Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" with Diocletian

The Communist governments of Xi Jinping in Red China and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua are waging full, open, undisguised, and relentless warfare against Catholics and the false “pontiff” remains almost totally silent except to call for “dialogue” as though there is a moral equivalence between the persecutors and the persecuted and as though the persecutors have some kind of justification to continue waging their persecutions against those they are persecuting. This is what the false “pontiff” said on Sunday, August 21, 2022, the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, as an exiled Nicaraguan conciliar “bishop” openly mocked his “pope” for making it appear that “dialogue” with the Marxist murderer named Daniel Ortega would accomplish anything:

ROME – An exiled Nicaraguan bishop appeared to challenge Pope Francis Sunday, after the pontiff appealed for an “open and sincere dialogue” with the government of President Daniel Ortega about the recent imprisonment of another Catholic prelate.

“It is necessary to ask for freedom. We must not negotiate with the person [Ortega]. We must ask for freedom, because they are innocent,” said Bishop Silivio Báez in a Mass celebrated in Miami and broadcast through his social networks.

Báez was calling for the freedom of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, recently arrested, along with several of his companions, on charges of trying to “organize violent groups.” Prior to his house arrest at a family home in Managua, Álvarez, together with several priests, seminarians and laity, had been banned from leaving the curia of Matagalpa, the diocese he leads.

An auxiliary bishop of Managua, Báez left Nicaragua in 2019 at Pope Francis’s request following a series of death threats against him and his family. He has long been one of the loudest voices in opposing the Ortega regime, which reportedly killed over 350 protesters in 2018 and currently has 190 leaders of the opposition in prison, cut off from their families.

Álvarez, 55, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Esteli, both in the north of Nicaragua, was removed last Friday by police agents from his headquarters along with four priests and three seminarians, after having been confined for 15 days.

The National Police, headed by Francisco Diaz, in-law of Ortega, confirmed that they carried out an early morning operation in the curia of Matagalpa in which they took Álvarez and his collaborators against their will, and then transferred them to Managua.

Álvarez, the first bishop arrested since Ortega returned to power in Nicaragua in 2007, now is under “home protection” in Managua, while the others were sent to the infamous detention center El Chipote, which has been described by some former inmates as a “torture center.”

Báez’s words differ from those of Pope Francis, who spoke Sunday about Nicaragua for the first time since 2019. At the end of his noontime Angelus, the pontiff expressed “concern and pain” for the situation and called for “an open and sincere dialogue” so that “the basis for a respectful and peaceful coexistence can be found.”

“I follow closely with concern and pain the situation that has been created in Nicaragua that affects people and institutions,” Francis said, avoiding naming Álvarez.

Báez, on the other hand, was more blunt: “I want you to know that I am suffering a lot and praying a lot for you, for Nicaragua and for our church,” he said. “I especially want to greet with affection our brothers and sisters of the diocese of Matagalpa and Esteli who are being at this moment deprived of the physical presence of their pastor, and I know that for them it is a great pain.”

He also asked the Nicaraguans not to lose hope and to trust in the Lord.

The arrest of Alvarez is the latest chapter in a particularly turbulent period for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua under the Ortega regime, which has branded the hierarchy as “coup plotters” and “terrorists.”

This year, the Sandinistas expelled the papal representative, Polish Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, severing the diplomatic ties with the Holy See, as well as 18 nuns of the Missionaries of Charity order founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

It’s a steadily worsening situation that has seen priests thrown in prison, religious processions canceled by the government, and Catholics forbidden to enter their own churches. Police have also forcibly entered and raided parishes, prevented parishioners from receiving the Eucharist inside the church and besieged other priests in their churches. (Exiled Nicaraguan prelate challenges Pope Francis on bishop’s arrest.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his red-loving Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, have a long history of appeasing Communists while criticizing “pro-life” “conservatives” in public life who oppose open borders and statist policies to “save the planet.”

Longtime readers of this site know that the reason is very simple: Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a leftist. He is a Marxist sympathizer who has gone out of his apostate way to make nice-nice with every single Marxist world leader with whom he has met since he emerged on the balcony of the Basilica of Saint Peter on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. There is not a trace of the authentic sensus Catholicus to be found anywhere within the darkened soul of this veritable agent of Antichrist, whose precursor he is by paving the way for Catholics to accept both One World Governance and a One World Ecumenical religion to bring “peace” to a world that knows none because it has rebelled against Christ the King and the true Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Obsequiousness to, if not a thinly disguised for, Marxism-Leninism has been a hallmark of Antipopes Angelo Roncalli/John XIII, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI, and, of course, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has embraced the mass murdering Castro brothers in Cuba, accepted a sacrilegious crucifix in the form of a hammer and sickle from Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, and, quite notoriously, sold out the longsuffering Catholics of Red China to their vicious, amoral, godless persecutors, the so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s sellout of underground Catholics in Red China has been discussed on this site many times. However, it is important to remember that it was presaged by the supposedly anti-Communist Karol Josef Wojtyla’s concessions to the CPCA in the 1980s, setting the stage for Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s letter to the Chinese Catholics of June 29, 2007, which itself set the stage for as yet still secret terms of the 2018 “agreement” (sellout), which was renewed in 2020, of the conciliar Vatican to the Chicoms, thus throwing Catholics who had suffered relentless persecution since the Communist takeover of the Chinese mainland on May 1, 1949, under the bus.

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick engaged in a policy of Communist surrender known as Ostpolik (East politics) wherein he appointed men as "bishops" in Communist countries behind the Iron Curtain who were friendly to, if not actual agents of, the Communist authorities in those countries. These "bishops" had a perverse "apostolic mandate," if you will, given then sub secreto by Montini: never criticize Communism or any Communist officials. In other words, be good stooges for various "people's" and "democratic" republics in exchange for promoting the false "gospel" of conciliarism.

It was also Montini/Paul VI who sold out the courageous Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, the Primate of Hungary and the Archbishop of Budapest, when the latter, after taking refuge in the American Embassy in Budapest for a decade following the Hungarian Revolution in October of 1956, was forced out of the American Embassy as a result of Vatican pressure and then, after being told by Montini/Paul VI that he remained as the Archbishop of Budapest, has his primatial see declared vacant by the theologically, liturgically and morally corrupt Montini, whose Ostpolitik has been revived and expanded by the theologically, liturgically and morally corrupt Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Indeed, it was in the summer of 2014 that Bergoglio lifted the suspension that had been imposed upon Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, who was a leading figure of the Sandinista revolutionary movement that overthrew the government of Nicaraguan strongman Anastaso Somoza in 1979:

MARYKNOLL, N.Y., Aug. 1, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Vatican has issued a decree that lifts its 29-year suspension on Father Miguel F. d'Escoto Brockmann, a Maryknoll priest. The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers is the mission society of the U.S. Catholic Church.

Father d'Escoto, 81, was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on June 10, 1961. He helped found Orbis Books, the theological publication division of Maryknoll, and he was an official with the World Council of Churches. During the 1970s, Father d'Escoto became engaged in politics in Nicaragua. He joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a political party that overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle and established a revolutionary government.

For his political actions, involvement in the Sandinista government and failing to resign from a political office (Nicaragua foreign minister) held in violation of his ministry, Father d'Escoto was suspended from his priestly duties by the Vatican.

In the notification from the Vatican dated August 1, 2014, "The Holy Father has given His benevolent assent that Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann be absolved from the canonical censure inflicted upon him, and entrusts him to the Superior General of the Institute [Maryknoll] for the purpose of accompanying him in the process of reintegration into the Ministerial Priesthood."

The lifting of the suspension allows Father d'Escoto to resume his priestly duties.

Father d'Escoto has remained a member of the Maryknoll Society with residence in Nicaragua. From September 2008 until September 2009, he presided over the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly as its president. (Vatican Lifts Suspension on US Missionary Priest.) 

This completely sanitized piece of propaganda, issued by the Maryknolls themselves twenty-five months ago now, overlooked Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman's bloody participation in the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, his active support and reliance for financial and military assistance from the mass murdering Fidel Castro and his more recent career as an official at the pro-abortion, pro-perversity World Council of Churches and his praise for supporters of abortion and perversity while he was the President of the United Nations General Assembly from 2008 to 2009. Miguel d'Escoto Brockman is unrepentant in his support of the chemical and surgical assassination of the innocent preborn in their mothers' wombs.

What does this matter to Jorge the Red?

Nothing. He supports the Sandinistas and sees in them misunderstood instruments of “social justice.” Bergoglio is thus quick to consider Catholics who oppose Daniel Ortega’s regime as the sources of national division because they have not accommodated themselves to their “enlightened” persecutors.

Too harsh?

Too rash?

Consider how Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been deaf, dumb, and blind concerning the arrest of “Cardinal” Zen in Hong Kong for his criticism of the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover of what is thought to be the Catholic Church in Red China and Hong Kong.

The May 11, 2022, arrest of Joseph “Cardinal” Zen, by the Communist authorities in Hong Kong, was made possible, of course, by all the history summarized just above, and particularly by Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s 2018 and 2020.  The conciliar Vatican’s rather indifferent response to Father Zen’s arrest explains all that one needs to know between how our true popes responded to the arrest of Catholic clergy and how the conciliar authorities have coddled Communist dictatorial regimes even they do so:

Cardinal Pietro Parolin has said that he is “very sorry” about Cardinal Joseph Zen’s arrest earlier this week and hopes it will not complicate the Holy See’s dialogue with China.

“I would like to express my closeness to the cardinal who was freed and treated well,” Cardinal Parolin said on May 12, according to Vatican News, the Holy See’s online news portal.

The Vatican secretary of state, a key architect of the Holy See’s provisional agreement with Chinese authorities on the appointment of bishops, added that Cardinal Zen’s arrest in Hong Kong should not be read as “a disavowal” of the agreement with Beijing, which is up for renewal this fall.

Cardinal Parolin told journalists that his “most concrete hope is that initiatives like this cannot complicate the already complex and not simple path of dialogue between the Holy See and the Church in China.”

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, said in an interview on the same day with an Italian television program, Tg2 Post, that the Vatican’s dialogue with Chinese Communist Party officials was “not always easy,” and “the desired results” have not always been seen. (Vatican Secretary of State “Very Sorry” About Cardinal Zen Arrest, Hopes It will Not Complicate Vatican=Red China Dialogue.)

Pietro Parolin “worries” about the effect of “Cardinal” Zen’s arrest even we know already how has Xi Jinping and his band of murderous thugs responded to initial conciliar Vatican-Red Chinese agreement in 2018 when it was renewed in 2020:

CHINA, November 26, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The refugee, Catholic journalist, Dalù, has detailed the torture of Catholic priests by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), only days after a bishop was ordained by the CCP approved church.

Dalù, a pseudonym, is the journalist and radio show host who made public the Tiananmen Square massacre. Dalù was subsequently fired and fled to Italy, with his life spared only as a result of his public status. 

He posted a video, in which he described the torture inflicted on a priest called Fr. Liu Maochun: “As a form of intimidation and even torture, Chinese Police often bang a gong close to the ears and shine bright lights into the eyes, and do so consistently for several days. This method of torture is called ‘exhausting an eagle’.” 

Dalù continued: “Through that technique, Father Liu Maochun of Mindong Diocese was deprived of sleep, he was kidnaped, tortured and repeatedly punished for his refusal to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. The brutality and sheer wickedness of the Chinese Communist Party is beyond comprehension.”

Fr. Liu is part of the underground Catholic Church, and as such is not recognised by the Chinese state, or the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). He was visiting his parents in hospital on September 1, when he was arrested and put “in the hands of the Religious Affairs Bureau for 17 days.”

Speaking to religious liberty magazine, Bitter Winter, a source from Mindong Diocese said, “The government claimed that Fr. Liu Maochun has disobeyed its rule and was ‘ideologically radical’.”

Bitter Winter confirmed that Fr. Liu has been persistently persecuted by the CCP, with the authorities even taking to pressuring his relatives. The source mentioned “Fr. Liu Maochun is Bishop Guo’s assistant. The regime arrests and wants to control those priests close to him who also refuse to join the CPCA.”

The magazine also said that Fr. Liu’s arrest and torture were part of an investigation to discover the leak regarding the torture of Fr. Huang, another priest of the diocese who refused to join the CPCA.

Fr. Liu is one of a number of 20 priests in the diocese who have “refused to join the state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” and are thus “viewed as national security threats.” These priests are deemed to be “ ‘illegal’ and a ‘subversion of the state’.”

The bishop of Mindong diocese, Msgr. Vincenzo Guo Xijin, is one of the “victims” of the Vatican-China deal, as the diocese has been used as a “pilot project” for the implementation of the agreement. Bishop Guo was asked by Pope Francis to step down in favor of the CPCA approved bishop. 

Just days ago, the CPCA announced the ordination of a new bishop in Qingdao, Bishop Thomas Chen Tianhao, who “had previously served as the president of the Patriotic Association of Qingdao in Shandong Province in 1998 and as a National Patriotic Association Standing Committee member since 2010.”

Asia News reports that Chen “is considered very obedient to the government’s religious policy.” Only last year, Chen led a committee to “study the spirit” of President Xi Jinping’s speech, celebrating the United Front Work Department.

Just a few weeks ago, the Vatican renewed its deal with China. The deal allegedly recognizes the state-approved church and allows the Chinese Communist Party to appoint the bishops. The Pope apparently maintains a veto power although in practice it is the CCP who have control. 

It also allegedly allows for the removal of legitimate bishops to be replaced by CCP approved bishops. The actual precise terms of the deal, however, remain a closely guarded secret.

