Roe v. Wade Has Been Gone for Four Years; Baby-Killings Continue to Increase

It was four years, four days ago that I began the following series of commentaries after the Supreme Court of the United States of America issued its decision in the case of Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi Health Officer v. Jackson Women’s Organization on June 24, 2022, the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist: Roe v. Wade is Gone, Baby-Killing Will Continue, part one, Roe v. Wade is Gone, Baby-Killing Will Continue, part two, and Roe v. Wade is Gone, Baby-Killing Will Continue, part three. Sadly, but oh so predictably, the title of this series of articles was very accurate:

(LifeSiteNews) — Four years ago today, Roe v. Wade died, predeceased by over 65 million preborn children. On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, overturning the ruling that had mandated legal abortion in all 50 states.

Within weeks, near-total abortion bans had gone into effect in Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. An additional four states — Georgia, Iowa, Florida, and South Carolina — now have six-week “heartbeat” bans on the books. Twenty-eight states ban abortion at later stages. All these laws were impossible under Roe.

That is the good news. The bad news is that abortion rates have gone up rather than down since Roe fell. The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, estimates 930,160 abortions in the United States in 2020. In 2025, they estimated 1,126,000 abortions nationwide. This is up starkly from the lowest point since 1973, an estimated 862,000 abortions in 2017. Roe is gone, but the bloodbath continues.

A key reason for these grim numbers is the decision of the Biden administration’s FDA to temporarily lift the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone (the abortion pill) during Covid in April 2021, a change that became permanent in January 2023. Once people no longer had to go into a clinic or hospital to get abortion pills from a certified prescriber, abortionists set up a massive network of mail-order abortion pill dispensaries.

Biden’s Covid era rule — which the Trump administration has refused to rescind — has essentially nullified laws in pro-life states, permitting a network of abortion organizations to mail deadly pills from abortion states to pro-life states. This has triggered a series of lawsuits from pro-life states like Louisiana and Texas against abortion states like New York, which have in turn passed “sanctuary” laws protecting abortionists from being extradited and tried for violating state laws.

President Donald Trump has insisted that Dobbs sent abortion back to the states, which it did — in theory. But pro-life laws have been rendered largely unenforceable. Additionally, Trump has condemned heartbeat laws as “too harsh” and combined boasting about his first-term pro-life record with a refusal to work with the pro-life movement in his second term. The Trump FDA even quietly approved another generic abortion pill last year.

Abortion activists were also far more prepared for the overturn of Roe than pro-life activists anticipated. What came next was a series of bruising state-level referendums. Eleven states voted for constitutional amendments protecting abortion; pro-lifers won in Florida (narrowly preserving the state’s heartbeat law), Nebraska (voters approved a measure banning abortion at 12 weeks), and South Dakota (voters decisively rejected an abortion amendment). The victories — especially Florida — have given pro -lifers a playbook for future referendums, but the defeats were politically devastating. (Four years after fall of Roe, abortion rate is on the rise despite pro-life gains.)

This article quoted just above somewhat sanitizes the truth about President Donald John Trump’s personal involvement in supporting “exceptions” to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law that prohibit the direct, intentional taking of innocent human life; his support for the immoral practice of in vitro fertilization and contraception; and his belief that returning matter of baby-killing may be decided by state legislatures or by the people acting by means of a referendum.

Wrong.

No human being, whether acting on his own or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance or, in this instance, in a referendum put to them for their vote in an election, has any authority of God to dispense with any precept of the Divine Positive Law and/or the Natural Law, including the absolute inviolability of all innocent human life.

Period.

Moreover, as we know, Donald John Trump has not only not rescinded the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce the Comstock Law, he has actively boasted about keeping the human pesticide, mifepristone, thoroughly legal and available to women through the United States Postal Service in full violation of the following provisions of the United States Code that he has a constitutional duty to enforce:

The Comstock Act (Title 18, Section 1461 of the United States Code, which was signed into law by President Ulysses Simpson Grant on March 3, 1873) states the following:

1461. Mailing obscene or crime-inciting matter

Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance; and-

Every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and

Every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and

Every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, or how, or from whom, or by what means any of such mentioned matters, articles, or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed, or how or by what means abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed; and

Every paper, writing, advertisement, or representation that any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and

Every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing-

Is declared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier.

