Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini, Hosanna in Excelsis, part thirty-six

Miss a day, miss a lot, I suppose.

I had no idea that President Donald John Trump had planned to conduct his long threatened the resumption of American military attacks that had scheduled for Tuesday, May 19, 2026, the Feast of Saint Peter Celestine and the Commemoration of Saint Pudenentiana within the Octave of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus, Christ, when news broke on Monday, May 18, 2026, that the attacks had been called off s at the request of the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Was the planned attack common knowledge before the announcement was made?

I don’t think so.

Indeed, the matter was not known publicly although some websites had information that such an attack was imminent.

Ah, but that was two days ago.

Trump is at again, threatening to launch those attacks if the leaders of Iran do not agree to a deal that includes the complete removal of all enriched uranium within their country and promise never to develop a nuclear weapon:

Wait!

Now Vice President James David Vance says the attacks, if launched will start “early next week” but also said “good progress” is being made in talks with Iranian officials.

Got all that.

Good.

I sure don’t.

All along, of course, the president has continued to insist that Iran can “never have a nuclear weapon” and that Iran was “within weeks of having a nuclear weapon” when he authorized the American military to conduct joint attacks upon Iran in cooperation with the Israeli Defense Forces on Saturday, February 28, 2026, the Feast of Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother.

He repeated this tripe in press “scrum” (as they call such things these days) aboard Air Force One en route back to Washington, District of Columbia, from visit that “great world leader,” Xi Jinping, in Communist China:

Question: Sir, I know there'll be a lot of questions around the China trip, but just first on Iran, have you rejected the latest proposal from Iran or where does that stand?

Donald Trump: Well, I looked at it and if I don't like the first sentence, I just throw it away.

Question: What was the first sentence?

Donald Trump: An unacceptable sentence, because they are fully agreed, no nuclear. And if they have any nuclear of any form, I don't read the rest of it.

Question: And 20 years is not enough for you; it's got to be –

Donald Trump: No, 20 years is enough, but the level of guarantee from them is not enough. In other words, it's got to be a real 20 years, not a [Inaudible]

Question: They need to [Inaudible] get all the fuel out and no more production?

Trump: They have to get everything, but we're not even talking about -- I call it the nuclear dust. I came up with the term, which seems to have caught on.

Question: You're not talking about it, because they would not remove the --

Donald Trump: They said that they can't remove it because they don't have the technology to remove it. They don't have the type of tractors. They say the only one -- they told me directly; they said, the only one that can remove it is China or the US. We're the only ones with the equipment. They said, you were right, it is a complete obliteration.

Donald Trump: With that being said, I want to get it. Uh, and they agreed to it, but then they took it back, but they'll agree to it eventually. (Factbase Transcripts.)

Query?

How were the murderous Mohammedan thugs who govern the “Islamic Republic of Iran” within “weeks of having a nuclear weapon” when the military forces of the United States of America had “obliterated” the two Iranian nuclear facilities on Sunday, June 22, 2025, to such an extent that the Iranians cannot extract the enriched uranium buried under the rubble while admitting that only two countries, the United States of America and Red China, have the means to do so?

Spoiler alert: Iran simply was not “weeks within having a nuclear weapon” nearly three months ago and the joint American-Israeli attack was undertaken at the behest of the mass murdering Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long desired to overthrow the Iranian mullahs and who knew that he could continue his genocidal attacks on innocent Palestinians in Gaza and visit southern Lebanon with the same kind of bombing and the vast dislocated of Lebanese citizens on the pretext of defeating Hezbollah terrorists in pursuit of his Greater Israel project.

American leaders have said nothing as the Israelis continue to murder innocent people in Gaza and Lebanon while always doing nothing to prevent Zionist settlers from attacking Christians in the West Bank and seizing their property along the way:

What are Israel’s most recent attacks?

Since Israel began its war on Lebanon on March 2, at least 2,846 people have been killed and more than a million displaced.

Israel’s offensive has included a major ground invasion and the occupation of southern Lebanon. On Sunday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli attacks across the country had killed 51 people, including two medical workers.

“The Israeli enemy continues to violate international laws and humanitarian norms, adding more crimes against paramedics, as it directly targeted two points of the Health Authority in Qalawiya and Tibnin, Bint Jbeil district, in two raids,” the ministry said.

Since Israel’s war on Lebanon began on March 2, the United Nations says at least 103 Lebanese medical workers have been killed and 230 injured in more than 130 Israeli strikes.

“We’re under threat every second, every day,” Ali Safiuddin, the head of the Lebanese Civil Defence in Tyre in southern Lebanon, told Al Jazeera on Sunday. “We ask ourselves if we’re going to survive or if we’re going to die, we know we’ve already given up our lives by working here. We’ve lost so many people and it feels like we’re already gone as well.”

Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Tyre, said on Sunday that “international humanitarian laws are clear: medical personnel and first responders, like the Lebanese Civil Defence, must be protected in armed conflict, but on this front line, the question isn’t whether another strike is coming. It’s how many people will be left to answer the calls for help”.

