"Respect and Consideration" For Fidel Castro?

Going just a step or two beyond what “Saint John Paul” or “Pope Benedict XVI” did upon their own respective visits to Cuba in 1998 and 2012, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, aka “Pope Francis,” expressed his “respect” for a mass murdering Marxist-Leninist thug, Fidel Castro, doing so when giving his welcoming address upon arriving at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba, on Saturday, September 19, 2015, the Feast of Saint Januarius and the Commemorations of Ember Saturday in September and of the Vigil of Saint Matthew the Apostle.

Here what Jorge Mario Bergoglio said upon his arrival in Havana, Cuba, a nation that has been imprisoned by the torturing likes of Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who succeeded him as President of the Council of the Ministers of Cuba on February 24, 2008:

My gratitude also goes to Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana, the Most Reverend Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba and President of the Episcopal Conference, the other bishops and all the Cuban people, for their warm welcome.

I thank, too, all those who worked to prepare for this Pastoral Visit.  Mr President, I would ask you to convey my sentiments of particular respect and consideration to your brother Fidel.  I would like my greeting to embrace especially all those who, for various reasons, I will not be able to meet, and to Cubans throughout the world. (Antipope Jorge rrives in Cuba, encourages reconciliation.)

Respect for Fidel Castro?

Respect for an avowed Marxist-Leninist?

Respect for a mass murdering atheist?

Respect for a man who personally sanctioning the execution of “counter-revolutionaries” before he overthrew the government of the corrupt military dictator named Fulgencio Battista on January 1, 1959, and who regularly imprisoned, tortured and imprisoned political dissidents?

Respect for a man who made atheism the official policy of the island discovered by none other than Christopher Columbus, a fact that was noted none other than Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II upon his own arrival in Havana on January 21, 1998, the Feast of Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr?

1. I thank God, the Lord of history and of our personal destinies, that he has enabled me to come to this land which Christopher Columbus called "the most beautiful that human eyes have seen". Arriving on this island, where the cross of Christ was raised over 500 years ago — the same cross zealously treasured today in the parish church of Baracoa, in the extreme eastern part of the country — I greet everyone with warm affection. (Welcome ceremony at the Airport of Havana, January 21, 1998.)

Yes, the Polish Modernist and Phenomenologist expressed his thanks as he sent his greetings to Fidel Castro before launching into the same bilge of a “dialogue of encounter” that Ratzinger propagated in 2012 and that Bergoglio is advocating anew at this time. He did not, though, express “respect” for the eighty-nine year-old Fidel Castro. Jorge has thus sprung one of his “surprises” by expressing words of warmth, if not admiration, for the amoral atheist named Fidel Castro, and he got an opportunity to meet with the object of his admiration yesterday, Sunday, September 20, 2015, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saint Eustachius and his Companions:

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday met with former Cuban president Fidel Castro, shortly after celebrating Mass in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución. The 30-40 minute meeting took place in Fidel Castro's home, with his wife, children, and grandchildren also present at the encounter.

Pope Francis gave Castro several books,  including one by Italian priest Alessandro Pronzato and another by Spanish Jesuit Segundo Llorentea. The Holy Father also gave him a book and two CDs of his homilies, as well as his two encyclical letters, Lumen Fidei and Laudato si'.

In return, Castro gave Pope Francis an interview book entitled, "Fidel and Religion," written in 1985 by Brazilian priest Frei Betto. The dedication reads: "For Pope Francis, on occasion of his visit to Cuba, with the admiration and respect of the Cuban people."

The head of the Vatican Press Office, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "familiar and informal," and the two men spoke about "protecting the environment and the great problems of the contemporary world."

Father Lombardi compared the private encounter to that which took place with Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, saying Fidel Castro asked Pope Benedict many questions, while Sunday's meeting with Pope Francis was "more of a conversation." (Jorge Meets Mass Murderer Fidel Castro.)

There will be many in the “conservative” and semi-traditional blogosphere who will claim that Bergoglio is attempting to convert Fidel Castro by giving him a book written by a former teacher of his, Father Segundo Llorentea, S. J., whom Castro sent into exile shortly after he overthrew Battista in 1959, a little fact ignored by the news report from the Vatican Propaganda Office, and a compact disc with Fathr Llorentea’s voice. Such a contention, however would fall into the “nice try” category as any such “conversion” would be premised upon Fidel Castro’s coming to understand that there is little difference between his version of “social justice” and Jorge’s own beliefs, which is why the false “pope” gave the Jesuit-educated butcher a copy of Laudato Si, May 24, 2015, and Evangelii Gaudium, November 26, 2013. To believe that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is attempting to “convert” Fidel Castro to what almost everyone alive today believes is the Catholic Church and to abjure his support for Marxism-Leninism, is illusory.

