Then, Now and Always: Viva Cristo Rey!

Part Three

by Thomas A. Droleskey

As has been noted in the first two parts of this series about the Cristeros War in Mexico, the long, meddling arm of the Freemasonic influence of the United States of American upon Our Lady's dear country, Mexico, extends back to the arrival of a Freemason by the name of Joel R. Poinsett in 1822. It is truly truly diabolical that this wretched man named a flower that he had found in Mexico after himself, the poinsettia, which was known prior to that time as Flor de Noche Buena or the "Christmas Eve flower."

American interference, both by means of armed intervention and monetary support for the "preferred" revolutionary du jour, continued unabated throughout the Nineteenth Century and in the first three decades of the Twentieth Century prior to the outbreak of World War II.

One of the chief means by which Americans sought to undermine the authority and the influence of the Catholic Church in Mexico was to introduce Masonic lodges there in the name of "freedom of association" and to introduce Protestant sects in the name of "religious freedom" or "religious liberty" as a means of drawing Catholics away from the Faith. No matter their differences, Freemasonry and Protestantism are both of the devil and share a hatred of the Catholic Church and her sacramental life, particularly hated any public display of honor given Our Lady, revered throughout the Americans, but most especially in Mexico, as La Virgen de Guadalupe.

American Involvement In The Overthrow of Emperor Maximilian

The last installment in this series, which I believe is far more important than any of the topical writing that appears on this site (after all, how many times is it necessary to repeat that Barack Hussein Obama is a statist and a Marxist whose rule of law is what he desires it to be or that his hapless opponents on the "right" are just as committed to statism, albeit one that suits their own purposes?). explained how the horrific Benito Juarez was placed in power by the intervention of the United States of America. Juarez, however, ran afoul of foreign creditors when he suspended payment on all foreign debts in 1860. The three countries to which Mexico owed large debts were the United Kingdom, the Second French Empire and Spain, none of whose leaders took Juarez's actions very lightly at all. They decided to intervene in Mexico in an attempt to rectify the lawlessness that the American-backed Benito Juarez had introduced.

It was to this end that Emperor Napoleon III, Louis Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte), mindful of the fact that his half-brother was owed quite a considerable amount by the Mexican government, decided to intervene directly, doing so with the full support of the British and the Spanish. Louis Bonaparte believed that Mexico needed a revival of a monarchy to provide it with structure, stability and "civilization" even though, of course, Mexico had been civilized as a result of the apparition of Our Lady to Juan Diego atop Tepeyac Hill in 1531.

Princess Eugenie, Napoleon III's wife, believe that Prince Ferdinand Maximilian, the son of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Karl, would, at age thirty, be well-suited for the task. The man who became Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was not to be mistaken for the great Catholic leader of Ecuador, Gabriel Garcia Moreno, who was a champion and exemplar of the Social Reign of Christ the King. Nevertheless, however, Maximilian was committed to the fair and equitable administration of the laws and was, no matter his own faults, resolute in his desire to have the Sacraments provided to the Mexican people upon his coronation on April 10, 1864.

Emperor Maximilian was also, most unfortunately, a Freemason, which helps to explain why he died the death that he did at the hands of executors on June 19, 1867, as even the noblest of naturalistic intentions and accomplishments cannot redeem any association with the devil, no less formal membership in one of his lodges. In other words, Maximilian's liberalism and "progressivism" lost him the support of conservatives in Mexico, which made his downfall at the hands of the United States-back Benito Juarez, whose own rule had been ended with the arrival of British and French forces in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in December of 1861, almost inevitable.

President Abraham Lincoln had other matters to attend to at that time. There was a little matter of the War Between the States that was as yet ongoing. Moreover, Lincoln, whose administration did not recognize the legitimacy of Maximilian's claim to the Mexican throne, did not provide Juarez with military assistance as he believed that to do so would cost the "union" dearly:

 

 

The obvious intention of Napoleon III and of England to weaken or divide the United States by this arrangement, as the Buchanan slave dynasty had tried to divide and weaken Mexico, rendered hostile the Republican government which had just abolished that dynasty; and Juarez, while cultivating Masonic friendship with the imperial court, was fomenting disturbances to provide the pretext for American entry (Bulnes; El Verdadero, Juarez, 1864.)

Lincoln and [Secretary of State William] Seward refused at first to supply him arms of money, telling his envoy that "every million the United States should furnish would cost Mexico the loss of a State, and every rifle an acre of mine lands." But when Marshal Bazaine, the Masonic friend of the "liberals," withdrew his French army, and the Conservatives under Miramon and Marquez had put Juarez to flight, and assumed effective control, General Sheridan was sent with a powerful army to the Rio Grande in support of Juarez and his fleeing partisans.

Sheridan tells us in his Personal Memoirs that he strewed military stores for the refugee chiefs along the border and that "the support given to their cause in this form encouraged them to renew resistance when all hope had disappeared" (II, 216-228). (Dr. Michael Kenny, No God Next Door: Red Rule in Mexico and Our Responsibility, William J. Hirten Company, Inc., New York, 1935, republished by CSG and Associates Publishers, pp. 61-62.)