Whoever knowingly uses the mails for the mailing, carriage in the mails, or delivery of anything declared by this section or section 3001(e) of title 39 to be nonmailable, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, or knowingly takes any such thing from the mails for the purpose of circulating or disposing thereof, or of aiding in the circulation or disposition thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, for the first such offense, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, for each such offense thereafter.

The term "indecent", as used in this section includes matter of a character tending to incite arson, murder, or assassination. (18 USC 1461: Mailing obscene or crime-inciting matter.)

As should be well known by now, President Donald John announced during his third campaign for the presidency in 2024 that, if elected, his second administration would not enforce the Comstock Act to prevent the mailing of the human pesticide, the abortion pill, through the United States Postal Service, and Dr. Marty Makary, the director of the United States Food and Drug Administration is dragging his feet on concluding a study about the safety of the mifepristone for women, a study that is entirely superfluous and irrelevant as mifepristone is deadly for innocent preborn children and thus proscribed by the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment and, of course, the Natural Law that is written on the very flesh of human hearts.

The current Trump administration is not only refusing to enforce the Comstock Act, but its Department of Justice is suing the State of Louisiana other states to prevent them from enforcing the law on their respective jurisdictions.

Thus, it is no exaggeration to state that the current administration of President Donald John Trump bears much, although certainly not all, of the responsibility for the rise in the number of chemical killings of innocent babies in the past seventeen months and there is no sanitizing this fact for the sake of being “nice” to the vainglorious carnival barker in the White House who loves to gild everything he can with gold and to fasten his name and his image so universally as to conjure up images of genuine authoritarians while babies are being because of his administration’s refusal to enforce Federl law.

No country be made “great” without a due submission to Christ the King and His Holy Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good of souls, something that has never been the case this country’s two hundred fifty years of existence.

Indeed, many of its founders rejoiced that they had rejected what Thomas Jefferson called “monkish superstition” and what James Madison said was “that engine of grief,” Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s Holy Cross:

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. (President John Adams: "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," 1787-1788)

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

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

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

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."—James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr„ April I, 1774

". . . Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which pervades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest."—James Madison, spoken at the Virginia convention on ratification of the Constitution, June 1778

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."—-James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance," addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, 1785

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

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

The proximate root cause of the decay in American life and culture that we has become so manifest in recent decade is the fact that the false premises of the American founding that have led jurists and politicians to make as much short work of the text of the Constitution as the plain words of Holy Writ have been made by the Scriptural and dogmatic relativism that Protestantism let loose on the world nearly five hundred years ago. The framers of the American Constitution were but the victims of Protestantism's revolution against the objective nature of Revealed Truth.

The men who framed the Constitution of the United States of America were products of the Protestant Revolt and of the so-called Age of Reason (or Enlightenment). They accepted without question the belief that it was possible for men of divergent religious beliefs–or the lack thereof–to work together reasonably for the common good without referencing any one church as the foundation of a country’s civil order. They believed further in the heresy of semi-Pelagianism, which contends that men have enough inherent grace in themselves to be good, that we do not need belief, in access to or cooperation with sanctifying grace to be virtuous. The framers of the Constitution believed that men of “civic virtue” would present themselves for public service and would, after a long process of compromise, negotiation and bargaining amongst the diverse interests and opinions represented in the United States Congress, make decisions that redounded to the common good (see, for example, James Madison, The Federalist, Numbers 10 and 51).

James Madison himself quite specifically believed that there was no one “opinion” that could unite men of such divergent backgrounds as found themselves in the United States of America at the end of the Eighteenth Century. Thus, a dialectical process of conflict amongst divergent interests (religious, sectional, economic, occupational) had to be created to force those who took positions that constituted a majority “view” at any time to at least consider the viewpoints of those who were in the minority of a given issue. In this way, Madison reasoned, whatever majorities emerged in Congress on any piece of legislation would be transient, indigenous to one particular issue at one particular time, and sensitive to and concerned about the rights of those who disagreed with them. Such a system, which was premised on the exercise of statesmanship on the part of those elected to serve in Congress and as President, would create the “extended commercial republic” where no one person or interest could predominate on all issues at all times.