Dr Tahir Mohammed, a war surgeon, and humanitarian worker who’s worked in both Gaza and Lebanon, told Al Jazeera that he saw parallels in Israeli actions in both places.

“We used to see our colleagues in Gaza come through the door all the time. I’ve had colleagues, nurses, medical students killed by Israeli weapons, and so to see the same policy of targeting healthcare workers in Lebanon … it’s consistent,” he said.

“If Israel had their way, they would absolutely occupy the entire southern region of Lebanon, and they would do it tomorrow. They have no care for life. I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” Mohammed added.

Israeli attacks continued on Monday.

An Israeli air strike on the town of Abba killed two people and wounded five, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said. Warplanes renewed their raids on the town of Kfar Remman for the second time in less than an hour, NNA added.

The Israeli military issued a new warning for southern Lebanon, telling residents of nine areas to flee before potential Israeli strikes. The areas are: Ar-Rihan (Jezzine), Jarjouaa, Kfar Reman, al-Numairiyah, Arab Salim, al-Jumayjimah, Machghara, Qlayaa (Western Bekaa) and Harouf.

Israel has repeatedly said that it is only targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, which is primarily in the south of Lebanon. But last week, Israel also bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time since the ceasefire began. (Israeli killings in Lebanon rise: Is even the pretence of a ceasefire over?)

n Taybeh, one of the few majority-Christian Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank, local officials and clergy say rising attacks by Israeli settlers on farmland and property are fueling emigration fears and threatening the town’s historic Christian presence amid deteriorating living and economic conditions.

Located east of Ramallah, Taybeh is one of the few Palestinian towns in the West Bank that still has a Christian majority, according to church and local accounts. Residents say the town’s Christian roots go back thousands of years.

Residents say the attacks have deepened fears in the town, even as they stress their determination to remain on their land.

In recent years, Israeli occupiers have established several illegal settlement outposts around Taybeh, the latest in April. The town is now surrounded by several illegal settlements and pastoral outposts where occupiers from the right-wing Hilltop Youth group are active.

Occupier attacks on Taybeh and nearby Bedouin communities have included burning vehicles, stealing sheep and blocking access to farmland, residents said.

Palestinian officials have repeatedly warned that Israel seeks to empty Palestinian lands of Christians in an attempt to separate them from the core of the national struggle and promote a false narrative to the world that the conflict in Palestine is religious rather than political.

Mounting pressure

The Rev. Jack-Nobel Abed of the Greek Melkite Catholic Church in Taybeh said the town is "going through a difficult stage" of repeated Israeli restrictions and attacks, especially since the genocidal war on Gaza.

"We preserve the faith of this town, which has remained 100% Christian in the West Bank and we believe we have a mission in this Holy Land, despite the increasing restrictions and attacks we face," Abed told Anadolu Agency (AA).

He said the situation is not limited to "isolated incidents," but represents "a policy of pressure aimed at weakening the Christian presence in Palestine."

Abed said the "extremist settlement project" affects the daily lives of Taybeh residents through restrictions and attacks by Israeli occupiers.

"We do not speak from a place of fanaticism, but from a place of preserving our presence, identity and mission in this land," he added.

Abed said Taybeh has recently faced several forms of attacks, including movement restrictions, closures and assaults on property.

The overall situation has created "a state of anxiety and fear among residents" and affected social stability, he said.

"We are facing a difficult reality, but it does not weaken our faith that remaining and standing firm is the basic message," he added.

Abed said occupier attacks on monks and nuns in occupied East Jerusalem, along with continued harassment of the Christian presence, are "part of a broader picture of what is happening in Palestine."

Continuous escalation

Acting Taybeh Mayor Khaldoun Hanna said the town, whose roots go back thousands of years and which has about 1,500 residents and thousands of expatriates abroad, faces "a continuous escalation in occupier attacks."

Hanna told Anadolu that Taybeh sits on a hill east of Ramallah and its residents depend mainly on agriculture, especially olive farming. But he said that sector has faced increasing restrictions in recent years.

"Israeli occupiers have prevented residents from reaching about 5,000 dunams (5,000,000 square meters) of farmland, and they have also prevented them from harvesting olives across wide areas, causing major economic losses," he said.

Hanna said the attacks have not been limited to farmland, but have also included repeated raids into the town, attacks on homes and property, the burning of cars, and attempted vandalism.

"The most dangerous incident was an attempt to burn the Byzantine Church of St. George inside the town, but residents managed to control the fire before it spread," he said.

Last July, Israeli occupiers set fire near the cemetery and the historic St. George Church, drawing wide church and international condemnation of occupier attacks on holy sites and places of worship.

Hanna accused occupiers of acting "under the protection and support of Israeli forces," saying the goal of the attacks is "to push residents toward migration and empty the area."

"There are daily pressures on residents and constant attempts at provocation to create friction, but residents try to avoid direct confrontation despite the provocations," he said.

Worrying migration

Hanna said Taybeh has seen limited but worrying migration in recent years.