Although both Dr. Kenny and Bishop Francis Clement Kelley, the author of Blood Drenched Altars, believed that American military and political intervention in Mexico in support of one rabid anticlericalist after another was not representative of our "republic," the sad fact that is that such actions are indeed part and parcel of the naturalistic, religiously indifferentist and anti-Incarnational principles of the founding that are at the essence of Judeo-Masonry. Just ask the people of The Philippines if you have any doubt.

American Intervention in The Philippines Just A Continuation of Such Intervention in Mexico

Just as the the government of the United States of America helped to export and then to implant and maintain the Freemasonry and Protestantism as the two forces of destabilizing Mexico in order to turn make it possible for "enlightened" Mexicans to govern there without the "superstitions" of Catholicism, American intervention in The Philippines during and after the needless, immoral and unjust Spanish-American War resulted in the introduction of these same forces in The Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Many Filipinos, however, did not this as a sign of "benevolence" or "progress" but of American imperialism, which is why even the otherwise noteworthy anti-Catholic named Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) opposed such intervention.

Although some of the Catholic bishops of the United States of America were opposed to the initial drum beats that led up to the Spanish-American War in 1898, drum beats that we led by imperialists such as William Randolph Hearst and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, they stood as one behind the "colors" once it began, taken no open stand against it lest they  arouse the old charges that Catholics were "unpatriotic" and beholden to a "foreign" power, namely, that of the Successor of Saint Peter.

As Pope Leo XIII noted in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, the Natural Law requires us to love our country. True love, however, is not a spirit of sappy sentimentality or the recitation of "pledges" composed by a Socialist and a Freemason, Francis Bellamy, or turning a blind eye to unjust and immoral American wars that result in the taking of souls out of the Catholic Church. We must will the good of our country, and to do that we must love God first and foremost above all creatures, including our closest relatives, as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church:

 

 

 

 

Now, if the natural law enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we had birth, and in which we were brought up, so that every good citizen hesitates not to face death for his native land, very much more is it the urgent duty of Christians to be ever quickened by like feelings toward the Church. For the Church is the holy City of the living God, born of God Himself, and by Him built up and established. Upon this earth, indeed, she accomplishes her pilgrimage, but by instructing and guiding men she summons them to eternal happiness. We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of enjoyment this mortal life affords, but we have a much more urgent obligation to love, with ardent love, the Church to which we owe the life of the soul, a life that will endure forever. For fitting it is to prefer the good of the soul to the well-being of the body, inasmuch as duties toward God are of a far more hallowed character than those toward men.

Moreover, if we would judge aright, the supernatural love for the Church and the natural love of our own country proceed from the same eternal principle, since God Himself is their Author and originating Cause. Consequently, it follows that between the duties they respectively enjoin, neither can come into collision with the other. We can, certainly, and should love ourselves, bear ourselves kindly toward our fellow men, nourish affection for the State and the governing powers; but at the same time we can and must cherish toward the Church a feeling of filial piety, and love God with the deepest love of which we are capable. The order of precedence of these duties is, however, at times, either under stress of public calamities, or through the perverse will of men, inverted. For, instances occur where the State seems to require from men as subjects one thing, and religion, from men as Christians, quite another; and this in reality without any other ground, than that the rulers of the State either hold the sacred power of the Church of no account, or endeavor to subject it to their own will. Hence arises a conflict, and an occasion, through such conflict, of virtue being put to the proof. The two powers are confronted and urge their behests in a contrary sense; to obey both is wholly impossible. No man can serve two masters, for to please the one amounts to contemning the other.

As to which should be preferred no one ought to balance for an instant. It is a high crime indeed to withdraw allegiance from God in order to please men, an act of consummate wickedness to break the laws of Jesus Christ, in order to yield obedience to earthly rulers, or, under pretext of keeping the civil law, to ignore the rights of the Church; "we ought to obey God rather than men." This answer, which of old Peter and the other Apostles were used to give the civil authorities who enjoined unrighteous things, we must, in like circumstances, give always and without hesitation. No better citizen is there, whether in time of peace or war, than the Christian who is mindful of his duty; but such a one should be ready to suffer all things, even death itself, rather than abandon the cause of God or of the Church. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

While the American bishops did help to settle the dispute caused by the seizure of the Franciscan lands by Filipino rebels in 1896, appealing to Pope Leo XIII, who faced was with the reality of the American armed occupation of The Philippines, for his mediation, they were silent about the widespread killing of innocent Filipino citizens during the Philippine Insurrection that bore some similarity to the battle of the Cristeros in Mexico that would take place less than three decades later. The American atrocities were outrageous. Yet it was that the Catholic bishops of the United States of America were as publicly silent then as most of them were during the Cristeros War.

How, my good and few readers, can anyone remain silent about atrocities such the ones described in the appendix below? How? The officers and troops of the government of the United States of America had no regard for the lives or property of the Filipino people they slaughtered and whose houses they burned and property they plundered and the towns they pillaged. They had an especially low regard for the Catholic churches where the Filipino people, whose ancestors had been converted to the Faith by the Spanish missionaries three hundred years before and were not in need of President William McKinley's ""de-Christianization"" program for them. What utter ignorance and stupidity. What blindness of Protestantism and American superiority rolled into one.

Sign up for Willard Mitt Romney's "American Exceptionalism", which simply gives the American government license to kill and engage in one social engineering enterprise after another that the likes of Barack Hussein Obama want done by the "global community," anyone? The devil wins no matter who is victorious in the victorious in the farce called elections here in the United States of America. See the companion article that will be posted tomorrow in case you doubt my word.

