“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

Fortitude
Heroism in Literature
Building Strength
True Fathers as We Need Them

September - October 2016

It is not surprising that the Cross no longer triumphs,
because sacrifice no longer triumphs. It is not
surprising that men no longer think of anything but
raising their standard of living, that they seek only
money, riches, pleasures, comfort, and the easy ways
of this world. They have lost the sense of sacrifice”
(Archbishop Lefebvre, Jubilee Sermon, Nov. 1979).
Statue of Apostle, Cathedral of St. John, s’Hertogenno

Letter
from the
Publisher
Dear readers,
“O God, who dost manifest Thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity…”
The collect of the 10th Sunday after Pentecost so reveals the essential quality of divine
fortitude. By excellence—and more than in other aspects of creation—God shows His
Fortitude by endowing His creature with freedom and telling them them: “Increase and
multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it” (Gen. 1:27). Adam and Eve and all their children
could be faithful to the Lord, but they could also revolt against Him. God, because of “His
almighty power,” allows Himself to expose His work, and His honor, to the danger of their
freedom.
After men had initially refused to obey God and had stood up against His strength, God
took a second risk. He decided to send His Son. Humanly speaking, how much fortitude
must it have taken for Christ to step into this world, into all the falsehood, the brutal
cruelty, and the disgraceful narrowness of our existence? Christ was not blindsided by
naive daydreams, nor biased by the pride of modern man, nor tempted by the tactics of
politicians. On the contrary, He came into the world, not to repay guile with guile or blow
with blow. He came in the vulnerability of selfless and unprotected perfection.
Let us compare His fortitude with our weaknesses. Jesus faced all the situations of
His life courageously. He accepted a simple and unspectacular duty of state, along the
violence and crookedness that men inflicted upon Him. We, however, shield ourselves by
all manner of means. Christ accepted what the progression of events brought upon Him,
for this was the will of the Father. We do not accept the world as it is, but tend choose
what pleases us and to refuse what displeases. We know how to conform in the face of
contradiction, how to go around difficulties, how to catch our advantages, and how to find
the easy way.
May the contributions in this issue of The Angelus enlighten us on the virtue of Fortitude
and instill in us the noble wish to follow His example. He was strong and became man, not
to please Himself, not to accomplish something simply spectacular, not to find temporary
fulfillment in a noble cause, but for our redemption and for our sake. He manifested
his selfless, humble, and patient fortitude, that we might gain the courage to be real
Christians.
Fr. Jürgen Wegner
Publisher

September - October 2016
Volume XXXIX, Number 5

Contents
Letter from the Publisher

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4

Theme: Fortitude
––Esto vir!
––Heroism in Literature
––Building Strength​	
––True Fathers as We Need Them

6
12
18
24

Faith and Morals
––The Feast of the Holy Cross
––Decline in Fortitude and Direction
––“Our Dear Rector”

27
31
34

Spirituality
––An Apostolic Missionary
––Bearing Trials

40
45

Christian Culture
––Notre-Dame du Puy-en-Velay
––Corruption, Courage, and Rage
––Forming the Conscience

48
55
60

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published bi-monthly
under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary,
Queen of Angels. Publication office is located at
PO Box 217, St. Marys, KS 66536.
PH (816) 753-3150; FAX (816) 753-3557.
Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, MO.
Manuscripts and letters to the editor are welcome
and will be used at the discretion of the editors.
The authors of the articles presented here are solely
responsible for their judgments and opinions.
Postmaster sends address changes to the address above.
©2016 BY ANGELUS PRESS. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE
PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

––Questions and Answers

68

News from Tradition
––Church and World
––Fortitude vs. the Revolution
––The Last Word

70
78
87

Theme Fortitude

Esto vir!
Fortitude at the school of Archbishop Lefebvre

by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX

After giving a definition of fortitude and
showing in what discipline consists, I shall
touch on the role of education, according to
Archbishop Lefebvre, in the acquisition of these
virtues; I shall then consider the defects that go
against and the virtues connected to fortitude
and discipline. This will give us some practical
directives, after the model of an exemplary man.

Definitions of Fortitude
Discipline is self-control, the interior order of
the soul and of the body, which is the source of
the exterior order of things and men. It is the fruit
both of the gift of wisdom (ordering is proper to
the wise) and of the gift of fortitude (“I am master
of myself as of the universe,” are the words
6

The Angelus

September - October 2016

which dramatist Corneille puts in the mouth of
the Emperor Augustus). Fortitude, or courage,
is one of the four cardinal virtues; it is assisted
by the gift of fortitude, one of the seven gifts of
the Holy Ghost; their object is to dominate fear
in order to accomplish the difficult good, be it in
the temporal order, like a major work, a military
victory, or in the spiritual order, like sanctity and
eternal salvation.

Role of education and school in
the acquisition of these virtues
These virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost must
be put into practice from early childhood, at
home or at school, if they are to be acquired in a
stable way.

The Maréchal Foch, supreme commander of
the Allied Forces during World War I, sees in a
young man’s relentless work the source of his
self-control and self-assurance, especially in
the military art that is his and that he himself
acquired in middle school in Metz.
“Do not believe in natural gifts!—Believe in
hard work!” he exclaimed to his student-officers.
It is hard work that procures knowledge, the
knowledge that constitutes the dignity of the
professional and his ability. It is his knowledge,
acquired through relentless practice, that gives
him the self-assurance that enables him to make
decisions without constantly having to ask for

advice!” And this self-assurance establishes the
exercise of his ability to decide against all odds.
It is what makes us trust him.
The pious Fr. Cappello, a famous Italian canon
lawyer, whose confessional in San Ignacio was
besieged by penitents, was also remarkable for
the sureness of his knowledge and the broadness
of his practical advice.
The knowledge acquired by Foch was what
gave him his ability to react immediately in
the dark days of the violent enemy attacks in
the spring of 1918: he knew not to panic or lose
his head but rather to move entire army corps
rapidly to fill in the gaps and successfully

7

Theme Fortitude
counterattack.
Archbishop Lefebvre sees the source of selfdiscipline in the spirit of sacrifice instilled at
school. In March 31, 1982, he spoke at a school:
“A Catholic school,” he said, “ is a school in
which you learn to discipline yourself, in which
you learn sacrifice, for one cannot be Catholic
without sacrifice. Why sacrifice oneself? In order
to be filled with charity and love.
“We were created to love God, to love our
neighbor: that is the whole law of God. There
is no other law. In the Gospel, the entire law
is resumed by charity. But in order to become
charitable, we must make sacrifices. If we do not
sacrifice ourselves, we cannot devote ourselves,
we cannot give ourselves.
“The egoist, who thinks only of himself, is
not charitable. And so in a Catholic school, one
learns to sacrifice oneself, to discipline oneself:
the discipline of the intelligence, the discipline of
the will, the discipline of the heart.
“You learn to discipline your intelligence by
receiving the truth, by submitting to the truth
that is taught to you. The truth is taught to
us from our earliest childhood until we finish
school. Here you learn to form your intelligence
according to the truth taught to us by Our Lord
Jesus Christ.
“You also learn to form your will, to discipline
your will. We all have defects, we are born with
original sin, and the effects of original sin stay
with us until our death.
“So we have to fight against these evil
tendencies, these evil desires that are in us, and
to discipline our will, with the help of God, with
the help of grace. That is why, at school, you have
the chapel, which is the heart, the main building.
Everything is oriented towards the chapel,
toward Our Lord Jesus Christ: He is our Truth,
He is our strength, He is our love.”

Defects that go against
fortitude and discipline
For lack of education, for lack of practice, for
lack of exercise, fortitude and discipline give way
to cowardice and sloppiness.
Instead of courage, we find the weakness of
8

The Angelus

September - October 2016

the irascible appetite. The irascible appetite is a
passion of the soul, a passion of the sensible part
of the human soul. The irascible passion desires
and pursues the difficult good, whereas the
concupiscible appetite desires the sensible and
delectable good.
The lack of irascible appetite causes the
cowardice of the will, inconsistency in one’s
positions; it also causes indecision in the
intelligence, which, instead of heroically applying
the principles, seeks solutions, compromises in
the face of an adversary or of adversity.
Instead of discipline, or self-control, we find
anger (often a reaction of weakness), disorder (in
the person and in things), and laziness. This last,
laziness, does not consist in doing nothing but
rather in preferring the less useful work to the
more useful and necessary work.
We also find sloppy dress or dress that goes
against corporal modesty. Compare the attitude
and dress of young men in 1916 to that of those
in 2016 and you will see the loss of virility, in one
short century, in the entire country’s masculine
population, thanks to the slow progress of an
effeminate attitude and dress for young men.

Repercussions of
physical strength on the
strength of the soul.
It is the role of the Catholic family and of the
Catholic school to exercise children and teens in
physical endurance: endurance of fatigue, fasting,
vigils, walks, etc.
A night of prayer or an hour of nocturnal
adoration are excellent exercises in physical
endurance and in piety. The school maintains
weekly hours of physical education (gymnastics)
to teach young men suppleness and build their
muscles. Everyone knows that physical strength
and tonus are a help for moral tonus.
The young Eugenio Pacelli, tall and thin,
trained himself with physical exercises from
his childhood and teen years in order to hold
himself straight. He practiced horseback riding
and became an experienced and tireless rider
in his races through the Roman countryside.

His whole life long, whether standing, sitting,
or in the saddle, he worked to hold himself
impeccably straight with a relentless muscular
corporal discipline. As Pope Pius XII, he
inspired immediate respect in his visitors: “One
only approached Pius XII with great respect,”
recognized Archbishop Lefebvre.

Practice of selfcontrol and order
The good Fr. Barrielle, spiritual director of
the Seminary of St. Pius X in Econe, taught the
seminarians principles of order that would be
very useful to them at the head of their priories,
schools and districts.
He transmitted the five rules of Fayolism (of
the engineer Fayol, not of General Fayolle who
was defeated in 1917). Here they are as indicated
by Fr. Barrielle:
1. Plan ahead: the goal and the means: place,
time, things, people’s competencies.
2. Organize: steps, persons in charge, preparatory
meetings planned.
3. Command: make a decision, organize people
precisely.
4. Control: things, people, remind them of their
tasks.
5. Office work: write, telephone, file.
Here are some examples given by Archbishop
Lefebvre. He has just returned from a trip. He
puts his suitcase and his travel bag down in his
room, and goes directly to the chapel to recite
the rosary with the community, even though he
has already said fifteen decades with his driver.
“The community office takes precedence.” After
the meal, he will put his things away, and bring
his dirty laundry down to the laundry room. The
next day he will go through his abundant mail
and, with his fine and regular hand, answer each
letter with a cordial word, even if it is a letter full
of insults.
In the evening, he will go give his spiritual
conference to the seminarians; he waits for
the exact time at the foot of the platform. After
the Veni Sancte Spiritus, he sits down with
his feet together and without ever leaning his

back against the back of the chair. He places his
two wrists at the edge of the table and speaks
(sometimes smiling, sometimes serious if there
are reproaches to be made) with his small,
modest but distinct voice.
His cassock is simple, without visible buttons,
and tied at the waist with the modest Spiritan
cord. His shoes are carefully polished.
It is the exterior and the attitude of a modest
priest, of a respected and beloved leader who,
without ostentation, is an example of order and
self-control for his sons, members of his Priestly
Society of St. Pius X.
Where did he get this discipline, this interior
strength? Certainly from his family, his father
who was the head of an industry; but also from
Rev. Fr. Henri Le Floch, his seminary rector in
Rome; and finally from his religious Spiritan
noviciate. He was well taught, and remained
the strong man, vir fortis, whose meekness
conquered his soul and the souls of others.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess
the earth.” Said otherwise, in the words of Dom
Delatte: “Terram quam terunt, terram quam
gerunt, terram quam sunt—the land they tread,
the land they rule (their subjects), the land they
are (their souls).”

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais was
one of the first members of the Society of St.
Pius X. He was ordained in 1975, and was
consecrated bishop in 1988. He is perhaps
best known to Americans as the author of the
definitive biography of Archbishop Lefebvre.
He resides in Chicago, Illinois.

9

Fortitude is chiefly about fear of difficult things,
which can withdraw the will from following the
reason. And it behooves one not only firmly to
bear the assault of these difficulties by restraining
fear, but also moderately to withstand them, when,
to wit, it is necessary to dispel them altogether
in order to free oneself therefrom for the future,
which seems to come under the notion of daring.
Therefore fortitude is about fear and daring, as
curbing fear and moderating daring.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, Q. 123, Art. 3
Statue of Fortitude, fountain Fonte Gaia, Piazza del Campo, Siena

Theme Fortitude

Heroism in
Literature
A Warrior, a Sister, and an Archbishop:
Some Literary Examples of Heroism

by Andrew J. Clarendon

1

12

St. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologica,
IIa-IIae, Q. 123, Art. 4. All
quotations from the Summa
are taken from the complete
English edition in five
volumes, trans. the Fathers
of the English Dominican
Province (Allen, TX:
Christian Classics, 1981).