"In the past two years alone, at least 10 families have left because of the economic situation and ongoing pressure," he said.

Residents’ reliance on agriculture makes them more vulnerable to field restrictions, Hanna said.

"When a farmer is prevented from reaching his land, his main source of livelihood is cut off, and this affects social stability," he said.

"The crisis is not only economic, but also psychological and social, because people feel their future is threatened," he added.

Hanna said the attacks do not distinguish between members of Palestinian society, saying "mosques, churches and property are all targeted."

He said that despite the continued pressure, residents "remain committed to staying and standing firm on the land."

The testimonies come amid Palestinian warnings over escalating occupier violence in the West Bank, along with restrictions on residents’ movement, blocked access to farmland and growing concerns over the impact on the Palestinian presence in rural areas, including towns with religious and historic significance such as Taybeh.

More than 770,000 Israeli occupiers live in the West Bank, including about 250,000 in the occupied East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian estimates, in settlements the United Nations considers illegal.

Since Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip began in October 2023, Israeli forces and occupiers have escalated attacks in the West Bank, killing at least 1,155 Palestinians, wounding 11,750 and arresting nearly 22,000, according to Palestinian figures. (Israeli settler attacks threaten West Bank's historic Christian town.)

Additionally, the Zionists, filled with the zealous hatred those who claim to be members of the Catholic presbyterate, have driven out another conciliar presbyter from Israel:

A much-loved and admired Catholic priest who has served the faithful in the besieged town of Beit Sahour — the Shepherds’ Field — outside Bethlehem is being forced by the Israeli government to leave the occupied Palestinian territories and return to his native Jordan across the border.

At an emotional gathering at Our Lady of Fatima Latin Church on Sunday, the parish’s pastor, Father Louis Salman, offered his final Mass before his departure due to the Israeli authorities refusing to renew his residency permit, forcing him to depart by May 11.

As reported by IMEMC News, Fr. Salmon, 36, a prominent spiritual mentor to Palestinian Christian youth, was subjected to an “unusually long and intensive security interrogation by Israeli authorities” before being formally put on notice he must leave the country.

Before entering the major seminary just outside Bethlehem in 2014, Fr. Salmon studied computer technologies. He was ordained a priest in 2021 and his name became prominent among Palestinians in 2022 when he organized a solemn funeral procession for Shireen Abu Akleh, a Catholic American Palestinian journalist for Al Jazeera who was intentionally assassinated by the Israeli army while wearing a vest clearly marked with the word “PRESS.”

In a Vatican News interview with her brother, Anton Abu, last year, he explained how his late sister “entered the hearts of the Palestinian people” and “was the voice of Palestine, the voice of oppressed people of the Holy Land” at the time she was shot in the back of the head by an Israeli soldier.

According to the Associated Press, the funeral procession “turned into perhaps the largest display of Palestinian nationalism in Jerusalem in a generation” that the Israeli police countered with physical attacks, beating mourners with batons, including the pallbearers causing them, at one point, to almost drop the casket.

As is typical for cases of Israelis assaulting or killing Palestinians, the Israeli government has not held anyone responsible for the direct murder of Abu Akleh.

According to Church sources, Israel justified Fr. Salman’s expulsion, citing his political positions, his influence on Christian youth, and his public descriptions of Israel being an occupying power despite this judgment being shared by around 185 of 193 member states of the United Nations (95.8%) that call for a two-state-solution. Additionally, a full 157 of these nations (81.3%) formally recognize the State of Palestine in this regard, and thus the occupation, as does the Holy See.

The Israeli occupation of Palestine even remains recognized by the Israeli government’s “greatest ally,” the United States, yet somehow a Catholic priest in Palestine is not permitted to utter this near-universal judgment without being expelled from the country.

Israeli anti-Christian pressures, hostilities, attacks escalating

Fr. Salman’s expulsion comes amid escalating pressures from the Israeli government being imposed upon Palestinian Christians, their churches and institutions across the Holy Land.

In March, the Israeli government instituted a policy prohibiting Christian Palestinian teachers who live in the West Bank from working in any of the 15 Christian schools in Jerusalem in a move that threatens to weaken the two-millennia presence of Christians in the Holy City.

Additionally, the U.S.-backed Israeli army assaulted Palestinian Christians and Muslims last week who were celebrating the Feast of St. George at a Christian monastery just south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

On April 19, a photograph surfaced on X and other social media outlets showing an Israeli soldier smashing the head of a statue of Jesus Christ with a sledgehammer. The image quickly went viral and sparked global outrage among Christians, including the Catholic bishops of the Holy Land, who issued an “unreserved condemnation” of the desecration. Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa stated that the act “constitutes a grave affront to the Christian faith and adds to other reported incidents of desecration of Christian symbols by IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon.”

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jewish terrorists from illegal Israeli settlements have repeatedly terrorized the predominantly Christian town of Taybeh as well as other Palestinian communities.

As has become a regular occurrence, masked settlers last July “stormed this Christian village … setting vehicles on fire, hurling rocks at homes, and spraying hateful graffiti on the walls.”

