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

Donald John Trump is a sociopathic, pathological liar who has long thought that everyone is supposed to accept whatever he says is true even when it is false in the objective order of things, and then attempts to gaslight the American public and whoever else pays attention to his statements that those who call out his lies are “losers” and “unpatriotic,” among other choice adjectives. Trump has alienated many of his former loyal supporters because they simply disagreed with him about a certain policy objective.  

This gaslighting applies even to foreign leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has supported Trump consistently in the past ten years even before she became the head of Italy’s government in October of 2022, disagreeing with Trump about tariffs and his unwillingness to speak out against the Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

By way of background, President Donald John Trump first turned Meloni, one of his few dependable European allies, when she Trump’s attacks on Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV, which prompted Trump to denounce her for her criticism of him and for her refusal to involve Italy in his preemptive war with Iran:

For years, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy enjoyed leverage as the right-wing leader who could bridge the gap between Europe and President Trump.

This week, though, she seems to have decided that Mr. Trump is a bridge too far.

After suffering major political setbacks because of her association with Mr. Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Italy and seen as the cause of rising gas prices, Ms. Meloni seized on an opportunity to extricate herself from a relationship that had grown domestically and internationally poisonous. After Mr. Trump launched a broadside on Monday against Pope Leo XIV, Ms. Meloni rallied to the American pontiff’s defense, saying, “I find President Trump’s remarks about the Holy Father unacceptable.”

Mr. Trump, clearly jilted, lashed out at Ms. Meloni, saying in an interview with an Italian newspaper on Tuesday that he hadn’t talked to her “in a long time,” was vexed by her lack of participation in the war in Iran and was “shocked by her,” adding, “I thought she was brave, but I was wrong.” He responded to her “unacceptable” criticism by snapping, “She’s the one who’s unacceptable.” On Wednesday, he added in a television interview that with Italy, “we do not have the same relationship.”

The spat seemed to be the end of, or at least a low point for, perhaps Mr. Trump’s most special relationship in Europe.

It is also another remarkable moment in the career of Ms. Meloni, who has over decades shifted from teenage neofascist activist to hard-right party leader — before finally emerging as a pragmatic conservative and the first female prime minister of Italy.

When Mr. Trump returned to power last year, many in the European establishment feared that he would pull her to the far-right extremes. Instead, analysts suggest, Mr. Trump may have actually pushed her deeper into the Europe mainstream.

“In the relationship with Trump, she originally thought he could be an asset, and maybe he was, because she could appear as the person that could mediate between the rest of Europe and Trump,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Florence. “But gradually it has become a liability. I think she took advantage of what he said about the pope to make a firm statement and take distance. She couldn’t do otherwise.”

At first, Ms. Meloni’s connection to Mr. Trump had the makings of a beautiful friendship.

In 2018, when she was still a marginal figure looking for oxygen in Italy’s crowded populist space, Ms. Meloni invited Mr. Trump’s former top adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, to be the guest of honor at her political conference, named after a hero in “The NeverEnding Story.” The next year, she proudly called herself “the only Italian” invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. She spoke on the same day as Mr. Trump, and from her seat in the audience gushed about his remarks on social media even as he delivered them.

In 2022, she said in an interview with The New York Times: “Trump did some very good things when he was president. For example, in foreign policy, we had no problems. There were no wars.”

Years later, when they were both at the height of their power, they seemed to be hitting it off.

“You don’t mind being called beautiful, right?” Mr. Trump said to Ms. Meloni at a summit in Egypt last October. “You are.”

Despite the public displays of affection, throughout his second term, Mr. Trump has increasingly put pressure on Ms. Meloni, along with other European allies, to increase Italy’s military spending and to accept unfavorable trade terms.

She showed signs of resistance. Last April, as Mr. Trump threatened to raise tariffs, she said, “I think the choice of the United States is a wrong choice,” even as she cautioned against retaliatory tariffs from Europe.

Then things started getting tense. In January, as Mr. Trump increasingly began to float the idea of taking Greenland, she said, “I don’t believe in the idea of the U.S. launching military action on Greenland, which I would not agree with.” Days later, when Mr. Trump walked back his threats, she spoke as someone who understood him, saying she was “not surprised, to be honest.”

But when Mr. Trump decided to attack Iran, he did not give Ms. Meloni a heads-up. To her humiliation, her defense minister was vacationing in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, at the time and had to be evacuated via military jet.

The war also led to a spike in gas and electricity prices in Italy. Ms. Meloni, a populist with a sharp sense of pocketbook issues, understood the political danger, especially as Italians prepared to vote in a referendum on a crucial judicial change that she supported.

As poll after poll showed that Italy did not support the war and did not like Mr. Trump, Ms. Meloni started speaking out.

“I am concerned, obviously, because it would be stupid to believe that what happens even far from our borders does not involve us,” she said on March 2, adding, “The United States and Israel decided to attack without the involvement of their European partners.”

Days later, she made it clear that “we are not at war and we do not want to go to war.” She dispatched Guido Crosetto, the defense minister who had been marooned in Dubai, to be even more forceful, saying the attack by the United States and Israel “certainly happened outside the rules of international law.” She then added in a speech to Parliament that because the United States had problems communicating, she couldn’t necessarily endorse the American assessment that Iranian intransigence had thwarted negotiations over a deal.

Ms. Meloni has also sought daylight with Israel, previously a key ally. This week, she announced that Italy would not automatically renew its defense agreement with Israel “in view of the current situation.”

For all her effort to distance herself from Mr. Trump’s war, she badly lost the referendum on the judiciary anyway, after the vote became perceived as a plebiscite on her own popularity. In an effort to settle scores with those she believed had done her wrong, she fired a minister and aides whom she held responsible for the defeat.