The Angelus

The hero is universally admired, a figure present in differing cultures and
throughout time. From semi-divine classical heroes such as Achilles and a
host of characters from novels and films to the supreme example of Catholic
martyrs of the past and present, the hero is a great archetype that deeply
resonates within human nature. Traditionally and even etymologically, the
hero is a protector, one who often possesses physical prowess; but even if
the person lacks the strength of Hercules, all real heroes have a strength of
will that is proved in some mighty struggle. Whether male or female, from
whatever culture, a mark of the heroic is the possession of the virtue of
fortitude. The perennial philosophical understanding of this virtue makes
this clear: St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, teaches that fortitude is, in its
strictest sense, “the virtue that binds the will firmly to the good of reason in
[the] face . . . [of] the fear of dangers of death.”1 The most complete heroes
are therefore those who not only have a strength of will beyond the natural
desire to preserve one’s life, but also have great hearts that cling to the
good regardless of the circumstances. Myths, legends, and other stories
of literature have long presented this idea in a connatural manner; the
characters and events change, but continuously present, binding together

September - October 2016

2

Beowulf, trans. Seamus
Heaney (New York: Norton,
2000), 2177-2183.

the ancient and modern worlds, is the touchstone of courageous sacrifice in
defense of the good.

3

Msgr. Paul J. Glenn, A Tour
of the Summa (Rockford,
IL: Tan Books, 1978),
267-270.

Heroes in Classical Tradition
As Homer and the other ancient Greek myth makers are the fathers of a
great root of Western Civilization, many readers are familiar with the great
heroes of that tradition: the Samson-like Hercules, the god-favored Perseus,
or the wise and daring Theseus. Nevertheless, it is part of the ancient Greek
genius—the culture that invented tragedy—to present heroes who are often
deeply flawed, a reflection of the pagan gods who are part of the machinery
of the tales. The same is true in many other cultures. By contrast, an
anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, looking back on his pagan forefathers with
the insights of Christianity, produces in the great Old English poem Beowulf
a vision of an ideal hero, a character who stands as a model of fortitude in
its various aspects. Central to this heroic vision is that Beowulf possesses
both the physical prowess and fortitude to face and defeat dangers no one
else can. The first half of the poem involves Beowulf defeating the demonic
man-eater Grendel—an echo of the Cyclops episode from Homer’s Odyssey
among other things—and then diving into a hellish lake to destroy Grendel’s
mother who takes revenge for her son’s slaying. Finally, with clear echoes
of the Gospel, at the end of his life and as the long time king of his people,
Beowulf sacrifices his life to defeat a dragon that is ravaging the land. About
two-thirds of the way through the poem, the author writes the following
remarkable lines to sum up Beowulf’s heroic qualities:
Thus Beowulf bore himself with valour;
he was formidable in battle yet behaved with honour
and took no advantange; never cut down
a comrade who was drunk, kept his temper
and, warrior that he was, watched and controlled
his God-sent strength and his outstanding
natural powers.2
What is interesting is that this description of Beowulf’s character not only
involves what he does but also what he avoids doing. Like many heroes, he
is brave, powerful in battle, and has “outstanding / natural powers” that the
poet confesses are “God-sent.” To be truly heroic, though, it is not enough to
have these qualities; unlike a Hercules, Beowulf always maintains control,
only using his power for the good: he is an honorable man. St. Thomas
Aquinas, after discussing fortitude itself, goes on to list several virtues that
are associated with it; among these are a magnanimous greatness of soul and
what Cicero calls magnificence: doing great deeds.3 Beowulf, the protector
and savior of his people, is a dramatization of all of these qualities; in fact,
the only thing he lacks to be the ultimate hero is the true faith. He is what
Dante envisions as a virtuous pagan, an example of the best that human
nature can be without sanctifying grace.
As a human virtue, a habit residing in the will, fortitude is not only
13

Theme Fortitude
4

Sophocles, Antigone, trans.
Robert Fagles (New York:
Penguin Books, 1984),
232-233.

5

Ibid., 229-231.

6

Ibid., 503-505.

7

Divine Intimacy, Fr.
Gabriel of St. Mary
Magdalen, O.C.D., trans. the
Discalced Carmelite Nuns of
Boston (Rockford, IL: Tan
Books, 1996), 871.

8

Glenn, 266.

9

Summa Theologica, IIaIIae, Q. 124, Art. 3.

possessed by men; aside from the more common heroism of childbirth, there
are examples of great women who have suffered and even laid down their
lives for an ideal. Among the most famous literary works of this type is one
of the greatest tragedies of ancient Greece, Sophocles’ Antigone. The plot
centers on the refusal of Creon, the king of Thebes, to allow Antigone to bury
her brother Polynices because he attacked the city. Extending punishment
even to the dead, Creon declares that “Never at my hands / will the traitor
be honored”4 with a proper burial; “his corpse / [is to be left as] carrion for
the birds and dogs to tear, / an obscenity for the citizens to behold!”5 To
begin to understand Antigone’s insistence upon burying her brother in spite
of Creon’s decree, one must realize that the burial of the dead was one of
the most important religious duties of an ancient Greek woman: those who
rocked the cradle also mourned over the grave. As the play makes clear,
Creon insists upon his own, fallible human will over that of the divine. In one
of the play’s most celebrated episodes, the teenaged Antigone bravely stands
up to the civil authority, rebuking Creon for his hubris: “Nor did I think your
edict had such force / that you, a mere mortal, could override the gods, /
the great unwritten, unshakable traditions.”6 This last line is often cited as
a definition of the natural law. Antigone, a martyr to the divine and natural
law, is sentenced to death; although Creon repents and tries to save her, he is
too late, and, as a result of the tragic action, two others join her in the next
life. Antigone, therefore, shows an aspect of fortitude that is different from
the action of the battlefield. In his masterful book of daily meditations, Fr.
Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen notes that:
“Although courage is needed to face or to undertake hard tasks, it is
even more necessary in order to persevere in them, above all when they are
unpleasant or of long duration, and it is impossible to avoid or change them.
In this sense, St. Thomas teaches that the principal act of fortitude is not
to attack but to stand firm in the midst of dangers, and to endure struggles,
opposition, privations, and persecutions with a virile spirit.”7
This is the sort of fortitude to which all are called and one that is as
important in our day as any.

Supreme Example
After discussing fortitude in general, St. Thomas Aquinas goes on to
analyze the supreme example of Christian martyrdom. Although it can be
said, as in the case of Beowulf facing the dragon or Antigone standing up
to Creon, that martyrdom in a general sense “consists in suffering death for
the sake of a cause,”8 to die in order to bear witness to the truth of the faith
is the highest act of fortitude, an “act of the greatest perfection [since it is]
the greatest proof of the perfection of charity.”9 These ideas are illustrated
in one of the greatest plays of the twentieth-century, T. S. Eliot’s Murder in
the Cathedral, a dramatization of the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket. The
play is split into two parts: opening with the return of the archbishop from
exile, part one focuses on Thomas’ awareness of his upcoming martyrdom.
It is interesting that St. Thomas Aquinas notes that the “real essence of
martyrdom is its enduring with faith, love, and patience, the terrors and
14

The Angelus

September - October 2016

Scene from the murder
of Saint Thomas Becket,
Illuminated page from
manuscript on the life of
the saint written by John
of Salisbury, French School.

10

Glenn, 266.

pains of deadly persecution.”10 Eliot therefore not only has the archbishop
interact with the people and priests of Canterbury, but also includes a long
section in which Thomas is tormented by four temptations before he faces
his murderers. The first three temptations involve ways to avoid martyrdom:
to make peace by going back to the good times he enjoyed before becoming
archbishop, to join with the king, or to try to overthrow the king. When
these fail, the enemy seeks to pollute the future saint’s intention by tempting
him to seek martyrdom for his own glory, not for the love of Christ. Finally,
Thomas overcomes the temptation and is ready to bravely face whatever
Providence presents:
15

Theme Fortitude
11

T. S. Eliot, Murder in the
Cathedral (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1963) 44, 46.

12

Ibid., 69, 70.

13

Ibid., 75.

14

Ibid., 87.

15

The Holy Bible, DouayRheims Version (Rockford,
IL: Tan Books, 1971), Mt.
5:10.

Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:
Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
I shall no longer act or suffer, to the sword’s end.11
After a prose sermon on Christmas morning which acts as an interlude
between the two parts of the play and represents the above ideas in plainer
language, Eliot moves on to the martyrdom itself. After a first confrontation
with the four knights, the priests of the cathedral are terrified, and the
archbishop comforts them with the words of a true martyr:
Death will come only when I am worthy,
And if I am worthy, there is no danger.
I have therefore only to make perfect my will.
I have had a tremour of bliss, a wink of heaven, a whisper,
And I would no longer be denied; all things
Proceed to a joyful consummation.12
When the four knights, now drunk and ready to kill, return to the cathedral,
like Christ in garden, the archbishop commands that none of his people be
harmed and recites a variation of the Confiteor while being murdered. Those
who are brave enough to resign themselves to God’s providence say with St.
Thomas Becket:
I am . . .
A Christian, saved by the blood of Christ,
Ready to suffer with my blood.
This is the sign of the Church always,
The sign of blood. Blood for blood.
His blood given to buy my life,
My blood given to pay for His death,
My death for His death.13

Andrew J.
Clarendon,
M.A., holds
a M.A. in
English
Literature
from the Catholic
University of America. In
addition to being one of the
founding faculty members
of Notre Dame de La
Salette Academy, he is now
a professor at St. Mary’s
Academy and College.

16

The Angelus

This active firmness of will that is also a passive resignation to God, this act
of faith and charity, this supreme example of fortitude is what, with God’s
grace, “Shall enrich the earth, shall create the holy places.”14
As with other human acts, one turns to the stories and characters of
literature to vicariously experience tales of heroism which elevate and
inspire. While few people are great warriors, are inspired to practice civil
disobedience to the point of execution, or are archbishops, all are called
to the fortitude and dry martyrdom of our daily duties and state in life. It
may be that in our troubled age actual martyrdom will become even more
widespread than it is today. Come what may, it is for the soldier of Christ to
believe with courage and trust that “Blessed are they that suffer persecution
for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”15

September - October 2016

718 pp. – Hardcover with dust jacket – Illustrated – Index – STK# 8035 – $34.95

Marcel Lefebvre:
The Biography

This comprehensive work by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais is an insightful look at the life of one of
the most influential bishops in the 20th Century and in the history of the Church. Here is a life that
cannot be overlooked. The biography takes us through his early childhood in a deeply Catholic
family in France, through his days in the French Seminary in Rome. From there it carries us to his
missionary days in Africa, and his meteoric rise through the Church’s ranks, including his role as
Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers. Finally, much attention is given to the most profound
and important chapter in his life: the founding and direction of the Society of St. Pius X. A true gem
for anyone interested in this Athanasius of our time, and indispensable for anyone studying the
history of the Catholic Church.