Yes, it would be that same ignorance, blindness, stupidity, bigotry and arrogance that would lead to the American intervention in behalf of Plutarco Elias Calles in the 1920s.

The Beat Continues in Mexico in the 1920s

As noted in part two of this series, Plutarco Elias Calles had the full support and backing of the government of the United States of America. Office-holders in both organized crime families of naturalism here in this country did not care about the plight of suffering Catholics. They cared about fostering what developed a decade later in the Freemason Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor" policy with Mexico. They cared about protecting American investments in the Mexican oil fields. Many of them had great contempt of and hatred for the Catholic Church in general and for individual Catholics in particular, tolerating them only because Catholics had become too large of a bloc of voters to ignore.

Dr. Kenny explained how it was indeed the appointment of  Dwight Morrow, the father-in-law of Charles Lindbergh, who gave the firm backing of the government of John Calvin Coolidge to the Mason murderer named Plutarco Elias Calles:

The first effect of the Washington agreements of 1927 that hushed Catholic protest in the United States, was the replacement of Ambassador [James R.] Sheffield by Mr. Dwight Morrow.

This, the Mexican people considered unfortunate then and deem a calamity now [1935]. With the possible exception of Messrs. Lane Wilson and [Nelson] O'Shaughnessy, Mr. Sheffield was the outstanding American representative who won the complete confidence of the Mexican people. It is a revealing fact that Washington recalled all three.

Mr. Sheffield protested vigorously and effectively against the actual and legislative confiscation of American properties; but his honesty incurred the enmity of our banking profiteers, and he also exercised all the influence of his office in protection of civil and religious  rights against Calles' persecuting policies. For this he became persona non grata, and for this he was recalled. Calles' way of achieving this triumph will throw some light on the favor he has maintained with successive administrations, and perhaps explains why Mr. [Josephus] Daniels still holds his position.

The workings of the banking corporations he had offended for an agent of their own choosing were strengthened immensely by petitions against Ambassador Sheffield that had been pouring into Washington at the rate of 800 a day. Coming from the Masonic lodges and from headquarters of the various sects and anti-saloon leagues at the height of their political power, the protests bore the mark of careful organization in Mexico and here.

Inspired and directed by the Calles agencies, these sources could supply when desired an immense mass of petitions representing millions who knew nothing of what it was about. They broadcasted also the publicity texts that Calles was not persecuting religion; that he was but maintaining the laws of the land; that he was giving the Protestant ministers the churches every liberty; that he supported the sacred cause of prohibition; and that he was a true and trusted Mason.

The last was the most important. The Washington Supreme Council Thirty-third Degree could, though quite unwarranted, have itself counted for three million American Masons; which, with the united Mexican Masonry and the millions claimed by the ministerial leagues, would, in the complete cessation of Catholic counteraction, make their contention seemingly unanimous. Hence Mr. Sheffield, the friend of liberty and justice, was speedily replaced by an Ambassador as acceptance to the Calles clique as to ministers and Masons and interested bankers. Our further compliance with their requirements elicited this cable to President Coolidge, August 25, 1927, from Grand Commander Rojas, of Mexico:

"In the name of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of this nation and of Mexican Masonry in general, we present our sincere recognition, for your firm stand in refusing to participate in any manner in the so-called Mexican religious conflict, as President of that great Republic, regardless of the pressure brought to bear upon your government for that purpose. . . . The only way to maintain the Roman Catholic clergy to submit unconditionally to the will of the people as expressed in its Constitution."

This is also the gist of both Supreme Councils' present eulogies of Ambassador Daniels. In the same August, 1927, the New Age, had a supporting article to the same effect, endorsing on behalf of American Masonry this unsanctioned "Constitution" which penalizes both religion and clergy, and robs them of legal personality. . . .

The Calles publicity and other interested agencies have given Mr. Morrow a reputation in the United States quite different from that he bears in Mexico. American residents as well as the anti-Calles leaders and people are unanimous in pronouncing him the most effective agent for the Calles interests and the most friendly to the persecuting faction that ever represented the United States. His banking and business experience facilitated his settlement of debt and property claims; but qualified American residents confirm another charge of general acceptance, that he was a boon companion of Calles and Morones in their private celebrations. However this may be, one instance alone of his public association with Calles in persecution at its worse, killed all confidence in Mr. Morrow and all hope of aid from the government he represented. (Dr. Michael Kenny, No God Next Door: Red Rule in Mexico and Our Responsibility, William J. Hirten Company, Inc., New York, 1935, republished by CSG and Associates Publishers, pp. 127-130.)

 

While Dr. Michael Kenny failed to understand was that, no matter his superb documentation of the truth concering active American support for the Calles regime as it was persecuting Catholics, such American support was sewn into the fabric of the "founding" he exalts but believes has been coopted by those who have been in power. This was, most unfortunately, very similar to those today who decry the "abuses" in various parishes long in captivity captivity without undermining that conciliarism itself is responsible for these outrages. We must not be outraged solely by the proximate manifestations of evil that occur during our lifetimes. We must also study and then reject the false ideas that made possible, proximately speaking, these particular manifestations of evil. Root causes, root causes, root causes.

