Republished: Pope Saint Clement I: Model of Catholic "Rigidity"

Today is the feast of a fully rigid Successor of Saint Peter, Pope Saint Clement I, who taught the doctrine of Papal Primacy in the last decade of the First Century A.D. Pope Saint Clement's commitment to the truths of the Holy Faith, including the immutable truth of Papal Primacy and the full authority of a true pope over all men everywhere on everything that pertains to the sanctification and salvation of their sous as the infallible teacher and guardian of the Holy Faith, stands in vast contrast to that of the conciliar "popes," including Jorge Mario Bergoglio, whose repetoire of insults and invectives is pretty dated at this point.

The readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office speak of the life and the work of our fourth pope, who had been a disciple of both Saint Peter and our third pope, Saint Cletus:

Clement, the son of Faustinus, was a Roman, from the quarter of the Coelian Mount. He was a disciple of the blessed Peter, and is the same concerning whom Paul saith, writing to the Philippians And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names are written in the book of life. iv. 3. (He succeeded Cletus as Bishop of Rome.) He it was who divided the seven quarters of the city among seven scribes, one to each, whose duty it was to search out most carefully, and record in writing the sufferings and acts of the Martyrs. He himself also wrote much, and that most orthodox and healthy, whereby he clearly explained the Christian Religion.

His teaching and the holiness of his life brought many to believe in Christ, and he was therefore exiled by the Emperor Trajan to Kherson, in the Crimea, where he found two thousand Christians, who had been condemned by the same Trajan. There they all worked in the marble quarries. During their labour they suffered for want of water, and Clement prayed, and then went up an hill hard by, on the top whereof he saw a Lamb standing, touching with its right foot a flowing spring of sweet waters. Therewith they all quenched their thirst, and by this miracle many unbelievers were brought to believe in Christ, and began to honour the holiness of Clement.

These things moved Trajan to send a messenger to the Crimea, who tied an anchor about Clement's neck, and cast him into the deep of the sea. After it had been done, while the Christians were praying on the shore, the sea went back three miles, and when they followed it, they found a grotto of marble, in form like a temple, and therein a stone coffin wherein was laid the body of the Martyr, and, hard by, the anchor wherewith he had been sunk. Then were the country people moved to receive the faith of Christ. The body of Clement was afterwards brought to Rome, in the time of Pope Nicholas I., and buried in his own Church. A Church was also built in the Crimea, in the place where God had made the water to break forth. Clement lived as Pope nine years, six months, and six days. He held two Ordinations in the month of December, wherein he made ten Priests, two Deacons, and fifteen Bishops for divers places. (As found in Matins, Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Clement, November 23.)

Another reading found in the Matins from today’s Divine Office is taken from a homily by Pope Saint Leo the Great, who teaches us that the likes of heretical teaching of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his predecessors in the age of conciliarism can never come from the Catholic Church:

When the Lord, as we read in the Gospel, asked his disciples who did men, amid their divers speculations, believe him the Son of Man to be, blessed Peter answered and said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord answered and said unto him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven: and I say also unto thee: That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. But the dispensation of truth perdures, and blessed Peter, persevering in the strength of the rock which he hath received, hath not relinquished the position he assumed at the helm of the Church.

In the universal Church it is as if Peter were still saying every day: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. For every tongue which confesseth the Lord is taught that confession by the teaching of Peter. This is the Faith that overcometh the devil and looseth the bonds of his prisoners. This is the Faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. This is the rock which God hath fortified with such ramparts of salvation, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. And therefore, dearly beloved, we celebrate today's festival with reasonable obedience, that in my humble person he may be acknowledged and honoured who doth continue to care for all the shepherds as well as sheep entrusted unto him, and who doth lose none of his dignity even in an unworthy successor. (As found in Matins, Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Clement, November 23.)