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Theme Fortitude

Building
Strength​
by Fr. Michael McMahon, SSPX

Angelus Press: Fr McMahon, having been
in charge of a boys boarding school for over a
decade, you seem to be the right person to speak
of the virtue of fortitude, ​would you agree?
Fr. McMahon: After 20 years of priesthood,
the majority of which being spent teaching high
school boys, the great virtue of fortitude has been
absolutely necessary. Every parent, priest and
educator knows well the need to be strong when
forming children, especially when helping boys
become Catholic gentlemen. Just getting out of
bed sometimes to face the trials of the day—and
90 teenage boys—can require heroic fortitude!
Angelus Press: Would you distinguish
between fortitude, courage, and discipline?
Fr. McMahon: That is an excellent question ​
as it​permit​s us to be Thomistic and define
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and distinguish. Fortitude enables a person
to withstand difficulties, even great ones that
might prevent him from attaining his goal. The
infused virtue of fortitude, the cardinal virtue,
is a supernatural habit which allows a man to
overcome all obstacles and difficulties to attain
his true and ultimate goal, Heaven. Being a
fundamental virtue, it is meant to support and
help the other virtues to attain their ends and ​
overc​om​e that which might hinder or deter them.
While not the greatest of the virtues it is critical
and necessary...both for teacher and student.
Saint Thomas says that there are two principal
acts of fortitude: to attac​k (aggredi)​and to
endure (sustinere).
Courage is the common appellation of
fortitude. It means the strength of character and
firmness in the face of danger or difficulties. To

this basic meaning, one can add the sense of
ardor and energy in accomplishing tasks; or even
the nuance of panache, meaning the valiant and
heroic heart.
Discipline, etymologically, is the virtue of the
disciple towards the master. It is the docility
and obedience of the disciple to rules. It refers
rather to the outer structure and anything which
supports the practice of virtue. It is the outer
protection, the bark and the vein within which
virtue runs freely.
Angelus Press: Can we speak of fortitude as
being a “male virtue”?
Fr. McMahon: As the headmaster of a boys
school preparing young men to venture forth
into this crazy world, my first impulse is to shout
“yes!” However, we all know that the virtues
are for both men and women, boys and girls.
Saint Thomas does speak of fortitude as the
soldierly virtue which prepares one to ​w illingly
face danger, even the danger of death. Soldiers
of Christ are necessarily both ma​le and fem​a le.
Virtue is truly for all; the inculcating of which
is the very basis of education and formation. As
we approach another academic year, parents
and teachers alike must put on the hard hat of
fortitude themselves in order to properly form
our children. As the old axiom says: nemo dat
quod non habet. We must acquire and practice
the virtues, and perseveringly so, in order to ​
also ​provide the necessary example so that our
children will then practice them in turn.
We must be completely balanced in
understanding this great virtue. According
to Saint Thomas, endurance (sustinere) or
suffering is the chief act of the virtue of fortitude.
It is not the machismo of Schwarzenegger or
whomever the latest Hollywood ​tough guy​might
be, mindlessly and irrationally striking out
with witty cynicism and weapons of mass
destruction, flying fists and breaking bones.
Well do I remember years back the shock of one
father when I punished his son for unreasonably
punching another boy. He had carefully
instructed his son to strike if he were teased and
was quite surprised that I did not agree.
Angelus Press: So, Father “Teddy Bear,” you

are saying that we should be punching bags for
the world?
Fr. McMahon: Dear God, no! Rather
fools for Christ as S​a int​Paul would say, who
by the sacramental grace and character of ​
Confirmation are meant to endure, bear up,
and see the work through to the end as valiant ​
and faithful s​ oldiers. Rome was not built in a
day, and a year of forming a child is quite the
same. Clearly there are highs and lows, but the
grind, the daily grind, must rather be sustained
and endured more than attacked. This is not
weakness, but actually rather great strength,
and a very sane and virtuous understanding
of and accommodation to reality. By no means
does this preclude aggression or the attack, nor
even the use of anger​, which can be necessary
at times. According to S​a int ​John Chrysostom,
one can even sin by not becoming angry in given
circumstances​; while Aristotle teaches that anger
helps the brave and Saint Thomas tells us that
anger will find its place in the acts of fortitude.
Let us remember though that there are two acts
of fortitude, and the greater is to endure. The two
are complementary and make fortitude what it
is. As always virtue will stand in the middle of
extremes.
Angelus Press: Is implanting this virtue in
your students the main purpose of education at
La Salette?
Fr. McMahon: According to a certain
caricature, perhaps, but the reality is much
different. A solid Catholic school, true to her
name and mission, will be ordered and sane,
holy and healthy. If peace is the tranquility of
order, this order and peace must start with the
teaching and formation in virtue. Charity then
must be queen, gloriously reigning both toward
God and neighbor, emphasized and taught at
every turn. A boarding school is like a family,
albeit a quite large one, and fraternal charity is a
constant demand with opportunities to practice
it almost endless: from chapel to class, meals to
recreation. This religious practice allows us to
love the neighbor whom we see (and sometimes
see too much!), to allow us to love the God
whom we do not see. Even among the cardinal
virtues, those moral virtues upon which all
19

Theme Fortitude
others hinge, the great Aquinas places fortitude
third behind prudence and justice, with only
temperance following. That being said, it is a
manly virtue, and very much needed today. For
our boys to sally forth and conquer the world for
Christ the King, they must be well armed with
this supernatural strength.
Angelus Press: You mentioned order?
Fr. McMahon: Order brings tranquility and
peace. This is the place of discipline. Discipline
is nothing other than the ordered context within
which one is able to function properly and
prudently, enabled to attain one’s goals whether
athletic, academic or spiritual. Regardless of
the size of your school or family, discipline is
crucial. The first line of discipline is simply a
reasonable schedule. Saint Francis de Sales
famously claimed that our salvation hinged on

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our bedtime​, meaning that ​by going to sleep at a
prudent hour, o
​ ne would rise refreshed and ready
for the day, ready for his morning prayers and
meditation, spiritual reading and the duties of
state as they present themselves. This seemingly
exaggerated statement is actually quite profound
and clearly illustrates the need for a schedule.​In
the end, discipline is the great aid or instrument
in forming the will, an essential component of
education.​
Angelus Press: So a schedule then will take
care of all?
Fr. McMahon: If only it were that simple.
Once in place, the schedule must then be
enforced, must be lived, must be willingly
embraced along with the rules, regulations and
customs of the home, classroom, or school.
This is where the leadership of parents, priests

and teachers becomes crucial and presents a
heavy cross. Constant vigilance in the area of
correction and constructive criticism exacts
a great toll upon those in charge. A habit is
acquired only by repeated action—if well done,
you have a virtue; if poorly, then a vice. If I only
had $1 for each time I have corrected a boy on
his table manners, all my fundraising worries
would be over! Adults must fight the temptation
toward laxity and at times the fatigue which
repeated correction entails, being sure to punish
when necessary. Many adults have repudiated
their authority, preferring to please their sons in
order to be loved. The old school parental axiom
when punishing “this will hurt me more than it
hurts you” is so very true. The effort and energy
involved in such diligent parenting and educating
can be overwhelming at times. Duty demands to
correct, sanction, and punish “in season and out.”
Angelus Press: Do you think this too hard?
Fr. McMahon: Not at all. This is not a
personal opinion but the wisdom of the ages.
We must demand excellence, demand it daily,
demand it constantly, and first of all from
ourselves! Our children deserve this as heirs
of heaven, for they are meant to be saints and
heroes, they are called to be “sons of God.” We
simply do not challenge our young men enough!
The renowned educator Andre Charlier said that
the most striking point in the youth of his time
over 50 years ago was its lack of virility; the
principal cause of which was that parents did not
demand from their children. They did not form
them for life, for reality, for things the way they
really are—in a word difficult; difficult because
we live in a fallen world, a valley of tears. Rather
than prepare our children for this world and the
great work of sanctification, we tend to gratify
and spoil. All joys have a cost and the nobler they
are, the more effort required to obtain them. Our
ultimate goal, the final end, is eternal, everlasting
joy.
Angelus Press: Do you have examples to
illustrate this?
Fr. McMahon: Absolutely. Just pull out your
missal or any book on the saints—martyrs,
confessors, doctors and virgins. Although not a

saint, an example I have used through the years
is Sir Roger Bannister the first man to run a
sub 4-minute mile, thought humanly impossible
at the time. Remarkably, Bannister was not a
professional nor even a full time runner but a true
student-athlete who practiced after studies while
in medical school. His coach frequently exhorted
him to “thrust against pain and be contemptuous
of it.” Bannister did, earning fame and renown
to this day...doing this for a perishable crown.
This quote does nicely capture the two acts
of fortitude—thrusting (aggredi) against pain
(endurance).
Angelus Press: Is that merely natural?
Fr. McMahon: Perhaps, but Saint Paul saw
fit to use basically the same comparison, and
a true educator will never content himself to
remain at that level, but will dispose and guide
so that grace may build upon it. The spiritual
life, building the interior castle, is the most noble
and thus most difficult of works. To illustrate
how difficult one need only consider the efforts
demanded to remain after Mass for the relatively
easy act of a proper thanksgiving, so infrequently
done well by most of us. A Catholic gentleman is
simply a man grounded in reality and common
sense with a flowering of the virtues both natural
and supernatural.
Angelus Press: Is this possible today with the
youth of Facebook and YouTube?
Fr. McMahon: All things are possible, as
we know. This is our great hope. God has
not changed. His grace remains the same, as
powerful today as ever. Same Almighty God,
same grace, same means, same end. Of course
the process is long, slow and gradual and we
must be prepared to “persevere to the end.” It is a
transmission of knowledge, culture, and strength
of will to the next generation. That is our glory
as teachers and educators. One of the greatest
compliments I ever received from a former
student, now a friend, and soon to be ordained
a priest was the following: “He demanded
excellence of us, so that we might learn to
demand it of ourselves.” If we can accomplish
that, we have done something grand.

21

Of the Lord’s Prayer
And so there follows after these different kinds of supplication a still more sublime
and exalted condition which is brought about by the contemplation of God alone and
by fervent love, by which the mind, transporting and flinging itself into love for Him,
addresses God most familiarly as its own Father with a piety of its own. And that we
ought earnestly to seek after this condition the formula of the Lord’s prayer teaches us,
saying Our Father.
When then we confess with our own mouths that the God and Lord of the universe
is our Father, we profess immediately that we have been called from our condition
as slaves to the adoption of sons, adding next Which art in heaven, that, by shunning
with the utmost horror all lingering in this present life, which we pass upon this earth
as a pilgrimage, and what separates us by a great distance from our Father, we may
the rather hasten with all eagerness to that country where we confess that our Father
dwells, and may not allow anything of this kind, which would make us unworthy of
this our profession and the dignity of an adoption of this kind, and so deprive us as a
disgrace to our Father’s inheritance, and make us incur the wrath of His justice and
severity.
To which state and condition of sonship when we have advanced, we shall immediately
be inflamed with the piety which belongs to good sons, so that we shall bend all our
energies to the advance not of our own profit, but of our Father’s glory, saying to Him:
Hallowed be Your name, testifying that our desire and our joy is His glory, becoming
imitators of Him who said: He who speaks of himself, seeks his own glory. But He who
seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, the same is true and there is no unrighteousness
in Him. (Jn. 7:18) Finally the chosen vessel being filled with this feeling wished that he
could be anathema from Christ (Rom. 9:3) if only the people belonging to Him might be
increased and multiplied, and the salvation of the whole nation of Israel accrue to the
glory of His Father; for with all assurance could he wish to die for Christ as he knew
that no one perished for life. And again he says: We rejoice when we are weak but you
are strong. (II Cor. 13:9) And what wonder if the chosen vessel wished to be anathema
from Christ for the sake of Christ’s glory and the conversion of His own brethren and
the privilege of the nation, when the prophet Micah wished that he might be a liar and
a stranger to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, if only the people of the Jews might
escape those plagues and the going forth into captivity which he had announced in his
prophecy, saying: Would that I were not a man that has the Spirit, and that I rather spoke
a lie; (Mich. 2:11) — to pass over that wish of the Lawgiver, who did not refuse to die
together with his brethren who were doomed to death, saying: I beseech You, O Lord;
this people has sinned a heinous sin; either forgive them this trespass, or if You do not,
blot me out of Your book which You have written. (Ex. 32:31-32)
But where it is said Hallowed be Your name, it may also be very fairly taken in this
way: The hallowing of God is our perfection. And so when we say to Him Hallowed be
Your name we say in other words, make us, O Father, such that we maybe able both
to understand and take in what the hallowing of You is, or at any rate that You may be
seen to be hallowed in our spiritual converse. And this is effectually fulfilled in our case
when men see our good works, and glorify our Father Which is in heaven. (Mt. 5:16)
Cassian, The First Conference of Abbot Isaac on Prayer