Americans Indemnify Calles After the Martyrdom of Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J.

Dr. Kenny, who, as a typical Catholic of his era, was sympathetic to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's statist New Deal policies, did provide a poignant testimony to how Dwight Morrow made it a point to travel with Plutarco Elias Calles the day after the execution of Father Miguel Augustin, Pro, the great champion of Christ the King, in Mexico City that outraged the citizenry of the country and that, quite sadly, was ignored entirely by the producers of For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada (other than a filmed reenactment of the event during the end credits that was not identified specifically whatsoever):

 

 

Coincident with Mr. Morrow's arrival in Mexico, the reign of terror was at its height, and continued unabated. I have pictures before me of hundreds of young men and priests and even girls, who were seized without charge and executed without trial, often with prolonged and excruciating tortures. In the summer and fall of 1927 indiscriminate shootings and hangings and torturings of suspected friends of the Cristeros were multiplied, with the view of terrorizing the armed forces of revolt. These and the murder of scores of the worthiest priests, and the barbarous torturing of Fathers Batiz and Reyes and other widely venerated pastors had the contrary effect, of inflaming and swelling the ranks of the Cristeros.

But there was one young priest whose assassination stirred public feeling most and who is is now venerated as the "Martyr of Mexico." This was Father Miguel Augustin Pro, a young Jesuit whose cheerful sanctity and zeal and his adeptness in reaching all classes with his ministry and evading the pursuivants on his track made him universally beloved as a saint and a hero.

But his marvelous feat in foiling the suppressors of Catholic worship had marked him for government vengeance. Seized on the obviously false pretext of connection with an assault upon Obregon, he was shot down November 23, 1927 without charge or trial; he died as he had lived with a smile upon his face, forgiving cheerfully and praying heartily for the executioners of himself and his brother and fellow victims.

His sisters and his aged father dipped their kerchiefs in his blood and departed joyously; and despite the Calles soldiery, hundreds of thousands crowded to his obsequies, struggling for a relic of the martyr. The gathering masses on the streets obstructed the passage of the presidential automobile, in which, beside Plutarco Calles, the American Ambassador was seated.

Failing even to acknowledge a legal protest submitted to him by a lawyer's committee, Mr. Morrow hastened to tour the country with Calles, who gaily played Toreador to amuse his friend. He thus impressed the world that all was well with Mexico, and made it clear to his own people and the Cristeros that even in the savagest excesses of persecution, the United States Government stood back of him. It is precisely the same despairing realization that oppresses then now when they see our Ambassador Daniels also go out of his way to show friendliest courtesies to the same or the like persecutors today and to eulogize the same Plutarco Calles, after the latter had forged and wielded a deadlier weapon to assassinate the souls of their children.

While Mr. Morrow's friendly services were securing arms and countenance from our government for Calles, and holding strict embargo against the League of [Religious] Liberty, the Cristeros, as we have seen, managed somehow to make headway, though with slight ecclesiastical encouragement. It was only in the face of relentless universal persecution, after millions of petitions had been scouted and thirty thousand injunction protests had been overruled en masse, that reluctantly the bishops tolerated recourse to arms. But Archbishop [Jose] Mora, the Mexican Primate, was exiled for defending manfully before Calles the fighters for liberty; and Archbishop Gonzales Valencia of Durango, who still stands by the fighters for liberty, had heartened the belligerents by his Pastoral form Rome, February 11, 1927, "having ascertained the heart of the Pope"; and recalling his many brave priests abused, imprisoned, deported as criminals and who, like Fathers Batiz and Lopez, gave up their lives for their flock, he glorifies God for giving him sons "who will not succumb before the persecutors nor abdicate the dignity of Christians and of men." (Dr. Michael Kenny, (Dr. Michael Kenny, No God Next Door: Red Rule in Mexico and Our Responsibility, William J. Hirten Company, Inc., New York, 1935, republished by CSG and Associates Publishers, pp. 130-132.)

It was not only Dwight Morrow who gave public support to Plutarco Elias Calles in the immediate aftermath of the martyrdom of Father Miguel Augustin Pro, who cried out Viva Cristo Rey! as the bullets were fired at him. The folksy American humorist, columnist and actor named Will Rogers, a Freemason, of course, did so as well:

 

 

Strong hands, quick to become doubled fists, a hard jaw, and a heavy scowl have sometimes been called the typical externals of President Plutarco Elias Calles. The fact that he once publicly alluded to "the grunts of the Pope" caused some to fear that his mind might resemble his fists. Last week such mistaken impressions were given the lie when Senor Calles proved himself not only supple of body but adept at mellow geniality. Scene: the $375,000 private train of the President of Mexico which puffed all week, from one hospitable ranch in northern Mexican states to another. On board were the new U. S. Ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Whitney Morrow (onetime Morgan partner), and tart-witted cowboy-clown Will Rogers. They, and other guests of the President, were privileged to see him in playful mood. At Pabellon Ranch, State of Aguascalientes, Senor Calles seated his guests around a bull ring. He had a surprise for them, he said. Quietly picking up a matador's red cape, he entered the arena.