Cardinal Zen, the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, said that through the deal “the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China.” He also described it as “the murder of the Church in China by those who should protect and defend her from her enemies.” (Renowned Journalist Reveals CCP Tortunre of Catholic Priest As Chinese State Appoints a New “Bishop.”)

So much for a “happy” reconciliation.

All the evidence of the Holy See's actions in the past twenty-two years since death of the Bishop of Shanghai at the time of his arrest and show trial in 1956, the Most Reverend Ignatius Kung, has pointed to the betrayal that has been decried for over four years now by “Cardinal” Zen.

Pietro Parolin was simply “very sorry” for the arrest of “Cardinal” Zen but worried that it might “complicate” the conciliar Vatican’s relations with the Chicom monsters, who have as about as much respect for “agreements,” secret and otherwise, as they have for the lives and property of anyone within their country who dissents from the Red Chinse party line. 

Parolin, of course, is the engineer of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s own “Ostpolitik,” and he has been completely mute as underground Catholics have been rounded up, arrested, and tortured even after news of the “secret agreements” was announced in September of 2018. This hideous appeaser of all things Communist has said not one word as crucifixes and statues of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother have been removed by Chicom authorities and replaced with images of the current Red Chinese tyrant, Xi Jinping, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who said that “about the past we did not speak” when he met with Fidel Castro in 2015, has remained completely silent about “Cardinal” Zen’s arrest even though he always had a word or two to say about former President Donald John Trump’s immigration policies and worries openly about “sustainable development goals,” rainforests, “global climate warming.”

Pietro Parolin has nothing to "worry about" as his weasel words and Jorge Mario Bergoglio's silence about the arrest of Joseph "Cardinal" Zen will do nothing but embolden and empower the murderous, anti-Theistic Chicom monsters all the more as Zen's arrest was, if you will, a probe to see how far they could go with "Pope Francis" before he pushed back against them. They now know that they can do anything they want, including quite possibly, the execution of a "traitorous" clergymen without Jorge Mario Bergoglio saying a word of condemnation. 

How can anyone believe this wretched man, who believes not in the Catholic Faith, can be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter?

"Pope Francis” is thus equally indifferent to Daniel Ortega’s well documented war against the Catholic Faith in Nicaragua:

The Catholic Church is under increasing assault in Nicaragua by its president/dictator, Daniel Ortega, and his radical socialist regime, according to numerous media reports. 

“The Catholic Church has been a common target of contempt and accusations of undermining the leftist regime,” reported the Heritage Foundation in an Aug. 8 commentary, “Christianity under Siege in Nicaragua.”

According to the commentary, Daniel Ortega has long been openly hostile to the Church and has increasingly persecuted Catholics, calling bishops “terrorists” and “devils in cassocks.”

The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has experienced more than 190 attacks since 2018, attacks ranging from exile of important priests and clergy, to arson, and government paramilitary attacks.

Further, 18 Catholic nuns who were Missionaries of Charity were recently “stripped of their legal status” in June and escorted by police into exile in Costa Rica. The nuns were accused of “political subversion and supporting terrorism,” and exiled for their “crimes.” 

Attorney Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro addressed this hostility towards Catholics in a report by the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory, stating that the regime under Ortega has “initiated an indiscriminate persecution against bishops, priests, seminarians, religious, lay groups and toward everything that has a direct or indirect relationship with the Catholic Church.”

Ortega, a long-time Marxist radical, labeled the Church, which 60% of Nicaraguans belong to, as “committed to the coup-mongers [and] part of the coup-mongers’ plan,” according to the Heritage Foundation.

Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Jose Alvarez has been held by the government in a church in Matagalpa since August 4, along with six other priests and six lay Catholics. Bishop Alvarez has frequently spoken out against the Sandinista regime and was detained for allegedly trying to “organize violent groups” in hopes of destabilizing the government. 

Nicaraguan police accused Catholic Church leaders in a press release, and particularly Bishop Alvarez, of “using the communications media and social media” to “organize violent groups, inciting them to carry out acts of hatred against the population, creating an atmosphere of anxiety and disorder, disturbing the peace and harmony of the community.”

The press release also said the clergy and lay people seek to destabilize Nicaragua and attack “the constitutional authorities.”

“The road outside our clergy house is closed off by the national police,” Bishop Alvarez said, “And the main gate, as well as the garage, are also blocked by the riot police. However, even in this situation, we maintain our joy, our strength and our inner peace.”

Catholic leader and well-known critic of the regime, Monsignor Silvio Baez, was forced to flee  Nicaragua in 2019 when the U.S. Embassy warned him of plans to assassinate him. The Monsignor had previously been stabbed, beaten, and threatened repeatedly for his criticism of the regime.

Ortega’s government also expelled Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, the pope’s representative in Nicaragua, in March of this year.  Further hostilities towards the Church under the Ortega regime include the closing of eight Catholic radio stations on August 1 of this year.

According to the Heritage Foundation, the Trump administration spoke out against this rampant “persecution of Christians, with then-Vice President Mike Pence calling out Ortega and Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro on their violations of religious liberty and freedom of speech.”

The U.S. State Department, European Union, and the Bishops of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) have all condemned these persecutions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimated that at least 170,000 Nicaraguans have fled to America since 2021 because of the repression under Ortega.

At this moment Ortega “continues to target the Catholic Church and its believers in a quest to purge all dissent,” said the Heritage Foundation.

Pope Francis has yet to comment on th increasingly hostile situation in Nicaragua, and news outlets are calling his silence to an open war on the Church “scandalous.”

Agustin Antonetti, director of Latin America Watch, said, “Pope Francis’ silence on what’s going on in Nicaragua is scandalous. Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship is taking the churches by force, they have shut down all their channels and radios, even one priest is in jail, and the rest are afraid of being kidnapped.”

Writer Sergio Ramirez also spoke out about the Pope’s silence in an interview stating,

“Pope Francis has kept a silence that is heard around the world about the situation in Nicaragua. It would be advisable for all the Catholic faithful of Nicaragua, who are half the population, to listen to what the Pope has to say about this barbarism that has been happening since 2018 and that continues to happen now with the arrest of so many people, with the unstoppable growth of political prisoners.” (Nicaragua’s Marxist Dictator Cracks Down on Catholics.)

The Nicaraguan national police said that the kidnapping of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, this morning was carried out to "recover normality for the residents and families of Matagalpa."

In a statement released this morning, the police, who serve the regime of President Daniel Ortega, justified their break-in just after 3 a.m. at the bishop’s residence in Matagalpa, saying the bishop would have continued with "destabilizing and provocative activities.”

Since Aug. 4, Álvarez and a group of priests, seminarians, and lay people have been prevented by the police from leaving the house and communicating with the outside world. The police insisted that they had “for several days waited with great patience, prudence, and a sense of responsibility for a communication positive from the Bishopric of Matagalpa, which never came to pass.”

According to the police statement, the bishop of Matagalpa and the other eight people who remained with him inside the bishop’s residence "were transferred, with respect and observance of their rights,” to Managua for legal inquiries.

The bishop “remains in house protection (sic) in this capital city and has been able to meet with his relatives this morning," the statement said.

The Nicaragua police also said that the Archbishop of Managua and vice president of the Nicaraguan Bishops Conference, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, visited Álvarez this morning "and both have talked extensively."

According to the police, the Matagalpa vicar, Monsignor Oscar Escoto, remains in the bishop’s residence "without any police or mobility restrictions."

The Archdiocese of Managua has not yet issued an official statement on the meeting between Brenes and Álvarez.

The Ortega dictatorship “is capable of anything”

In statements to ACI Prensa, Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, a member of the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory, said that the Ortega dictatorship "is capable of anything" and "will always generate as much damage as possible.”

The jurist underscored the arbitrariness of the National Police's incursion into the episcopal house of Matagalpa, pointing out that it violates the Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure, which establish limitations on house arrest and home invasion. Ordinarily, it can only be done “between six in the morning and six in the evening,” according to Montenegro. 

She also stressed that the bishop, priests, seminarians, and lay people who were surrounded by the police since Aug. 4 "spent 15 days kidnapped, not detained."

"The police are acting like a criminal group that does not submit to the rule of law and once again it makes clear that Nicaragua is a dictatorship where they proceed according to the whim and state of mind of President Daniel Ortega and his consort," she said. Ortega’s wife, Rosario Murillo, has held the position of Vice President of Nicaragua, since January 2017.

The lawyer explained to ACI Prensa that "the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship proceeds arbitrarily because it knows that if it uses legal channels it would not have any legal basis, because all the crimes that are attributed to innocent citizens are false."

"Ortega fears no one"

Montenegro, the author of a report that indicates more than 190 attacks have occurred against the Catholic Church since 2018 under the shadow of the Ortega dictatorship, pointed out that "Ortega fears no one."

“This has been demonstrated by escalating the intensity of the repression,” she said. 

The jurist recalled that the Ortega dictatorship "has ordered the assassination of more than 350 Nicaraguans," referring to those killed to repress the peaceful protests of 2018, and noted that the regime has "sent into exile more than 200,000" in addition to taking “190 political prisoners.”

In the last week, the regime closed all media outlets, prompting international backlash. Montenegro voiced her skepticism about the backlash, however, noting that though the international community condemns Ortega, “they continue to finance him by granting him millionaire loans, which are used to repress and not to invest in social works.”

"The victory will be given by the Lord"

Still, Montenegro has reason to hope while events unfold.

"I can assure you that this arbitrariness and attacks on the Church have united us more as Christians," she said, noting that "yesterday we were more than 3,500 families praying the Holy Rosary in the company of Bishop Rolando, through social media and thousands more who connected from other places.”

"We are strengthened with that peace and tranquility that only the Holy Spirit provides," she continued.

“There is no human power that can put an end to this nefarious and criminal dictatorship. Victory will be given by the Lord.” 

The last post on the bishop's Twitter account, shortly before he was kidnapped by the National Police, recalled the Gospel: "Let us worry about wearing festive garments in the Kingdom of God."

(Police put Nicaraguan bishop under house arrest again, send priests and seminarians to jail.)

One can be assured that Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s passive indifference in the face of Ortega’s monstrous policies has not escaped the notice of the members of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” here in the United States of America at a time when the politicized agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) are ignoring attacks waged by pro-baby-killing terrorists upon Catholic churches, statues, and shrines as well as crisis pregnancy counseling centers after the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Thomas E. Dobbs, Mississippi State Health Officer v. Jackson Women’s Organization, June 24, 2022. A time when come when one of Ortega’s admirers in this country will come to power and being assured of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s silent acquiescence, will launch a like state-sponsored persecution here that will make Ortega’s seem like so much child’s play. Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s indifference as Catholics suffer at the hands of his Marxist friends is yet another correlative proof that he is an Antipope, a man who does exactly what the opposite of what true popes have done when either they and/or their bishops and ordinary Catholics were being persecuted by the brute force of the civil state.

As noted in a commentary earlier this year, Pope Pius XII reacted with indignation after the arrest and trial of the Primate of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty by the Communist authorities there:

Venerable Brethren, we have convoked this extraordinary consistory today in order to unfold to you our soul, which is crushed with most bitter grief. You will readily understand the reason of our sorrow: it concerns a most serious outrage which inflicts a deep wound not only on your distinguished colleague and on the church, but also on every upholder of the dignity and liberty of man. As soon as ever we knew that our beloved son, Joseph Cardinal Midszenty, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Archbishop of Estergrom, was cast into prison due to religion we sent a loving message to the Hungarian hierarchy in which we publicly and solemnly protest, our duty demanded, against the injury done to the church.

At present, when things have come to such a pass that this most worthy prelate has been reduced to supreme indignity and condemned like a criminal to life imprisonment, we cannot but repeat this solemn protest in your presence. We are prompted to do this primarily on behalf of the moral rights of religion which this valiant prelate tirelessly propounded and defended so strenuously and courageously. Besides, unanimous consensus of free peoples, expressed in speech and writings even by leaders of nations and by those who do not belong to the Catholic Church has been given the fullest light of publicity.

But, as you are aware, the full light of publicity did not shine over the trial of this prelate who deserved so well of all, in defending the religion of his ancestors and in the restoration of Christian morals. In fact, from the beginning the news that arrived caused alarm. People outside Hungary who asked permission to be present at the trial were refused permission if they seemed likely to judge impartiality or to give a sincere report: This led them to believe, and all upright and honest men as well, that those who were conducting the trial in Budapest seemed to be afraid to allow all to see what was taking place.

Justice, which is worthy of the name, does not begin with prejudices and is not based on a decision previously taken, but it gladly admits of free discussion and gives everyone due facility for thinking, believing and speaking.

But although the facts have set not been reliably made known, or reported clearly and completely, we cannot omit mentioning the judgment which all civilized people have passed on this trial. Referring particularly to the speed with which it was conducted; thus suggesting a ready reason for suspicion; of accusations captiously and deceitfully contrived; and to the physical condition of the Cardinal, which is indeed inexplicable except as a result of a secret influence which may not be publicly revealed, to prove this there is the fact which suddenly made of a man, until then exceptionally energetic by nature and by way of life, a feeble being and of vacillating mind, so that his behavior appeared, an accusation not against himself but against his very accusers and condemners.

In all this matter one thing alone stands out clearly: The principal object of the trial was to disrupt the Catholic Church in Hungary and precisely for the purpose set forth in sacred scripture: “I shall strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed (Matt. XXVI, 31.)

While this sorrow in our heart we deplore this very sad event and entrust it in a sense to public opinion and the tribunal of history for the final judgment, we are doing what the outraged rights of the church and the dignity of the human person demand.

We deem it especially our duty to brand as completely false the assertion made in the course of the trial that the whole question at issue was that this Apostolic See, in furtherance of a plan for political domination of nations, gave instructions to oppose the Republic of Hungary and its rulers: thus all responsibility would fall on the same Apostolic See.