(I know as I held out held such an illusory belief when Fidel Castro visited the Basilica of Saint Peter in November of 1996 at a time when I was there myself. The basilica was closed for Castro’s visit, and I saw his motorcade whisking him away following his meeting with Wojtyla/John Paul II. As the old murderer from Cuba said that visit to the Basilica of Saint Peter had stirred up sentiments within him that he had felt sentiments stirred up within him that he had not experienced since he had a been a boy, I believed that a “papal” trip to Cuba might bring about a conversion. A traditional Catholic who read my report in The Wanderer told me that I would come to regret what I had written. Well, needless to say, I did come to regret having held out such false hope and putting the illusion in print. I know that I have much for which to make reparation. I know.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has no problem with Marxism-Leninism per se as he himself is influenced by its tenets of “social justice” in the name of “liberation theology. This is the point that he is trying to make with Fidel Castro by giving him his own writing to demonstrate that “contemporary Catholicisim” is not at all what he was taught by Father Segundo Llorentea, S.J., over seventy years ago now.

Lest anyone attempt to claim that Bergoglio sermon during the extravaganza false liturgy yesterday, which was staged directly under the seven-story high metal sculpture image of the likeness of the mass murdering Communist guerilla fighter named Che Guevera (see The Truth About Che Guevera), was a rebuke of Communism, permit me to burst that balloon as well.

Here is the relevant passage from Jorge’s “homily” in Plaza de la Revolucion:

All of us are called by virtue of our Christian vocation to that service which truly serves, and to help one another not to be tempted by a “service” which is really “self-serving”.  All of us are asked, indeed urged, by Jesus to care for one another out of love.  Without looking to one side or the other to see what our neighbor is doing or not doing.  Jesus tells us: Whoever would be first among you must be the last, and the servant of all”.  He does not say: if your neighbor wants to be first, let him be the servant!  We have to be careful to avoid judgmental looks and renew our belief in the transforming look to which Jesus invites us.

This caring for others out of love is not about being servile.  Rather, it means putting our brothers and sisters at the center.  Service always looks to their faces, touches their flesh, senses their closeness and even, in some cases, “suffers” in trying to help.  Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people. (Jorge Says Serve Rather Than Be Served.)

This is not an implicit rejection or condemnation of Communism. Far from it.

Bergoglio is attempting to communicate to the Castro brothers that what is thought to be the Catholic Church has no “ideological” agenda, that its goal to serve “people,” who must be put at the center. In other words, the ideology of the Castro brothers is really of no concern to the counterfeit church of conciliarism as it can coexist with those who believe in any ideology as long as it can go about its supposed business of “doing good” without interfering in the affairs of the civil state.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not hesitate to criticize capitalism (the modern, Calvinistic and Judeo-Masonic version of which is problematic according to the teaching of the Catholic Church) or to call for the adoption and bureaucratic imposition of a variety of socialistic schemes to redistribute wealth to remedy “income inequality” and to “protect the planet.”

Indeed, Bergoglio will not hesitate to do so when he arrives at Andrews Air Force base in Maryland tomorrow evening, September 22, 2015, the Feast of Saint Thomas Villanova and the Commemoration of Saint Maurice and His Companions, or when addressing a special joint session of the Congress of the United States of America on Thursday, September 24, 2015, the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, or at the United Masonic Nations the next day, Friday, September 25, 2015. Bergoglio is more than capable of denouncing those things he wants to denounce. He did not denounce Communism yesterday as it has been an unofficial policy of the counterfeit church of conciliarism since the time of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII’s Metz Accord that resulted in Soviet permission for representatives from the heretical and schismatic Russian Orthodox Church to sit as “observers” at the Second Vatican Council, a policy of silence that was institutionalized by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick’s Ostopolik in 1965. "Dialogue" and "encounter" must be used, not a condemnation of Communism.