At a flirt of the red, a small but purposeful bull charged, horns down, to gore the President of Mexico. Swirling the cape through a classic "pass," he pivoted and dodged—his chunky body suddenly achieving grace. While guests Morrow and Rogers gripped their seats, President Calles brought off three more hazardous "passes." Then, having shown his guests the dexterous and dangerous phase of bull-baiting, he strode from the ring. No bull was killed, or even pinked, lest U. S. gorges rise.

Came luncheon, provided on the scale of a local fiesta. Peasants and the local gentry mingled. President Calles, beamingly in his element, led hearty singing of mellow Spanish songs. What did the U. S. guests think?

Mr. Morrow, rising to a toast, said something in English which was apparently not understood. Mr. Rogers then quoted Mr. Morrow in Spanish as having said: "... how could the United States ever enter into armed conflict with people like these? ..." Amid shouted cheers President Calles sprang up and clasped the Ambassador's hand. Later Mr. Morrow said to U. S. correspondents: "All this is very interesting." (President at Play - TIME.)

The same afternoon, Calles demanded that [General Roberto] Cruz make an example of the Pros. In a battle worthy of wits worthy of Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin, Cruz tried to called Calles into allowing some legal cover. But Calles told him "to hell with" legalities and reminded him that he had his orders and only had to obey. Cruz appeared before reporters and explained that evidence had been accumulated showing all the parties guilty in the attempted assassination of [Alvaro Obregon]. Apparently, Calles had ordered that these executions were to have a high profile. So journalists and photographers from all over Mexico and the whole world were invited.

Even so the game was not entirely over. the morning of the execution, an enterprising lawyer, Luis MacGregor, had convinced a quite brave judge, Julio Lopez Masse, to sign an amparo, a stay of execution. It is doubtful that Cruz and Calles would have paid any attention to this paper obstacle. But they did not have to. MacGregor was locked outside of the proceedings at the police station, and the executions--quite odd for such widely advertised events--were carried out a half-hour earlier than scheduled. A last-minute request from the Argentine delegation to Mexico earned Roberto, the youngest of the [Pro] brothers, a reprieve.

When Miguel's body and the body his brother Humberto arrived at the family house, old Miguel, Sr., ordered no one to mourn, for there was nothing sorrowful in such heroic deaths. Don Miguel opened the door later that night and found a half-dozen government agents outside. They came in, knelt, and prayed. A steady stream of workers, women, and professional people arrived. The Rosary was recited; other prayers were said. When the bodies were ready for transport to the Dolores Cemetery, there was an enormous crowd in the streets, even though President Calles had forbidden public demonstrations in support of the martyred brothers. But the crowd was much larger than the police could do anything about, somewhere between ten thousand and thirty thousand, according to some accounts larger than any ever seen in Mexico, at a funeral. Around five hundred cars took part in the funeral cortege. As the caskets came out, someone shouted, "Make way for the martyrs!" The crowd fell silent. But as the coffins went through the streets "Viva Cristo Rey!" was shouted everywhere.

The day after Fr. Pro's execution, the American Ambassador Dwight Morrow (Charles Lindbergh's future father-in-law) and the humorist Will Rogers, who had become famous as a common-sense mocker of U.S. government foolishness, took a trip with President Calles through Mexico on the presidential train. Calles had deliberately set up the trip as propaganda intended to convince Mexican Catholics that the United States would not help them. Morrow is reported to have known this, but believed he could use the influence thus gained over Calles to turn his government in a different direction. In the next few years, the government killed 250,000 to 300,000 people, many Catholic, even after a compromise had been worked out. (Robert Royal, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 2000, pp. 39-40.)

Father Pro, who donned various disguises to provide the Sacraments to Catholics in Mexico after Calles had proscribed their administration that evokes memories of Father William Joseph Chaminade, S.M., during the French Revolution and was a foreshadowing of the heroics of the "Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican," Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, during the Nazi occupation of Rome as World War II was raging, knew that he might face death for his work. In a letter to his Jesuit superiors in Rome, he, demonstrating that he was a true son of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, said that a priest cannot live in fear of any kind:

 

 

You know very well that I am not especially inclined to anything in particular, although it is rather hard to lose the chance of going straight to heaven or of becoming a chaplain of the Marias Islands [where the government deported its prisoners].

I prefer to obey, being quite convinced that I will be of more use to those to whim I wish dedicate my work and life. I have no desire to influence your desire to influence your decision, but I would like to follow the advice that Father Crivelli sent us from Rome: please let me remain at my post until the end of the persecution.

Fear withdraws the priests from their abandoned flocks. Now, as you know, fear is not my predominant fault. I might die? What they might do or what they might do to me--all that is in the hands of God.

Would that I might be found worthy of suffering persecution for the holy name of Jesus. Do I not belong to his army? But let us repeat as in the Our Father: "Thy will be done!" (Gerald F. Muller, C.S.C., With Life and Laughter: The Life of Father Pro, published originally in 1969 by Dujarie Press and republished in 1996 by the Daughters of Saint Paul, p. 122.)

No one, least of all a priest, should live in fear of any kind at any time. Christ the King is our Divine Judge. No one else, no matter how many rationalizations they might use to excuse silence in the face or social or moral or doctrinal or liturgical evils as a "virtuous" and "prudent" exercise of "self-restraint."