Everybody knows that the Catholic Church does not act through worldly motives, and that she accepts any and every form of civil government provided it not be inconsistent with divine and human rights. But when it does contradict these rights, Bishops and the faithful themselves are bound, by their own conscience to resist unjust laws.

In the midst of this grievous anguish, however, venerable brethren, the “Father of Mercies” (cf. II. Cor 1, 3) has not left us without consolations from above which have served to mitigate our sorrow. It is consoling above all to witness the tenacious faith of the Catholics of Hungary who are doing all they can, though faced with serious obstacles and difficulties, to defend their age-old religion and to keep alive and fresh the glorious tradition of their ancestors. Solace comes to us from the unflinching confidence we cherish in our paternal heart that the Hungarian episcopate, acting in complete harmony of principle of practice, will labor with every resource at their command to strengthen the unity of the faithful and buoy them up  with that hope which can neither be extinguished nor dimmed by sad or unjust happenings of this life, because it has its source in heaven, and is fed by a grace divine.

From you, venerable brethren, similar heavenly solace has come to us. For we have seen you gathered close about us in this crisis, to share our sorrow and unite your prayers to ours. We have been heartened likewise by the other Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops of whole Catholic world, who along with their clergy and people have express by fervid letter and telegrams their reprobation for the outrage offered to the church, and promised us their public and private prayers.

We earnestly desire that these prayers should continue to rise before the throne of God. For as often as the church is tossed by such tempests as cannot be quelled by human means, one must  appeal with confidence to the Divine Redeemer, who alone can calm the swelling waves and restore them to peace and tranquility. Through the most powerful intercession of the Virgin Mother of God, let us all pray fervently that those who suffer persecution, imprisonment and hardship, may be consoled with the necessary help of divine grace and fortified with the strength of Christian virtue; that those who rashly dare to trample upon the liberty of the church and the rights of human conscience, may at length understand that no civil society can endure when religion has been suppressed and God, as it were, driven into exile. It is only the sacred principles of religion that can moderated within the limits of reason the duties and the rights of citizens, can consolidate the foundations of the state, and make men’s lives conform to the salutary norms and morality, restoring them to order and virtue.

The words of the greatest Roman orator: “High priests, you defend the city more securely by religion than by its surrounding walls” (De Nat Deor. III, 40), when applied to Christian precepts and faith is infinitely more true and certain. Let all those into whose hands public government has been entrusted, recognize this truth and let due liberty be everywhere restored to the church that untrammeled she may be able to enlighten the minds of men with her salutary doctrine. Rightly instruct youth and lead them to virtue, restore to families their sacred character, and permeate with her influence the whole life of men. Civil society has nothing to fear from this activity but rather will reap the greatest advantages. It is then, venerable brethren, that social questions will be solved with justice and equity; the conditions of the poor will be ameliorated, as is just, and they will be restored to a state befitting the dignity of man; fraternal charity will bring peace to men’s minds and better days and better days as we fondly hope and pray, will happily ensue for all peoples and races.

These are the words we wished to speak in this illustrious assembly to you who are so closely associated with us in the government of the universal church and assist us with your zeal, your prudence and your wisdom. (Pope Pius XII, Allocution on the Cardinal Mindszenty, as found at: New York Times, February 15, 1949.)

This is not, of course, how Jorge Mario Bergoglio speaks when Catholics, including his own “bishops,” are under siege by Communist dictators and their Marxists fellow travelers in so-called Western “democracies.”

Our true popes have risen to the defense of the persecuted and the first thirty-three of their number suffered martyrdom after being persecuted by various Roman emperors and own their minions. Noting a few exceptions here and there, most notably Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s admonitions against the Polish Communist dictators and Sandinista Marxist mass murderous, the conciliar “popes” have refused to speak out against Communist attacks on Catholics, and that includes Wojtyla/John Paul II’s initial steps to sell out faithful Catholics in Red China that started in 1988.

Contrasting Bergoglio’s Passivity with the Courage of our True Popes

As noted just above, the entire history of Holy Mother Church is replete with countless examples of our true popes who defended the rights of the Papacy, of Holy Mother Church, and of individual Catholics including those who did so at the risk of their own lives.

Pope Leo the Great put himself at risk when he rode on horseback to meet Atilla the Hun to plead with him not to sack Rome:

The Barbarian hordes were invading the West; the Empire was little more than a ruin: and Attila, “the Scourge of God,“ was marching on towards Rome. Leo’s majestic bearing repelled the invasion, as his word had checked the ravages of heresy. The haughty king of the Huns, before whose armies the strongest citadels had fallen, granted an audience to the Pontiff on the banks of the Mincio, and promised to spare Rome. The calm and dignity of Leo—who thus unarmed confronted the most formidable enemy of the Empire and exposed his life for his flock—awed the barbarian, who afterwards told his people that, during the interview, he saw a venerable person standing, in an attitude of defense, by the side of Rome’s intercessor: it was the Apostle St. Peter. Attila not only admired, he feared the Pontiff. It was truly a sublime spectacle, and one that was full of meaning;—a Priest, with no arms save those of his character and virtues, forcing a king such as Attila was, to do homage to a devotedness which he could ill understand, and recognize, by submission, the influence of a power which had heaven on its side. Leo, single-handed and at once, did what it took the whole of Europe several ages to accomplish later on. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, April 11, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio would have sent Pietro Parolin to “dialogue” with Attila the Hun, who would laughed in Parolin’s face and have proceeded to sack Rome.

Similarly, Blessed Pope Urban II sought to defend Catholics who were under siege by Mohammedans in the Holy Land when he preached the First Crusade in 1092:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of course, has apologized for the First Crusade, believing it to be a source of “embarrassment” and he refuses to admit the truths contained Pope Urban II’s meticulous description of the barbaric cruelty of Mohammedans, a cruelty that is endemic to this false religion.

It was four hundred seventy-nine years that Pope Saint Pius V called upon Catholics to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary to win the victory for the combined Christian fleet against the Turks in the Bay of Lepanto against on October 5, 1571:

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

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

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

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

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

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s antipapal role model and direct ideological forefather, Giovanni Enrico Battista Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, mocked the great victory over the Mohammedan forces in the Battle of Lepanto that was wrought by Pope Saint Pius V’s plea to Catholics to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary by returning the Mohammedan flag to the Turks in 1965:

Presumably “no one” does does not include God. Paul’s performance at the United Nations [on October 4, 1965], an organization long viewed with suspicion by the Church for the obvious reasons, sent many a Catholic reeling. So did another papal act just two months later, when Paul gave back to the Muslims the Standard of Lepanto. The history of the flag was venerable. It was taken from a turkish admiral during a great naval battle in 1571. While Pope St. Pius V fasted and prayed the Rosary, an out-numbered Christian fleet defeated a much larger Moslem navy, thus saving Christendom from the infidel. In honor of the miraculous victory, Pius V instituted the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary to commemorate Her intercession.

In one dramatic act Paul renounced not only a remarkable Christian victory, but the prayers and the sacrifices of a great Pope and saint. Worse, he appeared to be rejecting the intercession of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary–again. “The wars of religion are finished for good,” Paul told the Turks by way of explanation. Their immediate response was not recorded, but the rise of militant Islam in the last three decades indicates that yet another of Pope Paul’s prophesies had gone awry. The next give-away involved Paul’s Shepherd’s Crook and fisherman’s ring, which he gave to the Buddhist U Thant [United Nations Secretary General between November 30, 1971, and December 31, 1971]. Paul also abolished the anti-Modernist oath of St. Pius X, and the Profession of Faith of the Council of Trent. In 1968 the Index was abolished. The Holy Office was reformed: its primary function now was research, not defending the Faith. (Mark Fellows, Fatima in Twilight, Marmion Publications, 2003, p. 193.)

The conciliar “popes” have contempt for the courage exhibited by our true popes. The conciliar antipopes have been and continue to be effeminate wimps who believe that everything except Catholicism as it has been taught from time immemorial and that all words spoken and actions undertaken in its defense have been erroneous and, as such, are objects of shame for which endless apologies must be made.

The advent of the modern civil state in the aftermath of the Protestant Revolution and the subsequent rise of a welter of ever-mutating Judeo-Masonic fables purporting themselves to be “philosophies” and ideologies has brought about a recrudescence of the Roman Empire’s outright hostility to the Holy Faith that was made manifest first in the anti-Theistic French Revolution from which France has never recovered. The false principles of the French Revolution with which the conciliar revolutionaries had made what the then Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger called their “official reconciliation at the “Second” Vatican Council sought to root out the Cross of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, from the soil of once Catholic Europe and to replace it with a “brotherhood” that is only “brotherly” towards those who do not dissent from its precepts du jour. This was the source of open conflict with the Holy Faith and, when necessary, our true popes denounced the revolution, its falsehoods, and its efforts to force Catholics to be faithful to the civil state’s hostility to the Faith and to reject It.

Popes Pius VI and VII openly denounced the French Revolution’s concept of religious liberty as follows:

"Man should use his reason first of all to recognize his Sovereign Maker, honoring Him and admiring Him, and submitting his entire person to Him. For, from his childhood, he should be submissive to those who are superior to him in age; he should be governed and instructed by their lessons, order his life according to their laws of reason, society and religion. This inflated equality and liberty, therefore, are for him, from the moment he is born, no more than imaginary dreams and senseless words." (Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791; Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right").

The Catholic Church: For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, POST TAM DIUTURNAS)

The conciliar revolutionaries have championed the very false principles that were condemned by our true popes and that have proven to be the instruments by which statists, globalists, and open Marxists attack believing Catholics while being praised by Jorge Mario Bergoglio for the way in which they are “saving the planet.”

It was during a wave of anticlerical revolutionary activity in the 1840s that the newly elected Pope Pius IX sought to defend the rights of the papacy and of individual Catholics from the onslaught being waged by godless men who were intent on creating a new world order without any trace of the Sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff nor of Holy Mother Church’s liberty.

This is what Pope Pius IX wrote in Nostris et Nobiscum, December 8, 1849:

16. All who defend the faith should aim to implant deeply in your faithful people the virtues of piety, veneration, and respect for this supreme See of Peter. Let the faithful recall the fact that Peter, Prince of Apostles is alive here and rules in his successors,[10] and that his office does not fail even in an unworthy heir.[11] Let them recall that Christ the Lord placed the impregnable foundation of his Church on this See of Peter[12] and gave to Peter himself the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.[13] Christ then prayed that his fait would not fail, and commanded Peter to strengthen his brothers in the faith.[14]Consequently the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, holds a primacy over the whole world and is the true Vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all Christians.[15]

17. Indeed one simple way to keep men professing Catholic truth is to maintain their communion with and obedience to the Roman Pontiff. For it is impossible for a man ever to reject any portion of the Catholic faith without abandoning the authority of the Roman Church. In this authority, the unalterable teaching office of this faith lives on. It was set up by the divine Redeemer and, consequently, the tradition from the Apostles has always been preserved. So it has been a common characteristic both of the ancient heretics and of the more recent Protestants — whose disunity in all their other tenets is so great — to attack the authority of the Apostolic See. But never at any time were they able by any artifice or exertion to make this See tolerate even a single one of their errors. For this reason the enemies of God and human society at the present time are making every attempt to tear the Italian people from their allegiance to Us and to this Holy See. They think, no doubt, that then at last, they could have the good fortune of contaminating Italy itself with their impious teaching and the plague of their novel theories.

18. As regards this teaching and these theories, it is now generally known that the special goal of their proponents is to introduce to the people the pernicious fictions of Socialism and Communism by misapplying the terms “liberty” and “equality.” The final goal shared by these teachings, whether of Communism or Socialism, even if approached differently, is to excite by continuous disturbances workers and others, especially those of the lower class, whom they have deceived by their lies and deluded by the promise of a happier condition. They are preparing them for plundering, stealing, and usurping first the Church’s and then everyone’s property. After this they will profane all law, human and divine, to destroy divine worship and to subvert the entire ordering of civil societies. In this critical period for Italy, it is your duty, venerable brothers, to help the faithful realize that if they let themselves be deceived by such perverted doctrines and theories, these theories will cause their temporal and their eternal destruction.

19. Therefore, warn your faithful that the very nature of human society obligates its members to obey its lawfully established authority; nothing in the precepts of the Lord on this subject, which are proclaimed in holy scripture, can be altered. For it is written: “Be subject to every human institution for God’s sake, to the king as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish wrongdoers and to praise those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing right, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Be as free men, yet without using freedom as a pretext for evil, but be as servants of God.”[16] And again: “Let ever soul be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, he who resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur their own condemnation.”[17]

20. Let them furthermore know that it is likewise a mark of the natural, and so of the immutable, condition of human affairs that even among those who are not in higher authority, some surpass others in different endowments of mind or body or in riches and such external goods; therefore it can never be lawful under any pretext of liberty or equality to usurp or injure in any way the good or rights of other men. Divine precepts on this subject are clear and can be found throughout the holy scriptures. They forbid us strictly even to desire the goods of other men, much less seize them.[18]

21. In addition, let the poor and all the wretched recall their great debt to the Catholic religion which keeps the teaching of Christ unspoiled and preaches it publicly. For He proclaimed that whatever benefits are conferred on the poor and wretched are likewise conferred on Himself.[19] Furthermore, He wishes that all be informed of the special account He will take of these works of mercy on the Day of Judgment; that is, He will give the gift of eternal life to the faithful who engaged in works of mercy, and He will punish with eternal fire those who neglected them.[20]

22. This proclamation of Christ and His other stern warnings on the use of wealth and its dangers[21] have meant that the condition of the poor and wretched in Catholic nations is much less harsh than in any other nations. The poor would receive even greater aid if the many institutions which our pious ancestors established for their relief had not been closed down or plundered in the recent recurrent public demonstrations. Let Our poor recall the teaching of Christ Himself that they should not be sad at their condition, since their very poverty makes lighter their journey to salvation, provided that they bear their need with patience and are poor not alone in possessions, but in spirit too. For He says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[22]

23. All the faithful should know too that the old kings of the pagan nations and other chiefs of state misused their power in more serious ways and more often. The faithful should reckon it to the credit of our most holy religion that princes in Christian times feared “the stern judgment in store for governors,” and the eternal punishment prepared for sinners, in which “the strong will suffer strong torments.”[23] Because of this fear, they have ruled the peoples subject to them more justly and clemently.