The institutional arrangements created to effect this “extended commercial republic” were very complex. A division of powers between the central government and the state governments (Federalism). A separation of powers amongst the three branches of the central government involving a number of checks and balances. Different powers given to each of the two chambers of the Congress (bicameralism). Staggered elections for the members of the United States Senate, a body whose members were elected by state legislatures until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Popular election originally of only one body, the House of Representatives. A President elected by electors appointed by whatever method deemed best by state legislatures. All of this was supposed to produce a tension that resulted in internal safeguards to prevent, although not absolutely make impossible, the abuse of power and the rise of the tyranny of the majority.

There is only one little problem with this schemata: it was premised on the belief that matters of civil governance do not have to be founded in a reliance on the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord has entrusted to His true Church and that the Church herself has no role to play to serve as the ultimate, divinely-instituted check on the abuse of temporal governmental power. It was difficult enough for the Church at times during the Middle Ages, when she exercised the Social Reign of Christ the King, to restrain certain rulers. It is impossible for any purely human institution to restrain the vagaries of fallen human nature over the course of time. Men who are not mindful of their First Cause and their Last End as He has revealed Himself solely through His true Church will descend to their lower natures sooner rather than later.

This has been and will always be a system of false opposites, and the only way out of this system runs through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary as her Divine Son will not leave the shedding of innocent blood unavenged:

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.) 

We must continue to pray very fervently for President Trump's conversion to the Catholic Faith before he dies. 

Remember, every Ave Maria we pray helps us to prepare for the hour of our deaths as we seek to repair the damage caused by our sins and those of the whole world. May we be generous in praying our Rosaries as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, remembering, as true Charity demands, to pray fervently for the conversion of the conciliar revolutionaries before they die. We must never be unbent in our own sins, and we must never be unaware of how we must give God the honor and glory that are His due as members of the Catholic Church who have fled to the catacombs to seek to sanctify an thus save our immortal souls.

Praying Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary for our fellow Catholics, many of whom put fully traditional Catholics to shame insofar as modesty of attire and rejection of the popular culture are concerned, is the most efficacious means to help them to see the truth of the state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal, and we had better remember that seeing the truth of the papal vacancy during this time of apostasy and betrayal does not make us one whit better than anyone else.

Indeed, the biggest mess of them all is the one might exist right within our own immortal souls, which is why we must make frequent use of the Sacred Tribunal of Penance if it is all possible to do so during this time of apostasy and betrayal. We must pray to Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, that her Divine Son will give us the length of days necessary to clean up the mess we have made by means of our sloth, our anger, our impatience, our of lack of charity, our rash judgments, our harshness, our unwillingness to forgive others, our holding of grudges and stewing over offenses or dangers, real and/or imagined, to say nothing of our gossiping and time wasted on the farcical agitations of this passing, mortal vale of tears.

In truth, of course, most of us are the worst enemies of our salvation, and while none of us will be called to clean up the mess in the Church Militant on earth that has been created by the conciliar revolutionaries, we have to be about the business of cleaning up the mess that we have made of our lives by means of our sins, which have played their own nefarious roles in worsening both the state of the world at large and the state of the Church Militant.

On the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost and the  Commemorated Feast of Saint Irenaeus

Today, Sunday, June 28, 2026, is the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saint Irenaeus.

Father Francis X. Weninger’s third sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost challenges us to promote the cause of the Catholic Faith above all else in our personal lives and in our lives as citizens:

"Unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."--Matt. 5.

How earnest is the admonition of Christ in today's Gospel! It is a threat of the coming Judge: "You shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." What a threat, did it even only concern the loss of heaven; for, what a pitiful state not to see God, not to be united to Him, and not to partake of His infinite bliss ; to be deprived of the communion of the angels and saints, and of the possession and enjoyment of all created pleasures! This is not all, how ever; for, if we enter not heaven, what remains to us? Answer: "Hell!"--Great God, what a threat!