But analysts said that a rupture with Mr. Trump was the breakup that would matter most to Italian voters. And Mr. Trump’s attack on the pope gave her an opening.

Now, experts say, Ms. Meloni will have to decide if she wants to go it alone, or seek closer alliances in the European establishment that she rose to power bashing.

After an important European ally, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, lost power on Sunday, Ms. Meloni is in need of new friends, particularly as she prepares for elections in Italy expected next year.

“She’ll have to get closer to Europe,” Mr. D’Alimonte said. “Now she’s isolated.”

For Mr. Trump’s part, he complained that she wasn’t the leader he thought he knew. “She’s much different,” he said, “than I thought.”  (Trump Breaks With Meloni, Italy’s Leader, Amid Dispute Over Pope and Iran.)

Donald John Trump expects everyone to agree with him all the time, and then, true thug that is, the bludgeons those who do criticize no matter how much they have agreed with him in the past or have suffered personally and politically for doing so. It is all or nothing for the narcissist named Donald John Trump, whose perverse joy in humiliating others extends to making up stories about how others always “beg” him to have their photograph taken with him, which is what he claimed Giorgia Meloni did during the recently concluded G-7 meeting in Luzerne, Switzerland:

A simmering rift between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni burst into the open Friday after the G7 summit, exposing growing tensions between two leaders whose close political alliance had long positioned Meloni among Trump's closest allies on the world stage.

"Donald Trump's statements are completely made up. I am frankly astonished. I don't ‌know why ⁠the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies: it is not the first time, moreover," Meloni said Friday, according to Reuters.

Trump told an Italian news outlet that Meloni "begged" him to take a photo with her during the G7 earlier this week, which sparked strong rebuke from the prime minister and Italian diplomats. Before the recent strain over Iran, Meloni was widely viewed as one of Trump's strongest allies on the world stage, even attending his 2025 presidential inauguration as the only European leader present.

Meloni fired back: "I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence."

"There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg," she added.

Representatives from the prime minister’s office told Fox News Digital they have no comment at the moment. Fox News Digital also reached out to the White House.

There have been looming tensions between the two leaders after Meloni recently distanced herself from the U.S. amid mounting domestic and political pressure over the widening Middle East conflict.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani abruptly canceled his U.S. visit Friday following Trump's remarks over the photo. 

"The serious and offensive words of President Trump towards Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend all of Italy. For this reason, I have decided to cancel my visit to the United States scheduled for the next 21 and 22 June," Tajani wrote on X.

Tajani was set to attend the Italy–U.S. Business, Investment, Science and Innovation Forum in Miami, Florida. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to deliver remarks at the conference on Monday. Rubio recently traveled to Italy last month to smooth over previous tensions with Meloni and Pope Leo XIV.

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment.

As Trump urged world leaders to take a more active role in the Iran conflict, Meloni notably stayed on the sidelines, underscoring an emerging rift between the longtime allies.

Meloni has previously said she would not support any effort to reduce the U.S. military presence in Italy, drawing a contrast with Trump’s broader push to reposition American forces in Europe.

Italy remains a key U.S. security hub in Europe, hosting nearly 13,000 active-duty American troops across six bases as of the end of 2025. (Giorgia Meloni fires back at Trump after he claims she 'begged' for photo.)

Donald John Trump believes that he can lie with impunity and that people are gullible enough to believe whatever he, a self-professed “great man” who must have no limits imposed on his power even if those limits are contained within the very provisions of the Constitution of the United States of America that he swore to uphold on Monday, January 20, 2025, says is true at one moment even though he said the exact opposite only weeks, if not days, beforehand.

President Trump expects the American public to accept without criticism his defense of  the fourteen point “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding” between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran even though the memorandum, which is in effect for a sixty day negotiating period, even though the memorandum accomplishes nothing of the ever-shifting goals that he had in mind when the murderous racialist Zionist named Benjamin Netanyahu convinced him to launch a war that had no legitimate casus belli with Israel on Saturday, February 28, 2026, in the expectation that the Iranian regime would collapse quickly, perhaps in a matter of days or few weeks, Trump insisted early on, because most of Iran’s top leadership was killed during the initial strikes.

The president said nearly four months ago that Iran’s ballistic missile system had to be destroyed and that the Iranian government could never develop a nuclear weapon while ignoring the fact that he claimed their ability to do such thing was “obliterated” a year ago when the American military used bunker-blasting bombs to do significant damage to two nuclear research facilities in Iran. Recently, though, Trump has said it is “unfair” for Iran not have ballistic missiles and that its regime’s promise not to develop nuclear weaponry represents an “unconditional surrender” on Iran’s part despite the fact that the needless war was launched in large measure to re-obliterate, if you will, Iran’s nuclear capabilities. This is the kind of head-spinning stuff that is worthy of the conciliar revolutionaries.

Here is a thorough review of the how the president has contradicted himself in the past nearly four months:

When the Iran war began on February 28, President Donald Trump proclaimed that the US military would “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground.”

“It will be totally, again, obliterated,” Trump declared in a video.

In the days that followed, his administration cast the obliteration of Iran’s missile program as a paramount goal for the war, given the threat that they said it posed to US bases and allies in the region.

But now that Trump has a preliminary agreement with Iran, he’s sounding a very different note. Appearing at a press conference Wednesday at the end of the G7 summit in France, Trump suggested it was only fair that Iran be allowed some missiles.

“They have to have some, because other people have some,” Trump said. He added that “missiles aren’t the problem” because “they don’t blow up the planet.”

The president doubled down later, saying: “In relative proportion, I think it’s OK.”

It was a remarkable about-face from Trump on what had been one of his biggest stated goals for the war. And it was far from the only reversal.