24. Finally, let the faithful recognize that Christian law protects true liberty and equality. God Almighty, who has made “the small and the great” and who “takes equal care of everyone,”[24] “will not withdraw from anyone nor fear anyone’s greatness.”[25] He has established a day “on which He will judge the world in justice”[26] in His Only-Begotten Son Christ Jesus, “who will come in the glory of His Father with His angels and will then make return to each man according to his works.”[27]

25. But if the faithful scorn both the fatherly warnings of their pastors and the commandments of the Christian Law recalled here, and if they let themselves be deceived by the present-day promoters of plots, deciding to work with them in their perverted theories of Socialism and Communism, let them know and earnestly consider what they are laying up for themselves. The Divine Judge will seek vengeance on the day of wrath. Until then no temporal benefit for the people will result from their conspiracy, but rather new increases of misery and disaster. For man is not empowered to establish new societies and unions which are opposed to the nature of mankind. If these conspiracies spread throughout Italy there can only be one result: if the present political arrangement is shaken violently and totally ruined by reciprocal attacks of citizens against citizens by their wrongful appropriations and slaughter, in the end some few, enriched by the plunder of many, will seize supreme control to the ruin of all.

26. Now the life and example of the clergy help keep the faithful safe from the snares of the impious in their profession of the Catholic religion and help stir them to the works of true virtue. But, alas! there have been in Italy some men of the Church, although they were few, who by deserting to the Church’s enemies, helped them greatly in deceiving the faithful. The lapse of these men doubtless incited you afresh, venerable brothers, to watch daily with keener zeal over the discipline of the clergy. And now since We desire to provide, as We should, for the future, We recommend what We emphasized in Our first encyclical letter to the bishops of the whole world:[28] that you should lay hands on no one in haste,[29] but show the greatest possible care in selecting soldiers for the Church’s army. Candidates for holy orders especially must be examined at thorough length to determine whether their learning, serious morals and zeal for divine worship indicate that they will by their life and work edify and bring spiritual benefit to your flock, like lanterns burning in the house of the Lord. (Nostris et Nobiscum, December 8, 1849.)

Pope Pius IX knew that the infiltration of Holy Mother Church had begun and that there bishops and priests who were evangelists of the revolution, not of the Gospel of Christ the King, something that he saw with especial bitterness in Italy, where the Freemasons of the Risorgimento were plotting to overthrow the Papal States and to make warfare upon the Church and her institutions throughout what would become the Kingdom of Italy.

Writing in Levate, September 27, 1867, the Holy Father warned of the impending doom that would afflict the papacy itself that had begun to manifest itself elsewhere in Italy as early as 1861. His Holiness also decried the persecutions that Holy Mother Church was experiencing at the hands of evil men in those parts of Poland then under the control of the Russian Empire:

Lift up your eyes, venerable brothers. Look about you and grieve at the evil abominations which now defile unhappy Italy. We can but humbly revere the inscrutable judgments of God, which destined Us to live in these most sorrowful times. By the efforts of many, particularly those who hold power in Italy, the venerable commands of God and the sacred laws of the Church are completely despised. Here triumphant impiety rears her ugly head, and here We grieve to see all kinds of injustice, evil, and destruction. Hence the many phalanxes of rebels, men who walk in impiety and fight under the standard of Satan — a leader branded with deceit. Raising their mouths to the very heavens, they blaspheme God; polluting and scorning all that is sacred, they trample underfoot all laws, divine and human. Like ravening wolves panting after their prey, they spill blood and destroy souls with their grievous scandal. They seek the unjust gain of their own malice and seize the property of others.

Then they sadden the lowly and the poor, making widows of wives and orphans of happy children. They pardon the impious and condemn the just, for there are bribes to take and goods to steal; with a corrupt heart they satisfy every depraved desire, to the detriment of all civil society.

Evil Men

2. At present We are surrounded by evil men of this sort, men entirely animated by a diabolical spirit. They plan to raise the standard of lies in this beloved city of Ours, before the very Chair of Peter, the center of Catholic truth and unity. And the officials of the government of Piedmont, who should have repressed these uprisings, have aided them in every way. They supply them with arms and other goods and even fortify the approach to this city. But these officials, though they hold the highest rank in civil government, are fearful because through their wickedness they ensnare themselves in a net of ecclesiastical penalties and censures. In the humility of Our heart We continue to beseech the God of mercy to return these miserable men to a salutary penitence and to the straight path of justice, religion, and piety. Nevertheless We must declare the dangers We are exposed to in this hour of darkness. We tranquilly await whatever events may bring, be it nefarious frauds, calumnies, treachery, or lies. We place all Our hope in the God of Our salvation, who is Our helper and strength in all Our tribulations. He does not permit those who trust in Him to be confounded, He who thwarts the attacks of the impious and breaks the necks of sinners. In the meantime We are anxious to inform you and your faithful of the sad condition and the great danger in which We live, due especially to the activity of the Piedmont government. Although Our faithful army defends Us vigorously and heroically, it is clear that they cannot resist for long because they are greatly outnumbered by these unjust aggressors. The filial piety of Our subjects, now greatly reduced in number by the evil usurpers, consoles Us. But We must also grieve since they suffer serious dangers rising against them from the savage throngs of the wicked, who terrify them constantly with all sorts of threats and plunder them exhaustively.

Evils in Poland and Russia

3. But We have other evils to deplore, too. You know well from Our consistorial address of October 29 of last year, and from its publication with supporting documents, the many calamities with which the Catholic Church and her sons are troubled in the Russian Empire and in the Polish Kingdom. There the Catholic bishops, the ecclesiastics, and the lay faithful are exiled, thrown into prison, harassed in every way, robbed of their possessions, and oppressed with severe penalties. The canons and laws of the Church are completely trampled underfoot. And not at all content with this, the Russian government continues with its long-standing plan to violate the teaching of the Church and to break the chain of union and communication between those faithful to Us and the Holy See. The government strives to overthrow the Catholic religion completely in regions, separating the faithful from the Church in order to draw them into a disastrous schism. With great sorrow We inform you that that government has issued two decrees after the last address We mentioned. An abhorrent decree promulgated last May 22 suppressed the Polish diocese of Podlachia, together with its college of canons, the Consistory General, and the diocesan seminary. The bishop of the diocese was separated from his flock and at once forced to leave his territory. And this decree is similar to the one published last June 3, which We were not able to mention because We had no knowledge of it. By this decree the same government arbitrarily suppressed the diocese of Kamieniec and dispersed its college of canons, Consistory, and seminary; then it violently tore its bishop from his diocese.

Communication by Papal Decree

4. Now since We cannot communicate with those faithful, and also lest someone be exposed to arrest, exile, or some other penalty, We have been compelled to insert an Act in Our publication to provide for the exercise of legitimate jurisdiction in those extensive dioceses and for the spiritual needs of the faithful. By means of the printed word, notice of Our plans will reach them. Anyone can easily understand the attitude and purpose with which the Russian government would publish such a decree, since the suppression of dioceses is added to the absence of many bishops.

Governmental College

5. But what adds to Our bitterness is another decree of this same government, promulgated last May 22, by which a college was established in St. Petersburg, a college called “Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical,” with the presiding officer the Archbishop of Mohilev. All petitions pertaining to matters of faith and conscience which the bishops, clergy, and faithful of the Russian Empire and Polish Kingdom send to Us and this Apostolic See are first to be sent to this college. This same college is to examine them to determine whether the petitions exceed the power of the bishops; if so, it will send them to Us. But after Our decision reaches there, the presiding officer of the college is bound to send this decision to the minister of internal affairs, who is to determine whether it contains anything against the laws of the state and the rights of the supreme ruler. If nothing is found, he may execute it according to his will and judgment.

Condemnation of This College

6. You surely see how vehemently a decree of this kind must be condemned. This schismatic secular power destroys the constitution of the Catholic Church and subverts ecclesiastical discipline. Furthermore, it inflicts the greatest injury on Our supreme Pontificate, on the power and authority of this Holy See and of the bishops, and on the liberty of the highest pastor of all the faithful. It therefore drives the faithful to a mournful schism and even tramples underfoot natural law in matters pertaining to faith and conscience.

7. Add to this that the Catholic Academy of Warsaw has been closed and that a sad ruin awaits the Ruthenian dioceses of Chelm and Belzium. And what is most grievous is that a certain priest Woicicki has been found whose faith is suspect and who has no regard for ecclesiastical penalties and censures, nor for the terrible judgment of God. He was not afraid to accept the rule and administration of this same diocese from that civil power, nor to issue ordinances contrary to ecclesiastical discipline and favoring schism.

8. In these calamitous difficulties, no one fights for Us except Our Lord and God. We earnestly beseech you, because of your love for things Catholic and your devotion to Us, that you join your most fervent prayers with Ours. Together with all your clergy and faithful people, beseech God unceasingly to snatch His Holy Church and Us from such great evils. The sons of this same Church, who are most dear to Us, are exposed to many plots and afflicted with many hardships almost everywhere, but especially in Italy, in the Russian Empire, and in the Kingdom of Poland. Pray that God may aid and defend them by His omnipotent power. Pray that He may preserve, confirm, and strengthen them more each day in the Catholic faith and the profession of its salutary doctrines. Pray that He thwart all the impious plans of hostile men, recalling them from the abyss of iniquity to the way of salvation and leading them in the path of His commandments.

Plenary Indulgences

9. Therefore We desire that within six months a three-day period of public prayer be proclaimed in your dioceses; for those beyond the sea, the proclamation should be made within one year. To encourage more ardent devotion at these prayers, We grant mercifully in the Lord a plenary indulgence and the remission of all their sins to each and all the faithful in Christ, both men and women, who are devoutly present at these prayers on these three days, who have prayed to God for the present necessities of the Church according to Our intention, who have expiated their sins by sacramental confession, and who have received holy communion. But to the faithful who with at least a contrite heart are present on any one of these days, and have performed the other works, We grant an indulgence of seven years, and We relax as many forty day periods of the penance enjoined on them or otherwise owed by them, in accordance with the usual custom of the Church. We also grant that these indulgences, all and singly, the remission of sins, and the relaxation of penances are applicable by way of suffrage to the souls of the faithful who, joined to God by love, have left this life. We also declare that anything to the contrary has no power to resist Our decrees.

10. Finally, nothing is more pleasing to Us than that We may use this occasion to testify and confirm the great benevolence with which We embrace you in the Lord. Receive as a certain pledge of this the Apostolic Benediction which We impart most lovingly to you, venerable brothers, and to all the clergy and faithful laity entrusted to your vigilance. (Pope Pius IX, Levate, September 27, 1867.)

This was a marvelous defense of Catholics undergoing persecution and it was a manly display of abject courage in its denunciation of those waging these persecutions. There was no spirit of compromise or any effort to do what Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Pietro Parolin are prone to do, namely, to blame the persecuted for supposedly “forcing” their persecutors to persecute them.

Importantly, Pope Pius IX explained how he would accept the will of God no matter what might befall the Papal States or his own physical safety, and it is with this same spirit of peaceful surrender to the inscrutable will of God that He accept the defeat of the Papal States during the Franco-Prussian War. His Holiness accepted defeat but he remained strong in its opposition to those who engineered it and who were set on destroying the dignity of the papacy itself by continuing to subordinate the Church of God to the whims of the civil state.

This is what Pope Pius IX wrote in Ubi Nos, May 15, 1871:

When We were defeated by Our enemies in accordance with the mysterious design of God, We observed the severely bitter fortunes of Our City and the downfall of the civil rule of the Apostolic See in the face of military invasion. Then We sent you Our letter of the 1st of November 1869 to tell you, and the whole Catholic world through you, the state of Our affairs and those of this City. We also told you of Our subjection to the excesses of impious and unbridled license. We testified before God and man that We desired the rights of the Apostolic See to be safe and unprejudiced, as the nature of Our supreme office demanded. We summoned you and all Our beloved children, the faithful entrusted to your care, to appease the divine majesty with fervent prayers. Since that time the ills and disasters of this City and Ourselves, foreshadowed by those first unhappy experiences, have really exceeded all bounds in assailing Our Apostolic rank and authority, the sanctity of religion and morals, and Our dearest subjects. What is more, venerable brothers, since conditions worsen daily, We are compelled to repeat the words of St. Bernard: “this is the beginning of the evils; we fear worse evil.”[1] For wickedness advances on its path and promotes its designs. No longer does it take pains to conceal its worst deeds since they cannot remain hidden, but it is eager to carry off the last spoils from the overthrow of justice, honor, and religion. Our days are filled with bitterness, particularly when We consider the dangers and deceits to which the virtue of Our faithful people is subjected every day. When We recall the exceptional merits of yourselves, venerable brothers, and of the faithful embraced by your care, We are greatly pleased. For in every region of the earth, Christ’s faithful have answered Our exhortations with wonderful enthusiasm, ever since the ill-starred day of the City’s capture. Following your lead and example, they have prayed continually and fervently. They approach the throne of divine clemency with perseverance in repeated public supplication, in undertaking holy pilgrimages, in unceasingly thronging to the churches, in partaking of the sacraments, and in the other main works of Christian virtue.