Theme Fortitude

True Fathers
as We Need
Them
by Fr. Hervé de la Tour, SSPX

The need at the present hour is to form men of
character who will be the real spiritual leaders
of their families. Unfortunately, liberalism has
infected our minds to such a degree that even
among traditional Catholics true men become
rare. It will be our purpose in this article to
give you some helpful advice on one of the most
serious problems in the modern world—the
absence of true fathers—by having recourse
to the robust doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas
as contained in the Summa Theologica. By
providing the substance of the luminous
principles of the Angelic Doctor in simple
language, we hope that all can profit from his
wisdom.
We will find most of the elements we need in
St. Thomas’ study of the virtue of fortitude, which
is often rendered as “courage” in modern English.
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One possible Latin word for fortitude is “virtus”
(which also means virtue). The root of this word
is “vir,” which means “man.” And so you see that
manhood is linked with courage. In order to
have true fathers we need to have true men; and
true men are strong men. But what exactly is
strength?
St. Thomas explains that fortitude is a moral
virtue concerned with danger. Man comes across
many threatening evils during his existence, and
so he must face them in a reasonable manner
by controlling his fear. Courage enables man to
handle difficulties and obstacles There will be
two acts flowing from this virtue: attack and
defense. Fortitude will therefore be divided
into magnanimity, which can be rendered into
modern English by the words “greatness of soul”
(magna anima) and perseverance. Magnanimity

enables us to enlarge our heart and undertake a
great work with confidence. Perseverance allows
us to stand firm and endure evil for a long time,
resisting the temptation to quit.
The problem is that original sin has badly
damaged our human nature, leading to a certain
loss of our former inclination to good. One of the
disorders introduced by original sin is the wound
of weakness, which undermines fortitude. Since
Adam’s fall, courage is not easy; we tend to fall
into sins opposed to fortitude.
For instance, the sin of pusillanimity (or
pettiness of soul) leads us to underestimate our
own power and consequently to be paralyzed.
We see a clear example of this unfortunate
disposition in the Gospel story of the servant who
buried his lord’s talent in the ground through fear
of his master’s harshness rather than arming his
mind with the hope of making the talent bear
fruit. He had the necessary gifts to achieve his
task, but through faintheartedness he did not
have the courage to act. He though the job was
too big for him.
The great Dominican Fr. Humbert Clerissac
said that one of the traits of the liberal mind
is that “it did not have enough confidence in
the truth.” If we want to be more precise in our
analysis, we could say that modern man thinks
that the truth is only for the realm of theory,
but that in practice it is not applicable. Cardinal
Louis Billot well pointed out that since we are
dealing with moral truths, i.e., principles which
by their very nature are also norms of action,
it is absurd to restrict them in concrete life.
Regrettably, one of the aspects of modern life is a
refusal to believe in the practical efficacy of our
Catholic principles. We claim to uphold them but
then act contrary to them. This divorce between
doctrine and life is, alas, very common today.
Let us take an example. A father has a teenage
son who listens to unwholesome music which
he knows is not good for the spiritual and moral
development of his child. The father’s conscience
tells him that he has a duty to watch over his
son’s entertainment and remove from it what is
not pleasing to God. And yet this father is afraid
to put his principles into practice. This is typical
of pusillanimity or faintheartedness. Instead of
being confident in the strength of his convictions

and making a courageous decision to act upon
them, however unpleasant the results may be,
this father finds himself paralyzed by fear. He will
tell himself that it is not possible or desirable to
control his son’s listening habits and pretend the
Catholic ideal cannot be lived. This man would
rather gain (false) peace of mind by being his
son’s “friend” and not disturbing the status quo
than fulfilling his fatherly duty of caring for his
son’s soul.
A stronger father would have prayed to God for
courage in taking the necessary steps to direct
his son away from perverse music and other
harmful influences. Instead of fretting about what
his son might think of him if he banned certain
types of entertainment from the household, this
father would have had confidence in the power of
truth and in the strength of his own authority. We
know that it is not easy, but life is a battle and we
cannot run away from its difficulties. That is part
of what being a true father means.
Unfortunately, authority is one of the
notions most attacked by modern liberalism for
liberalism consists in a false notion of liberty
which excludes authority. Liberalism is contrary
to a point St. Thomas insists upon: the hierarchy
present in God’s creation. There is order
everywhere, among angels, men, animals, plants,
and minerals. In the family, the father has a Godgiven authority which he cannot abdicate without
introducing disorder into the home. The virtue
of fortitude (courage) gives him the strength for
fulfilling his mission in the home. Magnanimity
gives him the confidence he needs in his own
authority.
Of course, the father will always have to deal
with the temptation of cowardice. The vulnus
infirmitatis is still there, and the ideology of
liberalism pushes him to avoid conflict with his
children. But the true father will be faithful to his
convictions. He will not keep the truth for himself
under the pretext of getting along with others,
including his wife and children. He will have the
courage to enlighten the souls around him with
the truth, starting with his own family.
Today, we frequently see that the modern
Catholic father is lacking in the heroic courage
needed to sustain the long siege by the enemies
of the family. His children are subject to all
25

Theme Fortitude
kinds of evil influences and become increasingly
difficult to discipline. The modern world is
spending billions of dollars in advertising for the
purpose of making his children greedy, lustful,
and proud. The disproportion between the forces
is tremendous: on the one hand, Satan and his
powerful cohorts eagerly desiring our eternal
damnation and having at their disposal gigantic
resources; and on the other hand, a poor Catholic
man, wounded and weak.
How can this father avoid being discouraged?
By bearing in mind that he is not alone in this
fight! Jesus is there, our victorious King, who
tells us, “Have confidence, I have conquered the
world.” But you can see that the father who lacks
fortitude will be ready to work out a compromise
because he is simply tired of the struggle which
has gone on for so long. This father will be at
risk of falling victim to another characteristic of
the liberal mentality, namely self-deception. The
otherwise good Catholic father will be tempted
to surrender and give-in to an illusory peace;
he may even trick himself into believing that
his compromise with the world is something
reasonable and pleasing to God.
Under the blanket of self-deception, the
weakened Catholic father will see liberal
tolerance of error and sin as an attractive virtue.
This is why the great French theologian Fr.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange called liberalism
the worst thing because it is a corruption of the
best thing: charity toward others. Such tolerance
is not an authentic Christian virtue; it is a
disgusting parody of true charity, which includes
standing firm for the truth and correcting error
wherever it may appear. For the Catholic father,
this begins in the home and spreads through all
aspects of his daily life.
To finish this article we would like to quote the
beautiful poem of G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of
the White Horse. King Alfred has been fighting the
Danes for a long time. Our Lady appears to him
and he asks her if the war will at last come to an
end. And our Blessed Mother tells the brave king:
I tell you naught for your comfort,
yea, naught for your desire,
save that the sky grows darker yet
and the sea rises higher.
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Night shall be thrice over you,
and Heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause?
Yea, faith without a hope?
Alfred did not lose courage.
The King went gathering Christian
men . . .
While a man remains, great war remains,
Now is a war of men.
And Alfred finally won the victory thanks to
the intercession of the Mother of God. This is why
we need true fathers. The devil is very powerful
and the evil around us is overwhelming. But Our
Lord Jesus Christ and Our Lady can make true
men—true fathers—out of you. And thanks to
their heavenly intercessions, you will have the
fortitude to win the final battle for your souls and
the souls of your families.

Fr. Herve de la Tour was ordained in 1981
by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. From 198289, he was Rector and Headmaster at St.
Mary’s College & Academy, KS. After overseas
assignments, since 2008, he has been at St.
Mary’s College & Academy.

Feast of the
Holy Cross
by Fr. Christopher Danel

The month of September brings not only the
autumnal ember days, but several feasts of great
historical significance, and at the very center of
the month there is the Feast of the Exaltation of
the Holy Cross, so important to both East and
West.
There have historically been two feasts of the
Holy Cross. The Finding of the Holy Cross was
celebrated on May 3 in more recent times, while
the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was celebrated
on September 14. The two are closely connected,
of course, not only by their object, but even by
their date. In fact, the actual event of the Finding
of the Holy Cross is unanimously accepted as
having occurred on September 14, hence the
date of the feast which would later be called the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The feast in May
has a later Gallican origin. In 1741, Pope Benedict

XIV’s commission for the reform of the Roman
Breviary suggested suppressing the May feast in
favor of the more ancient Feast of the Exaltation
in September. The suggestion was tabled for a
couple of centuries until the calendar revision
of 1960, which was incorporated into the 1962
Missal. As a result, the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross has special importance on the universal
calendar, while the May feast of the Finding is
nevertheless provided in the Missal’s appendices
and may be celebrated as the rubrics allow.

The Finding of the Holy Cross
While the date of the Finding of the Holy
Cross is settled as September 14, the year is less
certain. The Alexandrian Chronicle ascribes
27

Faith and Morals
the date of the Finding as being September 14,
320. Durandus cites AD 310, while an Eastern
source places it as early as the episcopate
in Jerusalem of St. James the Apostle [sic].
The Spanish religious Egeria mentions it in
her pilgrimage journal written in AD 416,
the Peregrinatio Aetheriae, noting that the
consecration of the Martyrion (Calvary) and of
the Anastasis (Resurrection), the two ancient
shrine-churches now enclosed within the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher, was made on the day of the
Finding of the Holy Cross [September 14] in AD
335. The Eastern calendars commemorate the
consecration on the eve of the feast, September
13, and some sources indicate the consecration
may have been made actually on the eve. Egeria
writes, “It was decreed that when the abovementioned holy churches were first consecrated
the consecrations would be on the same day as
that on which the cross of the Lord was found,
so that these events might be celebrated at the
same time, on the same day and with full liturgy.”
The great ecclesiastical historian St. Eusebius
was actually present at the consecration of
those churches, and he writes of it in his Vita
Constantini of AD 337, although he does not
address the connection with the Finding, to
history’s regret.

the Passion. She ordered the pagan idols to be
obliterated, and began the excavations to remove
the fill around Calvary and the Sepulcher, thus
revealing the preserved sites. In a deep grotto
excavated only a few yards away, the relics were
found, including the sign placed over Our Lord’s
head (the titulum, preserved and venerated in
Rome), the nails, and three crosses. To discover
which of the three crosses was the Cross of
Redemption, all three were applied to an infirm
woman, who was miraculously cured by the third
one, revealing it to be the True Cross, while the
other two had belonged to St. Dismas and to the
other thief. (Some accounts, on the other hand,
describe the crosses as being applied to a dead
man who miraculously came back to life.) St.
Helena then had the churches built over Calvary
and over the Holy Sepulcher, whose consecration
a few years later has been described above.
During the project, the Emperor Constantine
wrote to St. Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem,
entrusting him with the duty to ensure that those
churches were provisioned and adorned with all
of the regal splendor due to the King of Kings.
As the Emperor provided for the construction
of these holy places at Mount Calvary sub
praesentia matris suae, in the presence of his
mother, one can certainly perceive the role of St.
Helena there as being likened to that of Our Lady
keeping vigil at the Cross of her own Regal Son.

St. Helena’s Discovery
It was the mother of Constantine the Great,
the Empress St. Helena, who was responsible
for the discovery of the relics of Our Lord’s
Passion, including His Holy Cross. The site of the
Crucifixion and of the Burial had been profaned
by paganism, but as a providential result were
still marked. After the Roman Emperor Titus
destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70, his successor
Hadrian transformed the ruins of Jerusalem
into a new city called Aelia Capitolina, and
in the process he ordered that the sites of the
Crucifixion and the Sepulcher should be covered
over with rocks and earth. In AD 119 an idol to
Venus was erected over Calvary, while an idol to
Jupiter was erected over the site of the Sepulcher.
During her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in AD
326, St. Helena endeavored to find the relics of
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Solemn Celebration of the Feast
From that time, the feast of September 14
has been celebrated with particular solemnity
at Jerusalem, even being celebrated for a whole
octave. Egeria gives a brilliant description of the
great fervor of the days surrounding the feast in
her time, around eighty years later:
“Many days beforehand a crowd of monks […]
begin gathering together from various provinces,
not only from Mesopotamia and Syria, from
Egypt and the Thebaid where the monks are
numerous, but also from all other places and
provinces. In fact, there is no one who would
not go to Jerusalem on this day for such solemn
liturgy and for such a splendid feast. Lay people,
both men and women, also gather together in

Relic of the Holy Cross, Museum of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

Jerusalem on these days from all provinces in
the spirit of faith and on account of the feast day.
Though fewer in number, there are still more than
forty or fifty bishops in Jerusalem during these
days, and with them come many of their clergy.
What can I add? Everyone considers that he has
fallen into great sin if he is not present on days
of such solemnity, unless there be conflicting
obligations, such as would keep a man from
fulfilling a good intention. During the Feast of the
Dedication, the decoration of all the churches is
similar to that at Easter and at Epiphany” (trans.
G. Gingras).

The Cross’ Capture and Return
Three centuries later, the Holy Cross endured
capture from Jerusalem and a miraculous
return. Around AD 614 Chosroes II of Persia
sacked Jerusalem, massacred many thousands
of Christians, and carried off with him the True

Cross, which remained captive in Persia for
fourteen years. Finally the Byzantine Emperor
Heraclius was able to secure its return with
supernatural means; by applying himself to
prayer and fasting he obtained the assistance of
God, who inspired him to raise an army to rout
the Persians, which he did. On bringing the Cross
back to Jerusalem in great pomp and splendor,
Heraclius carried the Cross on his own shoulders
toward Calvary. However, the Emperor clad
in golden and jewel-adorned vestments found
that he was unable to advance beyond the gate
at Calvary no matter how hard he tried, to the
astonishment of all the people. The Bishop of
Jerusalem, Zacharias, admonished him rather
to lay aside his royal garments and gird himself
in poverty and humility. Heraclius thus put on
course garments and walking barefoot found
that he was easily able to progress up Calvary
to restore the Holy Cross to the place of the
Crucifixion. This occurred providentially on
September 14, the day of the Holy Cross’ feast.
29

Faith and Morals
Extension of the
Feast to the West
Already in the sixth century there are some
references to the feast of the Cross’ finding
under the name Exaltatio praeclarae Crucis,
and with the Persian episode in the early
seventh century, the feast took on even greater
significance and began to be spread throughout
the world under the name of the Exaltation. It
took root particularly in those places where a
relic of the True Cross was venerated, such as
Constantinople, Alexandria, Naples, and not the
least of which, Rome. Almost everywhere, the
feast was celebrated with the exposition of the
relic and the veneration of the Cross as on Good
Friday. A Papal ceremonial from the late seventh
century describes the veneration at the Lateran:
“On the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,
for the salvation of the human race, [the relic
of the True Cross] is kissed and adored in the
Constantinian Basilica of the Savior by all the
Christian people.”