The contagion of heresy will never be able to infect the Catholic Church. Only the willfully blind or the intellectually dishonest can refuse to admit that heresy has not been taught by the conciliar “popes,” who had expelled themselves from the bosom of Holy Mother Church long before their apparent “elections” by virtue of adhering to these heresies.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., wrote the following about Pope Saint Clement I in The Liturgical Year:

The memory of St. Clement has been surrounded with a peculiar glory from the very beginning of the Roman Church. After the death of the apostles, he seems to eclipse Linus and Cletus, although these preceded him in the pontificate. We pass, as it were, naturally from Peter to Clement; and the East celebrates his memory with no less honour than the West. He was in truth the universal pontiff, and his acts as well as his writings are renowned throughout the entire Church. This widespread reputation caused numbers of apocryphal writings to be attributed to him, which, however, it is easy to distinguish from his own. But it is remarkable that all the falsifiers who have thought fit to put his name to their own works, or to invent stories concerning him, agree in declaring that he was of imperial descent.

With only one exception, all of the documents which attest Clement's intervention in the affairs of distant churches have perished with time; but the one that remains shows us in full action the monarchical power of the bishop of Rome at that primitive epoch. The church of Corinth was disturbed with intestine quarrels caused by jealously against certain pastors. These divisions, the germ of which had appeared even in St. Paul's time, had destroyed all peace, and were causing scandal to the very pagans. The Corinthians at last felt the necessity of putting an end to a disorder which might be prejudicial to the extension of the Christian faith; and for this purpose it was requisite to seek assistance from outside. The apostle had all departed this life, except St. John, who was still the light of the Church. It was not great distance from Corinth to Ephesus where the apostle resided: yet it was not to Ephesus but to Rome that the church of Corinth turned. Clement examined the case referred to his judgment by that church, and sent to Corinth five commissaries to represent the Apostolic See. They were bearers of a letter, which St. Irenaeus calls potentissimas litteras. It was considered at the time so beautiful and so apostolic, that it was long read in many churches as a sort of continuation of the canonical Scriptures. Its tone is dignified but paternal, according to St. Peter's advice to pastors. There is nothing in it of a domineering spirit; but the grave and solemn language bespeaks the universal pastor, whom none can disobey without disobeying God Himself. These words so solemn and so firm wrought the desired effect: peace was re-established in the church of Corinth, and the messengers of the Roman Pontiff soon brought back the happy news. A century later, St. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, expressed to Pope St. Soter the gratitude still felt by his flock towards Clement for the service he had rendered.

Brought up in the school of the apostles, Clement had retained their style and manner. These are visible in his two 'Letters to Virgins,' which are mentioned St. Epiphanius and St. Jerome, and were found in the eighteenth century translated into Syriac, in a manuscript brought from Aleppo. As St. Caecilia reminded us yesterday, the principles of vowing chastity to God was, from the very beginning, one of the bases of Christianity, and one of the most effectual means for the transformation of the world. Christ Himself had praised the superior merit of this sacrifice; and St. Paul, comparing the two states of life, taught that the virgin is wholly taken up with our Lord, while the married women, whatever her dignity, is divided. Clement had to develop this doctrine, and he did so in these two letters. Anticipating those great doctors of Christian virginity, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustin, he developed the teachings of St. Peter and St. Paul on this important subject. 'He or she,' he says, 'who aspires to this higher life, must lead like the angels an existence all divine and heavenly. The virgin cuts herself off from the allurements of the senses; not only does she renounce the right to their even lawful use, but she aspires to that hope which God, who can never deceive, encourages by His promise, and which far surpasses the natural hope of posterity. In return for her generous sacrifice, her portion in heaven is the very happiness of the angels.'