Benefits of Prayer

2. This burning zeal for prayer cannot fail to produce the most abundant fruit in God’s sight. Many benefits indeed have already come from this source, and these give promise of further benefits which We confidently await. For We see the faith and charity growing and spreading daily, and We observe that the distressing attacks on this See and on the supreme Shepherd have aroused such concern in the spirits of Christ’s faithful as only God could inspire. We perceive such great unity that never until now, since the first days of the Church, did the multitude of the faithful so clearly show that they are of one heart and one soul.[2] With this show of virtue before Us, We cannot be silent about Our dearest children, the citizens of this fair city, whose love and piety towards Us exceed all bounds. Their constancy too continues to be splendidly equal to the struggle, and their greatness of soul rivals that of their ancestors.

3. Consequently, We give unending glory and thanks to God for all of you and for Our beloved children, Christ’s faithful. He continues to effect great deeds in you and in His Church, and has ensured that although malice abounds, the grace of faith, charity, and confession abound too. “What then is our hope and joy and crown of glory? Isn’t it you in the presence of God? A wise son is the glory of his father. May God accordingly reward you and be mindful of the faithful service, pious compassion, consolation, and honor which you continue to give to the spouse of His Son in an evil time and in the days of her affliction.”[3]

The Northern Government

4. Meanwhile indeed, the Piedmont government is on the one hand bent on making the city the talk of the world.[4] On the other hand, to deceive the Catholics and calm their anguish, it has promoted certain empty immunities and privileges, commonly called “guarantees.” These “guarantees are compensation for stripping Us of Our civil rule; this they accomplished by a lengthy series of machinations and their unholy arms. We have already delivered Our judgment on these immunities and provisions, and stigmatized their absurdity, cunning and mockery in Our letter of last 2nd March to Constantine Patrizi, cardinal of the holy Roman Church, dean of the Sacred College, and Vicar of Our Authority in the City. This letter was immediately printed and published.

5. But it is characteristic of the Piedmont Government to unite continuous, base pretense with shameless contempt for Our papal rank and authority. It has also shown that it completely disregards Our protestations, complaints and censures. Accordingly it has not ceased in the least to press on with the serious discussion and examination of these “guarantees” before the highest bodies in the kingdom, despite Our expressed judgment on these provisions. In this discussion, both the truth of Our judgment on the nature of these provisions and the vain attempt of Our enemies to conceal their malice and deceit have been clearly seen. Assuredly, these many errors and blasphemies are plainly at variance with the Catholic faith and with the very foundations of natural law. It is unbelievable that they could have been produced here in Italy, whose chief glory has always been in the practice of the Catholic religion and in the Apostolic See. And in fact, Italians join with Us in lamenting and deploring this novel and unheard-of sacrilege. Indeed, they have shown Us by ever-increasing notable proofs and deeds of piety that they are allied in one spirit and understanding with the rest of the world’s faithful.

Warning Against Deceivers

6. Accordingly We address you again, venerable brothers. The faithful entrusted to you have clearly indicated both by letter and serious protestations how painful they find Our beleaguered state. They are far from being deceived by the measures which are disguised as “guarantees.” Nevertheless We must solemnly declare through you to the whole world that not only these so-called guarantees, but all other titles, honors, immunities, and privileges-that is whatever else can be named a “guarantee” — cannot protect the due and free exercise of Our God — given power and cannot preserve the necessary liberty of the Church.

Necessity of Civil Rule

7. Therefore We can submit to no agreement which would in any way destroy or diminish Our rights, which are the rights of God and of the Apostolic See. If We did, We would be violating Our sworn trust, which We have often declared and professed. Similarly, We never can and never shall allow or accept those “guarantees” devised by the Piedmont Government, whatever their motive. Nor shall We ever accept other similar ones. These are often offered under the guise of defending Our holy power and liberty in compensation for the civil rule they stripped Us of. But divine providence has willed this civil rule to be protection and strength for the Apostolic See; furthermore, legitimate and indisputable titles, as well as Our having possessed it for more than eleven centuries, confirm Our right to it. For if the Roman Pontiff were subject to the sway of another ruler, but no longer possessed civil power, neither his position nor the acts of the Apostolic ministry would be exempt from the authority of the other ruler. This ruler could be either a heretic or a persecutor of the Church or constantly at war with other rulers.

God-given Rights

8. Indeed, is not this concession of “guarantees” itself the clearest proof that laws are being imposed on Us? God has given Us the authority of making laws in regard to the religious and moral order. We have been established as interpreters of the natural and divine law for the entire world; these laws concern the government of the universal Church. Will their observance and execution be right only because they are commanded and established by the will of lay powers? We, as the representative of blessed Peter, have received directly from God Himself all the prerogatives and all rights of authority which are necessary for ruling the universal Church; those prerogatives and rights, as well as the liberty of the Church, were produced and acquired by the blood of Jesus Christ and must be valued in accordance with the infinite value of His divine blood. So We would not be valuing the divine blood of Our Redeemer if We borrowed Our rights for the rulers of the earth, especially in the curtailed and defiled condition in which they now want to present them.

Teaching of St. Anselm

9. For Christian rulers are sons, not lords, of the Church. St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, that great light of holiness and teaching, aptly used to say to rulers: “Do not think that the Church of God has been given to you to serve you as its master you are its advocate and defender. God loves nothing in this world more than the liberty of His holy Church.”[5] To inspire rulers, he wrote elsewhere: “Never consider that your high rank is diminished if you love and defend the liberty of the Spouse of God and your Mother the Church; do not think you are humbled if you raise Her up: do not believe you are weakened if you strengthen Her. Look round and see: examples are ready: contemplate the rulers who fought against Her and trampled on Her. What was their reward? To what end did they come? It is clear enough and need not be stated. Assuredly those who glorify Her will be glorified with Her and in Her.”[6]

10. Now from what We have just told you, as We have done on other occasions, it must be perfectly clear to all that injury suffered by this Holy See in these bitter times affects the entire Christian commonwealth. For, as St. Bernard used to say, an injury done to the Apostles, the glorious rulers of the earth, involves every Christian. And since the Roman Church works for all the churches, as St. Anselm says, whoever takes this church’s goods away is regarded as guilty of sacrilege, not towards this church alone, but towards all churches.[7] No one can doubt that the preservation of the rights of this Apostolic See is most closely bound up with the most important advantages and benefits of the universal Church and the freedom of your episcopal ministry.

Civil Rule Given by God

11. Reflecting on all these matters, We are compelled to confirm again and profess without change what We have often declared to you and what you have all agreed with. Divine Providence gave the civil rule of the Holy See to the Roman Pontiff. This rule is necessary in order that the Roman Pontiff may never be subject to any ruler or civil power, but may be able to freely exercise his supreme power and authority of feeding and ruling the entire flock of the Lord, and of looking after the greater good of this Church, its well-being, and its needs.

Pray for the End of the Fighting

12. Since you and your faithful understand this well, you have all risen up for the sake of religion, justice, and tranquillity, which are the foundation of all good things. You make the Church of God glorious with the worthy show of your faith, charity, constancy, and virtue; by your faithful efforts in the Church’s defense, you fashion a new and wonderful example in its history, which will be remembered by generations to come. But since the God of mercies is the source of those good things, We raise Our eyes, Our hearts, and Our hope to Him. We continually beseech Him to strengthen and increase the illustrious understanding of you and of the faithful, the piety you share, your love, and your zeal. We strongly exhort you and your people likewise to cry to the Lord with Us more strongly day by day, as the fighting grows more stern, that He may Himself deign to hasten the days of His propitiation.

Unite the Rulers

13. The rulers of the earth do not want the usurpation which We are suffering to be established and to thrive to the ruin of all authority and order. May God unite all rulers in agreement of mind and will. By removing all discord, claiming the disturbance of rebellions, and rejecting the ruinous counsels of the sects, may these rulers join in a common effort to have the rights of the Holy See restored. Then tranquillity will once again be restored to civil society.

14. Then request the divine clemency to dispel the blindness of impious minds and convert their hearts to penitence before the great and awful day of the Lord arrives, or to check their lawless plans and show them how foolish those men are who attempt to overthrow the rock founded by Christ and infringe its divine privileges.[8] In these prayers may Our hope be set more strongly on God. “Do you think that God can turn His ear away from His dearest spouse when she cries while opposing those who straiten her? How shall He not acknowledge bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh and even in some manner spirit of His spirit? Now indeed is the hour of wickedness and the power of darkness. But it is the final hour and the power quickly passes away. Christ the strength of God and the wisdom of God is with us, and He is on our side. Have confidence: he has overcome the world.”[9] Meanwhile let Us follow with great courage and assured faith the voice of eternal truth which says: fight for justice with your life, and struggle for justice even to death, then God will conquer your enemies for you.[10] (Ubi Nos, May 15, 1871.)

Pope Pius IX’s Ubi Nos contained a very clear explanation of the Social Reign of Christ the King as it applied to the temporal power of the Sovereign Pontiff:

8. Indeed, is not this concession of “guarantees” itself the clearest proof that laws are being imposed on Us? God has given Us the authority of making laws in regard to the religious and moral order. We have been established as interpreters of the natural and divine law for the entire world; these laws concern the government of the universal Church. Will their observance and execution be right only because they are commanded and established by the will of lay powers? We, as the representative of blessed Peter, have received directly from God Himself all the prerogatives and all rights of authority which are necessary for ruling the universal Church; those prerogatives and rights, as well as the liberty of the Church, were produced and acquired by the blood of Jesus Christ and must be valued in accordance with the infinite value of His divine blood. So We would not be valuing the divine blood of Our Redeemer if We borrowed Our rights for the rulers of the earth, especially in the curtailed and defiled condition in which they now want to present them. (Pope Pius IX, Ubi Nos, May 15, 1871.)

Interjection:

In other words, all civil rules on the face of the earth are duty bound to submit to the teaching of the Holy Father in all that pertains to the good of souls as the papacy has been “established as” the “interpreters of the natural and divine law for the entire world; these laws concern the government of the universal Church.” These are principles that Pope Pius IX’s successor, Pope Leo XIII, would explicate at length in his great social encyclical letters even though he was the antithesis of Pope Pius IX’s firmness when it came to dealing with civil potentates or movements (Otto von Bismarck, the leaders of the French Third Republic, the Knights of Labor in the United States of America, ) propagating principles contrary to the good of souls.

Although Pope Pius IX had been a firm opponent of error and those who promoted it while defending the rights of the Papacy and Holy Mother Church, perhaps his most shining moment of his nearly thirty-two year pontificate came when he stood up to the thirty-third degree Mason named Otto von Bismarck when the latter instituted his Kulturkampf to “purify” a united Germany from the “unscientific” and “superstitious” influences of Catholicism through the German Empire, including in those parts of Poland under German control.

Bismarck was a clever man, who much like the demagogues of today and of the past, sought to portray faithful Catholics as “disloyal” and “subversive,” going so far as to work with schismatic and heretical Catholics to form a sect, the Old Catholics, much in the mold of the French Constitutional Church during the French Revolution and the so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in Red China at this time with which Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Pietro Parolin have made their own “official reconciliation” at the cost of the sacrifices that had been made by underground Catholics there to remain faithful to what they thought was the papacy.

Unlike Montini/Paul VI, Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Pius IX acted decisively to oppose Chancellor Bismarck and his stooge, Kaiser Wilhelm I, while also excommunicating the founder of the Old Catholic sect, Joseph Reinkens. While the entire text of Etsi Multa, November 21, 1873, is to be found in Appendix B, here are a few excerpts that illustrate Pope Pius IX’s unstinting courage in the face of state-sponsored persecutions:

14. Thus the holy Church of Christ, whose necessary and full freedom of which religion had repeatedly been guaranteed by public pacts and the highest princes, has in these same places been deprived of all its rights and exposed to hostile men. Its final extinction now threatens. For the new laws, to be sure, have as their intent its destruction.

15. No wonder, then, that the former religious tranquility has been gravely disturbed in that Empire by this kind of law and other plans and actions of the Prussian government most hostile to the Church. But who would wish to falsely cast the blame of this disturbance on the Catholics of the German Empire! For if they are faulted for not acquiesing in such laws in which they could not acquiesce with good conscience, for the same reason the apostles of Jesus Christ ant the martyrs, who preferred to undergo most dreadful tortures and death itself than to betray their duty and violate the rights of their most holy religion by obeying the commands of the princes who persecuted them, must also be faulted.

16. If no other laws than these of the civil authority existed and if they were of the highest order, it would be wrong to transgress them. If, moreover, these same civil laws constituted the norm of conscience, as some maintain both impiously and absurdly, the early martyrs and their followers would have been worthy of reprehension rather than honor and praise. Indeed it would have been against the laws and the wish of princes to hand down the Christian faith, propagate it, and found the Church. Nevertheless the faith teaches and human reason demonstrates that there is a twofold order of things. Two kinds of powers must be distinguished on earth-one natural that looks to the tranquility and secular business of human society; the other, whose origin is above nature, which is in charge of the Church of Christ, divinely instituted for the salvation and peace of souls. The offices of these two powers are wisely coordinated so that things which belong to God are returned to God and, because of God, those of Caesar to Caesar, who “for this reason is great because he is less than heaven for he belongs to Him whom heaven and all creatures belong.”[4]

17. From this divine command, to be sure, the Church has never turned aside. It always and everywhere attempts to inculcate in the faithful an inviolable obedience towards their supreme rulers and their rights, insofar as they are secular, and it has taught, with the Apostle, that they are rulers not for fear of good works but of evil, teaching the faithful to be subject not only because of fear, because the prince bears the sword to carry out his ire against him who has done evil, but also because of conscience because in his office he is a minister of God.[5] However, this fear of princes the Church limits to evil acts, excluding the same totally from the observance of the divine law, being mindful of what blessed Peter taught the faithful; “May none of you suffer for being a murderer, a thief, a criminal or an informer, but if any of you should suffer for being a Christian, then he is not to be ashamed of it; let him glorify God in that name.”[6]

18. Since these things are so, you understand how sad We must have been when We read in the recent letter from the German Emperor the unexpected accusation against certain of his Catholic subjects, especially against the Catholic clergy, and bishops. The reason for this accusation is that they, fearing neither bonds nor tribulations and not placing any great value on their lives,[7] refuse to obey the aforementioned laws. They protest with that same firmness shown before the passing of these laws. They pointed out their faults by serious, clear and most solid explanations which, with the approval of the whole Catholic world and even of some heterodox men, they delivered to the Prince, his administrators and the supreme council of the kingdom.