Feasts Related to the Exaltation
The first feast related to the Exaltation of the
Holy Cross is that of the Seven Sorrows of Our
Lady, which occurs the following day, September
15. While devotion to the Sorrowful Virgin
(Addolorata) and her dolors grew during the
twelfth century, the feast of the Seven Sorrows
was first introduced in Cologne in 1423, and was
celebrated after Easter. Benedict XIII extended it
to the universal Church in 1721, at the same time
transferring it to the Friday after Passion Sunday,
the current placement of the first of the two
annual commemorations of Our Lady’s Sorrows.
The Order of Servites, founded in Florence in
1240, dedicated itself to propagating the devotion
to Our Lady of Sorrows and obtained from
Innocent XI (†1689) a special feast of the Seven
Sorrows on the third Sunday of September, which
Pius VII (†1823) later extended to the whole
Church. With the renewed emphasis placed
on Sundays under the liturgical reform of St.
Pius X, this saintly pontiff transferred the feast
permanently to September 15, thus placing
30

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September - October 2016

the feast of the Seven Sorrows and that of the
Holy Cross side-by-side.
The second feast related to the Exaltation
of the Holy Cross is that of the Stigmata of St.
Francis, precisely because the saint received
the Stigmata on the feast of the Exaltation in
1224. Two years before his death, St. Francis
went up a high mountain known as Mount La
Verna (or Alvernia), together with his assistant
Brother Leo, to begin a forty day fast before
the Feast of St. Michael. He retired to a solitary
place on the mountain, and gave Brother Leo
instructions not to come near unless called. On
September 14, with a holy intention, although
neglecting the saint’s instructions, Brother Leo
went in search of St. Francis through the moonlit
woods until he came upon the sight of the saint
speaking with God. Later, Our Lord appeared
to him under the form of a Seraph bearing the
image of Christ Crucified. “Then, after long and
secret conference together, that marvelous vision
disappeared, leaving in the heart of St. Francis
an excessive fire and ardor of divine love, and
on his flesh a wonderful trace and image of the
Passion of Christ” (Fioretti, ch. 53, with credit
to the Franciscan Sisters of Christ the King).
The feast of the Stigmata, instituted by Benedict
XI and later extended by Paul V, was assigned
to September 17, the first free day after the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

Conclusion
The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
is a type of threshold in the liturgical year.
It has historically been the anchor point for
the autumnal ember days. The rhythm of the
monastic life also makes a transition into a
fall-winter schedule with September 14 (Regula
S. Benedicti, chs. 41, 48). But above all, it is the
celebration of the instrument of our redemption,
the life-giving Cross. As St. Andrew of Crete
wrote in the eighth century, “The Cross is
exalted, and everything true gathers together.”
Nos autem gloriari oportet: it behooves us to
glory in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in
whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection, by
whom we are saved and delivered (Introit).

Decline in
Fortitude and
Direction
Extracts from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Commencement Address at Harvard, 1978

Leaders without Courage
If I were today addressing an audience in my
country, in my examination of the overall pattern
of the world’s rifts I would have concentrated on
the calamities of the East. But since my forced
exile in the West has now lasted four years and
since my audience is a Western one, I think it may
be of greater interest to concentrate on certain
aspects of the contemporary West, such as I see
them.
A decline in courage may be the most striking
feature that an outside observer notices in the
West today. The Western world has lost its civic
courage, both as a whole and separately, in each
country, in each government, in each political
party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such
a decline in courage is particularly noticeable

among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing
an impression of a loss of courage by the entire
society. There are many courageous individuals,
but they have no determining influence on public
life.
Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit
this depression, passivity, and perplexity in
their actions and in their statements, and even
more so in their self-serving rationales as to
how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and
even morally justified it is to base state policies
on weakness and cowardice. And the decline in
courage, at times attaining what could be termed
a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by
occasional outbursts and inflexibility on the
part of those same functionaries when dealing
with weak governments and with countries that
lack support, or with doomed currents which
31

Faith and Morals
clearly cannot offer resistance. But they get
tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with
powerful governments and threatening forces,
with aggressors and international terrorists.
Must one point out that from ancient times a
decline in courage has been considered the first
symptom of the end?
The individual’s independence from many
types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the
majority of the people have been granted wellbeing to an extent their fathers and grandfathers
could not even dream about; it has become
possible to raise young people according to these
ideals, preparing them for and summoning them
toward physical bloom, happiness, and leisure,
the possession of material goods, money, and
leisure, toward an almost unlimited freedom
in the choice of pleasures. So who should now
renounce all this, why and for the sake of what
should one risk one’s precious life in defense
of the common good and particularly in the
nebulous case when the security of one’s nation
must be defended in an as yet distant land?
Even biology tells us that a high degree of
habitual well-being is not advantageous to a
living organism. Today, well-being in the life
of Western society has begun to take off its
pernicious mask…

Comparing East and West
A fact which cannot be disputed is the
weakening of human personality in the West
while in the East it has become firmer and
stronger. Six decades for our people and three
decades for the people of Eastern Europe;
during that time we have been through a
spiritual training far in advance of Western
experience. The complex and deadly crush of
life has produced stronger, deeper, and more
interesting personalities than those generated
by standardized Western well-being. Therefore,
if our society were to be transformed into
yours, it would mean an improvement in certain
aspects, but also a change for the worse on some
particularly significant points.
Of course, a society cannot remain in an abyss
of lawlessness, as is the case in our country.
32

The Angelus

September - October 2016

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, historian, and
short story writer. He was an outspoken critic of the Soviet
Union and its totalitarianism and helped to raise awareness of
its Gulag forced labor camp system. He was allowed to publish
only one work in the Soviet Union. After this he had to publish
in the West. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize
in Literature “for the ethical force with which he has pursued
the indispensable traditions of Russian literature.”

But it is also demeaning for it to stay on such a
soulless and smooth plane of legalism, as is the
case in yours. After the suffering of decades of
violence and oppression, the human soul longs
for things higher, warmer, and purer than those
offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced
as by a calling card by the revolting invasion of
commercial advertising, by TV stupor, and by
intolerable music.
There are telltale symptoms by which history
gives warning to a threatened or perishing
society. Such are, for instance, a decline of
the arts or a lack of great statesmen. Indeed,
sometimes the warnings are quite explicit and
concrete. The center of your democracy and of
your culture is left without electric power for
a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds
of American citizens start looting and creating

havoc. The smooth surface film must be very
thin, then, the social system quite unstable and
unhealthy.

Western Culture without a Soul
How has this unfavorable relation of
forces come about? The West kept advancing
steadily in accordance with its proclaimed
social intentions, hand in hand with a dazzling
progress in technology. And all of a sudden it
found itself in its present state of weakness.
This means that the mistake must be at the root,
at the very foundation of thought in modern
times. I refer to the prevailing Western view of
the world which was born in the Renaissance
and has found political expression since the
Age of Enlightenment. It became the basis for
political and social doctrine and could be called
rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy:
the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man
from any higher force above him. It could also be
called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the
center of all.
The humanistic way of thinking, which had
proclaimed itself our guide, did not admit the
existence of intrinsic evil in man, nor did it see
any task higher than the attainment of happiness
on earth. It started modern Western civilization
on the dangerous trend of worshiping man and
his material needs. Everything beyond physical
well-being and the accumulation of material
goods, all other human requirements and
characteristics of a subtle and higher nature,
were left outside the area of attention of state and
social systems, as if human life did not have any
higher meaning. Thus gaps were left open for evil,
and its drafts blow freely today. Mere freedom per
se does not in the least solve all the problems of
human life and even adds a number of new ones.
Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would
have seemed quite impossible, in America, that
an individual be granted boundless freedom
with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction
of his whims. Subsequently, however, all such
limitations were eroded everywhere in the West;
a total emancipation occurred from the moral
heritage of Christian centuries with their great

reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems
were becoming ever more materialistic…

Two World Cultures, Same Root
As humanism in its development was
becoming more and more materialistic, it also
increasingly allowed concepts to be used first by
socialism and then by communism, so that Karl
Marx was able to say, in 1844, that “communism
is naturalized humanism.”
This statement has proved to be not entirely
unreasonable. One does see the same stones in
the foundations of an eroded humanism and of
any type of socialism: boundless materialism;
freedom from religion and religious responsibility
(which under Communist regimes attains the
stage of antireligious dictatorship); concentration
on social structures with an allegedly scientific
approach. (This last is typical of both the Age of
Enlightenment and of Marxism.) It is no accident
that all of communism’s rhetorical vows revolve
around Man (with a capital M) and his earthly
happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly
parallel: common traits in the thinking and way
of life of today’s West and today’s East? But such
is the logic of materialistic development.
The interrelationship is such, moreover, that
the current of materialism which is farthest
to the left, and is hence the most consistent,
always proves to be stronger, more attractive,
and victorious. Humanism which has lost
its Christian heritage cannot prevail in this
competition. Thus during the past centuries
and especially in recent decades, as the process
became more acute, the alignment of forces was
as follows: Liberalism was inevitably pushed
aside by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender
to socialism, and socialism could not stand up to
communism…
We have placed too much hope in politics and
social reforms, only to find out that we were
being deprived of our most precious possession:
our spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob
in the East, by the commercial one in the West.
This is the essence of the crisis: the split in the
world is less terrifying than the similarity of the
disease afflicting its main sections.
33

Faith and Morals

“Our Dear
Rector”
by Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, SSPX

It was in 1853 that the French Seminary in
Rome opened, both to elevate the intellectual and
spiritual level of the clergy and to promote the
ultramontane movement of attachment to Rome.
It was Pope Pius IX who approved it in 1859, and
entrusted it perpetually to the Congregation of
the Holy Ghost. The Roman orientation and Papal
favor were crowned in 1902 by its erection as of
Pontifical Right.
Fr. Henri Le Floch (1862-1950) was its Rector
from 1904 until 1927. Born in 1862, of the diocese of
Quimper, he was formed by the Holy Ghost Fathers
from 1878, and ordained a priest in 1886. He was
at first a Seminary professor, then Director of the
college of Beauvais in 1895, then Superior of the
Scholasticate of Chevilly in 1900 and Rector of
the French Seminary in Rome in September 1904.
He was known to have no political involvement,
34

The Angelus

September - October 2016

but was strongly opposed to the offensive laicism
taking place in France at the time.
During his 23 years as Rector, he built up the
Seminary, previously demoralized by lack of
leadership, increasing the enrolment from 100
seminarians to 209. He enlarged the buildings,
appointed new staff, and embraced the antimodernist stance of St. Pius X. A friend of other
anti-modernist figures, over time he acquired a
position of considerable importance in Rome as
the Consultor of several Roman congregations,
including the Holy Office, which gave him
considerable influence over the choice of the
French bishops.
Archbishop Lefebvre met him for the first time
in October 1923 as he entered the Roman seminary.
The Father Superior gathered the seminarians
together to give them their first spiritual talk of

the year. At sixty-one, Fr. Henri Le Floch was on
the downward slope as regards his age but not as
regards his intellectual faculties. He was a Breton
oak in all the magnificence of full maturity. He
was quite tall and exuded confidence. He had a
ruddy complexion and a broad face in which his
prominent eyebrows contrasted with his fine nose
and lips. He carried himself with noble dignity, and
his blue-grey eyes had a look of firmness although
his natural seriousness was lightened by an air
of goodness and a smile which was discreet but
readily displayed.
He made his mark without any affectation—he
was dignity and affability itself. Besides that, there
was a mixture of extreme self-assurance and total
self-forgetfulness: he was a servant of the Church,
a man of truth and Catholic doctrine. Obviously a
theologian, but intuitive and impatient, his spirit
reached great heights without having to go through
all the levels of theological argument. It was not
that he looked down on theology as a rational
science, but ultimately he hardly ever used it in
that way. His firmness in the Faith was matched by
his profound grasp of the most fruitful theological
concepts.
“I suffered from not seeing the reign of God
established where it ought to have been.” The
reign of God, says St. Gregory, is often in sacred
language understood as “the Church of the present
time.” Fr. Le Floch admitted that he suffered for it,
and it followed him his entire life. But while he was
able to act, while he was able to combat, he did not
just suffer; he acted, fought for this cause, the only
one worthy of having all his efforts consecrated to
it, without holding anything back, for the reign of
the Church.
The Church is the only means of salvation.
Let us not understand this concerning eternal
salvation only. Fr. Le Floch understood it also
of temporal salvation. The Church is the only
authorized organ of divine Revelation. It has the
deposit of the truths that the Father has made
known to us in speaking through his Son.
“The only man is a Christian...” Man, being
made to be Christian, who is not a Christian, has
not attained his human plenitude. This is because
human values themselves, ever since original sin,
are only fully accessible to all without admixture
of error within Christian values, and with the

internal modification which these last values make
human values undergo. This is not all dogma, but it
is certain, vigorous and invincible theology. From
this it follows that one wonders how liberalism can
continue for a moment in the mind of the Christian,
who must hold nothing as precious as the glory
of the Church. The error of liberalism consists
in thinking that in the present human order, we
can abandon the reality of the sovereignty of the
Church, provided that one maintains it just as an
unrealistic ideal.