Thus spoke the disciple chosen by St. Peter to get his hand to the task of renovating Rome. It needed no less than this strong doctrine in order to combat the depraved manners of the Empire. Had Christianity been satisfied with inviting men to honour, as the philosophers had done, its efforts would have been to no purpose. Stoicism, by exciting great pride, could bring some men even to despise death; but it was utterly powerless against sensuality, which we must own to have been the strongest auxiliary to the tyranny of the Caesars. The ideal of chastity, thrown into the midst of that dissolute society, could alone arrest the ignominious torrent that threatened to submerge all human dignity. Happily for the world, Christian morals succeeded in gaining ground; and its maxims being followed up by striking examples, it at length forced itself upon the public notice. Roman corruption was amazed to hear of virginity being held in honour and practised by a great many followers of the new religion; and that at a time when the greatest privileges and the most terrible chastisements could scarcely keep to their duty the six vestals upon whose fidelity depended the honour and the safety of the city. Vespasian and Titus were aware of the infringements upon their primary duty committed by these guardians of the Palladium; but they considered that the low level at which morals then stood forbade them to inflict the ancient penalties upon these traitresses.

The time, however, was at hand, when the emperors, the senate, and all Rome, were to learn from the first Apology of St. Justin the marvels of purity concealed within that Babylon of iniquity. 'Among us, in this city,' said the apologist, 'there are many men and women who have reached the age of sixty or seventy years; brought up from infancy under the law of Christ, they have preserved to this day in the state of virginity; and there is not a country where I could not point out many such.' Athenagoras, in a memorial presented a few years later to Marcus Aurelius, was able to say in like manner: 'You will find among us a multitude of persons, both men and women, who have passed their life up to old age in the state of virginity, having no ambition but to unite themselves more intimately to God.'

Clement was predestined to the glory of martyrdom; he was banished to the Chersonesus, on the Black Sea. The Acts, which relate the details of his sufferings, are of very great antiquity; we shall not here enter into discussions concerning them. They tell us how Clement found in the peninsula a considerable number of Christians already transported there, and employed at working the rich and abundant marble quarries. The joy of these Christians on seeing Clement is easily conceived; his zeal in propagating the faith in this far-off country, and the success of his apostolate, are not matter for surprise. The miracle of a fountain springing up from the rock at Clement's word, to quench the thirst of the confessors, is a fact analogous to hundreds of others relate din the most authentic Acts of the saints. Lastly, the apparition of the mysterious lamb upon the mountain, marking with his foot the spot whence the water was to flow, carries back the mind to the earliest Christian mosaics, on which may still be seen the symbol of the lamb standing on a green hillock. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

There are some very interesting lessons to be learn from this passage in Dom Prosper Gueranger's The Liturgical Year.

First, there is a reminder of the monarchical power of the Roman Pontiff.

Who gave away the symbol of that monarchical power?

Wasn't it Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonoi Maria/Paul VI?

Who refused to be crowned with the Papal Tiara?

Wasn't it Albino Luciani/John Paul I, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio?

Who took the Papal Tiara off of his coat of arms?

Wasn't it Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

Yes, conciliarism wants nothing to do with papal monarchical power, having embraced the heretical novelty of episcopal collegiality. Pope Saint Clement I knew otherwise. Deo gratias!

Second, the lie of episcopal collegiality is disproved by the fact that the Catholics in Corinth looked to Rome, that is, to the Successor of Saint Peter, Pope Clement, and not to the beloved evangelist, Saint John, who had taken care of Our Lady until she died and was assumed body and soul into Heaven. The Catholics of Corinth knew that it was not their "local churches" but Rome that was the seat of the Holy Faith. Deo gratias!

Third, Dom Prosper reminds us that the authority of the Vicar of Christ is absolute, that the pope is one "whom none can disobey without disobeying God Himself." Indeed. Although I was  late to have my own eyes opened to the ramifications of this truth, suffice it to say that a legitimate pontiff commands our obedience in all things that do not pertain to sin, in all things that pertain to faith and morals. No one can oppose a legitimate pontiff without opposing Our Lord Himself. And no legitimate pontiff can give us bad doctrine or defective worship. He cannot express in his capacity as a private theologian things contrary to the defined teaching of the Catholic Church.