Additionally, the Argentine Apostate’s stating that what he believes is the Catholic Church “serves people,” not ideology, is a swipe at Catholics who hold to the entirety of the Sacred Deposit of Faith and who believe that Christ the King is at the center of the Catholic Church’s work for the salvation of souls. The Catholic Church does not exist for the performance of social work. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded His true Church upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, to sanctify souls in this life so that they could enjoy eternal happiness in Heaven in the next by cooperating with the graces He won for them by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flows into the souls of men through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediratix of All Graces.

Bergoglio will use the term “ideology” once again, probably in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as he discusses “families” who live on the “existential peripheries, explaining that “preconceived notions” must be put aside in order to permit the “spirit” to be “uncaged” in order to blow freely. “Pope Francis” really believes that a strict adherence to the Catholic Faith is nothing other than “ideological rigidity” and/or “Pharisaical purity” that “cages” the “spirit.”

Thus it is that Bergoglio’s use of the word “ideology” has a very loaded meaning to it, a loaded meaning that has nothing to do with denouncing Communism as evil in and of itself.

If Bergoglio believes that Communism is evil, you see, why would he go out of the way to express his “respect” for a Marxist-Leninist murderer and tyrant?

“Respect and consideration” for Fidel Castro?

Horrific.

The great sensitivity that Jorge Mario Bergoglio ("Pope Francis") has towards the Castros and his silence about Communism and his active cooperation with Communist regimes stand condemned by none other than Pope Pius XI and from the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII in 1949

Writing in Divini Redemptoris, which was issued on March 19, 1937, two days after he had issued his firm denunciation of Nazism, Mit Brennender Sorge, Pope Pius XI forbade Catholics to provide any kind of cooperation with Communism at any time for any reason:

See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

This condemnation of any kind of cooperation with Communism was reinterred by the Holy Office on July 1, 1949, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, under the pontificate of our last true pope, Pope Pius XII:

This Sacred Supreme Congregation has been asked:  

1. whether it is lawful to join Communist Parties or to favour them;
2. whether it is lawful to publish, disseminate, or read books, periodicals, newspapers or leaflets which support the teaching or action of Communists, or to write in them;
3. whether the faithful who knowingly and freely perform the acts specified in questions 1 and 2 may be admitted to the Sacraments;
4. whether the faithful who profess the materialistic and anti-Christian doctrine of the Communists, and particularly those who defend or propagate this doctrine, contract ipso facto excommunication specially reserved to the Apostolic See as apostates from the Catholic faith.

The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Fathers entrusted with the supervision of matters concerning the safeguarding of Faith and morals, having previously heard the opinion of the Reverend Lords Consultors, decreed in the plenary session held on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday), June 28, 1949, that the answers should be as follows:

To 1. in the negative: because Communism is materialistic and anti-Christian; and the leaders of the Communists, although they sometimes profess in words that they do not oppose religion, do in fact show themselves, both in their teaching and in their actions, to be the enemies of God, of the true religion and of the Church of Christ; to 2. in the negative: they are prohibited ipso iure (cf. Can. 1399 of the Codex Iuris Canonici); to 3. in the negative, in accordance with the ordinary principles concerning the refusal of the Sacraments to those who are not disposed; to 4. in the affirmative.

And the following Thursday, on the 30th day of the same month and year, Our Most Holy Lord Pius XII, Pope by the Divine Providence, in the ordinary audience, granted to the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Assessor of the Sacred Office, approved of the decision of the Most Eminent Fathers which had been reported to Him, and ordered the same to be promulgated officially in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Given at Rome, on July 1st, 1949. (As found at Decree Against Communism.)

One may remember that Jorge Mario Bergoglio said "the past must be forgotten" when he "congratulated" the Marxist-Leninist in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, and the Marxist-Leninist in Havana, Raul Castro, on the rapprochment that he, Bergoglio, helped to broker ten months ago now, meaning that it is necessary to forget about these images of the wonderful Castro brothers and their guerillas at work to terrorize those they deemed guilty of various anti-revolutionary activities or thoughts:

Once again, given the constraints of time and recognizing that there is no need to prove the obvious, permit me to provide just a few facts concerning Castro's muderous, represssive ways (the facts below are to be found in the final link below and date back to 2007):

Fidel Castro questioning a Cuban farmer who was later executed.The woman behind Castro is Celia Sánchez, Castro’s mistress during his time at the Sierra Maestra and sitting next to him is Camilo Cienfuegos.Even before the triumph of the Revolution, Castro and his gang were prone to murder those who disagreed with them.In the photo below, taken while still in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul, is seen getting ready to shoot a young rebel soldier who disobeyed orders.