In his apparent desperation to cut a deal to get out of the war, Trump has scaled back, set aside or abandoned nearly all of his biggest goals.

Trump’s goals have long been a moving target. His administration often listed four goals, but those four goal regularly varied, depending on who was talking and when. And Trump often didn’t seem to have a true north star when it came to what he wanted to accomplish.

Here are some of the biggest goals he set and where they stand, according to his latest comments and the 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran, which includes significantly more concessions to Tehran than vice versa.

Obliterating the missile program

The goal: “We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated.” – Trump on February 28

The latest: By late March, the goal was scaled back to “dramatically reduce” Iran’s missile program.

Today, the MOU doesn’t even mention missiles, which Iran declared to be a red line in negotiations. And Trump signaled Wednesday that Iran would be allowed to have some.

‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER’

The goal: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” – Trump on social media on March 6 The latest: Soon after, Trump appeared to give up on this goal by pushing for negotiations. Now there is an initial agreement that makes extensive concessions to Iran — and many, including on the right, say it’s more of a US surrender than an Iranian one.

Regime change

The goal: “When we’re finished, take over your government”; “It’ll be yours to take”; “This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.” – Trump on February 28

The latest: This goal also quickly subsided, when it became clear the Iranian people were not taking Trump’s cue. The president has occasionally insisted that the fact that Iranian leaders were killed in the war represents a form of regime change, but the new supreme leader is the former supreme leader’s son. And Trump claimed Wednesday, “I didn’t do this for regime change.”

Iran never getting a nuclear weapon

The goal: “We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It’s a very simple message: They will never have a nuclear weapon.” – Trump on February 28

The latest: This one is very much to be determined. The MOU declares that Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” But Tehran has always maintained it is not pursuing them. And there is very little indication about what kind of terms might be agreed to that would truly stamp out the threat forevermore.

Zero enrichment

The goal: “There will be no enrichment of Uranium” – Trump on social media on April 8. “We want no enrichment” – Trump on March 23

The latest: Very similarly to the missile-related goal, Trump has also seemed to back off this. He has indicated Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. “It’s a little hard when other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that,” he said Wednesday. “You have to use a little common sense.”

He had told the New York Times earlier this month that Iran could enrich at low levels but that it “could never be used by the military.”

Seizing Iran’s highly enriched uranium

The goal: “We also want the enriched uranium. … We’re going down, and we’ll take it ourselves.” – Trump on March 23

The latest: This is another unknown, but the MOU appears to come up shy of Trump’s goal. The MOU says that the two sides “agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon.” But it also indicates the uranium will be “down blended” rather than seized — i.e. “be down blended on site under the supervision of the” International Atomic Energy Agency.

He had told the New York Times earlier this month that Iran could enrich at low levels but that it “could never be used by the military.”

Seizing Iran’s highly enriched uranium

The goal: “We also want the enriched uranium. … We’re going down, and we’ll take it ourselves.” – Trump on March 23

The latest: This is another unknown, but the MOU appears to come up shy of Trump’s goal. The MOU says that the two sides “agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon.” But it also indicates the uranium will be “down blended” rather than seized — i.e. “be down blended on site under the supervision of the” International Atomic Energy Agency.

And on Wednesday, Trump told reporters that destroying Iran’s nuclear stockpile is “much less important” than preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

“It’s much less important, because it’s very hard to get at that,” he said.

Destroying its navy

The goal: “The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused … (including) destroy their navy and other security infrastructure” – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on March 2

The latest: Iran’s Navy was largely wiped out in the war’s early days. Iran does, however, retain significant asymmetric capabilities to control the Strait of Hormuz, including via drones, mines and small attack boats known as “fast boats.”

Preventing funding of proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas

The goal: “And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.” – Trump on March 2

The latest: The administration largely stopped talking about this for a while, and the MOU contains no language about Iran’s support for Hezbollah, Hamas or other proxy groups. In fact, the MOU appears to benefit Hezbollah by purporting to end fighting in Lebanon, where Israel is striking Hezbollah. Trump said Wednesday that in further negotiations, “we’ll talk also about the terrorist proxies that they have.” It’s also worth noting that the MOU immediately frees up Iran to sell oil, which Trump’s State Department has linked to Iran’s financing of these groups.

A completely open, toll-free Strait of Hormuz

The goal: “We want it open. We want it free. We don’t want tolls. It’s an international waterway. They’re not charging tolls.” – Trump on March 21. “Permanently toll-free” – Trump to the New York Times on Sunday

The latest: The MOU says Iran will use “its best efforts” to ensure “the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa.”

But that clause “for 60 days only” clearly comes up shy of Trump’s goal, at least for now. And Iran is signaling it intends to charge “fees.”

“Iran has sovereign rights in the Strait of Hormuz, and naturally, we will charge for the services,” Iran’s parliament speaker and key negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said this week, according to Al Jazeera. (How Trump’s Iran agreement fails to achieve many of his goals.)

Trump’s hubris leads him to expect that he can claim “victory” in war that he had no basis in fact to undertake even though most of his original goals were unfulfilled and the “memorandum of understanding” gives Iran and the country of Oman control over a previously free international waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, which was completely open when the war began on February 28, 2026, at a time when the ignoramuses known as Jared Kusher and Steve Witkoff were on a verge of getting  a “deal” with Iran that was nowhere near as generous as what is conceded to the terrorist Mohammedans in the “memorandum of understanding.” (One secular commentary published today concludes that Literally None of the Most Important Issues Have Been Resolved by the Memorandum of Understanding while another claims that the president got everything he wanted in the deal that was made possible by the American naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump Wins: Addressing the Lessons and Lies Surrounding the Iran Peace Deal, a conclusion with which I disagree, but in all intellectual honesty acknowledge and make available to my readers for their own assessment.)

