel appeared, to praise the faith of him by his miracles, and came from the sovereign hall and showed to all the people the devil chained, and right foul, and the sign of the cross impressed in the stone bearing health. And the king and the queen were baptized, with the people of their cities. And at the last the tyrant brother of Polemius, new in faith by the relation of the bishops of the temple, made the blessed apostle, constant in the faith, to be beaten, flayed, and receive right foul death. And as he denounced the mischief of death, he had and bare with him, in to the glory of heaven, victory of his glorious strife.

And the blessed Theodore, abbot and noble doctor, saith of this apostle in this manner among other things. The blessed apostle Bartholomew preached first in Licaonia, and after in India, and at the last in Alban, a city of great Armenia, and there he was first flayed and afterward his head smitten off, and there he was buried. And when he was sent of our Lord to preach, as I suppose, he heard how our Lord said to him: Go, my disciple, to preach, void out of this country, and go fight and be capax of perils. I have first accomplished and finished the works of my father, and am first witness, fill thou the vessel that is necessary and follow thy master, love thy lord, give thy blood for his blood, and thy flesh for his flesh, and suffer that which he had suffered, let thine armour be debonairty in thy sweatings, and suffer sweetly among wicked people and be patient among them that perish thee. And the apostle recoiled not, but as a true servant and obeissant to his master went forth joying, and as a light of God illumining in darkness the work of holy church, like as the blessed S. Austin witnesseth in his book, that, like a tiller of Jesu Christ, he profiteth in spiritual tilling. S. Peter the apostle taught the nations, but S. Bartholomew did great miracles. Peter was crucified the head downward, and Bartholomew was flayed quick, and had his head smitten off. And they twain increased greatly the church by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. And right as a harp giveth a right sweet sound of many strings, in like wise all the apostles gave sweet melody of the unity divine, and were established by the king of kings. And they departed among them all the world, and the place of Armenia was the place of Bartholomew, that is from Ejulath unto Gabaoth. There thou mayst see him, with the plough of his tongue, ear the fields unreasonable, sowing in the deepness of the heart the word of the faith, and in planting the vines of our Lord and trees of paradise. And to every each setting medicinally the remedies of the passions, rooting out pernicious thorns, cutting down trees of felony, and setting about hedges of doctrine. But what reward yielded the tyrants to their curate? They gave to him dishonour for honour, cursing for benediction, pains for gifts, tribulation for rest, and right bitter death for restful life. And sith that he had suffered many torments, he was of them discoriate and flayed quick, and died not, and yet for all that he had them not in despite that slew him, but admonished them by miracles, and taught them by demonstrances, that did him harm. But there was nothing that might refrain their bestial thoughts, ne withdraw them from harm. What did they afterwards? They enforced them against the holy body, and the malades and sick men refused their mediciner and healer, the city refused him that enlumined their blindness, governed them that were in peril, and gave life to them that were dead. And how cast they him out? Certainly, they threw the body into the sea in a chest of lead, and that chest came from the region of Armenia with the chests of four other martyrs, for they did also miracles and were thrown with him into the sea. And the four went before a great space of the sea, and did service to the apostles like as servants in a manner, so far that they came into the parts of Sicily in an isle that is named Lipari, like as it was showed to a bishop of Ostia which then was present. And these right rich treasures came to a right poor woman. And these right precious margarets came to one not noble, the bright shining light came to one right heavy. And then the other four came in to other lands, and left the holy apostle in that isle, and he left the other behind him. And that one which was named Papian went into a city of Sicily, and he sent another, named Lucian, into the city of Messina. And the other twain were sent into the land of Calabria, S. Gregory into the city of Columna, and Achate into a city named Chale, where yet at this day they shine by their merits. And then was the body of the apostle received with hymns, louings, and candles honourably, and there was made and builded a fair church in the honour of him. And the mountain of Vulcan is nigh to that isle, and was to it much grievous because it received fire, the which mountain was withdrawn by the merits of this holy saint from that isle seven miles, without to be seen of any body, and was suspended toward the sea. And yet appeareth it at this day to them that see it, as it were a figure of fire fleeing away. Now then, therefore, I salute thee, Bartholomew, blessed of blessed saints, which art the shining light of holy church, fisher of fishes reasonable, hurter of the devil which hurted the world by his theft. Enjoy thee, sun of the world, enlumining all earthly things, mouth of God, fiery tongue pronouncing wisdom, fountain springing goodly, full of health, which hallowest the sea by thy goings and ways not removable, which makest the earth red with thy blood, which repairest in heaviness, shining in the middle of the divine company clear in the resplendishour of glory. And enjoy thee in the gladness of joy insatiable. Amen. And this is that Theodore saith of him. (Blessed Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, The Life of Saint Bartholomew.)