And more than fifty years after the above photos were taken, Castro and his gang of murderers continue to send to the firing squad, those Cubans who oppose his betrayal of the Revolution.

Priests Juan Miguel Aldaz and Jose Luis Garrigoitia,  pray with prisoner Ramon Reytor, minutes before he was executed in the town of Manzanillo, Oriente province.

Fathers Aldaz and Garrigoitia with the prisoners moments before they were murdered

Prisoners were taken to the town cemetery and they would have to wait in line and witness the other executions, before they themselves were shot.

Col. Cornelio Rojas, chief of police of Santa Clara, is shown here in a jail cell before che Guevara ordered him to be shot to death without a trial.

The photos above show the brutal murder of Col. Rojas, who was shot to death on orders of Guevara, without the benefit of a trial.

A letter from Barbara Rangel, granddaughter of Col. Rojas:
My name is Barbara Rangel, granddaughter of Colonel Cornelio Rojas, Chief of Police in Santa Clara in the 1950’s. He was a national policeman before Batista came to power.
He earned his military status of Colonel and was involved in revolutionary activities in the 1930’s.
He was a man who always fought for the freedom of Cuba, in the 1930’s he was fighting against dictator Gerardo Machado at Gibara.
His father and grandfather: Colonel Cornelio Rojas Escobar and Brig. General Cornelio Rojas Hurtado, had fought prominently in Cuba’s War of Independence from Spain.
I would like to clarify and educate, if I may, those who are ignorant of the truth.
My grandfather was arrested and murdered by the godfather of modern terrorism, Che Guevara, and another murderer, Fidel Castro, for the only purpose of creating terror among the population.
They wanted to eliminate my grandfather because he was a man of great courage, a descendant of Generals who had fought for Cuba’s independence.
My granddad was a beloved pillar in his community, well known for his public service and philanthropy.
He was executed on national television without the opportunity of a trial, therefore violating his human rights (Article #10 & #11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
Che Guevara had sent a message to my family informing them that no harm would come to my granddad, but it was a lie, as he had already murdered him by the time my family received it.
After his execution, he was buried in a mass grave, Che Guevara didn’t even give us the solace of a funeral or allowed his family to put a cross or flowers atop my murdered granddad’s grave.
My family suffered tremendously, it was very traumatic; especially for my mom, Blanca Rojas, who was pregnant when my grandfather was murdered.
Imagine seeing your dad being murdered on national television! She immediately went into labor.
By then, Che’s goons had surrounded our family house, and didn’t allow my mother to go to a hospital. A midwife had to be called to assist her with the labor. My brother, Silvio Gonzalez, was born on the same bed that belonged to my granddad.
What is a person supposed to do? Rejoice for the birth of her son, or weep for the murder of her father?
How can anyone ever forget or forgive such horrific acts by these mass murderers, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro?
Yet, some ignorant celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Carlos Santana, Gisele Budchen, Johnny Depp, Mike Tyson have tattoos of the mass murderer Che Guevara.
I find this absolutely unbelievable, and it shows the ignorance of those who idolize che Guevara.
My grandfather never killed anyone, and he died like brave men are supposed to die.
His last words were: “There’s the revolution, take care of it” and then he ordered the soldiers who were going to murder him: “Get ready, aim, fire.”
Only a brave man with military blood and courage would die like this! I am so proud of him, and my ancestors.
What a difference with che Guevara who begged for his life when he was captured in Bolivia, a country he invaded trying to export communism.
He died like the coward that he was. His last words were “Don’t shoot me, I am worth more alive then dead.”
Those were certainly the words of a coward!
For those ignorant persons out there who still idolize this murderer coward: Che Guevara murdered hundreds of persons, including 3 or 4 teenagers and a pregnant woman. Their names are publicly documented.
The good thing is that there is a higher court that one day will do justice!
Thank you for the opportunity to write. Truly yours,

Barbara Rangel

The Cuban Memorial displayed at Tamiami Park, Miami, Florida: Each cross bears the name of a victim of Castro the brothers’ genocide against the Cuban people (See The Infamous Firing Squads.)