Moreover, Iranian leaders have taken full advantage to briefly re-close the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, Friday, June 19, 2026, the Octave of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Commemorations of Saint Juliana Falconieri and of Saints Gervase and Protase, because the Israeli Defense Forces have continued their pummeling of Lebanon, including the southern suburbs of Beirut, once known as the “Paris of the Mediterranean,” in their Ahab-like quest to destroy Hezbollah by displacing over a million Lebanese people, killing over three thousand innocent Lebanese citizens, and by occupying most of the southern half of Lebanon, which Israeli leaders have will remain in their control indefinitely.

The Strait of Hormuz was reopened late yesterday after another “ceasefire” was announced between Hezbollah and Israel, whose military is still bombing Lebanon and whose Minister of National Security Ben Gvir has said that “all of Lebanon must burn” after Hezbollah had killed four Israeli soldiers:

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir says that “all of Lebanon must burn” after Israel’s military announced the deaths of four soldiers in a Hezbollah attack.

“With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not up for bargaining. All of Lebanon must burn,” Ben Gvir says in a statement. (Ben Gvir says 'all of Lebanon must burn' after Hezbollah kills four soldiers.)

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper denounces far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s statement declaring “all of Lebanon must burn” and calls on Israel and Hezbollah “to comply with the agreed ceasefire, and ensure that all civilians are protected.” (British FM condemns Ben Gvir for saying 'all of Lebanon must burn'.)

The Zionists really believe that Jewish blood is sacrosanct and his superior to all non-Jewish blood, which is why they destroying southern Lebanon in the same manner as they have done and are continuing to do in Gaza and in the West Bank, where Israeli “settlers” and members of the Israeli Defense Forces have been attacking land-owning Palestinian residents, Christian and Mohemmdan alike, with the world’s attention focused on the situation in Iran:

Since the declaration of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on October 10, 2025, Israel has violated the agreement with near-daily attacks, killing hundreds of people.

Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 3,201 times from October 10, 2025 to June 9, 2026, through the continuation of attacks by air, artillery and direct shootings, the Government Media Office in Gaza reports. It added that Israel had also detained 83 Palestinians from Gaza.

From October 10, 2025 to April 14, 2026, the office said Israel shot at civilians 921 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 97 times, bombed and shelled Gaza 1109 times, and demolished people’s properties on 273 occasions.

Israel has also continued to block vital humanitarian aid and destroy homes and infrastructure across the Strip.

Al Jazeera has tracked the ceasefire violations to date.

What are the terms of the ceasefire?

On September 29, the United States unveiled a 20-point proposal to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, release the remaining captives held in the enclave, allow the full entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged territory and outline a three-phase withdrawal of Israeli forces. . . .

Here are the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, tracking the casualties from October 7, 2023, through June 10, 2026:

Hezbollah says it implemented ceasefire with Israel immediately: Reuters

Two Hezbollah sources told the Reuters news agency that the group implemented a ceasefire immediately between the group and Israel after being informed of the agreement.

It comes after a senior US official told the agency that the two sides had agreed to a ceasefire set to begin at 4pm local time (1pm GMT) today.

Israeli settlers vandalise Palestinian home, vehicles in West Bank

Groups of Israeli settlers have vandalised Palestinian property in the occupied West Bank, attacking a home and vehicles in the town of Kifl Haris, and tearing down an electricity pole in the town of Beita, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided the town of al-Mughayyir and deployed tear gas near a mosque as people arrived for Friday prayers, Wafa reported.

The fragile United States-Iran peace agreement is hanging by a thread as Israel intensifies its military campaign in southern Lebanon, raising fears it could unravel before formal negotiations are completed.

The agreement, which the US and Iran signed earlier this week, triggers a 60-day negotiation period for the two to reach a formal peace deal, and talks were supposed to begin in Switzerland on Friday.

However, US Vice President JD Vance cancelled his flight to Switzerland on Thursday night at the last minute after Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon, which killed at least 18 people, after which Iran said its negotiators were not prepared to begin talks until the agreement, which stipulates that Lebanon is included in the ceasefire, showed signs of being implemented.

Analysts say Israel’s continued bombardment of southern Lebanon is poised to derail any hope of ending the war in the Middle East. Israel currently occupies one-fifth of Lebanon, which it has subjected to near-daily attacks since early March. More than 3,000 people have been killed, and more than one million have been displaced from their homes.

While the US-Iran agreement stipulates that both sides will commit to ensuring the “territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon”, Israeli officials have stated this week that their forces will not withdraw from the territory. Ministers in Israel have said “all of Lebanon must burn.”

So, can the deal survive in the face of Israeli bombing? And can President Donald Trump rein in Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu?

What’s happening in Lebanon?

Just after midnight local time on Thursday night (21:00 GMT), residents in southern Lebanon woke up to the start of an intense Israeli bombardment of their villages and cities, hours before US-Iran talks were scheduled to begin in Switzerland.

The attacks have so far killed at least 18 people and wounded dozens, with the largest number of bodies pulled out from a bombed-out residential building in Harouf village.

Israel has been on one of its deadliest sprees of attacks on southern Lebanon since its ally, the US, came into an agreement with Iran to end the hostilities on all fronts – including Lebanon.

Israel began near-daily attacks on Lebanon in early March, when the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in response to the US-Israeli attacks on Tehran that killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top Iranian officials.

Israeli attacks have continued despite a US-brokered “ceasefire” in April. Now, despite the US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU), they are continuing.