Were American Catholics outraged by the execution of Father Pro or by the supporter given his murderer, Calles, by Dwight Morrow and Will Rogers? Some were. Most were not, including most of the American bishops, men who had "rallied around the colors" during the Spanish-American War and World War I and wanted no part of active criticism of the government of the United States of America. Only the Knights of Columbus, which today permits pro-abortion Catholics to remain in its ranks as they are, of course, in "good standing" with the counterfeit church of conciliarism, attempted to raise its voice in behalf of the Mexican Martyrs. Even that voice, however, was not unequivocal, something that will be explained in part four of this series in a few days.

Typical of the indifferent attitude of the American bishops was that encountered by Mexican student leader, Rene Capistran Garza, associated with the League for the Defense of Religious Liberty in Mexico who attempted to garner support from them for the cause of the suffering Catholics to their south:

 

 

In an open second-hand Studebaker in the dead of winter he and a bilingual companion made their way to Texas armed with letters of recommendation to bishops and regional commanders of the Knights of Columbus. Stopping first in Corpus Christ they stood waiting for the bishop to read their credentials when they told their story. Concluding, they heard words they could scarcely believe, "Nothing doing, sorry." In Galveston the bishop took out a ten-dollar bill of out of his pocket and handed it to them. Houston, Dallas, Little Rock brought hardly enough to pay for their gasoline at 1926 prices. Then in the prosperous German diocese of St. Louis the bishop gave them one hundred dollars of his own. But at that point the Studebaker broke down and in order to repair it the youths had to pawn an heirloom gold watch and a new pistol. Meeting constant rejection they drove through sleet and snow to Indianapolis, Dayton, Pittsburgh and finally to the great [arch]diocese of Boston, already famed for its covey of Irish Catholic millionaires.

Cardinal [William] O'Connell received their letters and listened to their tale. Then he made his contribution. It took the form of advice, "I exhort you and your people to suffer in patience the trials that God has sent you." He added that if either of them felt like abandoning their project in order to look for jobs in Boston he would be happy to given the letters of recommendation.

When two months later Rene and his friend Jose, were here home in Mexico, their hope was to soar for a last time. The Texas oilman William F. Buckley [yes, the father of William F. Buckley, Jr., who had spent much time in Mexico] notified them that he had persuaded his good friend Nicholas Brady, the Knight of St. Gregory and Duke of the Papal Court, to donate one million dollars to the cause. Arriving in New York after the long train journey Capistran found that the Vatican's no placet had got to Brady ahead of him. One can only conclude that to have turned men like Brady and O'Connell [who was an anti-Ameicanist, it should be noted] away from helping so Catholic a cause as that of the Cristeros the Vatican message must have been not only peremptory but noxious (Mary Ball Martinez, The Undermining of the Catholic Church,  1991, p. 54.)

Who in the Vatican was responsible for this treachery. Well, the same man who was responsible for the supposed "peace" accord in 1929 that was rejected by Cristero General Enrique Gorostieta: Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, the Secretary of State for the Holy See. Cardinal Gasparri was an Americanist and never wanted to do anything to offend the sensibilities of the American government, certainly not to aid the Cristeros. Pope Pius XI later regretted having taken Gasparri's advice to urge the Cristeros to lay down their arms in 1929. Yet it was, you see, that it was Cardinal Pietro Gasparri and his friends in the American hierarchy who also bear responsibility for the undermining of the Cristero cause and for the triumph of Plutarco Elias Calles over them.

Alas, the hour is late. My computer is showing signs of crashing. I am going to say a few prayers and try to get some sleep before the computer on which this is being written crashes and goes to "sleep" for good.

Continue to offer up all of the trials of the present moment to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially today on this Commemorated Feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries as our state-in-life permits this day and every day.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Yes, my few readers, then, now and always: Viva Cristo Rey!

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Most Pure Heart of Mary, 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix

The Massacre At Belangiga, Philippines, September 28, 1901

As found at Balangiga Massacre, 1901

On Aug 11, 1901, Company C, 9th US Infantry Regiment, arrived in Balangiga on the southern coast of Samar island, to close its port and prevent supplies reaching Filipino guerillas in the interior.

A glamour unit, Company C was assigned provost duty and guarded the captured President Emilio Aguinaldo upon their return to the Philippines on June 5, 1901, after fighting Boxer rebels and helping capture Peking in China.

They also performed as honor guard during the historic July 4, 1901 inauguration of the American civil government in the Philippines and the installation as first civil governor of William Howard Taft, later president of the U.S.

Filipino historian, Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga, tells the story of the massacre in an article entitled "Vintage View: The Balangiga Incident and Its Aftermath":

"The first month of Company C’s presence in Balangiga was marked by extensive fraternization between the Americans and the local residents. The friendly activities included tuba (native wine) drinking among the soldiers and native males, baseball games and arnis (stick fighting) demonstrations in the town plaza, and even a romantic link between an American sergeant,  Frank Betron, and a native woman church leader, Casiana “Geronima” Nacionales.