19. For the same reason now they are accused of treason, as if they were conspiring with those who strive to upset all orders of human society. No attention is paid to the excellent arguments in which they clearly attest their unbroken loyalty and obedience to the Prince and their lively devotion to their fatherland. Indeed We Ourselves are asked to exhort Catholics and holy pastors there to observe these laws; this would be equivalent to Our contributing to the oppression and dispersion of the flock of the Christ. However, supported by God, We are confident that the most serene Emperor, having more carefully weighed things, will reject the empty suspicion conceived against his most loyal subjects and will no longer allow their honor to be reviled with foul detraction. In addition, he will end the unmerited persecution against them. Moreover, We would have willingly passed over the imperial letter if it had not been published, against Our knowledge and in a most unusual fashion, by an official newspaper in Berlin. It was published together with other material written by Us, in which We appealed for justice from the Emperor for the Catholic Church in Prussia.

(Pope Pius XI, Etsi Multa, November 21, 1873.)

The accusations made against Catholics by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and his nominal superior, Kaiser Wilhelm I, are almost identical to those that have been made throughout the ages, including the charges being leveled at this time by the likes of Daniel Ortega and the Chicom stooges within the “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association” that have been met with stony silence from the otherwise ever moving lips of the Argentine Apostate. Pope Pius XI never flinched in his denunciation of error, and he was never afraid to exercise the full might of his Apostolic authority when circumstances required him to do so.

Part two of this two-part series will provide examples from the pontificates of Popes Leo XIII, Saint Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII to provide further historical proof that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and those who have preceded him on the conciliar seat of apostasy have been apostles of Antichrist, not of Christ the King.

Fidelity to the Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary has won the day not only at Lepanto or the Gates of Vienna or The Philippines or Peru or Austria in 1955 as the Soviets ended the occupation of their part of the country, of course. Fidelity to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary has saved countless souls from sin and error, saving them from eternal damnation in the process. In the process, of course, Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary has helped to reform nations, especially during the era of Christendom in the High Middle Ages.

Consider these words of Pope Leo XIII, contained in Fidentem Piumque Animum, September 20, 1896:

Yet another excellent fruit follows from the Rosary, exceedingly opportune to the character of our times. This we have referred to elsewhere. It is that, whilst the virtue of Divine Faith is daily exposed to so many dangers and attacks, the Christian may here derive nourishment and strength for his faith. Holy writ calls Christ the Author and finisher of faith (Heb. vii. 2), the Author, because He taught men many things which they had to believe, especially about Himself in whim dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead (Colos. ii., 9), and also because He mercifully gives the power of believing by the grace and, as it were, the function of the Holy Ghost; the Finisher, because in Heaven, where He will change the habit of faith into the splendour of glory, He openly discloses to them those things which they have seen in this mortal life as through a veil. Now Christ stands forth clearly in the Rosary. We behold in meditation His life, whether His hidden life in joy, or His public life in excessive toil and sufferings unto death, or His glorious life from His triumphant resurrection to His eternal enthronement at the right hand of the Father. And since faith, to be full and sufficient, must display itself, – for with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom. x., 10), – so have we also in the Rosary an excellent means unto this, for by those vocal prayers with which it is intermingled, we are enabled to express and profess our faith in God, our most watchful Father; in the future life, the forgiveness of sins; in the mysteries of the august Trinity, the Incarnation of the Word, the Divine Maternity, and others. All know the value and merit of faith. For faith is just like a most precious gem, producing now the blossoms of all virtue by which we are pleasing to God, and hereafter to bring forth fruits that will last for ever: for to know Thee is perfect justice, and to know Thy justice and Thy power is the root of immortality (Wisdom xv., 3). It is here the place to add a remark respecting the duties of those virtues which faith rightly postulates. Among them is the virtue of penance, and one part of this is abstinence, which for more reasons than one is necessary and salutary. It is true the Church is growing more indulgent towards her children in this matter, but they must understand they are bound to take all care to make up for this maternal indulgence by other good works. We rejoice for this reason also to propose particularly the use of the rosary, which is capable of producing worthy fruits of penance, especially by the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ and His Mother.

5. To those therefore who are striving after supreme happiness this means of the Rosary has been most providentially offered, and it is one unsurpassed for facility and convenience. For any person, even moderately instructed in his religion can make use of it with fruit, and the time it occupies cannot delay any man’s business. Sacred history abounds with striking and evident examples. It is well known that there have been many persons occupied in most weighty functions or absorbed in laborious cares who have never omitted for a single day this pious practice. Combined with this advantage is that inward sentiment of devotion which attracts minds to the Rosary, so that they love it as the intimate companion and faithful protector of life; and in their last agony they embrace and hold fast to it as the dear pledge of the unfading Crown of glory. Such a pledge is greatly enhanced by the benefits of sacred indulgences, if properly employed; for the devotion of the Rosary has been richly endowed with such indulgences by both our Predecessors and Ourselves. These favours will certainly prove most efficacious to both the dying and the departed, being bestowed as it were by the hands of the merciful Virgin, in order that they may the sooner enjoy the eternal peace and light they have desired.

6. These considerations, Venerable Brethren, move us incessantly to extol and recommend to Catholic peoples this excellent and most salutary form of devotion. Yet another very urgent reason, of which we have often spoken both in Letters and Allocutions, encourages us to do this. For that earnest desire, which We have learnt from the Divine Heart of Jesus, of fostering the work of reconciliation among those who are separated from Us daily urges Us more pressingly to action; and we are convinced that this most excellent Re-union cannot be better prepared and strengthened than by the power of prayer. The example of Christ is before us, for in order that His disciples might be one in faith and charity, he poured forth prayer and supplication to His Father. And concerning the efficacious prayer of His most holy Mother for the same end, there is a striking testimony in the Acts of the Apostles. Therein is described the first assembly of the Disciples, expecting with earnest hope and prayer the promised fullness of the Holy Spirit. And the presence of Mary united with them in prayer is specially indicated: All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus (Acts i., 14). Wherefore as the nascent church rightly joined itself in prayer with her as the patroness and most excellent custodian of Unity, so in these times is it most opportune to do the same all over the Catholic World, particularly during the whole month of October, which we have long ago decreed to be dedicated and consecrated, by the solemn devotion of the Rosary, to the Divine Mother, in order to implore her for the afflicted Church. Let then the zeal for this prayer everywhere be re-kindled, particularly for the end of Holy Unity. Nothing will be more agreeable and acceptable to Mary; for, as she is most closely united with Christ she especially wishes and desires that they who have received the same Baptism with Him may be united with Him and with one another in the same faith and perfect charity. So may the sublime mysteries of this same faith by means of the Rosary devotion be more deeply impressed in men’s minds, with the happy result that “we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.” (Pope Leo XIII, Fidentem Piumque Animum, September 20, 1896.)

“And the time it occupies can delay no man’s business.”

Translation in our own days: Spend less time—like no time at all—glued to the babbling idiots of naturalism Do not permit yourselves to be agitated. Worse yet, do not seek out the agitation on daily basis. Why all the endless histrionics? Why all the breathless emails announcing the end of the world? Why?

Pray more Rosaries.

Pray more Rosaries.

We need to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary with fervor. Men need to be reminded of this fact on a daily basis. Our Lady has exhorted us to pray her Most Holy Rosary, which is one sure way to win the favor of Heaven and of planting seeds for the conversion of men and their nations to the true Faith, without which there can be true order in the souls of men or in their societies.

We must also continue to pray to Our Lady with confidence as one of her titles is Our Lady of Confidence, and it is indeed with confidence that we must pray to her every day for the restoration of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, who will never make concessions to error nor treat Communism as anything other than a tool for the adversary to make warfare upon Christ the King and His true Church.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, 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 Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

ppendix 

From Dom Prosper Gueranger's The Liturgical Year

On the Feast of Saint Joseph Calasanctius

To thee is the poor man left: thou wilt be a helper to the orphan. Proud Venice has already seen these words realized in her noble son Jerome Æmilian: today they indicate the sanctity of another illustrious person, descended from the first princes of Navarre, but of still higher rank in the kingdom of charity.

God, who waters the trees of the field as well as the cedars of Libanus, because it is he that planted them all, takes care also of the little birds that do not gather into barns: will he then forget the child, who is of much more value than the birds of the air? Or will he give him corporal nourishment, and neglect the soul hungering for the bread of the knowledge of salvation, which strengthens the heart of man? In the 16th century one might have been tempted to think our heavenly Father’s granaries were empty. True, the Holy Spirit soon raised up new Saints; but the reviving charity was insufficient for the number of destitute; how many poor children, especially, were without schools, deprived of the most elementary education which is indispensable to the fulfillment of their obligations and to their nobility as children of God: and there was no one to break to them the bread of knowledge!

More fortunate than so many other countries overrun with heresy, Spain was at her apogee, enjoying the hundredfold promised to those who seek first the kingdom of God. She seemed to have become our Lord’s inexhaustible resource. A little while ago she had given Ignatius Loyola to the world; she had just enriched heaven by the precious death of Teresa of Avila, when the Holy Ghost drew once more from her abundance to add to the riches of the capital of the Christian world, and to supply the wants of the little ones in God’s Church.

The descendant of the Calassanz of Petralta de la Sal was already the admired Apostle of Aragon, Catalonia and Castile, when he heard a mysterious voice speaking to his soul: “Go to Rome; go forth from the land of thy birth; soon shall appear to thee, in her heavenly beauty, the companion destined for thee, holy poverty, who now calls thee to taste of her austere delights; go, without knowing whither I am leading thee; I will make thee the father of an immense family; I will show thee all that thou must suffer for my name’s sake.”

Forty years of blind fidelity, in unconscious sanctity had prepared the elect of heaven for his sublime vocation. “What can be greater,” asks St. John Chrysostom, “than to direct the souls and form the characters of children? Indeed I consider him greater than any painter or sculptor, who knows how to fashion the souls of the young.” Joseph understood the dignity of his mission: during the remaining fifty-two years of his life, he, according to the recommendations of the holy Doctor, considered nothing mean or despicable in the service of the little ones; nothing cost him dear if only it enabled him, by the teaching of letters, to infuse into the innumerable children who came to him, the fear of the Lord. From St. Pantaleon, his residence, the Pious Schools soon covered the whole of Italy, spread into Sicily and Spain, and were eagerly sought by kings and people in Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, and the northern countries.

Eternal Wisdom associated Calasanctius to her own work of salvation on earth. She rewarded him for his labors as she generally does her privileged for his labors as she generally does her privileged ones, by giving him a strong conflict, that he might overcome, and know that wisdom is mightier than all. It is a conflict like that of Jacob at the ford of Jaboc which represents the last obstacle to the entrance into the promised land, when all the pleasures and goods of the world have been sent on before by absolute renouncement; it is a conflict by night, wherein nature fails and becomes lame; but it is followed by the rising of the sun, and sets the combatant at the entrance of eternal day; it is a conflict with God hand to hand, under the appearance, it is true, of a man or of an angel; but it matters little under what form God chooses to hide himself, provided it takes nothing from his sovereign dominion. Why dost thou ask my name? said the wrestler to Jacob; thine shall be henceforth Israel, strong against God.

Our readers may consult the historians of St. Joseph Calasanctius for the details of the trials which made him a prodigy of fortitude, as the church calls him. Through the calumnies of false brethren the saint was deposed, and the Order reduced to the condition of a secular congregation. It was not until after his death that it was re-established, first by Alexander VII and then by Clement IX as a Regular Order with solemn vows. In his great work on the Canonization of Saints, Benedict XIV speaks at length on this subject, delighting in the part he had taken in the process of the servant of God, first as consistorial advocate, then as promoter of the faith, and lastly as Cardinal giving his vote in favor of the cause. We shall see in the lessons that it was he also that beatified him. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Joseph Calasanctius, August 27.)

Joseph Calasanctius of the Mother of God was born of a noble family at Petralta in Aragon, and from his earliest years gave signs of his future love for children and their education. For, when still a little child, he would gather other children round him and would teach them the mysteries of faith and holy prayer. After having received a good education in the liberal arts and divinity, he went through his theological studies at Valencia. Here he courageously overcame the seductions of a noble and powerful lady, and by a remakable victory preserved unspotted his virginity which he had already vowed to God. He became a priest in fulfillment of a vow; and several bishops of New Castile, Aragon and Catalonia availed themselves of his assistance. He surpassed all their expectations, corrected evil living throughout the kingdom, restored ecclesiastical discipline, and was marvelously successful in putting an end to enmities and bloody factions. But urged by a heavenly vision, and after having been several times called by God, he went to Rome.