In a statement on Friday, Israel’s military said attacks on southern Lebanon overnight, which have continued through the morning, were a response to Hezbollah’s “repeated violations of the ceasefire”.

Hezbollah acknowledged attacks on Israeli military positions inside Lebanon. Soon after, the Israeli military announced that four of its soldiers had been killed during combat in Lebanon.

Netanyahu’s political ally, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Israeli national security minister, said “all of Lebanon must burn.

“With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeit,” Ben-Gvir wrote in a post on X, adding that, in the region, you needed to “go berserk. To obliterate. To crush the terror”.

What does the peace agreement say about Lebanon?

The first clause of the MoU signed by the US and Iran on Wednesday this week addresses the question of Lebanon.

The US and Iran have agreed to the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon”, it states.

Additionally, it says, both sides will commit to ensuring the “territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon”.

However, there is no mention of Israel in the MoU at all, leaving interpretation of this clause wide open, experts say.

Given that the agreement is solely between the US and Iran – Israel and Hezbollah are not signatories – it is unclear how a ceasefire in Lebanon would be implemented, or whether it means Iran must stop funding Hezbollah.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has noted that Tehran “does not separate the United States and the Israeli regime”, adding that it is the responsibility of the US to ensure Israel respects commitments made under the memorandum.

How has Israel responded to the US-Iran agreement?

There is fury in Israel over the deal – and political allies and opposition alike are circling Prime Minister Netanyahu over it.

Moreover, Israel was reportedly neither privy to negotiations nor allowed to review the text before it was signed by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday.

Netanyahu has said “the battle is not over yet,” and “Israel still faces additional challenges,” noting that the military would not withdraw from occupied Lebanese land.

Israel “will restore security to the north”, and this requires “maintaining the security strip in southern Lebanon”, from which Israel will not withdraw “as long as Israel’s security needs require it”, Netanyahu said.

On Monday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement: “Netanyahu and I are pursuing a clear policy under which the [military] will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza for an unlimited period of time in order to protect the border and Israeli communities from there against jihadist elements.”

These statements come against the backdrop of simmering tensions between Washington and Israel.

At the G7 summit in France, Trump criticised Netanyahu’s bombing tactics in Lebanon that have led to large numbers of civilian casualties.

He told reporters from the sidelines of the summit that Israel had been fighting Hezbollah “too long and too many people are being killed”.

“You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there’s a lot of people in those apartment houses – and they’re not all Hezbollah,” he said.

Vice President Vance also lashed out at Israeli cabinet ministers for speaking out against the deal on Thursday. “What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have,” he said, addressing Israeli leaders.

Could Israel torpedo the peace deal?

Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the onus is now on US President Trump to “decide whether he wants the MoU to stand or not”.

“If he wants the deal to survive, he has to exercise American leverage, not just to reprimand Netanyahu, but to force him to stop the war in Lebanon,” he said.

From Tehran’s perspective, Vaez said, “if [Trump] is unwilling or unable to rein Netanyahu in, no deal with the US is worth the paper it is written on.”

Tahani Mustafa, a visiting fellow on the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said “the MoU does not necessarily guarantee that Israel is going to behave or not try to torpedo the process, especially given the tensions between the US and Israel,” in addition to domestic pressure on Netanyahu, who faces national elections by October this year.

“It [Israel] could well try to torpedo this [deal], and we’ve seen in the past where Israel has been defiant despite what the US has often tried to sort of push it towards,” she told Al Jazeera.

The only thing that can guarantee further negotiations to secure the deal “is serious, hard pressure on Israel – but Washington has shown that it really doesn’t have the political will to do that”, she added.

That leaves keeping the peace talks on track down to Iran, “even if that means Israel’s bombing of Lebanon continues, which it most likely will”, Mustafa noted.

Vaez of Crisis Group, however, said continued killings in Lebanon would quickly unravel the negotiations.

“Iran might be able to afford to delink Lebanon at some point down the road, but not when the ink isn’t fully dry on the MoU,” he concluded. (Can US-Iran peace ‘deal’ survive Israeli bombing of Lebanon?)

As noted in part thirty-seven of this series five days ago, it appears that President Donald John Trump, who has long been a shill for the Zionist State of Israel, has finally had enough with Benjamin Netanyahu, although his principal concern appears to be the latter’s ability to interfere with the Iranian negotiations as Trump has never said a word to condemn the Israeli wholesale slaughter of innocent human beings in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank.

Indeed, while despite criticism from American Zionist voices such as the New York Post and the ever profanely angry Mark Levin (see In the deal with Iran, Trump settled for much less than he set out to get, The still-mysterious Iran deal leaves a LOT of work undone — at best, Trump's Iran deal gives the Islamic Republic big wins upfront — and America nothing, and Trump has fallen for the same false Iran promises as Obama), it is good that war that should never have been fought that wound up expending American munitions at a rapid rate and cost the lives of thirteen American service personnel appears to ending, but Iran did get a sweetheart of a deal from the “memorandum of understanding,” including a putative three hundred billon dollars in “rebuilding funds” (that does not exist at this time) if its leaders meet all of their obligations once an actual treaty is agreed by the two parties within sixty days, and the Mohammedan regime is stronger than before the hostilities began despite the economic duress that the American naval blockade caused and despite the destruction of a good deal of Iran’s infrastructure.

When all is said and done, though, the real reason that Donald John Trump threw in the towel was because the American supply of strategic oil reserves that Trump had tapped to ease the pain for consumers at the gas pumps was down to seventeen days at the time the “memorandum of understanding was signed:

To quote James Carville, “It’s the economy stupid!” On Monday I (Larry Johnson) wrote:

So the question we ought to ask is why did Donald Trump blink and accept the proposal that Iran proffered way back in April?