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem described the armed intruders as being on horseback, spreading terror and torching holy sites while also destroying farmland.

Last month, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem also called Jewish settler destruction of their Church-owned lands and trees using an excavator “a ‘red line.’”

In Jerusalem, physical assaults and harassment have surged. Earlier this month, video captured a “brutal assault on (a) Catholic nun” who was slammed to the ground and kicked by a Jewish settler terrorist named Yonah Schreiber near King David’s tomb.

Other reports document the common occurrence of Christian clergy and religious being spat on and harassed by Jewish terrorists in Jerusalem.

Such incidents have highlighted the persistent and even deadly aggressions from radical Jewish sects over land and security in the West Bank and Jerusalem, where Church properties have faced repeated pressures with Christians consistently warning their western co-religionists that radical Zionist movements, most often with government sanction, are seeking to drive them out of the Holy Land. (Israel's expulsion of Catholic priest from occupied Palestine sparks outrage.)

What does Donald John Trump care about any of this?

I mean, the president has been enriching himself and his allies as his crusade to prevent Iran from developing a “nuclear weapon” in a “few weeks” has provided the Zionists with the cover to do with Gaza, southern Lebanon and the West Bank as they pleased. The Zionist hatred for Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for His Holy Church, for individual Christians, and for Christianity even in generic terms if truly diabolical.

At the root of Zionist racialism and imperialism is their hatred of non-Jews, a hatred that is so pronounced as to treat the indigenous residents of the Holy Land with utter contempt in 1948, a contempt that has only increased in the past seventy-eight years:

When European Jewish settlers embarked on brutal ethnic cleansing to establish Israel in 1948, they thought the Palestinian population would be the least of their problems. In fact, Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion believed that “the refugee problem would resolve itself”.

There was deep-seated conviction among Zionists that the Palestinians lacked an identity, and they would just flee to neighbouring Arab countries and assimilate. They would not come back to claim their stolen land.

But what happened was the exact opposite.

Decade after decade, the Palestinian national cause grew stronger. Today, few survivors of the Nakba of 1948 remain, but the national commitment to Palestinian rights and historical justice is as strong as ever. That is because the older generations did not teach the younger ones to forget the trauma and move on; they taught them to remember and to keep the keys to their ancestral homes in their minds.

The “refugee problem” did not “resolve itself” not just because of Palestinian determination and resilience, but also because the Israeli policies of violence and dispossession backfired.

Israel’s theft of land and resources and violent displacement of Palestinians was the starting point for every Palestinian generation to reject and resist occupation.

As Israel succeeded in usurping more and more Palestinian land, it failed miserably in controlling the Palestinian consciousness.

Despite continuous Israeli efforts to turn refugee camps into isolated enclaves, recruit agents and collaborators to undermine unity, and introduce international bodies to redefine the refugee issue as a purely humanitarian one, it failed to dismantle the Palestinian national cause.

Those who were dispossessed and violated – the Palestinian refugees – became the most ardent carriers of the idea of resistance. Refugee camps became the centres of peaceful and armed struggle. These camps gave birth to prominent Palestinian thinkers, doctors, educators and leaders, who spread one message: the rejection of the Israeli occupation and the insistence on Palestinian rights.

Palestinian refugees were the drivers of the first Intifada of 1987 and the second Intifada of 2000. They were at the centre of any subsequent mobilisation to resist the Israeli occupation.

After the launch of its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023, the Israeli government repeatedly described the war as “existential”. If Israel itself acknowledges today that the fourth generation of Palestinians, the descendants of the survivors of the Nakba, represent a threat to its existence, then this is in itself an admission of the collapse of Ben-Gurion’s prediction and the strategic failure of the Israeli project to eliminate the Palestinian people.

But Israel has not just failed, it has also become trapped. It is stuck in the paradox of the futility of its own brutal power. The more violence, mass killings and displacement it carries out and the more it reproduces the Nakba, the more determined the Palestinian people become to resist. Repression is not uprooting Palestine, it is helping it take deeper root.

The Gaza genocide is perhaps the best illustration of this deadly paradox. More than 72,000 Palestinians have been massacred, more than 170,000 injured, and 1.9 million displaced. Most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

What is the result of all this? When a Palestinian child is born today in a tent and grows up without most of his family, without a school, a playground, proper healthcare, or a home, he or she won’t need a complex historical narrative to understand who is responsible for this and what needs to be done to achieve justice.

But the self-defeating impact of Israeli brutality is not limited to Palestine alone. Israel’s genocide has backfired on a global scale. It has allowed the Palestinian cause to grow beyond the confines of a marginal, left-wing issue into one that increasingly attracts attention across the political spectrum in the West but also elsewhere in the world.

Activists and ordinary citizens of different political convictions now stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Many do so, despite facing retribution, arrest and prosecution for their support of Palestinian rights.

The Palestinian cause has also become an influential factor in local elections in many countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, where support for the Israeli occupation and genocide can cost candidates an electoral win.

