Correction IS A Constituent Element of Love

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Conciliarism has distorted practically every single aspect of the Faith. As a species of Modernism, perhaps even the penultimate embodiment of Modernism, conciliarism takes legitimate Catholic concepts and phrases and distorts them by the use of the "ideas" of the "new thinkers," such as the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, in order to make it appear as though its sordid ethos is perfectly compatible with the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church.

As a disciple of Von Balthasar, Pope Benedict XVI has made the word "love" a keynote of his reign. Benedict, however, does not define love Thomistically, preferring to advert to the Von Balthasar's vague and ambiguous use of the word ("only love is credible") to more or less assure people that they are loved by God no matter what it is they do and that there is little they can do to send themselves to Hell. Love is, as has been noted in a number of columns on this site recently, an act of the will. Although we are sensible beings who are indeed influenced by emotions and sentiments, authentic love is premised on willing the good for ourselves and others, the ultimate expression of which is the salvation of our immortal souls. God's love for us is an act of His Divine Will: He wills for us to cooperate with the graces He won for us on Calvary by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to persevere to the point of our dying breaths as Catholics who are in states of Sanctifying Grace.

Yes, the Divine Redeemer's Most Sacred Heart has a bright, burning, matchless love for us. The love of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, though, pulsates with a desire for sinners to convert from their sins, desiring to administer to them the healing balm of forgiveness that is available in the Sacrament of Penance. God does not want us to persist in our sins. Indeed, He wants us to repent of our sins and then to do reparation for them once we have received absolution from an alter Christus in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. Before receiving the words of absolution, however, a priest, acting in persona Christi, may very well have to utter some stern words of correction to us, recognizing that two of the Spiritual Works of Mercy are to instruct the ignorant and to admonish the sinner.

Correction is a constituent element of love. While it is certainly true that the beauty of God's Commandments must be stressed in a way that inspires souls to pursue the heights of spiritual sanctity, especially by means of Eucharistic piety and Total Consecration to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, it is also necessary for a pastor of souls to be stern with his flock when the situation demands it. Evil must be confronted. Errors must be refuted. Heresies must be denounced. It is not an exercise of "love" to merely discuss the beauty of truth, as important and necessary as that is to do with all of the sincere love of souls that God can send a preacher. The horror of sin and error must be spoken, sometimes in graphic terms, as human beings are all too prone to be "easy" on themselves, content to wallow in the essential sin of the Lutheran strain of Protestantism, the Sin of Presumption, believing that they are saved no matter what they do or say or believe.

Father Frederick Faber, the famous Nineteenth Century English apologist, a member of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri under the direction of John Henry Cardinal Newman, of the Nineteenth Century, explained in The Precious Blood (1860) how much God hates heresy and error and how it is a fundamental work of the love of God to denounce them:

If we hated sin as we ought to hate it, purely, keenly, manfully, we should do more penance, we should inflict more self-punishment, we should sorrow for our sins more abidingly. Then, again, the crowning disloyalty to God is heresy. It is the sin of sins, the very loathsomest of things which God looks down upon in this malignant world. Yet how little do we understand of its excessive hatefulness! It is the polluting of God’s truth, which is the worst of all impurities.

Yet how light we make of it! We look at it, and are calm. We touch it and do not shudder. We mix with it, and have no fear. We see it touch holy things, and we have no sense of sacrilege. We breathe its odor, and show no signs of detestation or disgust. Some of us affect its friendship; and some even extenuate its guilt. We do not love God enough to be angry for His glory. We do not love men enough to be charitably truthful for their souls.

Having lost the touch, the taste, the sight, and all the senses of heavenly-mindedness, we can dwell amidst this odious plague, in imperturbable tranquillity, reconciled to its foulness, not without some boastful professions of liberal admiration, perhaps even with a solicitous show of tolerant sympathies.

Why are we so far below the old saints, and even the modern apostles of these latter times, in the abundance of our conversations? Because we have not the antique sternness? We want the old Church-spirit, the old ecclesiastical genius. Our charity is untruthful, because it is not severe; and it is unpersuasive, because it is untruthful.

We lack devotion to truth as truth, as God’s truth. Our zeal for souls is puny, because we have no zeal for God’s honor. We act as if God were complimented by conversions, instead of trembling souls rescued by a stretch of mercy.

We tell men half the truth, the half that best suits our own pusillanimity and their conceit; and then we wonder that so few are converted, and that of those few so many apostatize.

We are so weak as to be surprised that our half-truth has not succeeded so well as God’s whole truth.

Where there is no hatred of heresy, there is no holiness.

A man, who might be an apostle, becomes a fester in the Church for the want of this righteous indignation.

Those prelates who are content only to stress the "positive" without condemning the erroneous and the heretical leaves the flock defenseless to recognize and thus to flee from poisonous half-truths that are couched in ambiguities difficult even for trained theologians, no less the average Catholic, to detect and to oppose. The Church has always taught that error must be refuted and uprooted, until the Second Vatican Council, that is.