I think there are several reasons, but the principal one is that the US is running out of oil, which means Trump will not be able to artificially suppress the price of gasoline. US strategic oil reserves have fallen to their lowest level since 1983, reports CNN. The decline comes amid continued drawdowns to mitigate the impact of the conflict with Iran. Reserves have dropped to 340.3 million barrels, last seen during the Reagan administration, which was still building the stockpile. US daily consumption is 20 to 21 million barrels in 2026, which means the reserve can supply 17 days of gasoline, which falls on July 1st.

Today, my dear friend Pepe Escobar, reported that Donald Trump was briefed over the weekend — perhaps by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright — that the rapidly draining Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be exhausted within weeks. Who knew that Donald Trump would confirm this during his press conference announcing the deal with Iran? Trump told reporters today that oil reserves would have run out in four weeks if the Strait of Hormuz had not been reopened. His exact words were:

We run out of reserves at about four weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out, and there’ll be a time when you wouldn’t be able to get it.

There you have it… Trump and his key economic and energy advisors realize that the US economy could go off the cliff before the end of summer, which would certainly eliminate any chance that the Republicans would retain control of the Senate and the House.

Trump still has a problem… Opening the Strait of Hormuz will not mean immediate relief for the shortage in the global oil market. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is a necessary but far from sufficient condition for global oil supply to normalize. Several compounding factors will delay meaningful relief to world markets, likely for weeks to months.

The Anchored Tanker Problem — A Backlog, Not a Surge

The intuitive assumption is that dozens of fully loaded tankers sitting at anchor in the Persian Gulf represent a coiled spring — once the strait opens, they all rush to market simultaneously, flooding supply. The reality is more complicated and, in key respects, the opposite.

Many of those tankers have been sitting with crude aboard for up to four months. That oil is not in good condition. Crude oil in storage aboard a VLCC in the Persian Gulf’s extreme heat undergoes thermal degradation, sedimentation, and in some grades, partial polymerization of heavier fractions. More practically, the cargo specifications that a refinery contracted for may no longer be met after months of heat exposure and water separation issues in the tanks. Before those cargoes can be delivered, they will need to be tested, and some will need blending or reprocessing before any refinery will accept them.

Beyond cargo quality, the ships themselves have been idle for four months. Engines need to be brought back online carefully. Hull fouling — the accumulation of marine growth on the hull during idle periods — significantly reduces speed and fuel efficiency, meaning transit times will be longer than normal. Some vessels will require port inspections before they can legally sail under their flag state rules.

Finally, even if every anchored tanker departed tomorrow, the receiving terminals and refineries on the other end are not standing by with empty tanks ready to accept a simultaneous flood of deliveries. Port scheduling, berth availability, and refinery run rates all have to be coordinated. A surge of arrivals would create congestion at discharge ports that would paradoxically slow the effective rate at which oil enters the refinery system.

The Transit Time Problem — The Pipeline Has to Refill

Even under normal circumstances, oil doesn’t appear on world markets the moment a tanker is loaded. A VLCC sailing from Kharg Island in Iran or Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia to Rotterdam takes roughly 20 to 25 days via the Cape of Good Hope route — which many ships were forced to use during the closure — or about 18 to 20 days through Suez even after Hormuz reopens. Delivery to Asian customers in China, Japan, or South Korea from Gulf loading ports runs 15 to 20 days through the strait under normal conditions.

This means that the crude being loaded today — assuming loading could begin immediately — won’t appear as refined product available to consumers for five to seven weeks at minimum, once you account for transit, discharge, refinery processing time, and distribution. The world is not going to feel this at the pump in days or even the first couple of weeks.

More importantly, the production side has to normalize too. Fields that were producing at reduced rates or were shut in during the conflict don’t simply snap back to full output instantly. Reservoir pressure management, wellhead and pipeline inspections, and restart protocols for offshore platforms all take time. Saudi Aramco, for instance, has operational procedures for bringing shut-in capacity back online that are measured in weeks, not hours.

The Mine Problem — The Most Underappreciated Factor

This may be the single biggest constraint on rapid resumption of normal traffic, and it is receiving far less attention than it deserves.

The MOU text requires Iran to use “best efforts” to reopen the strait and to begin demining, but demining is not a quick process. The Persian Gulf and the approaches to the strait contain some of the most commercially sensitive and geographically constrained shipping lanes in the world. Iran has had four months to lay mines across chokepoints that are, at their narrowest, about 21 nautical miles wide, with only two navigable channels of roughly two miles each.

Marine mine clearance — even with modern equipment and in cooperative conditions — is painstaking work. A minesweeper cannot simply drag a channel and declare it clear. Each suspected mine must be located, classified, and either detonated in place or rendered safe by divers or ROVs. In contested or uncertain conditions, the pace is even slower. There is no international consensus yet on who will conduct clearance operations, who will certify lanes as safe, and what standard of clearance will be accepted before commercial traffic is deemed acceptable. If the US takes on the task, it could be a lengthy process. In late April, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon told Congress it could take six months to fully clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines deployed by the Iranian military.

This directly feeds into the insurance problem. The Lloyd’s of London market and its Joint War Committee designate geographic areas as war risk zones, which triggers additional premium loadings on hull and cargo coverage for any vessel transiting those waters. The Persian Gulf and Hormuz are almost certainly now designated at the highest war risk tier. Even with the MOU signed, underwriters will not quickly remove that designation. They will wait for credible evidence of mine clearance, a sustained period of incident-free transits, and independent verification — not a diplomatic document.