As a result, the Palestinian issue has grown beyond a regional struggle to become a defining moral question for people across the world.

This has left the occupation locked in a permanent confrontation with what cannot be defeated: memory. The more it tries to erase the Palestinian cause, the more it is etched in the Palestinian and global consciousness.

If he had been alive today, Ben-Gurion would have been dismayed to learn that Zionism secured its own defeat the moment it embarked on the Nakba. (How David Ben-Gurion got the Palestinians wrong in 1948.)

As has been noted throughout the course of this series, the two principal warring parties in the Holy Land and surrounding areas have leaders whose souls are captive to the devil by means of Original Sin and their own Actual Sins even though neither is aware of this unalterable fact within the Order of Creation and the Order of Redemption (Grace).

Through it all, though, President Donald John Trump has been manically posting on his Truth Social platform showing various images of himself surrounded with gold sculptures of one sort or another while being seemingly impervious to the fact that those Americans who do not much money nor have his ability to  withstand what he calls “small prices to pay” for Iran not getting a nuclear weapon with the current increase in the cost of fuel, explaining two days ago that such increased costs were “peanuts” to most people:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed rising gas prices as “peanuts,” even as new polling shows his economic approval rating falling to a new low.

The remarks highlight growing pressure on the White House as inflation and fuel costs remain high, weighing on voters and shaping political sentiment ahead of the midterms. The disconnect could have broad implications for U.S. households and the 2026 elections, with rising prices and the Iran war expected to remain central campaign issues.

“This is peanuts. I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. But I don’t even think about it. What I think about is you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters at the White House. (Donald Trump's Economic Approval Rating Plunges As He Calls Gas Prices 'Peanuts'.)

I do not know about you, but the current costs of gasoline per gallon are not “peanuts” to me.

Then again, when was the last time that Donald John Trump had to worrying about the costs of filling one his cars with a tank of gasoline?

Indeed, when was the last time that Donald John Trump even pumped gasoline into one of this cars with his own hands at a service station?

Mr. Trump’s use of the word peanuts calls to me the following exchange between the fictional couple Ralph and Alice Kramden in the “99,000 Answer” episode of The Honeymooners that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System on Saturday evening, January 28, 1956, the Feast of Saint Peter Nolasco and the Second Feast of Saint Agnes:

Ralph: For the last time, Alice, I'm telling you, I'm going for the $99,000 question.

Alice: For the last time, Ralph, I'll be very happy if you win the 600 bucks.

Ralph: $600? Peanuts, peanuts! What am I gonna do with peanuts?

Alice: Eat 'em, like any other elephant. (The Honeymooners $600 Peanuts - $99,000 Answer.)

Obviously, neither Trump’s answer to the economic pain being felt by most Americans is not a matter of “peanuts” nor is it any kind of laughing matter at all as what Donald John Trump calls “peanuts” is being borne by Americans at the gas pumps and by the lives of innocent human beings in the Holy Land. That is hardly “peanuts.”

There is no secular “solution” to continual state of conflict in the Middle East as there will never be any peace in that region nor anywhere else in the world all men everywhere convert to the true Faith and exclaim una voce dicentes:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dóminus, Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua. Hosánna in excélsis. Benedíctus, qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in excélsis.

We do our part to build up Pope Pius XI called “The Peace of Christ in the Kingship of Christ” by every Rosary we pray and, among so many other devotions to which we must remain faithful but also pray for an increase of the Gift of Fortitude in our souls and to be ready to suffer martyrdom for the honor and glory of God, to make reparation for ours, and to provide a salutary example to others.

On the Feast of Saint Bernardine of Sienna

Today is the feast of Saint Bernardine of Sienna, the great apostle of the Holy Name of Jesus, within the Octave of the Ascension of Our Lord. It is, of course, the Holy Name of Jesus that we proclaim one hundred fifty-three times every day when we pray all fifteen mysteries of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary.

Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) spent his life promoting devotion to the Most Holy Name of Jesus to make reparation for blasphemies against the Holy Name. It was raised to a Feast of the Universal Church in 1721 by Pope Innocent XIII. Saint Bernardine of Siena took seriously the words of the first Pope to the Jews as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., provided us with a panegyric of the Franciscan was so devoted to the Holy Name of Jesus and to His Most Blessed Mother:

In that Season of the Liturgical Year, when we were loving and praying around the Crib of the Infant Jesus, one of its days was devoted to our celebrating the glory and sweetness of his Name. Holy Church was full of joy in pronouncing the dear Name chosen, from all eternity, by her heavenly Spouse; and mankind found consolation in the thought, that the great God, who might so justly have bid us call him the Just and the Avenger, willed us henceforth to call him the Savior. The devout Bernardine of Sienna, whose feast we keep today, stood then before us, holding in his hands this ever-blessed Name, surrounded with rays. He urged the whole earth to venerate, with love and confidence, the sacred Name which expresses the whole economy of our salvation. The Church, ever attentive to what is for the good of her Children, adopted the beautiful device. She encouraged them to receive it from the Saint, as a shield that would protect them against the darts of the evil spirit, and as an additional means for reminding us of the exceeding charity wherewith God has loved this world of ours. And finally, when the loveliness of the Holy Name of Jesus had won all Christian hearts, she instituted, in its honor, one of the most beautiful solemnities of Christmastide.