Other Sources:

The "Truth Recovery Archive on Cuba"

February 19, 2008 Update on Findings

This work documents loss of life and disappearances of a political or military nature attributed to the Cuban Revolution. Each documented case is available for review at www.CubaArchive.org and substantiated by bibliographic/historic data and reports from direct sources. Due to the ongoing nature of the work and the difficulty of obtaining and verifying data from Cuba, the following totals change as research progresses and are considered far from exhaustive. Cuba Archive is currently examining additional cases –most are expected to be added to this table. Experience has shown that as additional outreach efforts are undertaken, many more cases are likely to be uncovered.

Non-Combat Victims of the Castro Regime:

January 1, 1959 to December 31, 2007

Work-in-progress

Documented Cases
Firing squad executions	4,074
Extrajudicial killings not in prison	1,334
Missing and disappeared	219
Other, including deaths in prison(1)	2,215
	7,842
Estimate
"Balseros" (estimate to 2003) (2)	77,833
Total	85,675

 

(1) Deaths in prison include assassinations, suicides, and deaths resulting from medical negligence or from accidents or alleged natural causes probably precipitated by prison conditions.

(2) The estimated number of victims was derived in 2003 by Dr. Armando Lago from data in studies by the Oceanographic Institute of the University of Miami and the University of Havana and reports by the U.S. Coast Guard. The actual number of rafters who have perished at sea is very difficult to corroborate. Deaths from 2003 to the present have not been estimated.

Combat Deaths
At least 16,282 additional deaths in combat or missing in action can be directly attributed to the Cuban Revolution, of which Cuba Archive has documented 1,392. 1,289 combat deaths are documented from anti-Castro military operations (Bay of Pigs expedition, the internal insurgency, and infiltration missions). Losses by the Castro government in military operations are estimated at 14,953 at the Bay of Pigs, fighting the insurgents in the rural war inside Cuba, and killed in the military intervention in Angola. In addition, 40 persons were killed in the accidental explosion of a civilian aviation plane (Cubana de Aviación) in Nicaragua used by the Cuban government to transport arms to the Sandinistas).

Other Deaths
Thousands of foreign nationals, both military and civilians, have been killed in Africa and Latin America in Cuba’s internationalist wars and its support of subversion. These are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
 

See: http://cubaarchive.org/home/images/stories/downloads/2.19.08_update.doc

Also see: Los Muertos de Castro

"The revolution's toll"

In the book-in-progress The Human Costs of Social Revolutions:  The Black Book on Cuba by Dr. Armando Lago that will be published in 1999, he is making an attempt to list Castro’s deaths since 1959.  With Castro in power, obtaining information is very difficult, but so far the deaths of 97,000 persons have been named, each confirmed by at least two sources.  Some 30,000 executed by firing squad, 2,000 extra-judicial assassinations, 5,000 deaths in prison due to beating by guards and denial of medical care and 60,000 deaths while trying to escape Cuba by sea.

    http://www.nocastro.com/archives/gohome.htm

R.J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii, list the "median" number of 73,000 as victims of  the "democide" of the Castro regime on his site.

"The greatest source of post-war democide was communism (see the communist death toll). During and after the war communists seized power, or came to power with the help of Soviet military might, as in Eastern Europe. In addition to the USSR, Mongolia, Eastern European regimes, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, communist regimes eventually also included China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Grenada, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and South Yemen, or 26 regimes in all. These communist governments and the communist guerrillas they supported in other countries account for about 66,000,000 of the 76,000,000 murdered since the war, or about 87 percent. Clearly, of all regimes, communist ones have been by far the greatest killer. During these years it has been mostly death by Marxism than more generally by government."  http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POSTWWII.HTM

Little has been written in English on the democide in other totalitarian states. Attempts to determine the how, when, and why of democide in, say, communist North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba, Ethiopia, Laos, or Eastern Europe, or Fascist Italy, fundamentalist Moslem Iran, and elsewhere is a matter of digging out of conventional histories and political studies bits and pieces or digging into relevant newspaper and news magazine articles and specialized pieces.  http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/CHARNY.CHAP.HTM

       The data he provides lists a range from 35,000 to 141,000 people killed (1959-1987)   http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF

But today, Armando Lago, a Ph. D. in Economics from Harvard University, continues working on his book "CUBA: The Human Cost of Social Revolutions. The Black Book of Cuban Communism," documenting the deaths caused by Castro's regime from 1959 to the present. According to Dr. Lago's ongoing research, the total currently ranges between 90,827 and 102,722 deaths (much higher than the 3,000 attributed to Chile's Augusto Pinochet).

                http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y03/jul03/11e6.htm

This well documented web sites post various sources (including the Cuban government) with estimates ranging from 2,000 to 119,000 deaths. The website is ironically called "minor atrocities of the 20th century". The site refers to recognized authors like: Mario Lazo ( Dagger in the Heart : American Policy Failures in Cuba 1968) and Thomas Skidmore. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm#Cuba59 (As found at Cuba Verdad.)