"Tensions rose when on September 22, at a tuba store, two drunken American soldiers tried to molest the girl tending the store. The girl was rescued by her two brothers, who mauled the soldiers. In retaliation, the Company Commander, Capt. Thomas W. Connell,  West Point class of 1894, rounded up 143 male residents for forced labor to clean up the town in preparation for an official visit by his superior officers. They were detained overnight without food under two conical Sibley tents in the town plaza, each of which could only accommodate 16 persons; 78 of the detainees remained the next morning, after 65 others were released due to age and physical infirmity. Finally, Connell ordered the confiscation from their houses of all sharp bolos, and the confiscation and destruction of stored rice. Feeling aggrieved, the townspeople plotted to attack the U.S. Army garrison.

"The mastermind was Valeriano Abanador, a Letran dropout and the local chief of police; he was assisted by five locals and two guerilla officers under the command of Brig. Gen. Vicente Lukban: Capt. Eugenio Daza and Sgt. Pedro Duran, Sr.  The lone woman plotter was Casiana “Geronima” Nacionales. Lukban played no role in the planning of the attack; he only learned about it a week later. About  500 men in seven attack units would take part. They represented virtually all families of Balangiga, whose outlying villages then included the present towns of Lawaan and Giporlos, and of Quinapundan, a town served by the priest in Balangiga.

"On September 27, Friday, the natives sought divine help and intervention for the success of their plot through an afternoon procession and marathon evening novena prayers to their protector saints inside the church. They also ensured the safety of the women and children by having them leave the town after midnight, hours before the attack. Pvt. Adolph Gamlin observed women and children evacuating the town and reported it, but he was ignored.

"To mask the disappearance of the women from the dawn service inside the church, 34 attackers from Barrio Lawaan cross-dressed as women worshippers.

"At 6:45 a.m., on Saturday, September 28, Abanador grabbed Pvt.  Adolph Gamlin's rifle from behind and hit him unconscious with its butt.  Abanador turned the rifle at the men in the sergeant’s mess tent, wounding one. He then waved a rattan cane above his head, and yelled: “Atake, mga Balangigan-on! (Attack, men of Balangiga!). A bell in the church tower was rung seconds later, to announce that the attack had begun.

"The guards outside the convent and municipal hall were killed. The Filipinos apparently sealed in the Sibley tents at the front of the municipal hall, having had weapons smuggled to them in water carriers, broke free and entered the municipal hall and made their way to the second floor. The men in the church broke into the convent through a connecting corridor and killed the officers who were billeted there. The mess tent and the two barracks were attacked. Most of the Americans were hacked to death before they could grab their firearms. The few who escaped the main attack fought with kitchen utensils, steak knives, and chairs.

"The convent was successfully occupied and so, initially, was the municipal hall, but the mess tent and barracks attack suffered a fatal flaw - about one hundred men were split into three groups, one of each target but too few attackers had been assigned to ensure success. A number of Co. C. personnel escaped from the mess tent and the barracks and were able to retake the municipal hall, arm themselves and fight back. Adolph Gamlin recovered consciousness, found a rifle and caused considerable casualties among the Filipinos. [Gamlin died at age 92 in the U.S. in 1969].

"Faced with immensely superior firepower and a rapidly degrading attack, Abanador ordered a retreat. But with insufficient numbers and fear that the rebels would re-group and attack again, the surviving Americans, led by Sgt.  Frank Betron, escaped by baroto (native canoes with outriggers, navigated by using wooden paddles) to Basey, Samar, about 20 miles away. The townspeople returned to bury their dead, then abandoned the town."

Capt. Edwin V. Bookmiller, West Point Class 1889 and commander of Company G of the 9th US Infantry at Basey, commandeered a civilian coastal steamer from Tacloban, the SS Pittsburg, and with his men steamed to Balangiga. The town was deserted. The dead of Company C lay where they fell, many bearing horrible hack wounds. Bookmiller and his men burned the town to the ground.

Of the original 74 man contingent, 48 died and 26 survived, 22 of them severely wounded. The dead included all of  Company C's commissioned officers: Capt. Thomas W. Connell (RIGHT), 1st Lt. Edward A. Bumpus, and Maj. Richard S. Griswold (the Company surgeon). The guerillas also took 100 rifles with 25,000 rounds of ammunition; 28 Filipinos died and 22 were wounded.

The massacre shocked the U.S. public; many newspaper editors noted that it was the worst disaster suffered by the U.S. Army since Custer's last stand at Little Big Horn. An infuriated Maj. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, military governor for the “unpacified” areas of the Philippines, assured the press that "the situation calls for shot, shells and bayonets as the natives are not to be trusted." He advised newspaper correspondent Joseph Ohl, "If you should hear of a few Filipinos more or less being put away don't grow too sentimental over it."

Adna Romanza Chaffee (LEFT, in 1898) was born in Ohio in 1842. A veteran of the Civil war and countless Indian campaigns, he served throughout the Spanish-American War, and commanded American troops in the capture of Peking, China, during the Boxer rebellion. He replaced  Brig. Gen. Arthur C. MacArthur, Jr., as military governor  of the “unpacified” areas of the Philippines on July 4, 1901. He appointed Brigadier Generals James Franklin Bell to Batangas and Jacob Smith to Samar, with orders to do whatever was necessary to destroy the opposition--he wanted an Indian-style campaign. Chaffee’s orders were largely responsible for the atrocities that marked the later stages of the war. When the war ended in 1902, Chaffee returned to the States, where he served as lieutenant general and Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army from 1904-1906. He retired in 1906 and died in 1914.