Fourth, in contradistinction to Bergoglio's reaffirmations of those steeped in unrepentant sins, Pope Saint Clement knew that it was possible with God's grace for men and women who loved God to persevere in virginity throughout their lives. There was no need of a study to be conducted by social scientists, only an effort to be made to cooperate with the graces won for us on Calvary by the shedding of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood and that flow into our souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. There was a simple acceptance of the truths of the Catholic Faith. Deo gratias!

Fifth, quite similar to our own day today, the secular leaders of Rome believed in the pursuit of "honor" by their own strength. Catholics know that it is only by a reliance upon the merits won for us in the Sacrifice of the Cross, which is re-presented in an unbloody manner on altars of sacrifice by Catholic priests, men who act in persona Christi, that sanctity, not prideful "personal honor," is pursued to the point of one's dying breath--and that it is sanctity that builds right order in societies, not "civic virtue" or "personal honor."'

Today, Thursday, November 23, 2017, is also the ninetieth anniversary of the martyrdom of Father Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J., at the hands of the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico.

Dr. Michael Kenny provided a poignant testimony to how Dwight Morrow made it a point to travel with Plutarco Elias Calles the day after the execution of Father Miguel Augustin, Pro, the great champion of Christ the King, in Mexico City that outraged the citizenry of the country and that, quite sadly, was ignored entirely by the producers of For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada (other than a filmed reenactment of the event during the end credits that was not identified specifically whatsoever):

Coincident with Mr. Morrow's arrival in Mexico, the reign of terror was at its height, and continued unabated. I have pictures before me of hundreds of young men and priests and even girls, who were seized without charge and executed without trial, often with prolonged and excruciating tortures. In the summer and fall of 1927 indiscriminate shootings and hangings and torturings of suspected friends of the Cristeros were multiplied, with the view of terrorizing the armed forces of revolt. These and the murder of scores of the worthiest priests, and the barbarous torturing of Fathers Batiz and Reyes and other widely venerated pastors had the contrary effect, of inflaming and swelling the ranks of the Cristeros.

But there was one young priest whose assassination stirred public feeling most and who is is now venerated as the "Martyr of Mexico." This was Father Miguel Augustin Pro, a young Jesuit whose cheerful sanctity and zeal and his adeptness in reaching all classes with his ministry and evading the pursuivants on his track made him universally beloved as a saint and a hero.

But his marvelous feat in foiling the suppressors of Catholic worship had marked him for government vengeance. Seized on the obviously false pretext of connection with an assault upon Obregon, he was shot down November 23, 1927 without charge or trial; he died as he had lived with a smile upon his face, forgiving cheerfully and praying heartily for the executioners of himself and his brother and fellow victims.

His sisters and his aged father dipped their kerchiefs in his blood and departed joyously; and despite the Calles soldiery, hundreds of thousands crowded to his obsequies, struggling for a relic of the martyr. The gathering masses on the streets obstructed the passage of the presidential automobile, in which, beside Plutarco Calles, the American Ambassador was seated.

Failing even to acknowledge a legal protest submitted to him by a lawyer's committee, Mr. Morrow hastened to tour the country with Calles, who gaily played Toreador to amuse his friend. He thus impressed the world that all was well with Mexico, and made it clear to his own people and the Cristeros that even in the savagest excesses of persecution, the United States Government stood back of him. It is precisely the same despairing realization that oppresses then now when they see our Ambassador Daniels also go out of his way to show friendliest courtesies to the same or the like persecutors today and to eulogize the same Plutarco Calles, after the latter had forged and wielded a deadlier weapon to assassinate the souls of their children.