The practical consequence is that until insurance markets normalize, many shipping companies will simply refuse to send their most valuable assets — a VLCC loaded with two million barrels of crude is worth well over $200 million between the ship and cargo — through waters that their insurers either won’t cover or will cover only at premiums that make the voyage economically irrational. War risk premiums during periods of active conflict can run to multiples of normal rates. Those rates don’t fall to normal levels on the day a ceasefire is announced. They fall gradually, as actuarial evidence accumulates that the risk has actually diminished.

The Net Picture

The opening of the strait is a precondition for oil market normalization, not normalization itself. The realistic sequence is: a cautious initial resumption of traffic by the most risk-tolerant operators, followed by gradual mine clearance certification of specific channels, followed by a slow return of mainstream commercial shipping as insurers progressively reduce war risk premiums, followed — weeks later — by the actual arrival of that oil at refineries and its conversion into usable product.

A reasonable estimate for when world markets might begin to see materially increased supply as a result of today’s agreement is six to ten weeks at the earliest, and that assumes no incidents, no mine strikes, no political reversals, and a cooperative Iranian demining effort. Any one of those things going wrong resets the clock.

While Trump’s decision to finalize the MOU with Iran is a positive step (and I was wrong in my assessment that this would not happen) the road to economic recovery and stabilization of world markets is still months away.

One final note of irony… Trump electronically signed the MOU in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, which was where the primary peace settlement ending World War I was signed between the Allied powers and Germany. I don’t think Trump had an Allied victory in mind as he signed the document. (What Triggered Trump To Make the Deal With Iran?)

Wars fought without a just cause and without exhausting all paths to a negotiated settlement, which, as noted above, was awaiting President Trump’s approval by the time Netanyahu had convinced him that a quick strike would result in a Venzeuala-like conquest, usually come to no good end, and this war, which is only paused now, has made the intended victim stronger strategically than before.

Those who do not think with the Mind of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and who do not act in light of First and Last Things must wreak death and destruction others to accomplish ill-defined “goals” that are undertaken without regard to any conception of objective morality and certainly without fear of the Particular Judgment that Our Redeemer King will render unto those who fail to obey His commands and who ignore His own plain words as follows:

I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman. [2] Every branch in me, that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. [3] Now you are clean by reason of the word, which I have spoken to you. [4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. [5] I am the vine: you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.

[6] If any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth. [7] If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you. [8] In this is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit, and become my disciples. [9] As the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. [10] If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father's commandments, and do abide in his love. (John 15: 1-10.)

Admitting full well that fallen men will always engage in conflicts of one sort or another, two of the chief reasons why there is so much death and destruction among nations and nihilistic disorder within them today is the rejection of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Social Kingship over men and their nations and of His Holy Church as the magister and mater of them and the fact that there is a surfeit of a superabundance of Sanctifying Graces in the world caused by the sacramentally barren and liturgical invalid conciliar liturgical rites.

Moreover, lacking the Principle of Unity represented by a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, proud men must posit themselves as veritable demigods who possess the charisms of a true people and thus consider themselves to be infallible and without any external constraints upon their decisions.

In this regard, therefore, on this day of Our Lady on Saturday and the Commemoration of Pope Saint Silverius, it is important to review Dom Prosper Gueranger’s hagiography of Pope Saint Silverius and the attributes possessed by true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter:

Papal succession is one of the principal facts in which is demonstrated the working of the Holy Ghost from the very first day of His descent upon our Earth. The legitimacy of the Popes as successors of Peter is indeed closely linked with the legitimacy of the Church herself in her character of Bride of the Man-God, and therefore His mission being to lead the Bride to the Spouse, the Holy Ghost cannot suffer her to wander in the footprints of intruders. The inevitable play of human passions, interfering in the election of the Vicar of Christ, may perchance for a while render uncertain the transmission of spiritual power, but when it is proved that the Church still holding, or once more put in possession of her liberty, acknowledges in the person of a certain Pope, until then doubtful, the true Sovereign Pontiff, this her very recognition is a proof that, from that moment at least, the occupant of the Apostolic See is as such invested by God Himself. This doctrine the Holy Ghost confirms by giving thereunto, in the Pontiff we are celebrating today, the consecration of martyrdom.

Saint Agapitus I died at Constantinople to which Theodorat the Goth had persuaded him to go in order to appease the anger of Justinian excited against this king by reason of his treasons. Scarcely had the news of this death reached the Arian prince than he, in terror of perhaps seeing someone unfavorable to his pretentions, raised to the pontificate, imperatively designated as successor to the deceased Pope, the deacon Silverius. Two months later the Justice of God struck the tyrant and the Church was set free. Doubtless Rome would have but exercised her proper right had she rejected the Head thus imposed on her by main force, for not to earthly princes has the Lord consigned the election of His Vicar upon Earth. But Silverius, who had been an utter stranger to the violence used on his personal account, was in reality a man in every way fitted to the supreme pontificate. Therefore, when the Roman clergy became free to act, they had no wish to withdraw from him their adhesion, until then certainly disputable. From that moment undoubtedly, Silverius could not but be Head of the Church, the true successor of Agapitus, the Lord’s Elect. In the midst of a period thronged with snares, he proved how well he understood the exigencies of duty in his exalted office, and preferred an exile which would eventually cost him his life, to the abandoning of a post wherein the Holy Ghost had truly placed him. Holy Church gratefully bears witness to this, in her short eulogy of him; and the army of Martyrs opened their ranks to receive him, when death at length struck the Pontiff in his land of exile.

Silverius was a native of Campania, and succeeded Agapitus in the Papacy. His doctrine and holiness shone forth in his pursuing of heretics; and his strength of soul, in his firmness regarding the upholding of the sentence passed by Agapitus. Agapitus had deposed Anthimus, from the Patriarchate of Constantinople for defending the heresy of Eutyches; and Silverius would never allow of his restoration, although the Empress Theodora repeatedly asked him to do so.