How important it is, therefore, for us to know what our justice must be to surpass that of the Pharisees, and give us the right and the hope to gain heaven, and escape the danger of eternal destruction! I say: to comprehend this, we need only consider the opposite of what Christ blames the Pharisees for, namely: If we practice those virtues which are the opposite of the faults and sins of the Pharisees, our justice will be greater than theirs, and will not be hypocrisy, but truth. O Mary, thou who, with the entire truthfulness of thy love to God, didst fulfill His holy will, bless our longing to secure our salvation by the practice of true justice! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

Hypocrisy is that for which Christ especially reproaches the Pharisees; that they endeavor to appear other than they really are, and that they do not love truth. Already the forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist, called them "vipers," and in a like manner the complaint and reproach of another John, St. John the Evangelist, is addressed to them, when he says: "Men loved darkness rather than the light." Why? "Because," as Christ says, "their works were evil." They were whited sepulchers. Behold now, on the contrary, in what justice consists, that true justice which opens the gates of heaven to us!

It is the love of truth and the desire to know it, to put it in practice with candor and simplicity of soul. He who seeks truth earnestly will find it, and when he has found it he will prize it highly, and will open his heart that it may therein find an abode. Hence, St. Paul, speaking of the armor of God, mentions, especially, the girdle of truth. To understand more clearly how important is the love of truth, we have only to think how powerful is the influence on our lives of those truths that holy faith places before our eyes in regard to our last aim and end, what a light they shed upon our path, and how potent are the means of salvation which God has given the children of His Church to serve Him truly, and to fulfill with determination, energy and fidelity, His most holy will!

But that this effect may in reality be produced, we must not confess the truths of our holy faith only with the lips, but we must ponder them with earnest attention. Jeremias already complained: "With desolation is all the land made desolate; because there is none that considereth in his heart." How powerfully holy faith would admonish us to follow Christ with the zeal of the saints, did we but seek truth with a yearning heart! "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile," said Christ of Nathanael. Would to God that this could be said of every child of the holy Church; but alas, in this respect many are woefully deficient!

We believe, but we do not consider earnestly enough the influence faith ought to exercise upon our lives, in order that our belief may be meritorious, and our lives correspond with it. The life of the Pharisees was a life of habit, it was a life which rested on the appearance rather than on the practice of virtue. They contented themselves with fulfilling the letter of the law, and neglected the spirit thereof.

Quite different should our life and our justice be. Unfortunately, this is not very often the case with unspiritual Christians. They live outwardly, from habit, a Christian life. They pray from habit. They hear Mass from habit. They receive the Sacraments, but all only from habit. The soul of a Christian, acting from mere routine, is benighted; he hardly thinks what sources and means of divine grace all these acts of piety embrace for the faithful imitation of Christ and the working out of eternal salvation.

The life of Christ gave offense to the Pharisees--they observed it, but did not dream of taking it for their model. We, as Christians, should do exactly the contrary. The life of Christ, the example of His virtues, should be the model and rule of our whole lives, from the cradle to the grave. The righteousness of the Pharisees knew no such guide. The Pharisees were pleased to parade their piety about, and to pray in the streets. Such a prayer was surely no elevation of the heart to God, no intercourse, no union with God, but a soulless motion of the lips.

Shall our prayer be genuine, and our justice work the sanctification of our lives? then we must follow the admonition of Christ: If you will pray, lock yourself in your closet and pray in secret and with a collected spirit. That we may thus truly and effectively pray, we must approach the Lord personally in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We must go to Him, and say in the words and with the feelings of the Apostles: "Master, teach us how to pray." Happy those who act thus; they will find in their life the truth of the words of St. Augustine: "He who prays well, lives well."