While Mr. Morrow's friendly services were securing arms and countenance from our government for Calles, and holding strict embargo against the League of [Religious] Liberty, the Cristeros, as we have seen, managed somehow to make headway, though with slight ecclesiastical encouragement. It was only in the face of relentless universal persecution, after millions of petitions had been scouted and thirty thousand injunction protests had been overruled en masse, that reluctantly the bishops tolerated recourse to arms. But Archbishop [Jose] Mora, the Mexican Primate, was exiled for defending manfully before Calles the fighters for liberty; and Archbishop Gonzales Valencia of Durango, who still stands by the fighters for liberty, had heartened the belligerents by his Pastoral form Rome, February 11, 1927, "having ascertained the heart of the Pope"; and recalling his many brave priests abused, imprisoned, deported as criminals and who, like Fathers Batiz and Lopez, gave up their lives for their flock, he glorifies God for giving him sons "who will not succumb before the persecutors nor abdicate the dignity of Christians and of men." (Dr. Michael Kenny, (Dr. Michael Kenny, No God Next Door: Red Rule in Mexico and Our Responsibility, William J. Hirten Company, Inc., New York, 1935, republished by CSG and Associates Publishers, pp. 130-132.)

It was not only Dwight Morrow who gave public support to Plutarco Elias Calles in the immediate aftermath of the martyrdom of Father Miguel Augustin Pro, who cried out Viva Cristo Rey! as the bullets were fired at him. The folksy American humorist, columnist and actor named Will Rogers, a Freemason, of course, did so as well:

Strong hands, quick to become doubled fists, a hard jaw, and a heavy scowl have sometimes been called the typical externals of President Plutarco Elias Calles. The fact that he once publicly alluded to "the grunts of the Pope" caused some to fear that his mind might resemble his fists. Last week such mistaken impressions were given the lie when Senor Calles proved himself not only supple of body but adept at mellow geniality. Scene: the $375,000 private train of the President of Mexico which puffed all week, from one hospitable ranch in northern Mexican states to another. On board were the new U. S. Ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Whitney Morrow (onetime Morgan partner), and tart-witted cowboy-clown Will Rogers. They, and other guests of the President, were privileged to see him in playful mood. At Pabellon Ranch, State of Aguascalientes, Senor Calles seated his guests around a bull ring. He had a surprise for them, he said. Quietly picking up a matador's red cape, he entered the arena.

At a flirt of the red, a small but purposeful bull charged, horns down, to gore the President of Mexico. Swirling the cape through a classic "pass," he pivoted and dodged—his chunky body suddenly achieving grace. While guests Morrow and Rogers gripped their seats, President Calles brought off three more hazardous "passes." Then, having shown his guests the dexterous and dangerous phase of bull-baiting, he strode from the ring. No bull was killed, or even pinked, lest U. S. gorges rise.

Came luncheon, provided on the scale of a local fiesta. Peasants and the local gentry mingled. President Calles, beamingly in his element, led hearty singing of mellow Spanish songs. What did the U. S. guests think?

Mr. Morrow, rising to a toast, said something in English which was apparently not understood. Mr. Rogers then quoted Mr. Morrow in Spanish as having said: "... how could the United States ever enter into armed conflict with people like these? ..." Amid shouted cheers President Calles sprang up and clasped the Ambassador's hand. Later Mr. Morrow said to U. S. correspondents: "All this is very interesting." (President at Play - TIME.)

The same afternoon, Calles demanded that [General Roberto] Cruz make an example of the Pros. In a battle worthy of wits worthy of Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin, Cruz tried to called Calles into allowing some legal cover. But Calles told him "to hell with" legalities and reminded him that he had his orders and only had to obey. Cruz appeared before reporters and explained that evidence had been accumulated showing all the parties guilty in the attempted assassination of [Alvaro Obregon]. Apparently, Calles had ordered that these executions were to have a high profile. So journalists and photographers from all over Mexico and the whole world were invited.

Even so the game was not entirely over. the morning of the execution, an enterprising lawyer, Luis MacGregor, had convinced a quite brave judge, Julio Lopez Masse, to sign an amparo, a stay of execution. It is doubtful that Cruz and Calles would have paid any attention to this paper obstacle. But they did not have to. MacGregor was locked outside of the proceedings at the police station, and the executions--quite odd for such widely advertised events--were carried out a half-hour earlier than scheduled. A last-minute request from the Argentine delegation to Mexico earned Roberto, the youngest of the [Pro] brothers, a reprieve.