The U.S. Army's retaliation measures included actions that resulted in the courts-martial of two  field commanders, . Brig. Gen. Jacob "Howling Jake" Smith (LEFT, in Tagbilaran in 1901) and Marine Maj. Littleton Waller.

After the massacre at Balangiga, General Smith issued his infamous Circular No. 6, and ordered his command thus: "I want no prisoners" and "I wish you to kill and burn; and the more you burn and kill, the better it will please me." Then he tasked his men to reduce Samar into a "howling wilderness," to kill anyone 10 years old and above capable of bearing arms.

He stressed that, "Every native will henceforth be treated as an enemy until he has conclusively shown that he is a friend." His policy would be "to wage war in the sharpest and most decisive manner," and that "a course would be pursued that would create a burning desire for peace."  [On Dec. 29, 1890, as a cavalryman, Smith was present at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, an incident ---also referred to as a massacre---that left about 300 Sioux men, women and children, and 29 Army soldiers dead.]

In Samar, he gave his subordinates carte blanche authority in the application of Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 General Order 100. This order, in brief, authorized the shooting on sight of all persons not in uniform acting as soldiers and those committing, or seeking to commit, sabotage. 

The exact number of civilians massacred by US troops will never be known, but exhaustive research made by  a sympathetic British writer in the 1990s put the figure at about 2,500; Filipino historians believe it was around 50,000.

General Smith and Major Waller (RIGHT) underwent separate courts-martial for their roles in the suppressive campaign of Nov 1901- Jan 1902. Although he received the "Kill all over ten" order from Gen. Smith, Waller countermanded it and told his men not to obey it.

However, he was specifically tried for murder in the summary execution of 11 Filipino porters. After a long march,  Marine Lt. A.S. Wlliams accused the porters of mutinuous behavior, hiding food and supplies and keeping themselves nourished from the jungle while the Marines starved. Waller ordered the execution of the porters. Ten were shot in groups of three, while one was gunned down in the water attempting to escape.  The bodies were left in the square of Lanang (now Llorente), as an example, until one evening, under cover of darkness, some townspeople carried them off for a Christian burial.

In an eleven-day span, Major Waller also reported that his men burned 255 dwellings, slaughtered 13 carabaos and killed 39 people. Other officers reported similar activity.

Smith commanded the Sixth Separate Brigade, which included a battalion of 315 Marines under Waller.  Waller's court martial acquitted him but Smith's found him guilty, for which he was admonished and retired from the service. Gen. Smith was born in 1840 and died in San Diego, California on March 1, 1918.

Outcry in America over the brutal nature of the Samar campaign cost Waller his chance at the Commandancy of the US Marine Corps. Liberal newspapers took to addressing him as "The Butcher Of Samar".

Waller was born in York County, Virginia on Sept. 26, 1856. He was appointed as a second lieutenant of Marines on June 24, 1880. He rose to Major General, retired in June 1920 and died on July 13, 1926.  He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In 1942, the destroyer USS Waller was named in his honor.

In April 1902, Abanador accepted the general amnesty offered by the Americans. He died sometime in the 1950's.

In the April 18, 1902 issue of the New York World, Richard Thomas O'Brien, formerly a corporal in Company M, 26th U.S. Volunteer Infantry Regiment,  based in Miag-ao, Iloilo Province, Panay Island, described how his birthday went on Dec. 27, 1901 at Barrio Lanog: [LEFT, Miag-ao Church, late 1890's]

"It was on the 27th day of December, the anniversary of my birth, and I shall never forget the scenes I witnessed on that day. As we approached the town the word passed along the line that there would be no prisoners taken. It meant that we were to shoot every living thing in sight—man, woman, and child. The first shot was fired by the then first sergeant of our company. His target was a mere boy, who was coming down the mountain path into the town astride of a caribou. The boy was not struck by the bullet, but that was not the sergeant's fault. The little Filipino boy slid from the back of his caribou and fled in terror up the mountain side. Half a dozen shots were fired after him. The shooting now had attracted the villagers, who came out of their homes in alarm, wondering what it all meant. They offered no offense, did not display a weapon, made no hostile movement whatsoever, but they were ruthlessly shot down in cold blood—men, women, and children. The poor natives huddled together or fled in terror. Many were pursued and killed on the spot.

"Two old men, bearing between them a white flag and clasping hands like two brothers, approached the lines. Their hair was white. They fairly tottered, they were so feeble under the weight of years. To my horror and that of the other men in the command, the order was given to fire, and the two old men were shot down in their tracks. We entered the village. A man who had been on a sick-bed appeared at the doorway of his home. He received a bullet in the abdomen and fell dead in the doorway. Dum-dum bullets were used in that massacre, but we were not told the name of the bullets. We didn't have to be told. We knew what they were.

"In another part of the village a mother with a babe at her breast and two young children at her side pleaded for mercy. She feared to leave her home, which had just been fired—accidentally, I believe. She faced the flames with her children, and not a hand was raised to save her or the little ones. They perished miserably. It was sure death if she left the house—it was sure death if she remained. She feared the American soldiers, however, worse than the devouring flames."

Company M was commanded by Capt. Fred McDonald. (Balangiga Massacre, 1901.)

[Thomas A. Droleskey note: Liberty and justice for all? One "republic under God." Think again, ladies and gentlemen. Think again.]