Besides prayer, we also need the spirit of mortification in order to follow Christ. The Pharisees contented themselves with corporal fasting; but if our justice is to be greater than theirs, then we must not only restrain our appetite for food, but must live, in general, in a spirit of Christian self-abnegation. We must fast with the eyes, the ears; in fact, with all our senses, and must practice with the greatest diligence interior mortification.

The Pharisees were filled with self-love, and puffed up with self-esteem on account of their justice. They knew nothing of love for their neighbor from the love of God. We must practice with deep humility corporal and spiritual works of mercy, from love of God and our neighbor, if our justice is to exceed theirs. The Pharisees, further, allowed no occasion to pass of laboring in opposition to Christ, and undermining His work.

Shall our justice be greater than theirs? then we must support the Church of Christ, and endeavor to disseminate and defend her as much as possible. How many an opportunity to do this every one of us has, if he only desires earnestly, as a true child of the Church, to interest himself in her welfare and propagation! Zeal for souls! what a pledge of that justice which will open to us the gates of heaven! Christian, how is your heart affected by this sermon? Does it concern you? Is your justice greater in every point than that of the Pharisees?

This final question your own conscience must answer! Amen! (Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., Third Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost.)

Father Weninger also composed the following reflection about the life and work of the great Saint Irenaeus, a Church Father who fought Gnosticism and sought diligently to bring all men into the bosom of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no truly just social order within nations nor an enduring peace among them:

St. Irenasus, one of the earliest and most renowned Fathers of the Church, was born in Asia, and placed under the charge of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, a disciple of St. John, the Evangelist. Under this holy teacher, Irenasus made such progress in virtue and sacred science, that he was by him ordained priest and sent to Lyons, in France, to preach the Gospel of Christ to the heathens, and to assist the persecuted Christians. On his arrival after a most tedious voyage, he began at once to discharge the duties of his function with truly apostolic zeal. To the heathens he preached the Gospel of the Lord, and bore testimony to it with many miracles; hence almost all, who had not yet embraced Christianity, became believers in the true God. The Christians, who had to surfer persecution, he encouraged to remain constant in their faith in the midst of their tortures. After the persecution of the faithful had somewhat subsided, Photinus, Bishop of Lyons, sent him to Rome, to get the solution of several questions and doubts which the Christians of that city had addressed to Eleutherius, who at that period was Pope. The latter received Irenaeus with great joy, as he had been informed of his zeal, and gave him the answers to all questions and doubts. On this occasion, Ireneus watched carefully all the ceremonies which were performed at Rome, and acquainted himself with the ancient traditions which had been left there by the Apostles, that he might be able to introduce them at Lyons.

Meanwhile the holy bishop Photinus, received the crown of Martyrdom at Lyons, and Irenaeus, on his return, was chosen to fill the vacant See. Having taken upon himself this heavy and dangerous burden, he employed all his efforts to gather his flock, which, partly discouraged by long persecutions, had dispersed hither and thither. He encouraged the despondent, strengthened the wavering, raised the fallen, consoled the sorrowful, instructed the ignorant, and comforted the needy, both by words and deeds. After having thus, in every way, bettered the condition of his Church, he sent several excellent and zealous priests to the neighboring cities and villages, charging them to convert the inhabitants, who were idolaters, to the faith of Christ, which, to the salvation of numberless souls, was happily effected.

Satan, unable to bear the success of the holy bishop's endeavors, sent the two notorious arch-heretics, Marcion and Valentine, into the neighborhood of Lyons, to sow the seeds of their heresy among the newly converted. The Saint, however, manifested no less watchfulness in protecting the faithful, than solicitude in converting the heathens. He not only disclosed and refuted, in his sermons, the falsehood of the doctrines which were disseminated by these heretics, but he also used the pen against them, and wrote several learned books, in which he placed the truth of the apostolic faith and the errors of heresy so clearly before the eyes of every one, that no heretics dared further to disturb the peace of his flock with their wicked doctrines. The faithful were strengthened to such a degree in their belief by these works, that, in a persecution which took place later, they preferred to sacrifice their lives, rather than depart in the least from the precepts of their Church.