The woman was enraged at him, on this account, and ordered Belisarius to send Silverius into exile. He was accordingly banished to the Island of Ponza, whence, it is said, he wrote these words to Bishop Amator: “I am fed upon the bread of tribulation, and the water of affliction, but nevertheless, I have not given up, and I will not give up, doing my duty.” Soon indeed, worn out by grief and suffering, he slept in the Lord, on the twelfth of the Kalends of July: His body being taken to Rome, was laid in the Vatican Basilica and was made illustrious by numerous miracles. He ruled the Church for more than three years, and ordained in the month of December, thirteen priests, five deacons, and nineteen bishops for divers sees.

The waters of tribulation passed indeed over your soul, holy Pontiff. Your persecutors were not pagan Caesars: nor was it even (as in the case of John I who so shortly preceded you on the papal throne and in the arena of martyrdom), a heretical prince that over-powered you with sectarian hatred. No, a worthless woman having in her service treason emanating from the very Sanctuary was your oppressor. Even before death had done its work in you, there was to be found a son of yours coveting your dominion, heavy though such a burden was. But how could man rend asunder the indissoluble bond that bound you to Holy Church? The usurper could but be an intruder until such time as the all-powerful merits of your glorious death had obtained the transformation of the hireling into the legitimate Pastor, and had made this Vigilius become the heir of your own courage. Thus did the Invisible Head of the Church permit to Hell’s confusion that ambition should carry scandals even into the very Holy of Holies. The unshaken Faith of nations, in the age in which you lived, suffered nothing from all this, and the light resulting from these lamentable facts would but all the better serve to teach future ages that the personal character of a Pope, no, even his faults, cannot in any way affect the heavenly prerogative assured by God to the Vicar of His Christ. Keep up within us, dear Saint, the fruit of these teachings. If the Faithful be but well penetrated with true principles, they will never see waning in them that respect due to God in His representatives, whoever or whatever they may be, and scandal, no matter from where it comes, will be powerless to trammel their faith. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, June 20.)

Men and their nations need the Holy Catholic Faith in all of Its holy purity and integrity to know the peace of the Divine Redeemer that runs from the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary to His own Most Sacred Heart, Which we revere in a special manner during this month of June:

Queen of the most holy Rosary, help of Christians, refuge of the human race, victorious in all the battles of God, we prostrate ourselves in supplication before thy throne, in the sure hope of obtaining mercy and of receiving grace and timely aid in our present calamities, not through any merits of our own on which we do not rely, but only through the immense goodness of thy mother’s Heart. In Thee and in thy Immaculate Heart, at this grave hour of human history, do we put our trust; to thee we consecrate ourselves, not only with all of Holy Church, which is the mystical body of thy Son Jesus, and which is suffering in so many of her members, being persecuted, but also with the whole world, torn by discords, agitated with the hatred, the victim of its own iniquities. Be thou moved by the sight of such material and moral degradation, such sorrows, such anguish, so many tormented souls in danger of eternal loss! Do thou, O Mother of mercy, obtain for us from God a Christ-like reconciliation of the nations, as well as those graces which can convert the souls of men in an instant, those graces which prepare the way and make certain the long desired coming of peace on earth. O Queen of peace, pray for us, and grant unto the world in the truth, the justice, and the charity of Christ. Above all, give us peace in our hearts, so that the kingdom of God, may spread it the tranquility of order. Accord thy protection to unbelievers and to all those who lie in the shadow of death; cause the Sun of Truth to rise upon them; may they enabled to join with us in repeating before the Saviour of the world: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to men of good will.” Give peace to the nations that are separated us from error or discord, and in a special manner to those peoples who profess a singular devotion toward thee; bring them back to Christ’s one fold, under the one true Shepherd. Obtain full freedom for the holy Church of God; defend her from her enemies; check the ever-increasing torrent of immorality; arouse in the faithful a practical love of purity, a practical Christian life, and an apostolic zeal, so that the number of those who serve God may increase in merit and in number. Finally, even as the Church and all mankind were once consecrated to the Heart of thy Son Jesus, because He was for all those who put their hope in Him an inexhaustible source of victory and salvation, so in like manner do we consecrate ourselves forever to thee also and to thy Immaculate Heart, Of Mother us and Queen of the world; may thy love and patronage hasten the day when the kingdom of God shall be victorious and all the nations, at peace with God and with one another, shall call thee blessed and intone with thee, from the rising of the sun to its going down, the everlasting “Magnificat” of glory, of love, of gratitude to the Heart of Jesus in which we alone can find truth, life, and peace. (Pope Pius XII, Rescript from the Secretariat of State, November 17, 1942, document exhibited, November 19, 1942, The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 345-347.)

The world is more a victim of its own iniquities, more torn with discords and more agitated by hatreds than it was when eighty-four years ago during the height of World War II when Pope Pius XII wrote his prayer of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Men and their nations are adrift as they become more and more divided as a result of the proliferation of errors that receive the sanction the civil law and the applause of “opinion makers” and as men, steeped in a variety of what Mortal Sins in the objective order things, run amok in the belief that living as beasts will not hurt themselves and their nations, no less the entire world.

Conscious of the need to make reparation for our own many sins that have worsened the state of the world-at-large and the Church Militant on earth far more that we would care to accept or admit  and consecrated, therefore, to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and turning to Our August Queen of Heaven through her Most Holy Rosary, may we beg Our Lady to usher in the day when a true pope will be restored to the Throne of Saint Peter and all men, united in the bonds of true unity, peace, and salvation found only in the Catholic Church, will exclaim:

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.

Our Lady of  the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Pope Saint Silverius, pray for us.