Bernardine, the worthy son of St. Francis of Assisi, returns to us on this twentieth day of May, and the sweet flower of the Holy Name is, of course, in his hand. But it is not now the prophetic appellation of the new-born Babe; it is not the endearing Name, respectfully and lovingly whispered by the Virgin Mother over the Crib; it is the Name, whose sound has gone through the whole creation, it is the trophy of the grandest of victories, it is the fulfillment of all that was prophesied. The Name of Jesus was a promise to mankind of a Savior; Jesus has saved mankind, by dying and rising again; he is now Jesus in the full sense of the word. Go where you will, and you hear this Name — the Name that has united men into the one great family of the Church.

The chief priests of the Synagogue strove to stifle the Name of Jesus, for it was even then winning men’s hearts. They forbade the Apostles to teach in this Name; and it was on this occasion that Peter uttered the words, which embody the whole energy of the Church: We ought to obey God, rather than men. (Acts 5:28-29) The Synagogue might as well have tried to stay the course of the sun. So too, when the mighty power of the Roman Empire set itself against the triumphant progress of this Name, and would annul the decree that every knee should bow at its sound, (Philippians 2:10) — there was not merely a failure, but, at the end of three centuries, the Name of Jesus was heard and loved in every city and hamlet of the Empire.

Armed with this sacred motto, Bernardine traversed the towns of Italy, which, at that period, (the 15th century,) were at enmity with each other, and, not unfrequently, were torn with domestic strifes. The Name of Jesus, which he carried in his hand, became as a rainbow of reconciliation; and wheresoever he set it up, there every knee bowed down, every vindictive heart was appeased, and sinners hastened to the sacrament of pardon. The three letters (IHS), which represent this Name, became familiar to the Faithful; they were everywhere to be seen, carved, or engraven, or painted; and the Catholic world thus gained a new form, whereby to express its adoration and love of its Savior.

Bernardine was a preacher, whose eloquence was of heaven’s inspiring. He was also a distinguished master in the science of sacred things, as is proved by the Writings he has left us. We regret not being able, from want of space, to give our readers his words on the greatness of the Paschal mystery; but we cannot withhold from them what he says regarding Jesus’ appearing to his Blessed Mother, after the Resurrection. They will be rejoiced at finding unity of doctrine, on this interesting subject, existing between the Franciscan School, represented by St. Bernardine, and the School of St. Dominic, whose testimony we have already given, on the Feast of St. Vincent Ferrer.

“From the fact of there being no mention made in the Gospel of the visit wherewith Christ consoled his Mother, after his Resurrection, we are not to conclude, that this most merciful Jesus, — the source of all grace and consolation, who was so anxious to gladden his Disciples by his presence, — forgot his Mother, who he knew had drunk so deeply of the bitterness of his Passion. But it has pleased divine Providence that the Gospel should be silent on this subject; and this for three reasons.”

“In the first place, because of the firmness of Mary’s Faith. The confidence which the Virgin Mother had of her Son’s rising again, had never faltered, not even by the slightest doubt. This we can readily believe, if we reflect on the special grace wherewith she was filled, she the Mother of the Man-God, the Queen of Angels, and the Mistress of the world. To a truly enlightened mind, the silence of the Scripture, on this subject, says more than any affirmation could have done. We have learned to know something of Mary by the visit she received from the Angel, when the Holy Ghost overshadowed her. We met her again at the foot of the Cross, where she, the Mother of Sorrows, stood nigh her dying Son. If then the Apostle could say: “As ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.” (2 Corinthians 1:7) — what share must not the Virgin-Mother have had in the joys of the Resurrection? We should hold it as a certain truth, that her most sweet Jesus, after his Resurrection, consoled her first of all. The holy Roman Church would seem to express this, by celebrating at Saint Mary Major’s the Station of Easter Sunday. Moreover, if, from the silence of the Evangelists, you would conclude that our Risen Lord did not appear to her first, — you must go farther, and say that he did not appear to her at all, inasmuch as these same Evangelists, when relating the several apparitions, do not mention a single one as made to her. Now, such a conclusion as this would savor of impiety. In the second place, the silence of the Gospel is explained by the incredulity of men. The object of the Holy Spirit, when dictating the Gospels, was to describe such apparitions as would remove all doubt, from carnal-minded men, with regard to the Resurrection of Christ. The fact of Mary’s being his Mother would have weakened her testimony, at least in their eyes. For this reason, she was not brought forward as a witness, though, most assuredly, there never was or will be any creature, (the humanity of her Son alone excepted,) whose assertion better deserved the confidence of every truly pious soul. But the text of the Gospel was not to adduce any testimonies, save such as might be offered to the whole world. As to Jesus’ Apparition to his Mother, the Holy Ghost has left it to be believed by those that are enlightened by his light.”