The heroic constancy of so many Christians has been most justly ascribed to the indefatigable zeal of Irenaeus. It was also the result of his endeavors, that several bishops, who had forsaken the Pope, returned to him, and that others remained obedient to the holy Father. Victor, the holy Pope, had decided that the Christians should not celebrate Easter on the same day as the Jews; but, according to a verbal direction of St. Peter, on a Sunday. Many bishops in the East had adopted a different rule for the celebration of the feast, and would not alter it. Irenaeus exhorted all, in several letters, to be obedient to the Church at Rome, as the mother and instructress of all the other Churches. The high esteem in which the holiness and erudition of Irenasus was held by every one, was the cause that almost all the refractory Bishops submitted to the judgment of the Pope.

After this and many more labors of St. Irenaeus for the Church of Christ and for the salvation of souls, a new persecution of the Christians arose in the reign of the Emperor Severus. So many were executed in Lyons, that according to the language of St. Gregory, Bishop of Tours, the streets were overflowed with blood. And among those who thus testified with their lives to Christ's teachings, was also St Irenaeus. He taught by his example what he had so often preached to his fold, namely, to suffer the most cruel martyrdom rather than abandon the true faith. The body of this Saint was buried by Zachary, a Priest, and was always kept in great honor, until the year 1562, when Lyons was besieged and taken by the Huguenots. They tore the holy relics out of the tomb where they rested and threw them into a well, while they cast the head, after treating it most indecently, into a pit. The head was, however, found after some time and publicly exposed to receive due honor.

To this short life of St. Irenaeus we will add a few words concerning the holy Bishop Benno, who is recorded in the Roman Martyrology on the 16th day of this month. He was born at Hildesheim, in the year 1010. His parents were Frederic of Bultenberg and Bezela, a very pious woman. Under the direction of Wiger, who was in charge of the celebrated Church of St. Michael, Benno was instructed most perfectly, not only in the Christian religion, but also in the liberal arts. When he had arrived at manhood, his father desired him to perpetuate their noble name by marriage, but Benno evinced more inclination for a religious life, and after the death of his father, entered a Benedictine monastery. In this school of virtue he became such a model of sanctity, that, after a few years, he was elected successor of the late Abbot; but resigned the dignity after three months, desiring to serve God in more quiet retirement. His tranquillity, however, was much sooner disturbed than he had anticipated; for, in accordance with the Emperor's request, Pope Leo IX. made him Provost of the College at Gosslar, and afterwards, in the 56th year of his age, bishop of Meissen. He filled that see during forty years in such a manner, that he gained the reputation of great holiness. He visited his entire diocese every year, preached in every place and thereby greatly benefited his flock.

Besides this, he brought the Vandals, who had remained in France, and had been badly instructed in the Christian faith, from their errors, to perfect submission to all the articles of the faith of the Catholic Church. He earned still greater praise by the invincible fortitude he manifested when Henry IV. persecuted Pope Gregory VII. and endeavored to raise all the bishops against him. Benno, fearing God more than the Emperor, defended the just cause of the Pope, and fearlessly forbade the Margrave of Meissen to enter into the Church, as he and the Emperor, with all their followers, were excommunicated by the Pope. After this, he set out on his journey to the Council convoked by the Pope; but threw the keys of his church into the Elbe, that they might not fall into the hands of the excommunicated. The Emperor had him taken prisoner on his return, but only for a short time. The day he was set free, a large fish was caught in the Elbe, in which the keys were found which the Saint had thrown into the water. Greatly rejoicing over this event, the holy bishop acquitted himself of his sacred charge with renewed zeal.

He benefited his flock greatly by his unwearied endeavors, and was greatly esteemed, not only on account of his holy life, but also on account of the many miracles which he wrought by the grace of the Almighty. Among other things, it is said that he walked over the Elbe without wetting his feet; that, to refresh the laborers in the field, he changed water into wine; and at another time, he caused a spring of fresh water to break forth out of the ground. He was also seen at two different and widely separated places at the same time, and also restored health to many invalids. When he was in the 40th year of his sacred office, he felt the approach of death, and having prepared himself most carefully to appear before God, he exhorted all near him to continue in the right path; and while praying, closed his eyes to the light of this world to open them in heaven.