Pope John XXIII established the entire ethos of conciliarism in his Opening Address to the Second Vatican Council. He believed that errors simply faded away as fast at they arose, that the severity spoken about by Father Faber as being part of the authentic love of God was no longer necessary to invoke. John XXIII's remarks in this regard provide a clear contrast with the consistent patrimony of the Church, producing disastrous results for the Church and for the souls entrusted to her pastoral care:

At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.

That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her. To mankind, oppressed by so many difficulties, the Church says, as Peter said to the poor who begged alms from him: "I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk" (Acts 3:6). In other words, the Church does not offer to the men of today riches that pass, nor does she promise them merely earthly happiness. But she distributes to them the goods of divine grace which, raising men to the dignity of sons of God, are the most efficacious safeguards and aids toward a more human life. She opens the fountain of her life-giving doctrine which allows men, enlightened by the light of Christ, to understand well what they really are, what their lofty dignity and their purpose are, and, finally, through her children, she spreads everywhere the fullness of Christian charity, than which nothing is more effective in eradicating the seeds of discord, nothing more efficacious in promoting concord, just peace, and the brotherly unity of all.

Benedict XVI is the quintessence of this false spirit of conciliarism. His mentor, Von Balthasar, believed that "love," not the stern word of correction, would win the day for Our Lord. Such a concept of "love," however, is nothing other than empty-headed sentimentality. Saint John the Evangelist, the Apostle of God's Love, wrote this about the necessity of correct heresy and fleeing from heretics:

Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that continueth in the doctrine, the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you. For he that saith unto him, God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works. (2 John 1: 9-11)

For I testify to every one that heareth the word of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things. God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book. (Apoc. 22:18-19)

Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, wrote that we must not bear the yoke with unbelievers, a direct rebuke to conciliarism's "show of love" for those steeped in the errors of false religions:

Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: And I will receive you; and I will be a Father to you; and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.  (2 Cor. 6:14-18)

Ah, conciliarist and its clerical apologists know better than all of this. After all, Von Balthasar believed that the plain words of Scripture contradicted themselves. One who believes this can thus ignore the words of Scripture and the consistent teaching and pastoral practice of the Church with impunity. There is no need to correct or to remove wayward bishops who are steeped in perversion themselves and/or tolerate it in their clergy. There is no need to correct or to remove wayward bishops who countenance liturgical profanations and sacrileges and who promote and/or tolerate perversions of the Received Teaching of the Divine Redeemer, which He entrusted solely to the Catholic Church for its safekeeping and infallible explication. There is no need to correct or to remove university professors and catechists who deny articles contained in the Deposit of Faith while they promote things contrary to the honor and glory of God and to the good of souls. No, the conciliarist concept of "love" will conquer all.

Love does conquer all. Authentic love, that is. The love of God, which wills the good and loathes sin and heresy and error. Our Lord did not reaffirm the woman caught in adultery with empty expressions of sentimentality. While understanding the weakness of the flesh that caused her to sin and refusing to condemn her for having sinned grievously, He nevertheless told her to reform her life. He did not simply say, "I love you." His love for us wills us to reject our sins to to reparation for them:

Then Jesus lifting up himself, said to her: Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?

Who said: No man, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more.  (Jn. 8:10-11)

Conciliarism's false concept of love is an offense against truth. It is thus an offense against God, Who is Truth. Pope Leo XIII put it this way in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

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."[13] 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.

A good and kind shepherd of souls, Giuseppe Melchior Sarto, was known for his patience and his solicitude for the weak and the suffering. As Pope Saint Pius X, the farm boy from Riese, Italy, was unwavering in his defense of the Faith and his firm opposition of Modernism, whose errors he delineated most meticulously on a number of occasions, including in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907. Pope Saint Pius X explained that he had the duty to denounce error publicly, delineating the multifaceted and inter-related errors of Modernist and Modernists:

One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things,""vain talkers and seducers,""erring and driving into error." It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ. Wherefore We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office.

That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man.

Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their action. Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all hut fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.

Once indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better mind, and to this end We first of all treated them with kindness as Our children, then with severity; and at last We have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. It is known to you, Venerable Brethren, how unavailing have been Our efforts. For a moment they have bowed their head, only to lift it more arrogantly than before. If it were a matter which concerned them alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it; but the security of the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore We must interrupt a silence which it would be criminal to prolong, that We may point out to the whole Church, as they really are, men who are badly disguised.

It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast. For this reason it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out their interconnection, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil results.