Young seminarian Marcel Lefebvre wrote: “And I
realized that in fact I had quite a few wrong ideas. I
was very pleased to learn the truth, happy to learn
that I had been wrong, that I had to change my
way of thinking about certain things, especially
in studying the encyclicals of the popes, which
showed us all the modern errors, those magnificent
encyclicals of all the popes up to St. Pius X and
Pius XI. For me it was a complete revelation. And
that was how the desire was quietly born in us to
conform our judgment to that of the popes. We
used to say to ourselves: but how did the popes
judge these events, ideas, men, things, and times?”
For Archbishop Lefebvre, “Fr. Le Floch made
us enter into and live the history of the Church,
this fight that the perverse powers take to our
Lord. We were mobilized against this dreadful
liberalism, against the Revolution and the forces of
evil which were trying to overcome the Church,
35

Faith and Morals
the reign of our Lord, the Catholic States, and the
whole of Christianity. I think that our whole life
as priests—or as bishops—has been marked by
this fight against liberalism. This liberalism was
practiced by liberal Catholics, two-faced people
who called themselves Catholics but who couldn’t
bear hearing the whole truth and who didn’t want
to condemn error or the Church’s enemies, or
who could not bear to live with being always on
crusade.”
As Fr. Le Floch was a man of the truth and
a man of doctrine, he was, in the strength and
integrity of his vocation, a man of the Church.
Which were the interior convictions which put
forward all his activity? As a man of the Church,
he was in the unique service of the Church, for
that profit only that is directly sought after by the
Church. He held it as a determined preference to
maintain the reserve that the Church, with rare
exceptions, imposes on clerics. He maintained
throughout his whole life only one kind of
polemics, and this was the defense of the Holy
See, of which he was, according to the testimony
of the Cardinal Secretary of State, “the French
pen.” Outside this one circumstance, he worked
in silence, being unable to prevent an increasing
renown from attaching itself to him, being unable
either to prevent himself from being importuned in
his own heart by this disdain for worldly glory...
He was reserve itself. His tendency was towards
the least showy, towards the most effaced. Men of
his calibre are not preoccupied with appearing to
be that which they are not. They know well that
that which they are is worth much more than the
person that they would make of themselves. But Fr.
Le Floch was not even preoccupied with appearing
as he was.
“One could be deceived, and we were at first
deceived,” said Fr. Berto, future theologian of
Archbishop Lefebvre at Vatican II. “During my
whole first year at the Seminary, the question
came to me to know how they could have placed
in such an elevated position a man who although
he had a noble presence about him, seemed to give
so little exercise to his authority. Fr. Berto, future
theologian of Archbishop Lefebvre at Vatican
II, shared this opinion with a fellow seminarian
who, hearing this silliness, exclaimed with
astonishment: ‘What are you saying, my friend?
36

The Angelus

September - October 2016

Nothing is done here but by the will and according
to the will of the Father Superior. Only, you do not
see it.’ It was so hidden, in fact, that one could have
thought that the institution stayed its course all
by itself. It was in fact entirely the contrary. The
direction was held by a hand so firm and sure, with
an attention so vigilant, without ever failing to pay
attention or make a false move, that the action of
the pilot was all the more imperceptible as it was
more powerful and better ordered.”
By nature and by grace, by intuition and by
study, Fr. Le Floch placed order above everything
else, and disorder underneath everything else. He
was in all things a man of order for, inasmuch as
he was upright and inflexible in communicating his
thoughts, so much was all desire and all need to
communicate himself foreign to him.
Under Fr. Le Floch, the French Seminary
remained perfectly faithful to the Papacy, under
St. Pius X, Benedict XV and then Pope Pius XI,
and in particular to the latter’s condemnation of
social modernism in 1922. Fr. Le Floch made it
very clear that he accepted the condemnation of
Action Française in December 1926, although
he personally felt that the Church had no place
involving itself in such politics. However, his
resignation in March 1927 was brought on by the
personal opposition of Pope Pius XI based upon
a supposed connection with Action Française,
followed up by attacks from four of the Seminary
professors and ten of the students. He lived the
remaining 23 years of his life in active retirement.
An Italian priest, Mgr. Pucci, who had inside
knowledge of the circumstances of his removal,
would soon write: “Pius XI had decided that Fr.
Le Floch, having served for twenty years under
a different political dispensation, was not apt to
serve under his or to teach its implementation.”
As if an implementation of this kind had anything
to do with studies at seminary! From time to time
still, some seminarians had to pack their bags
because the Roman climate didn’t suit them. They
were called “Pro Action Française” whereas in
fact they were unable to put up with the departure
of Fr. Le Floch and the new atmosphere. Marcel
Lefebvre stayed at Santa Chiara, not without some
nostalgia about the loss of a great leader, whom
he would always recall with emotion “our dear
Rector.”

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St. Louis De Montfort
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Consecration to Mary
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Fr. William G. Most
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St. Maximilian Kolbe
St. Maximilian Kolbe teaches us how to truly desire and obtain that same love for the Immaculate which burned in his heart. Bring a Marian focus to your daily life, using the words of this
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Mission Dolores has always had a central
place in the religious, civic, and cultural
life of San Francisco. Misión San Francisco
de Asís was founded June 29, 1776, under
the direction of Ft. Junipero Serra and is
both the oldest original intact Mission in
California and the oldest building in San
Francisco. Today, the Mission Dolores
Parish comprises both the Basilica and the
Old Mission.

Spirituality

An Apostolic
Missionary
by Fr. J. M. Mestre, SSPX

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the
death of St. Louis de Montfort, one of those saints
that God sends every now and then to his Church
to awaken the faithful from the clumsiness
and laziness into which their Christian lives
have sunk and whose sanctity presents, for the
same reason, an appearance of extravagance or
madness. In fact, many of his fellow citizens and
even fellow students judged him as extravagant
or mad, as we ourselves feel inclined to judge him
once we decide to read the story of his life.

Biographical Information
St. Louis Mary Grignion (1673-1716) was born
in the village of Montfort-la-Cane, the eldest of a
family that would have 18 children. His life was
40

The Angelus

September - October 2016

spent under the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King,
and under the mentality of the times, in transition
between the “Great Century” on the downhill
and the beginning of the “Age of Enlightenment.”
From a doctrinal viewpoint, Protestantism
enjoyed a strong influence in certain regions.
Jansenism continued infecting the thought
of many Christians, priests and bishops, and
Gallicanism was at its height. Our saint would
have much to suffer from people contaminated
by these doctrines; but, thank God, he was
preserved from these deleterious influences by
the protection of the Blessed Virgin.
At the age of 12, Louis Mary began studying
humanities at the Jesuit College in the nearby
city of Rennes. He was a highly gifted student,
who quickly went to the head of his class which
was not fewer than 400. He finished his study of

theology at the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris.
From the Jesuits and the Sulpicians, St. Louis
Mary received those beneficent influences that
countered the spirit of the times.
It is undeniable that the Society of Jesus
exerted a profound and lasting influence on
his saintly formation, and even in the general
orientation of his thought. For his entire life, he
had a Jesuit priest as his spiritual director. And
it was the Society of Jesus that at every moment
offered him understanding and support in the
midst of the gravest tribulations. The Company
of Mary, founded by St. Louis Mary, obviously
reminds one of the Society of Jesus founded
by St. Ignatius. The 30 days of preparation for
the Consecration to Our Lady, divided into four
stages, seem to be traced from the thirty days of
the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, divided
likewise into four weeks.
The Seminary of St. Sulpice also exerted
a profound influence on St. Louis Mary. The
personality and spirituality of Fr. Olier, the
founder of St. Sulpice, deeply impressed our
seminarian and young missionary, encouraging
him to walk the same way of Marian sanctity.
The Sulpician, Fr. Leschassier, was his spiritual
director for several years after his priestly
ordination, and he invariably sought advice and
direction from him.
Louis Mary was ordained a priest in June,
1700. His apostolic zeal, having increased, led
him to desire to become a foreign missionary,
either in Canada, India or Japan. But the
director of his conscience advised him to give
missions, catechism classes to poor country
folk and to arouse devotion to the Blessed Virgin
in sinners. Then he came in contact with the
bishop of Poitiers, who gave him the delicate
job of attending the poor in the general hospital,
where he remained for intervals until 1705,
devoting himself at the same time to preaching
missions in Poitiers and the surrounding area,
with marvelous success. The activity of the fiery
missionary could not but awaken opposition and
enmities, especially on the part of priests tainted
by Jansenism. Until the storm abided, Louis Mary
decided to walk to Rome in 1706. Pope Clement
XI received the young priest most paternally, and
entrusted him with the mission of practicing his

zeal as an “apostolic missionary,” not in far-away
lands, but in France.
From 1706 to 1708 he worked in Brittany
itself, preaching missions in Rennes, Dinan,
Saint-Brieuc, and in his home town of Montfort.
From 1711 to 1715 he preached in the future
military Vendée, in La Rochelle, Luçon and
the surrounding area. In the summer of 1714
he traveled to Normandy for the purpose of a
foundation of his masculine congregation, the
Company of Mary. On the way he preached his
final missions in the current Vendée, and went
on a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady
of Saumur with the object of imploring priests
for his Company. In April, 1716, being already
in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, he caught a serious
pleurisy, from which he died a few days later, on
the 28th of that same month, as only saints know
how to die.

Character of a Saint
One wonders why Louis de Montfort stirred up
malicious opposition and violent contradictions
at the same time as he gained the veneration
and deep affection of upright, truly Christian
people. Without a doubt, what characterized St.
Louis Mary was his desire to live the total Gospel
against all odds—the literal Gospel without
diminution or circumspection. This is the key
to what has been designated as the “Montfort
enigma.”
An anecdote demonstrates it to us very
realistically. Toward the end of his short life—42
years—Louis Mary visited an old friend, Canon
Blain. The priest reproached him sharply for
what he judged to be eccentricity in the practice
of virtue. Montfort found only one answer to
those reproaches: the Gospel. “My life, you say,
is totally made up of poverty, mortification and
abandonment to Divine Providence; but, isn’t that
walking in the footsteps of the apostles and of
Jesus Christ himself? Isn’t that the plain teaching
of the Gospel? Let others distinguish, if they
wish, between precepts and advice, between the
letter and the spirit.”
The literal Gospel… Therefore, together with
Christ, he condemned, scorned and opposed
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Spirituality
the “world,” its spirit, wisdom, vanities, customs
and maxims. And therefore he was also always
seen as opposed, detested and persecuted by the
mundane world.
The literal Gospel… Therefore, he was poor
and loved poverty and the poor; not in theory
and in word, but rather practically and in deed.
He wasn’t over 20 years old when, saying goodbye to his family, he prostrated himself on the
road and made the vow, for the rest of his life,
not to possess any property and to live always on
Divine Providence. He gave all the money he had
to the first poor person he came across. And to
the second one, he exchanged his clothes for this
needy person’s rags.
As a man of the Gospel, Louis Mary de
Montfort was of necessity a very humble
person. He sincerely considered himself the
biggest sinner in the world. He had a passion for
humiliation; he knelt humbly, not only when an
authority directed unmerited reproaches at him,
as happened to him often in the major seminary.
And when they insulted him stupidly or when
rude people beat him, he begged forgiveness from
everyone for the scandal and affliction that he
might have caused them.
As a man of the Gospel, and according to
Christ’s example, he became obedient, and
obedient to the point of scruples. He sought
obedience. He stood by his superiors, particularly
by Fr. Leschassier, even when they no longer
wanted to take charge of him. His obedience was
blind, admirable, truly heroic, even when they
treated him most harshly and unjustly.
An evangelical soul, Louis Mary de Montfort
was of necessity a soul of prayer. The immense,
crushing work he carried out did not harm his
thirst for prayer at all. He could be seen kneeling
before the Blessed Sacrament, or in front of
a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or in his
miserable cell, where at times they had to go to
look for him for some spiritual practice. Then
they discovered him raised above the ground in
full contemplation, having lost all notions of time
and place.
An evangelical soul, Montfort practiced the
Master’s favorite precept, charity, to a heroic
degree. It was not difficult for him when it meant
providing for the spiritual or material needs of
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men, his brothers. He did not hesitate to risk his
life in order to help them, for example, getting
in the middle of a bloody fight among soldiers,
or taking help to the victims of a serious flood
in Nantes. In Poitiers and in Paris, he bandaged
the wounds of the poor. He treated them with
the delicacy of a mother for her children. One
afternoon he found a poor beggar on the road,
covered with wounds. He carried him on his
shoulders and knocked at the missionaries’
residence, already closed, shouting, “Open the
door! Open up to Jesus Christ!” And carrying the
repulsive sick person to his own bed, he took
care of him until the end.
A true man of the Gospel, he lived on Divine
Providence, begging for shelter and food. Divine
Providence, to be sure, watched over him. It
is not difficult to understand that this life of
voluntary poverty was very often an occasion for
all kinds of privation and mortification for him.
A true man of the Gospel, Montfort had to
face heavy, bitter crosses. He suffered like
Jesus in his body and his soul. He scourged
himself until he drew blood several times a
week, especially before each time he preached.
He also suffered in his heart and his reputation.
The most heartfelt cross of his whole life was
undergone by reason of his Calvary at PontChâteau. He had preached a mission in that town,
discovering the occasion to carry out the great
dream of his life: to build an imposing Calvary
which, sensibly and overwhelmingly would
reminded the faithful of the Passion of Jesus and
other mysteries, as well as those of His mother.
The undertaking was colossal, but Louis Mary
de Montfort was not a man to back down. He
electrified the inhabitants from that place and
other counties, obtaining donations and labor
for the work of art, so that fourteen months later
the task was completed and ready to be blessed
and inaugurated. Everything was ready; the
preachers were designated; the inhabitants were
notified. Then, due to agitation from the saint’s
adversaries, prohibition to bless the work of art
suddenly arrived from the bishop of Nantes. This
time Louis Mary could not contain his tears. As if
that weren’t enough, a few days later a writ from
the Court arrived, ordering the destruction of the
Calvary. Upon seeing his very disinterested