Here he led a life of great austerity; fasting and watching, spending whole days and nights in heavenly contemplation, and visiting the seven basilicas of the City almost every night. This last custom he observed for many years. He enrolled himself in pious associations, and with wonderful charity devoted himself to aiding and consoling the poor with alms and other works of mercy, especially those who were sick or imprisoned. When the plague was raging in Rome, he joined St. Camillus, and not content in his ardent zeal, with bestowing lavish care upon the sick poor, he even carried the dead to the grave on his own shoulders. But having been divinely admonished that he was called to educate children, especially those of the poor, in piety and learning, he founded the Order of the Poor Regular Clerks of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, who are specially destined to devote themselves to the instruction of youth. This Order was highly approved by Clement VIII, Paul V, and others of the Roman Pontiffs, and in a wonderfully short space of time it spread through many of the kingdoms of Europe. But in this undertaking Joseph had to undergo many sufferings and labors, and he endured them all with so much constancy, that every one proclaimed him a miracle of patience and another Job.

Though burdened with the government of the whole Order, he nevertheless devoted himself to saving souls, and moreover never gave over teaching children, especially those of the poorer class. He would sweet their schools and take them to their homes himself. For fifty-two years he persevered in this work, though it called upo nhim to practice the greatest patience and humility, and although he suffered from weak health. God rewarded him by honoring him with many miracles in the presence of his disciples; and the Blessed Virgin appeared to him with the Infant Jesus, who blessed his children while they were praying. He refused the highest dignities, but he was made illustrious by the gifts of prophecy, of reading the secrets of hearts, and of knowing what was going on in his absence. He was favored with frequent apparitions of the citizens of heaven, particularly of the Virgin Mother of God, whom he had loved and honored most especially from his infancy, and whose cultus he had most strongly recommended to his disciples. He foretold the day of his death and the restoration and propagation of his Order, which was then almost destroyed; and in his ninety-second year he fell asleep in our Lord at Rome, on the 8th of the Calends of September, in the year 1648. A century later, his heart and tongue were found whole and incorrupt. God honored him by many miracles after his death. Benedict XIV granted him the honors of the Blessed, and Clement XIII solemnly enrolled him among the saints. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Joseph Calasanctius, August 27.)

The Lord hath heard the desire of the poor, by making thee the depositary of his love, and putting on thy lips the words he himself was the first to utter: Suffer the little children to come unto me. How many owe and will yet owe, their eternal happiness to thee, O Joseph, because thou and thy sons have preserved in them the divine likeness received in baptism, man’s only title to heaven! Be thou blessed for having justified the confidence Jesus placed in thee by entrusting to thy care those frail little beings, who are the objects of his divine predilection. Be thou blessed for having still further corresponded to that confidence of our Lord, when he suffered thee, like Job, to be persecuted by Satan, and with yet more cruel surprises than those of the just Idumæan. Must not God be able to count unfailingly upon those who are his? Is it not fitting that, amidst the defections of this miserable world, he should be able to show his Angels what grace can do in our poor nature, and how far his adorable will can be carried out in his Saints?

The reward of thy sufferings, which thy unwavering confidence expected from the Mother of God, came at the divinely appointed hour. O Joseph, now that the Pious Schools have been long ago re-established, bless the disciples whom even our age continues to give thee; obtain for them and for the countless scholars they train to Christian science, the blessing of the Infant Jesus. Give thy spirit and thy courage to all who devote their labors and their life to the education of the young; raise us all to the level of the teaching conveyed by thy heroic life. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Joseph Calasanctius, August 27.)

Appendix B

Pope Pius IX, Etsi Multa, November 21, 1873

It has been Our lot from the very beginning of Our Pontificate to suit many grievous and painful occurrences from various causes, which We have often explained to you in encyclical letters; in we would be all but overwhelmed. Indeed things have reached such a point that death itself would seem preferable to life tossed about by so many waves; with eyes lifted to heaven, we are compelled to cry out from time to time: “it is better for us to die, than to witness the ruin of our sanctuary.”[1] Forsooth, from the time when this Our beloved city was forcibly captured and subjected to the rule of men who are disdainers of right and enemies of religion, men to whom all things human and divine are one and the same, scarcely no day has gone by without some new wound beings invited on Our already wounded heart.

Evils Which Have Befallen Catholicism

2. We still hear lamentations of men and women of religious congregations, who driven from their houses and in need, are dispersed in a hostile manner; this usually happens when the dominating faction has as its aim the perversion of the social order. As the great St. Anthony, on the testimony of Athanasius, says, “The devil hates all Christians indeed, but cannot tolerate in any way upright monks and virgins of Christ.” We have also seen recently something We never expected would happen, namely Our Gregorian University has been suppressed and abolished. It was instituted for this purpose: that to it would come (in the words of an ancient author writing for Anglo-Saxons about the Roman School) young clerics, even from distant regions, to be educated in Catholic doctrine and faith, so nothing contrary to Catholic unity would be taught in their Churches. Thus strengthened in firm faith, they might return to their own people. Little by little all defenses and instruments by which We are able to rule and direct the universal Church are nefariously taken away from Us. It was aimed that once the city was taken from Us, the Roman Pontiff would still have complete freedom in the exercise of spiritual ministry and in carrying out religious matters. This is far from true. As we predicted, the purpose of the sacrilegious usurpation of Our rule is the destruction of the force and efficacy of the papal primacy and eventually the Catholic religion itself.

3. However, it was not Our intention to write to you concerning these evils by which this Our city and all of Italy as well is infested; indeed, We would perhaps have suppressed these Our troubles in mournful silence, if it were permitted by divine clemency that We could lessen the bitter sorrows by which so many venerable brothers, bishops, and laity are tortured in other regions.

Problems in Switzerland

4. For you are well aware, that certain cantons of the Swiss Federation have perverted all order and have undermined the very foundation of the constitution of the Church of Christ. This was brought about not so much by heterodox men, some of whom even find fault with the crime, as by followers of sects who today have gained power far and wide. They not only subvert all of justice and reason, but they even go against their publicly declared trust as well. For it was solemnly pledged, with the approval and authority of the laws of the Federation as well, that religious liberty for Catholics would remain safe and sound. We deplored, indeed, in Our allocution of last 23 December the force applied to the religious situation by the government of those cantons “whether in decisions about dogmas of the Catholic faith or by the favoring of apostates or by interfering with the exercise of episcopal power.” We made these just complaints known when We sent Gestore to the Federal Council as Our negotiator, but they were wholly neglected. Nor were protests from Catholics of all ranks nor those repeatedly sent from the Swiss episcopacy treated any better; indeed the earlier injuries inflicted were greatly increased by worse ones.

New Laws Promulgated

5. The violent banishment of Our venerable brother Gaspar, bishop of Hebron and Vicar Apostolic of Geneva took place as decorously and gloriously for him who endured it as it was foul and indecorous for those who ordered and carried it out. After this banishment the government of Geneva on 12 March and 27 August of this year promulgated two laws fully in keeping with the edict proposed the previous October, the one with which We found fault in Our allocution mentioned previously. In effect the same government arrogated the right to itself of refashioning in that canton the constitution of the Catholic Church and of conforming it to the democratic form. This subjects the bishop, both in the exercise of his proper jurisdiction and administration and in the delegation of his power, to the civil authority. It forbids him to live in the canton and defines the number and limit of parishes. It also proposes the conditions for the election of pastors and vicars and the method of their recall or suspension from office. Furthermore it grants to laics the right of nominating them, entrusting to the same laity the temporal administration of cult and in general setting them in charge, as if inspectors, of ecclesiastical affairs.

Why the Laws Are Invalid

6. These same laws provide that without the government’s favor, which is revocable, the pastors and vicars could not exercise any functions and could not accept any office more extensive than those which they received through popular election. Furthermore, they are compelled by the civil power to take an oath, the words of which denote apostasy. Everyone sees that laws of this nature are void and useless because lay legislators, who are for the most part heterodox men, do not have the power to make such laws. They are also invalid because in what they teach, they are opposed to dogmas of the Catholic faith and ecclesiastical discipline sanctioned by the Ecumenical Council of Trent and by pontifical constitutions. We must therefore condemn and disapprove them.

Condemnation of the New Laws

7. Therefore as is required by the duty of Our offices, with Our Apostolic authority We solemnly condemn them, declaring at the same time that the oath they impose is illicit and clearly sacrilegious; therefore all those who in Geneva or elsewhere are elected according to the decrees of these laws or in a similar way, by the vote of the people and with the confirmation of the civil power, and who subsequently dare to undertake the tasks of ecclesiastical ministry incur a major excommunication reserved specially to this Holy See and also incur other canonical penalties. Furthermore, they must all be avoided by the faithful according to the divine admonition, as aliens and thieves who come only to rob, kill, and destroy.[2]

Other Adversities

8. Sad and calamitous as these events are which We have just recounted, more dreadful things have happened in five of the seven cantons which constitute the diocese of Basel, namely Solothurn, Bern, Basel-Landschaft, Aargau, and Zurich. Laws have also been passed there concerning parishes, the election of pastors, and vicars and their recall. These laws overturn the rule of the Church and its divine institution, subjugating ecclesiastical ministry to secular power. One of them, that passed by the Governor of Solothurn on 23 December 1872, is completely schismatical. We condemn it and decree that it be forever considered condemned. Indeed Our venerable brother, Eugene, Bishop of Basel, with just indignation and apostolic constancy, rejected certain articles drawn up and presented to him in his meeting. They call said meeting a diocesan conference, to which delegates of the five aforesaid cantons came. In rejecting the articles, he said that they were harmful to episcopal authority, subversive of hierarchical rule, and openly favorable to heresy. For this reason he was deprived of his bishopric, taken from his residence, and violently driven into exile. After this they omitted no type of fraud or vexation to lead the clergy and faithful in the previously mentioned cantons into schism. They forbade the clergy to have any communication with the exiled bishop. Additionally, they ordered the cathedral chapter of Basel to convene for the election of a vicar or administrator of the diocese, just as if the episcopal see were really vacant. The chapter strenuously rejected this proposal.

Difficulties in the Territory of Jura

9. Meanwhile by a decree and vote of the civil magistrates of Bern, sixtynine pastors of the territory of Jura were first forbidden to carry out the functions of their ministry and then deprived of office. This was because they had openly attested that they recognized only Eugene as legitimate bishop and pastor, or were unwilling to separate themselves dishonorably from Catholic unity. This whole territory, has constantly held onto the Catholic faith and was earlier joined to the canton of Bern under the legal stipulation and agreement that it preserve the exercise of its religion free and inviolate. But now it is deprived of parish sermons, solemn baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The multitude of the faithful is protesting in vain that on account of consummate injury done to them, they are compelled either to accept schismatic and heretical pastors forced on them by the political authority or else be deprived of any priestly ministry and aid.

10. We, for Our part, give thanks to God who, with the same grace with which He formerly strengthened and confirmed martyrs, sustains and strengthens that select part of the Catholic flock which courageously supports their bishop as he builds a wall in defense of the house of Israel that it may stand in battle the day of the Lord.[3] Without fear they follow in the footsteps of the head of the martyrs of Jesus Christ; while offering the gentleness of the lamb to the ferocity of wolves, they constantly and readily fight for their faith.

11. This noble constancy of the faithful Swiss is emulated with no less commendation by the clergy and faithful in Germany, who themselves follow the illustrious example of their ecclesiastical leaders. The Germans, assuming the shield of Catholic truth and the helms of salvation, fight the battles of the Lord and are a wonder to the world, to the angels, and to men who look on them from every side. All the more is their fortitude of spirit and unbroken constancy admired and extolled with outstanding praise as the bitter persecution set in motion against them in the German Empire and especially in Prussia increases with each day.

Unwarranted Power Given to Laity

12. In addition to many grave injuries inflicted on the Catholic Church last year, the government of Prussia with harsh, iniquitous laws totally different from previous ones have subjected the whole institution and education of clerics to lay power. One can now legitimately ask how clerics are to be educated and formed for the priestly and pastoral life. Going further still, the government grants to the same lay power the right to bestow any office or ecclesiastical benefice and even the right to deprive sacred pastors of office and benefice.

13. Moreover so that the ecclesiastical government and the hierarchical order of subordination constituted by Christ Himself may be more quickly and fully subverted, these same laws impose many obstacles on bishops so that they cannot provide, through canonical censures and punishments, for the salvation of souls, the soundness of doctrine in Catholic schools, and the obedience due them from clerics. These same laws forbid bishops to do these things unless they are in accord with the wishes of the civil authority and the norms proposed by it. And so that nothing be lacking in the total oppression of the Catholic Church, a royal tribunal for ecclesiastical affairs has been instituted. Bishops and holy pastors can be summoned before it, both by private individuals and by public magistrates, so as to stand trial like criminals and be coerced in the exercise of their spiritual functions

Existence of Church Threatened

14. Thus the holy Church of Christ, whose necessary and full freedom of which religion had repeatedly been guaranteed by public pacts and the highest princes, has in these same places been deprived of all its rights and exposed to hostile men. Its final extinction now threatens. For the new laws, to be sure, have as their intent its destruction.

15. No wonder, then, that the former religious tranquility has been gravely disturbed in that Empire by this kind of law and other plans and actions of the Prussian government most hostile to the Church. But who would wish to falsely cast the blame of this disturbance on the Catholics of the German Empire! For if they are faulted for not acquiesing in such laws in which they could not acquiesce with good conscience, for the same reason the apostles of Jesus Christ ant the martyrs, who preferred to undergo most dreadful tortures and death itself than to betray their duty and violate the rights of their most holy religion by obeying the commands of the princes who persecuted them, must also be faulted.