The Modernists have exacted their revenge on Pope Saint Pius X. Showing their utter contempt for this sainted pope's defense of the Faith against their pernicious errors--and trumpeting the fact that they appear to be victorious at the present time, holding the levers of ecclesiastical power, they erected a huge mosaic of John XXIII to the right of altar below which is situated Pope Saint Pius X's sarcophagus. The image of the portly Angelo Roncalli is peering right down on the altar of Saint Pius X, as though to say: "We won! We spit on you and on your condemnation of us." It will be very interesting to see how the one hundredth anniversary of Pascendi Dominici Gregis is observed by the Vatican next year, especially since Pope Saint Pius X condemned the very thing that Benedict XVI extols: the separation of Church and State.

Pope Pius XII was the last pope we have had to dissect modern errors so as to defend the Faith, thereby making it possible for Catholics to love God because they have first gotten to know Him as He has revealed Himself through His true Church. Like Saint Pius X before him, Pope Pius XII refuted contemporary errors, specifically those of the "new thinkers," who are nothing other than repackaged Modernists. Writing in Humani Generis, 1950, Pope Pius XII targeted the belief that the teaching of the Faith must be made "credible" for "modern man," as though the immutable truths of Our Lord do not contain in and of themselves all of the inherent power to attract souls:

In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.

Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.

It is evident from what We have already said, that such tentatives not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it. The contempt of doctrine commonly taught and of the terms in which it is expressed strongly favor it. Everyone is aware that the terminology employed in the schools and even that used by the Teaching Authority of the Church itself is capable of being perfected and polished; and we know also that the Church itself has not always used the same terms in the same way. It is also manifest that the Church cannot be bound to every system of philosophy that has existed for a short space of time. Nevertheless, the things that have been composed through common effort by Catholic teachers over the course of the centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are certainly not based on any such weak foundation. These things are based on principles and notions deduced from a true knowledge of created things. In the process of deducing, this knowledge, like a star, gave enlightenment to the human mind through the Church. Hence it is not astonishing that some of these notions have not only been used by the Oecumenical Councils, but even sanctioned by them, so that it is wrong to depart from them.

Hence to neglect, or to reject, or to devalue so many and such great resources which have been conceived, expressed and perfected so often by the age-old work of men endowed with no common talent and holiness, working under the vigilant supervision of the holy magisterium and with the light and leadership of the Holy Ghost in order to state the truths of the faith ever more accurately, to do this so that these things may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow; this is supreme imprudence and something that would make dogma itself a reed shaken by the wind. The contempt for terms and notions habitually used by scholastic theologians leads of itself to the weakening of what they call speculative theology, a discipline which these men consider devoid of true certitude because it is based on theological reasoning.

The conciliarist misuse of the word "love" has led to disastrous results for souls. As Father Faber pointed out in the passage quoted earlier, true love of God involves a love of the entirety of His truths and the desire to defend those truths from errors and heresies. The failure to refute error, coupled with the insinuation of ambiguity and error into the liturgy and pastoral praxis of conciliarism, has emptied Catholic parishes and schools, causing many to be closed, driven Catholics by the droves into the arms of evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants, and further expedited the acceptance of pluralism in the life of ordinary Catholics. All of Pope Benedict's efforts to fight secularism in Europe in a way that appeals to men of all denominations will come a cropper precisely because there is only one path to fight secularism, namely, the full Faith of our Fathers that is Catholicism. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ must be restored as the King of all men and nations as the fruit of the Triumph of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Two of the principal errors of conciliarism, ecumenism and religious liberty, are inter-connected and have vast consequences for men and their nations. Pope Pius XI, writing in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, made it clear that God will not be mocked, that He will indeed exact quite a high price upon those who dare to deny Him His proper place in civil governments as their King and Sovereign:

Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ. It will call to their minds the thought of the last judgment, wherein Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.

There's that word again, severely. Yes, God will punish those who ignore and despise His doctrines, including the immutable doctrine of His Social Kingship over nations.

Although the scions of conciliarism have contempt for the immutability of doctrine and pose a fallacious conflict between God's "love" and "dogma," we must continue to defend the fullness of the Faith in our families, eschewing everything to do with the new religion and its Protestantized liturgy. As we spend time before Our Eucharistic King and pray as many Rosaries as our duties-of-state permit during the course of a day, we must make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world, begging Our Lady through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart that we might be small instruments in effecting the fulfillment of her Fatima Message and thus of the restoration of Tradition in the Church and Christendom in the world.

Moses saw but was refused entry into the Promised Land. The Apostles did not see the glories of Christendom with their own eyes. We may not see the glories of a Church restored to her former glories with our own eyes. We must, though, persevere to the point of our dying breaths in states of Sanctifying Grace so that, please God and His Most Blessed Mother, we might be privileged to see the great victory of Mary Immaculate from eternity that will come when God wills it and as He wills it for His own greater honor and glory and for the good of souls.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius I, pray for us.

The Seven Martyred Brothers, the sons of Saint Felicitas, pray for us.

Saints Rufina and Secunda, pray for us.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, the Hammer of Heretics, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Francis de Sales, pray for us.

Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.

Sister Lucia, pray for us.

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.