“In the third place, this silence is explained by the sublime nature of the Apparition itself. The Gospel says nothing regarding the Mother of Christ, after the Resurrection; and the reason is, that her interviews with her Son were so sublime and ineffable, that no words could have described them. There are two sorts of visions: one is merely corporal, and feeble in proportion; the other is mainly in the soul, and is granted only to such as have been transformed. Say, if you will, that Magdalene was the first to have the merely corporal vision, provided that you admit that the Blessed Virgin saw, previously to Magdalene, and in a far sublimer way, her Risen Jesus, that she recognized him, and enjoyed his sweet embraces in her soul, more even than in her body.” (Sermon 52: Dominica in Resurrectione, art. III) (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Bernardine of Sienna, May 20.)

The readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office provide us with rich food for meditation on the holy life of Saint Bernardine of Siena, a life dedicated to what the world, steeped in the anti-Incarnational errors of Judeo-Masonry, is so dedicated to blot out: the Holy Name of Jesus:

This Bernardine was born of the noble family of the Albizeschi, in the Republic of Sienna, on the 8th of September, in the year 1380. His saintliness began to manifest itself from his earliest years. He was well brought up by a godly father and mother, and even when he was being taught the first rudiments of worldly learning, he used to give up his play-time to occupy himself with devout works, being much drawn to fasting, prayer, and the devotion to the most Blessed Virgin. He abounded likewise in tenderness for the poor. As time went on, that he might the more entirely do these things, it was his will to enroll himself among those who work in the Hospital of Blessed Mary, called “of the Ladder,” at Sienna. There, during the raging of an horrible distemper, he laboured with marvellous charity and great bodily suffering, in serving the sick. In bodily presence he was a very goodly person, but, with all his other virtues, he kept ever so holy a guard over his purity, that it soon came to pass that no one, however shameless, dared to say an unseemly word in his presence.

He suffered a severe sickness, and when, after bearing it with the utmost patience, he recovered his health, he began to think of embracing some institute of the religious life. To make his way sure, he built a little hut in the outskirts of the city, where he hid himself and led a life of hardships of all kinds, continuing instant in prayer to God that He would be pleased to make clear to him what path he should follow. And so it came to pass by God’s will that he chose the Order of Blessed Francis. In that Order he shone a bright instance of lowliness, long-suffering, and every other grace of a religious man. When the superior of his convent saw this, and had already considered what his teaching and knowledge of sacred learning were, he laid on Bernardine the duty of preaching. This the Saint humbly accepted, and finding that his usefulness was much impaired by his having a shrill, harsh voice, he betook him to implore the help of God, Who was pleased, not without a miracle, to free him from this drawback.

Those were times fruitful in vices and crimes and the bloody civil wars which raged in Italy confounded all things Divine and human. Bernardine went through the cities and towns, and, in the Name of Jesus, that Name which he ever bore upon his lips and in his heart, he prevailed in great measure by his word and example, in setting up falling godliness and morality. Illustrious cities demanded him from the Pope as their Bishop, but this was an honour which his unconquerable humility caused him always steadily to refuse. At last the man of God, after untold labours, the working of many and great miracles, and the writing of godly and learned books, in the 67th year of his age, at Aquila in the Abruzzi, rested in a blessed death, upon the 20th day of May 1444. As the fame of new signs and wonders increased day by day, Pope Nicholas V., in the sixth year after his death, added his name to the roll of the Saints. (Matins, The Divine Office, May 20, Feast of Saint Bernardine of Siena.) 

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., composed the following prayer I honor of Saint Bernardine of Sienna:

How beautiful, O Bernardine, are the rays that form the aureole round the Name of Jesus! How soft their light on that eighth day after his birth, when he received this Name! But, how dazzling, now that this Jesus achieves our salvation, not only by humiliation and suffering, but by the triumph of his Resurrection! Thou comest to us, O Bernardine, in the midst of the Paschal glory of the Name of Jesus. This Name, for which thou didst so lovingly and zealously labor, gives thee to share in its immortal victory. Now, therefore, pour forth upon us, even more abundantly than when thou wast here on earth, the treasures of love, admiration and hope, of which this divine Name is the source, and cleanse the eyes of our soul, that we may, one day, be enabled to join thee in contemplating its beauty and magnificence.

Apostle of peace! Italy, whose factions were so often quelled by thee, may well number thee among her protectors. Behold her now a prey to the enemies of Jesus, rebellious against the Church of God, and abandoned to her fate. Oh! forget not, that she is thy native land, that she was obedient to thy preaching, and that thy memory was long most dear to her. Intercede in her favor; deliver her from her oppressors; and show, that when earthly armies fail, the hosts of heaven can always save both cities and countries.

Illustrious son of the great Patriarch of Assisi! the seraphic Order venerates thee as one of its main supports. Thou didst re-animate it to its primitive observance; continue, now from heaven, to protect the work thou didst commence here on earth. The Order of St. Francis is one of the grandest consolations of holy Mother Church; make this Order for ever flourish, protect it in its trials, give it increase in proportion to the necessities of the Faithful; for thou art the second Father of this venerable family, and thy prayers are powerful with the Redeemer, whose glorious Name thou didst confess upon earth. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Bernardine of Sienna, May 20.)