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort
(January 31, 1673-April 28, 1716) is considered
as one of the early writers in the field of
Mariology. His most notable works regarding
Marian devotions are contained in The Secret
of Mary and the True Devotion to Mary.

Spirituality
attitude after such a blow, the Bishop of Nantes
declared: “Either Monsieur Grignion is a great
saint or he is the most notable of all hypocrites!”

Devotion to the Virgin Mary
In his very special holiness, the role cannot
be silenced of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of whom
St. Louis Mary emerged as the great apostle, and
as the providential promoter and propagator in
modern times, especially with his Treatise on
True Devotion.
Since St. Louis Mary wanted to live the Gospel
literally, the devotion to the Virgin Mary that
he preached is presented to us as based on the
purest Gospel, giving it the consistency and
solidity to make it indestructible and valid for all
times.
Why know, love and serve Mary? Because the
three divine persons have done so, and being the
unchangeable God, one cannot believe that they
would change their conduct. They will continue
doing for Mary the same as they have done for
Mary, that is, the incarnation of Divine Wisdom.
God the Father wants her to be the mother of the
mystical body of his Son. Through her the Holy
Ghost exercises his fertility to produce Jesus in
souls.
Why know, love and serve Mary? Because
Jesus Christ, the incarnate Wisdom, did so, giving
more glory to His Father through submission to
Mary during the thirty years of his hidden life,
than if he had begun the miracles and preaching
of his public life then. We cannot have Jesus
Christ as our brother, or God as our Father, if we
do not have Mary as our mother.
How can we love and serve Mary? By
following the example that our divine Master
has left us, exemplified in the story of Jacob and
Rebecca! That is, by becoming Mary’s children,
by loving her filially and tenderly, recurring to her
at all times, living in intimacy with her, serving
her generously and delivering ourselves into her
hands in abandonment.
Why love and serve Mary? Through her to give
ourselves more perfectly to Jesus, the incarnate
Wisdom, by using the same way to go to Jesus
that Jesus took to come to us; and to establish,
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through devotion to Mary, the reign of the
Blessed Virgin, the true preparation for the reign
of Jesus Christ. It is a prophetic anticipation of
the message of Fatima: the triumph of the Heart
of Mary prepares the final triumph of the Heart of
Jesus.

A new Elijah
By way of conclusion, a comparison comes
to mind spontaneously, which summarizes the
thousand marvels of St. Louis Mary de Montfort’s
personality: his similarity to the prophet Elijah.
1. The same as Elijah, St. Louis Mary was a
paradoxical personality that confounded and
appealed at the same time. Elijah confounded
due to his most austere life, his uncontested
authority, the power with which he closed
and opened the heavens; but he appealed due
to his saintliness and his solicitude to garner
God’s blessings for his people. St. Louis Mary
confounded by his strong, fiery and even violent
temperament; his life of absolute poverty, his
“quite unpolished” evangelical reactions, and
the practice of a cross and of mortification so
very far beyond our strength; but undoubtedly
he appealed through his heart full of goodness,
charity and tenderness, which, as we have
pointed out, won simple people’s hearts to him,
whom he easily led to sorrow for their sins, the
love of Jesus Christ and of his cross, devotion to
the Virgin Mary and through them to reforming
their very lives.
2. The same as Elijah, “full of zeal for the Lord
of hosts,” St. Louis Mary was a fiery personality,
which burned with zeal for the glory of the
eternal, incarnate Wisdom, Our Lord Jesus
Christ; for the crucified Wisdom, “knowing
nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
He burned as well with zeal for the salvation of
souls. His “Fiery Prayer” is the best proof of this
vehement zeal, of this interior fire that burned in
the breast of St. Louis Mary. My dear reader, read
this prayer, in which our Saint describes himself
without intending to do so, and you yourself will
realize what we are saying here!

Bearing
Trials
by a Benedictine monk

A true example of fortitude from the 20th
century was a coal miner of thirty years who
contracted black lung and was then transferred
by his employer from the depths of the mine
to the high mountainous altitudes. Due to his
injured lungs, he was forced to resign or face
death. One year from retirement the company
thus avoided paying this family man his just
pension. His only wealth was his confidence in
God. He explained to his children that birds on a
cold winter day look for food while singing and
we must imitate them by accepting whatever God
gives with joy and confidence. His life example
showed an incredible strength of body capable
of heavy labor, but now incapacitated, an even
greater strength of soul that was able to receive
the unjust blows of this life and remain peaceful
and joyful.

Often, fortitude is only applied to violent
physical strength. The world seems to admire the
anger and violence a man is capable of imposing
upon his neighbor. Charles Darwin, Margaret
Sanger and Hitler might explain this violence as
“survival of the Fittest.” Violence, however, is one
of man’s greatest weaknesses, which he must
dominate by his own choice or they will dominate
him. His passions push him to do, think and say
things that he really does not want. He becomes
a slave to alcohol, drugs, impurity, anger, hatred,
human respect, vanity, ambition, the Internet,
video games, etc. He loses the freedom of a child
of God because he has preferred the darkness
of error to the light of truth due to a lack of
fortitude.
According to a 12th century example, John of
Ford (a Cistercian monk), compares fortitude
45

Spirituality
to a battle horse bred to throw himself into battle
without hesitation. Hearing the trumpets calling
to battle, the clashing of swords, the scent of
the opposing army and feeling the weight of an
armored knight on his back, would drive the
horse into a frenzy, chomping at the bit with
an urge to charge. What would all this strength
accomplish if there was not a talented rider to
direct it? The horse would run wildly to his death
without the possibility of winning the battle.
The horse represents the gift of fortitude; the
rider counsel. Our actions must be governed by
our soul, which must in turn be guided by the
Holy Ghost. It is one and the same Spirit of God
that strengthens our life with grace and guides
it towards the victory of heaven. The Spirit of
God must be always present in our thoughts and
actions.

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The most excellent example of fortitude given
to man is Our Lord Jesus Christ. He is almighty
and He died on the cross. The weakness of His
human nature did not hinder in any way the
crushing victory over the most powerful enemy
of mankind. His Blood poured out in apparent
defeat was the greatest victory in the history of
humanity. The Lamb, standing as if slain, engages
in a fearsome battle with the dragon. And the
Lamb prevails. The Blood of Christ, slain on the
cross, is our example and our strength. From the
litany of the Most Precious Blood we discover
the source of our fortitude: Blood of Christ,
which overcame the powers of darkness...giving
strength to martyrs,..endurance to confessors,..
from which virginity flowers,..giving courage to
those in danger,..help to those who are burdened,
save us!..etc.

John of Landspergius, in his book entitled
“Letter from Jesus Christ,” explains fortitude
in times of suffering: “Accept troubles and
tribulations as signs of my grace. Whenever
you are oppressed with any worry or difficulty,
rejoice, knowing that you deserved it. Don’t
ascribe what you are suffering to anyone or
anything but your own sins. Thank me for being
so merciful as to visit you and reprove you like
my very own child, and not utterly reject you. As
long as I trouble you, that is a sign that I want
you to do better. (...) I love you most loyally and
provide things which are best and wholesome for
you. Since it was my will before I created you that
you should suffer at this moment the same things
which you are suffering, you ought to desire my
loving will to be fulfilled in you, and endure all
those things which you suffer with gladness, with

a sweet kind of patience, with thanksgiving, with
meekness, and with devotion in your heart, with
no harsh or bitter thoughts against those who try
to make you suffer in these various ways. (...) fix
your eyes on me, and think how loving, kind and
faithful is my heart in sending you these troubles
for your benefit.”
As shown by the fortitude of the battle horse
with the gift of counsel and the fortitude of the
coal miner’s confidence in God we too are called
in our daily lives to take up our cross and follow
Christ. We can only do that with the gift of
Fortitude that flows from the His Blood.

47

Christian Culture

Notre-Dame
du Puy-enVelay
by Dr. Marie-France Hilgar

The Cathedral has a very long history. At the
time of Roman Gaul, a woman suffering from
a fever was inspired to visit one of the rocks
around the village. She laid down, exhausted, and
when she woke up, saw the Virgin Mary seated on
a dolmen stone. The Virgin told the woman she
wished to have a church there. Saint-George, the
bishop of Velay, came to see for himself. Although
it was July, the ground was covered with snow. A
stag traced the ground plan of a huge church with
his hooves. The message was clear but not easy
to put into place. Money was short, all the bishop
could do was make out the plan with a hedge.
The next day the hedge was covered with flowers.
Centuries passed and another miraculous healing
took place. The Virgin repeated her request.
The bishop of Velay went to see the Pope for
permission to build a church and transfer his
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see to le Puy. The Holy Father not only agreed
but sent two of his best architects to take care of
the project. The first church was built between
415 and 430. The dolmen on which the Virgin
appeared was made part of the church, which
was built on the ruins of a Roman Temple. The
architect used some of its masonry for the nave
of the church, and Gallo-Roman tombstones
were used to build the aisles. The original
church measured 40 by 80 feet. It had a single
nave. Aisles were added in the sixth century.
The cathedral soon needed to be expanded as it
became more important in the Catholic world. It
was a departure point for pilgrimages to Santiago
de Compostella. Here too was preached the
First Crusade. The cathedral needed to be able
to accommodate the many faithful. Before the
year 1,000, a third bay was added to the existing

two, and in the eleventh century the building
was lengthened by a fourth. Finally, and the end
of the 12th century, the church gained its last
two bays, boldly supported on huge pillars. In
the 19th century, a program of restoration was
started, in parts quite faithfully, in other places
with more imagination than accuracy. Of the
six bays, only the third and fourth are in their
original state. The rest of the church was almost
entirely rebuilt. The extensions made are a sign
of the popularity of the pilgrimage to NotreDame-du-Puy. The greatest Kings visited the
cathedral, starting with Charlemagne and ending
with Francis the first. St. Louis gave a thorn from
Christ’s crown. Six popes have gone to le-Puy as
well as many saints; St. Anthony, St. Dominic, St.
Benilde, St. Colette, the two brothers and mother
of St. Joan of Arc. Le Puy has been called the
Lourdes of the Middle Ages. A jubilee takes place
every time the Annunciation coincides with Good
Friday. The first one took place in 1065 (maybe).
The 31st one took place this year, in 2016. Bishop
Fellay and many of our priests were present.
The west facade of the cathedral rises proudly
over the Place des Tables. In the 19th century,
when the earliest sections of the church were
being restored before they fell down, the west
facade was cleared of all the unnecessary
buildings around it. More debatable is the
building of the steps we can now see. I failed
to count how many of them there are, but they
do not make for easy access. Is there another
accessible entrance on the east side? I did not
notice one which does not mean anything. My
brother declared he could go up but would not
be able to walk down, so he waited for me at the
bottom of the steps admiring the work of the lace
makers. Back to the main facade. It is divided
into three parts vertically, the nave and two
aisles, and also into three horizontal sections.
The geometry of the building is enlivened by the
colors of the bricks and the variety of the arch
work. At the foot of the bell tower is the porch
built in the end of the 12th century, and a chapel
leading to the south gallery. One wonders if it
were the work of an architect or a jeweler. One
may be struck by the richness and variety of the
decoration, and more particularly the delicate
detail. The eye feasts on the fluted and checkered

columns, the lavish arches, some of which have
no visible means of support, the alternating
light and dark bricks. In the northwest corner,
a carved hand grasps the end of a fan of vaults.
Most remarkable are the capitals of the columns
representing the seven deadly sins. Gluttony is
symbolized by mouths gobbling, without arms.
Wrath is shown as a face grimacing between two
angry wolves. Opposite, on the third pillar, Pride
is two eagles glaring at each other while Envy is
a dog gnashing its teeth. The two mermaids with
double tails represent Lechery and a purse with
string firmly tied is the symbol of Avarice. On
the central pillar Sloth is shown as a seated man.
Since he is facing south, you can imagine that he
is lazily sunbathing. The great door that leads to
the transept is decorated with demons’ heads.
On the left hand capital, Adam emerges from
49