When Miguel's body and the body his brother Humberto arrived at the family house, old Miguel, Sr., ordered no one to mourn, for there was nothing sorrowful in such heroic deaths. Don Miguel opened the door later that night and found a half-dozen government agents outside. They came in, knelt, and prayed. A steady stream of workers, women, and professional people arrived. The Rosary was recited; other prayers were said. When the bodies were ready for transport to the Dolores Cemetery, there was an enormous crowd in the streets, even though President Calles had forbidden public demonstrations in support of the martyred brothers. But the crowd was much larger than the police could do anything about, somewhere between ten thousand and thirty thousand, according to some accounts larger than any ever seen in Mexico, at a funeral. Around five hundred cars took part in the funeral cortege. As the caskets came out, someone shouted, "Make way for the martyrs!" The crowd fell silent. But as the coffins went through the streets "Viva Cristo Rey!" was shouted everywhere.

The day after Fr. Pro's execution, the American Ambassador Dwight Morrow (Charles Lindbergh's future father-in-law) and the humorist Will Rogers, who had become famous as a common-sense mocker of U.S. government foolishness, took a trip with President Calles through Mexico on the presidential train. Calles had deliberately set up the trip as propaganda intended to convince Mexican Catholics that the United States would not help them. Morrow is reported to have known this, but believed he could use the influence thus gained over Calles to turn his government in a different direction. In the next few years, the government killed 250,000 to 300,000 people, many Catholic, even after a compromise had been worked out. (Robert Royal, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 2000, pp. 39-40.)

Father Pro, who donned various disguises to provide the Sacraments to Catholics in Mexico after Calles had proscribed their administration that evokes memories of Father William Joseph Chaminade, S.M., during the French Revolution and was a foreshadowing of the heroics of the "Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican," Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, during the Nazi occupation of Rome as World War II was raging, knew that he might face death for his work. In a letter to his Jesuit superiors in Rome, he, demonstrating that he was a true son of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, said that a priest cannot live in fear of any kind:

You know very well that I am not especially inclined to anything in particular, although it is rather hard to lose the chance of going straight to heaven or of becoming a chaplain of the Marias Islands [where the government deported its prisoners].

I prefer to obey, being quite convinced that I will be of more use to those to whim I wish dedicate my work and life. I have no desire to influence your desire to influence your decision, but I would like to follow the advice that Father Crivelli sent us from Rome: please let me remain at my post until the end of the persecution.

Fear withdraws the priests from their abandoned flocks. Now, as you know, fear is not my predominant fault. I might die? What they might do or what they might do to me--all that is in the hands of God.

Would that I might be found worthy of suffering persecution for the holy name of Jesus. Do I not belong to his army? But let us repeat as in the Our Father: "Thy will be done!" (Gerald F. Muller, C.S.C., With Life and Laughter: The Life of Father Pro, published originally in 1969 by Dujarie Press and republished in 1996 by the Daughters of Saint Paul, p. 122.)

No one, least of all a priest, should live in fear of any kind at any time. Christ the King is our Divine Judge. No one else, no matter how many rationalizations they might use, has any justification before God to excuse silence in the face or social or moral or doctrinal or liturgical evils as a "virtuous" and "prudent" exercise of "self-restraint."

As Pope Leo XIII noted in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

14. 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.''[12] 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."[13] 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.

15. 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.)

We must remember that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Nothing else. And we must never be afraid to proclaim this truth no matter what it might cost us in terms of worldly respect and financial security.

The statists of Modernity and the heretics of Modernism will be vanquished by the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Why do we live in fear, agitated by all of the rush of current events, when we have the protection of Our Blessed Mother, of Saint Joseph, and the likes of Pope Saint Clement I, Saint Cecilia, Saint Felicity, Father Miguel Agustin Pro, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and the other Mexican martyrs?

May we, by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits, lift high the Cross of the Divine Redeemer as we exclaim with Father Pro and the Mexican martyrs:

Viva Cristo Rey!  

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.

Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.

Saint Felicity, pray for us.