After his death, more miracles were wrought by his intercession than during his life-time. These continued until the time of Charles V., who requested the Apostolic See to canonize the holy Bishop. This ceremony was performed by Pope Adrian VI., with the usual solemnities. Martin Luther, who felt that the miracles and holiness of Benno refuted his doctrines, wrote a sacreligious book under the title: "Against the new idol and old devil, who is to be exalted at Meissen." The maligant slanderer did not, howerer, gain his end. The holy relics were duly honored by all the faithful, as long as the Catholic religion was tolerated at Meissen. But when John, the last Catholic Bishop of the city, feared that the heretics might dishonor them, he transported them, at the request of Duke Albert, to Munich, where they are venerated at this day in the Church of Our Lady. Many volumes have been filled with the relations of the benefits which God has bestowed upon those who asked the intercession of Saint Benno.

Practical Considerations

Our two Bishops lived in the Catholic Church, in that Church which is called Roman, or Papal. Their lives are an incontestible proof of it: in it they gained salvation. They died in this Church and went to everlasting peace. Of not a single man, from the time of Christ until now, who died out of the pale of the Catholic Church, can it be proved that he died holy and saved his soul. May this convince you that the Catholic Church alone is the true Church of Christ. Alone, I say; for there is only one true Church of Christ, as there is only one true God, one true Christ, one true faith. This only true Church is the Catholic Church, as Christ our Lord has founded that, and no other Church. It is further an undeniable fact that she was the first Christian Church, which recognizes no other founder but Christ. She has the infallible marks of the true Church, as she is one, holy, Catholic and apostolic. No other Church on the face of the earth can give this evidence of herself. Hence the Catholic Church alone is the true Church. To say, that she was at first the true Church, but ceased to be so, because she had fallen into error and superstition, makes Christ a liar; for, He has said that the gates of hell should not prevail against the Church He would build. (Matth. xvi.) If, therefore, the Catholic Church was, according to the non-catholics, at first the true Church, then she must still be the same, and remain so until the end of time.

What is to be concluded from this? That we can be saved only in the Catholic Church: an important truth, which we ought to imprint deeply into our innermost heart! Whoever is a member of this Church, may well give thanks to God for the grace, and remain in it. Whoever is not one of her children, should follow St. Augustine, who says: "They ought to come to the true Church of Christ that is, to the Catholic Mother." For, the words of St. Cyprian are and will remain true: "As, at the time of the flood, no man could be saved except in the Ark of Noah; so also we cannot be saved except in the pale of the true Church." (Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., Reflection on Saint Irenaeus, June 28.)

Baby-killing not only remains “legal” in most states but has increased in numbers in the past four years for the same basic reason as it became institutionalized in various states in the late-1960s and then nationally in 1973: the denial of the Sovereignty of Christ the King over men and their nations that brought about divorce and remarriage, thanks at first to Martin Luther and Henry VIII and then spread by the forces of Judeo-Masonry three centuries later, contraception, surgical baby-killing, sterilization, in vitro fertilization, “brain death”/human organ vivisection, the starvation and dehydration of human beings said to be brain-damaged, and “palliative care”/ “comfort care”/hospice, direct euthanasia and “medical assistance in dying,” to say nothing of the pestilential spread and public celebration of sodomy and its never-ceasing mutation of perversities.

Donald John Trump may never learn that lesson but is well past time for us to learn it and to be kept from the temptation to be “nice” to those who enable the genocide of the preborn even though they say they are “pro-life.”

May Our Lady of the Rosary help us now and ever to fulfill our duties as citizens to restore all things in Christ and His Holy Church according the following exhortations of Pope Leo XIII and Saint Pius X:

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

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

This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests. 

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker – the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Viva Cristo Rey!

We must remember these words that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Our King, spoke to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque:

"I will reign in spite of all who oppose Me." (quoted in: The Right Reverend Emile Bougaud. The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, reprinted by TAN Books and Publishers in 1990, p. 361.)

Yes, Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us. 

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.