16. If no other laws than these of the civil authority existed and if they were of the highest order, it would be wrong to transgress them. If, moreover, these same civil laws constituted the norm of conscience, as some maintain both impiously and absurdly, the early martyrs and their followers would have been worthy of reprehension rather than honor and praise. Indeed it would have been against the laws and the wish of princes to hand down the Christian faith, propagate it, and found the Church. Nevertheless the faith teaches and human reason demonstrates that there is a twofold order of things. Two kinds of powers must be distinguished on earth-one natural that looks to the tranquility and secular business of human society; the other, whose origin is above nature, which is in charge of the Church of Christ, divinely instituted for the salvation and peace of souls. The offices of these two powers are wisely coordinated so that things which belong to God are returned to God and, because of God, those of Caesar to Caesar, who “for this reason is great because he is less than heaven for he belongs to Him whom heaven and all creatures belong.”[4]

17. From this divine command, to be sure, the Church has never turned aside. It always and everywhere attempts to inculcate in the faithful an inviolable obedience towards their supreme rulers and their rights, insofar as they are secular, and it has taught, with the Apostle, that they are rulers not for fear of good works but of evil, teaching the faithful to be subject not only because of fear, because the prince bears the sword to carry out his ire against him who has done evil, but also because of conscience because in his office he is a minister of God.[5] However, this fear of princes the Church limits to evil acts, excluding the same totally from the observance of the divine law, being mindful of what blessed Peter taught the faithful; “May none of you suffer for being a murderer, a thief, a criminal or an informer, but if any of you should suffer for being a Christian, then he is not to be ashamed of it; let him glorify God in that name.”[6]

18. Since these things are so, you understand how sad We must have been when We read in the recent letter from the German Emperor the unexpected accusation against certain of his Catholic subjects, especially against the Catholic clergy, and bishops. The reason for this accusation is that they, fearing neither bonds nor tribulations and not placing any great value on their lives,[7] refuse to obey the aforementioned laws. They protest with that same firmness shown before the passing of these laws. They pointed out their faults by serious, clear and most solid explanations which, with the approval of the whole Catholic world and even of some heterodox men, they delivered to the Prince, his administrators and the supreme council of the kingdom.

19. For the same reason now they are accused of treason, as if they were conspiring with those who strive to upset all orders of human society. No attention is paid to the excellent arguments in which they clearly attest their unbroken loyalty and obedience to the Prince and their lively devotion to their fatherland. Indeed We Ourselves are asked to exhort Catholics and holy pastors there to observe these laws; this would be equivalent to Our contributing to the oppression and dispersion of the flock of the Christ. However, supported by God, We are confident that the most serene Emperor, having more carefully weighed things, will reject the empty suspicion conceived against his most loyal subjects and will no longer allow their honor to be reviled with foul detraction. In addition, he will end the unmerited persecution against them. Moreover, We would have willingly passed over the imperial letter if it had not been published, against Our knowledge and in a most unusual fashion, by an official newspaper in Berlin. It was published together with other material written by Us, in which We appealed for justice from the Emperor for the Catholic Church in Prussia.

Harassing of the Church

20. What We have recounted so far is common knowledge. Monks and virgins devoted to God are deprived of the common liberty of ordinary citizens and ejected with enormous cruelty, Catholic schools are daily being taken away from the care of the Church, and sodalities for pious works and even seminaries are dissolved. Additionally, the liberty of evangelical preaching is interfered with, hindered, teaching religion in the native language is forbidden in certain parts of the kingdom. Curates are withdrawn from their parishes, and prelates themselves are deprived of revenues coerced in many ways, and frightened with threat of imprisonment. While Catholics are vexed with all kinds of harassment such as these, how can We possibly acquiesce to what is suggested and not invoke the religion of Jesus Christ and the truth?

Government Support for Heretics

21. Nor is this the limit of the injuries which are committed against the Catholic Church. In addition the Prussian and other governments of the German Empire openly support those recent heretics who call themselves Old Catholics. Their abuse of such a name would be plainly ridiculous if it were not for the fact that so many monstrous errors of this sect against the principal teachings of the Catholic faith, so many sacrileges in divine service and the administration of the sacraments, so many grave scandals, and so much ruin of souls redeemed by the blood of Christ did not force tears from Our eyes.

Further Heresies

22. And surely what these sons of perdition intend is quite clear from their other writings, especially that impious and most imprudent one which has only recently been published by the person whom they recently constituted as a pseudo-bishop. For these writings attack and pervert the true power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff and the bishops, who are the successors of blessed Peter and the apostles; they transfer it instead to the people, or, as they say, to the community. They obstinately reject and oppose the infallible magisterium both of the Roman Pontiff and of the whole Church in teaching matters. Incredibly, they boldly affirm that the Roman Pontiff and all the bishops, the priests and the people conjoined with him in the unity of faith and communion fell into heresy when they approved and professed the definitions of the Ecumenical Vatican Council. Therefore they deny also the indefectibility of the Church and blasphemously declare that it has perished throughout the world and that its visible Head and the bishops have erred. They assert the necessity of restoring a legitimate episcopacy in the person of their pseudo-bishop, who has entered not by the gate but from elsewhere like a thief or robber and calls the damnation of Christ upon his head.

23. These unhappy men undermine the foundations of religion, overturn all its marks and properties, and invent so many foul errors, or rather, draw forth from the ancient store of heretics and gather them together and publish them. Yet they do not blush to call themselves Catholics and Old Catholics, while in their doctrine, novelty, and number they show themselves in no way to be either old or Catholic. Certainly the Church rises up with greater right against them than it once did through Augustine against the Donatists. Diffused among all people, the Church was built by Christ the Son of the living God upon the rock, against which the gates of Hell will not prevail, and with which He Himself, to Whom all power in heaven and on earth is given, said He would be with until the consummation of the world. “The Church cries to her Spouse: Why do certain men withdrawing from me murmur against me? Why do these lost men claim that I have perished? Announce to me the length of my days, how long I will be in this world? Tell me on account of those who say: it was and is no longer; on account of those who say: the scriptures have been fulfilled, all nations have believed, but the Church has apostatized and perished from all nations. And He announced and the voice was not vain. What did He announce? ‘Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.’ Moved by your voices and your false opinions, it asked of God that He announce to it the length of its days and it found that God said ‘Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.’ Here you will say: He spoke about us; we are as we will be until the end of the world. Christ Himself is asked; He says ‘and this gospel will be preached in the whole world, in testimony to all nations, and then will come the end.’ Therefore the Church will be among all nations until the end of the world. Let heretics perish as they are, and let them find that they become what they are not.”[8]

Pseudo-bishop

24. But these men having progressed more boldly in the ways of wickedness and destruction, as happens to heretical sects from God’s just judgment, have wished to create a hierarchy also for themselves, as we have intimated. They have chosen and set up a pseudo-bishop, a certain notorious apostate from the Catholic faith, Joseph Hubert Reinkens. So that nothing be lacking in their impudence, for his consecration they have had refuge to those very Jansenists of Utrecht, whom they themselves, before they separated from the Church, considered as heretics and schismatics, as do all other Catholics. However, this Joseph Hubert dares to say that he is a bishop, and, what passes belief, he is recognized and named in an explicit decree by the most serene Emperor of Germany and is proposed to all his subjects as a lawful bishop. But as even the rudiments of Catholic faith declare, no one can be considered a bishop who is not linked in communion of faith and love with Peter, upon whom is built the Church of Christ; who does not adhere to the supreme Pastor to whom the sheep of Christ are committed to be pastured; and who is not bound to the confirmer of fraternity which is in the world. And indeed “the Lord spoke to Peter; to one person therefore, so that He might found unity from one”;[9] to Peter, “the divine dignity granted a great and wonderful consortium of his power, and if He wished anything to be common with him and the rest of the princes, He never gave, except through him, what He did not deny to the others.”[10] Hence it is from this Apostolic See, where blessed Peter “lives and presides and grants the truth of faith to those seeking it,” that the rights of venerable communion flow to all”;[12] and this same See “for the Churches spread throughout the whole world is certainly the head, as it were, of their members, from which if one cuts himself off, he becomes an exile from the Christian religion, as soon as he begins not to belong to its structure.”[13]

25. Therefore the holy martyr Cyprian, writing about schism, denied to the pseudobishop Novatian even the title of Christian, on the grounds that he was cut off and separated from the Church of Christ. “Whoever he is,” he says, “and whatever sort he is, he is not a Christian who is not in the Church of Christ. Let him boast and preach his philosophy and eloquence with a proud voice; he who does not have fraternal charity and does not retain ecclesiastical unity, loses also what he previously had. Since by Christ one Church was founded divided into many members throughout the world, so likewise one episcopate, diffused in the harmonious multiplicity of many bishops. Subsequent to the teaching of God and the conjoined unity of the Catholic Church, he attempts to build a human church. Therefore, he who does not retain unity of spirit nor communion of peace and thus separates himself from the bond of the Church and the college of the priesthood cannot have the power nor the honor of a bishop because he kept the unity or the peace of the episcopacy.[14]

Excommunication

26. We have been undeservingly placed on this supreme seat of Peter to preserve the Catholic faith and the unity of the universal Church. Therefore following the custom and example of Our Predecessors and of holy legislation, by the power granted to Us from heaven, We declare the election of the said Joseph Hubert Reinkens, performed against the sanctions of the holy canons to be illicit, null, and void. We furthermore declare his consecration sacrilegious. Therefore, by the authority of Almighty God, We excommunicate and hold as anathema Joseph Hubert himself and all those who attempted to choose him, and who aided in his sacrilegious consecration. We additionally excommunicate whoever has adhered to them and belonging to their party has furnished help, favor, aid, or consent. We declare, proclaim, and command that they are separated from the communion of the Church. They are to be considered among those with whom all faithful Christians are forbidden by the Apostle to associate and have social exchange to such an extent that, as he plainly states, they may not even be greeted.[15]

27. From these matters We have touched upon more by way of deploring than narrating them, venerable brothers, you understand how sad and full of danger is the condition of Catholics in those regions of Europe which We indicated. Nor, truly, are things much better or more peaceful in America, several of whose regions are so hostile to Catholics that their governments seem to deny in deeds their Catholic faith. For there, some years past, a most severe war was begun against the Church, its institutions, and the rights of this Apostolic See. If We were to pursue these matters, We would find much to say; since, however, because of the gravity of the situation, they cannot be touched on in passing, We will treat them more thoroughly at another time and place.

28. Some of you may perchance wonder that the war against the Catholic Church extends so widely. Indeed each of you knows well the nature, zeal, and intention of sects, whether called Masonic or some other name. When he compares them with the nature, purpose, and amplitude of the conflict waged nearly everywhere against the Church, he cannot doubt but that the present calamity must be attributed to their deceits and machinations for the most part. For from these the synagogue of Satan is formed which draws up its forces, advances its standards, and joins battle against the Church of Christ.

29. Our Predecessors, as watchers in Israel, denounced these forces from the very beginnings to rulers and nations. Against them they have struck out again and again with their condemnations. We Ourselves have not been deficient in Our duty. Would that the Pastors of the Church had more loyalty from those who could have averted such a pernicious plague! But, creeping through sinuous openings, never stinting in toil, deceiving many by clever fraud, it has reached such an outcome that it has burst forth from its hiding places and boasts itself lord and master. Grown immense by a multitude of followers, these nefarious bands think that they have been made masters of their desire and have all but achieved their goal. The have at last achieved what they have so long desired, that is, that in many places they obtained supreme power and won for themselves bulwarks of men and authority. Now they boldly turn to this, to hand over the Church of God to a most harsh servitude, to tear up the supports on which it rests, and to attempt to distort the marks by which it stands out gloriously. What more? They would, if possible, completely wipe it out from the world after they had shaken it with frequent blows, ruined it, and overturned it.

Efforts to Defeat Heresies

30. Since these things are so, venerable brothers, apply all your effort to protect the faithful committed to your care against the snares and contagion of these sects. Bring back those who have unhappily joined these sects. Expose especially the error of those who have been deceived or those who assert now that only social utility, progress, and the exercise of mutual benefits are the intention of these dark associations. Explain to them often and fix deeper in their minds the pontifical decrees on this matter. Teach them that these decrees refer not only to Masonic groups in Europe, but also those in America and in other regions of the world.

31. As for the rest since we have fallen on these evil times let us take care first and foremost, as good soldiers of Christ, not to lose heart. Indeed, in the very storms in which we are tossed, there is a certain hope of achieving future tranquility and greater serenity in the Church. So let us arouse ourselves and the toiling clergy and laity, propped up by divine help and inspired by that most noble statement of Chrysostom: “Many waves and dire storms, press on but we do not fear lest we be submerged, for we stand on a rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot dissolve the rock. Let the waves rise, they cannot sink the bark of Christ. Nothing is stronger than the Church. The Church is stronger than the heavens. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away. What words? Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. If you do not trust the words, trust the deeds. How many tyrants have tried to oppress the Church! How many cauldrons, furnaces, teeth of beasts, sharp swords! They have accomplished nothing. Where are those enemies? They are handed over to silence and forgetfulness. Where is the Church? It shines brighter than the sun. Their deeds are extinct, its deeds are immortal. If when they were few, the Christians were not conquered, how can you conquer them when the whole world is full of this holy religion? Heaven and earth will pass, my words will not pass away.[16] Therefore not moved by any danger and not hesitating at all, let us persevere in prayer. Let us all strive to placate the celestial anger provoked by the sins of mankind so that the Almighty will rise up and command the winds and bring about tranquility.

32. In the meantime, We lovingly grant the apostolic blessing as a testimony of the special benevolence We have to you all, venerable brothers, and the clergy and the entire people committed to the care of each of you. (Pope Pius IX, Esti Multa, November 21, 1873.)