Saint Bernardine sought to stamp out vice with the Holy Name of Jesus. Jorge Mario Bergoglio sought to falsify Our Lord’s mercy to reaffirm hardened sinners in their lives of perdition while his successor is to content to reaffirm adherents of false religions in paths that do not, to call to minds the words of Pope Pius IX in Iam Vos Omnes, September 14, 1868, assure them of their salvation:

It is for this reason that so many who do not share 'the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church' must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd. (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.) 

Each of the conciliar “popes” has disparaged and disowned such an “outdated” theology that is nothing other than a statement of immutable Catholic truth. The late Jorge Mario Bergoglio was been very open in saying that he did not seek to convert anyone to what he thinks is the Catholic Church, but we must remember that Father Ratzinger, who died on December 31, 2022, said the following as “Pope” Benedict XVI on August 19, 2005, in Cologne, Germany:

We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English.)

Bergoglio said the following in 2014 to a group of Protestants in Treviso, Italy:

Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for coming here today. Thank you for all that you bear in your heart. Jesus loves you very much. Saint Cajetan loves you very much. He only asks one thing of you: that you come together! That you go out and seek and find one in greater need! But not alone - with Jesus, with Saint Cajetan! Am I going to go out to convince someone to become a Catholic? No, no, no! You are going to meet with him, he is your brother! That's enough! And you are going to help him, the rest Jesus does, the Holy Spirit does it. Remember well: with Saint Cajetan, we the needy go to meet with those who are in greater need. And, hopefully, Jesus will direct your way so that you will meet with one in greater need. (Francis the Insane Dreamer, Rebel and Miscreant's Message for the Feast of Saint Cajetan. A similar message was delivered by Bergoglio in Caserta, Italy, thirteen months after this address. Readers can find it in the reflection on Saint Fidelis Sigmaringen above.)

Protestantism is evil, and its liturgical rites have been authored by the devil himself:

As the strange circumstances of Nicola's possession became known everywhere, several Calvinist preachers came with their followers, to "expose this popish cheat," as they said. On their entrance, the devil saluted them mockingly, called them by name, and told them that they had come in obedience to him. One of the preachers took his Protestant prayer book, and began to read it with a very solemn face. The devil laughed at him, and putting on a most comical look, he said: "Ho! Ho! My good friend; do you intend to expel me with your prayers and hymns? Do you think that they will cause me any pain? Don't you know that they are mine? I helped to compose them!"

"I will expel thee in the name of God," said the preacher, solemnly.

"You!" said the devil mockingly. "You will not expel me either in the name of God, or in the name of the devil. Did you ever hear of one devil driving out another?"

"I am not a devil," said the preacher, angrily, "I am a servant of Christ."

"A servant of Christ, indeed!" said Satan, with a sneer. "What! I tell you, you are worse than I am. I believe, and you do not want to believe. Do you suppose that you can expel me from the body of this miserable wretch? Ha! Go first and expel all the devils that are in your own heart!"

The preacher took his leave, somewhat discomfited. On going away, he said, turning up the whites of his eyes, "O Lord, I pray thee, assist this poor creature!"

"And I pray Lucifer," cried the evil spirit, "that he may never leave you, but may always keep you firmly in his power, as he does now. Go about your business, now. You are all mine, and I am your master." (Exorcism of Nicola Aubrey)

Robert Francis Prevost has chosen his path of conciliarism’s false ecumenism.

By doing so, of course, he has committed himself to a path that does not lead to the “security” of his own salvation and, quite indeed, may discover, contrary to what he has contended about “Pope Francis” looking down from Heaven, that a special place in the eternal inferno awaits those who think that “unity” among Christians is something to be “achieved” and not already perfectly manifested in the Roman Catholic Church and absolutely nowhere else. The conciliar "popes" have been as much enemies of the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as are the Zionists themselves.

No one has suffered  for the Holy Name of Jesus the way that Our Lady did in her Seven Sorrows during the life of the Son to Whom she gave birth eight days before His Circumcision, eight days before the world heard for the first time the Holy Name that forces men to choose whether they are for Him or for the devil He came to vanquish by His redemptive act on the wood of the Holy Cross, extended to us in an unbloody manner in each and every offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Our Lady stood with her Divine Son as His Blood was shed for the first time. She would stand beneath the foot of the Holy Cross as He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood for our redemption. May we give her our thanks and love on during this Paschaltide, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, by having nothing to do with those who blaspheme her Divine Son and make a mockery of His Sacred Deposit of Faith and of the witness given by countless millions of martyrs who preferred death by the most cruel means imaginable than to given even a hint of esteeming the symbols of false religions, no less entering peaceably into temples of false worship as though these were dens of anything other than the devil himself.

Our Lady of  the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint Bernardine of Sienna, pray for us.