"Respect and consideration" for Fidel Fidel Castro?

The Castros are the greatest scourges that Cuba, which had been evangelized by Our Lady of Guadalupe herself, has known. They are the very  fulfillment of Saint Anthony Mary Claret's prophetic warning to the people of Cuba as to what would happen in they persisted in the sort of wanton immorality that Jorge Mario Bergoglio just shrugs off as meaning nothing as long as one “serves the poor":     

On Christmas Day God infused into me the love of persecution and calumnies. . . . I dreamed I was imprisoned for a crime of which I was innocent. . . . To one who would have defended me, as St. Peter wished to defend Our Savior, I said: 'Shall I not drink the chalice my Father has given me?'

"On January 6, 1859, Our Lord made known to me that I am like the earth . . . which is trampled upon, yet doesn't speak. I, too, must be trodden underfoot and say nothing. The earth suffers cultivation. I must suffer mortification. Finally, to produce anything, the earth needs water; I, for the performance of good works, divine grace."

How consoling it must have been to hear Jesus promise him divine love, while tenderly addressing him as: "My little Anthony"--on April 27, 1859! And how he strove, ever harder, to obey his Redeemer's injunction, given at 4:25 a.m., on September 4, of that same year: "You have to teach your missionaries mortification, Anthony," to which, a few moments later, Our Lady added, "Thus will you reap fruit in souls, Anthony!"

And, now conditioned to receive supernatural messages in precise words and audible tones, and when they were precepts, to obey perfectly, he was ready for the most glorious promise and the most portentous revelation of all. "At 7:30 on the morning of September 23, Our Lord told me: 'You will fly across the earth . . . to preach of the immense chastisements soon to come to pass.' And He gave me to understand those words of the Apocalypse: 'And I behold and heard the voice of one eagle flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a a loud voice: Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth; by reason of the rest of the voices of the three angels who are yet to sound the trumpet.' this meant that the three great judgments of God that are going to fall upon the world are: 1) Protestantism and Communism; 2) the four archdemons who will,in a truly frightful manner, incite all to the love of pleasure, money, reason and independence of will; 3) the great wars with their horrible consequences."

Can we read this prophecy, set down for us a century ago, just when our world was entering upon the "golden age" of industry and commerce, of the scientific achievement that our grandfathers were assured was destined to create a life so good for all peoples that war would be banished forever, and doubt from whence it came? And do we dare to trace it from the Protestant Reformation to the curse of Communism; from the conquest of materialism to the deification of poor weak human reason and self-determination into "the great wars and their horrible consequences"! Upon the clean tablet of Anthony Claret's selfless spirit Our Lord engraved the warning His servant was to spell out for us" the incredible but inevitable graph of the "progress" of one century--our century! (Franchon Royer, The Life of St. Anthony Mary Claret, published originally in 1957 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, pp. 211-213.) 

Americans brought Protestantism with them in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and thereafter. Communism followed in its wake sixty and one-half years later.

Our Lady herself called upon Saint Anthony Mary Claret to be the new Saint Dominic of his time in order to spread devotion to her Most Holy Rosary:

On various other occasions during that perplexing year [1857] which had brought him home to Spain, he had been blessed by direct messages--in words--from the Blessed Mother. In October: "Now you know; be sorry for the sins of your pat life, and watchful in the future. . . . Do you hear me, Anthony? Be watchful in the future. This is what I have to say to you." And later: "You must be the Dominic of these times in propagating devotion to the Rosary."  (Franchon Royer, The Life of St. Anthony Mary Claret, published originally in 1957 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, p. 211.)

To the Immaculate Heart of Mary we turn in these trying times as we keep close to this Heart from which the very Sacred Heart of Jesus was formed by means of praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

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 Matthew the Apostle, pray for us.