Christian Culture
the foliage while Eve hides in a corner. Above
the square part of the column, a woman, and a
man whose head is missing, beat their breasts.
They seem to be begging to be let into the church.
The small door is known as the Papal Door.
It was used by popes, cardinals and prelates.
Near the sacristy a doorway leads to a small
courtyard looking on the outside wall of the East
End. There are four Gallo-Roman bas-reliefs
of various animals and fragments of the frieze
of the Roman Temple the architect used in the
outside wall. Inside the bell tower, in the wall of
the six century north aisle are more Gallo-Roman
reliefs simply used as building material. To the
east is the chapel dedicated to the Holy Savior.
The bell tower was entirely and faithfully rebuilt
in the 19th century. Its seven stories with their
triple arches, double windows and large figures
at each corner, rises to 184 feet. It still contains
a great bell and two small ones. Opposite the
bell tower is the entrance to the baptistery of St.
John flanked by two stone lions. It is a fine 11th
century building. The portal of St. John has a
very low arc and a severe aspect unlike the porch
on the other side. The door, in the Auvergne
style, is covered with leather and has fine 12th
century hinges. Above can still be seen, despite
the ravages of the Revolution, a Christ in Glory
between two angels. The door was used by kings,
princes and governors. On the first floor a barrel
vaulted chamber leads to the cathedral gallery.
When you have climbed the steps and entered
the portal, you are welcomed above the doorway
by a sculpture of the Lamb of God. Inside you find
the basement vaults corresponding to the most
recent bays. The first keystone in the ceiling is
showing a sculpted Virgin and Child surrounded
by the symbols of the four Evangelists. In the
second bay, two side doors correspond to
the west facade as it was in the 12th century.
The aisles were then converted into chapels.
The doors with their bas-reliefs carvings are
commonly called Cedar Doors but in fact are
of local pinewood. On the left, the door to the
chapel of St. Gilles shows Nativity scenes. On
the right, the door to the Chapel of St. Martin is
decorated with scenes from the Passion of Christ.
As you mount the steps you come to the Gilded
Door with two ancient red porphyry columns. As
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you enter the cathedral you find it has the simple
shape of a Latin cross. The nave has six bays with
rib vaulted aisles on either side. The transept has
paired apsidioles at each end. The most original
feature of the building is the succession of six
cupolas on octagonal bases replacing the usual
vaults. Most of the capitals on the columns are
carved with foliage, with an occasional human
figure. Some of them represent scenes from the
Bible and lives of the saints. At the end of the
nave, a carved and gilded wooden panel shows
the Crucifixion of St. Andrew to whom this part
of the church was once dedicated. The quality
of the carving is unfortunately concealed by
the garishness of the gilding. At the top of the
pulpit is God the Father in a flowing robe. The
garlanded columns, the decoration with its little
birds and bunches of flowers make the pulpit
a worthy example of 17th century art. Across
the nave is a 14th century painted wooden
Christ. The wall on the north aisle bears a large
painting, (10 by 23 ft.), “the Plague Vow” of 1630.
It shows the procession of the Black Virgin which
took place to celebrate the sudden ending of a
particularly lethal epidemic. Opposite, in the
south aisle, is “the Consuls’ Vow,” referring to
the ending of another plague. The 18th century
high altar is decorated with bronzes. High in the
choir is a fine carved Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin. The revolutionaries saw in it the goddess
of reason and spared it. The left arm of the
transept has two chapels decorated with 12th and
13th century frescoes. In the first chapel is found
the 12th century fresco of “The women at the
Tomb.” Next door is the 13th century fresco of the
Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria. The
young woman at prayer is tortured on a wheel
stuck with knives. Above are two angels, sword
in hand. To the left of the high altar, the chapel
of the Holy Crucifix has a 15th century painted
wooden Christ. In the gallery can be seen one of
the most remarkable frescoes of the cathedral,
an enormous St. Michael, (18 ft. 3 in.), the largest
painted figure in France. On either side are
other late 11th century frescoes in various states
of preservation. The highlight of the Sacristy
treasure is Theodulph’s Bible, an 8th century
manuscript, also a 15th century Pieta, and an
altar piece painted on wood. Christ’s thorn

given by St. Louis was hidden for safety in the
Cathedral of Our Lady in Saint-Etienne. After the
storm, the other cathedral decided to keep it.
Notre-Dame-du-Puy may be better known for
her Black Virgin than it is for her Jubilees. It was
a cedar wood statue of the Virgin Mary seated
on a throne with the Infant Jesus on her lap. The
faces of Mother and Child were deep black but
their hands were painted white. Mary’s face had
glass eyes and a long nose. Her crown was gilded
copper with ancient gemstones. The statue was
entirely wrapped in strips of fine material stuck
to the wood and painted. It probably was carved
before the year 1,000. In January 1794, the Black
Virgin was torn from the altar and stripped of
her finery and stored. In June of the same year,
officials of the Revolutionary government came
to burn her. A secret door in the back of the
statue opened and a parchment roll fell out.
Despite protests, no attempt was made to see
what it contained. The one that is in the cathedral
now is an 18th century copy.
Around le Puy are many small towns worthy of
being visited. The village of Espaly-Saint-Marcel
is dominated by a huge statue of St. Joseph
holding the Child Jesus. It is made of prestressed
concrete. It overlooks a strange church looking
rather like a feudal castle. Espaly has been a site
of pilgrimage for a long time, especially on March
19. The church of Polignac, four kilometers from
le Puy, shows a Gothic portal. The shape inside
is a simple Latin cross. There is perfect harmony
between the 10th and 11th century choir, the 12th
century nave and even the 19th century west
bay. The choir contains a vault of flat surfaces
that go from a square to an octagon and finally
the round 12th century Romanesque-Byzantine
cupola, topped by a bell tower. The chapel at the
east end has exceptional frescoes. The largest,
12th century, shows the Last Judgement, Heaven
and Hell. At the top there was probably a Christ
calling souls to judgement but only the feet are
left. Below, on the right, St. Michael weighs two
souls on a pair of scales; one drops down toward
Hell, the other soul rises. A small angel holds the
lucky one out for St. Peter to take into Heaven.
Heaven only partly survives and has eight ranks
of chosen ones, each with a guardian angel.

On the left, the scene is very different. Devils
with pitchforks, jumping and dancing, seize the
damned by the hair or the feet and throw them
in the huge jaws of a dragon. The tortures are
varied: hanging, dungeons, hot irons, a boiling
pot with a human face. Fourteen kilometers to
the northwest of le Puy, you will find the little
town of Saint-Paulien. The village is noteworthy
for its church which is a real jewel of the
Auvergne Romanesque. It was started in the 11th
century, continued in the 12th century, and finally
completed in the 13th century by the addition of
five chapels around its huge choir. The outside
of the church is remarkable for its extensive
use of multicolored volcanic stones. These are
especially clear at the shapely east end with its
several apsidioles strangely off-center. As you go
in the church you are immediately struck by its
surprising excessive width. The reason is that in
the 17th century, the original three naves were
turned into one. It may well be that at the same
time the choir and an older ambulatory were
gathered under a single vault.
If you have the time to travel a little further,
do go to La Chaise-Dieu, 41 km away, and be
sure to admire “La Danse Macabre,” a stunning
15th century fresco, and the beautifully carved
stalls above which hang splendid 16th century
tapestries. A little bit further north, at 116 km
from le Puy is the church of Saint-Nectaire
with its beautiful and colorful capitals. Further
north, at 211 km from le Puy is the Sacred Heart
Basilica of Paray-le-Monial where Margaret-Mary
Alacoque received a message from Our Lord
about observing the first Fridays of the month. To
the east, after you cross the Rhone river you will
find the church of Brou which still has one of the
few very fine remaining rood-screens in France,
this one at 211 km, and Tournus at 236 km (see
my article in The Angelus, April 2003, pp. 31-36).
Last but not least, at 200 km southwest of le Puy
in Conques is the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy
(see my article in The Angelus, August 2003, pp.
28-37).

51

Le Puy Cathedral (Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Puy) is a Roman
Catholic cathedral, and a national monument of France, in Le
Puy-en-Velay, Auvergne. It has been a centre of pilgrimage in
its own right since before the time of Charlemagne, as well as
forming part of the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.
Since 1998 it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as part of
the “Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.”

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Fr. Didier Bonneterre
Historically, Dom Gueranger and Pope Saint Pius X are truly at the origin of the liturgical
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Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

Corruption,
Courage,
and Rage
by Dr. John Rao

John Henry Newman notes that Catholics
suffer from “difficulties” rather than doubts. The
“difficulty” that most troubles me as an historian
is the Church’s treatment of the status of a saintly
confessor of the Faith as being lower than that
of a martyr. Tongues extracted, hands removed,
food, warmth, sleep, and contact with their fellow
men denied: all these have fallen to their lot, with
years and decades of suffering in consequence.
Quite frankly, I would infinitely prefer a swift
bullet to the head or the fall of the blade of the
guillotine. The trials of the confessors have
demanded a degree of patient courage that to
my pathetically weak body and soul seems
absolutely unattainable. Were I to emerge
alive from years of such suffering I am
certain that I would be filled with nothing
but rage.
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Christian Culture
With all due respect to officially recognized
confessors of the Faith, we Traditionalists,
wanderers in the ecclesiastical wilderness for
more than forty years that we are, may with
some justice feel as though we have experienced
something analogous to their particular kind of
courageous suffering. But given our own flaws—
as well as our own justified pride in standing up
for our besieged Faith—it seems to me that an
historical essay on a long suffering, confessorlike figure, whose patient courage in face of
ecclesiastical corruption and indifference to
heresy—when powerless—and whose rage—when
in a position to act effectively—was sometimes a
tad uncontrollable, might not be a bad focus for
a traditionalist review dealing with the topic of
fortitude. Our confessor-like figure is Gian Pietro
Carafa (1476-1559), better remembered as Pope
Paul IV (1555-1559). Carafa, in his earlier career,
had joined with a canonized saint, Gaetano da
Thiene (1480-1547), to create the Order of Clerks
Regular. This union of diocesan priests was deeply
influenced by the spirituality of St. Catherine of
Genoa (1447-1510). Carafa and Thiene encountered
that spirituality through the Roman branch of
the many “Companies of Divine Love” founded
under her inspiration, this one at the Church of
SS Silvestro and Dorotea in Trastevere sometime
after 1513.
The “Theatines,” as the Order of Clerks Regular
was commonly called—after the Latinized name
of Carafa’s See at Chieti—were designed to be
exclusive and practical. It kept away from its ranks
both insufficiently rigorous priests as well as those
more useful elsewhere. Carafa, a zealous bishop,
was only admitted after a passionate scene, during
which he fell on his knees before Thiene, holding
the latter responsible for the state of his soul
before God on Judgment Day were he not allowed
to enter the new Order. Such an appeal would
have had a powerful impact given St. Catherine’s
insistence upon each of her spiritual children
constantly keeping Christ’s face and verdict before
his eyes when considering whether or not he was
fulfilling his particular vocation in life properly.
St. Catherine of Genoa’s spirit was also to be
seen in the Theatines commitment to absolute
evangelical poverty. Not only did Carafa and
Thiene feel that such rigor witnessed to “divine
56

The Angelus

September - October 2016

love” in the form of charitable self-abnegation;
they also felt that it contributed to a crucially
needed Church reform by demonstrating the
serious commitment of at least some priests in
the midst of abominable clerical laxity. Carafa,
as required by the Rule, retired from his diocese,
abandoning all of his revenues and his entire
substantial family inheritance. He vigorously
rebuked every effort to accord him the episcopal
privileges to which he was still entitled, even after
having been named a cardinal in 1536 under Paul
III.
Carafa courageously outlined what he felt a
real Church renewal would mean in a document to
Pope Clement VII, dated 4 October, 1532. Though
met with nothing but cynical contempt from a
Roman Curia dedicated to its corrupt “traditions,”
it was of sufficiently broad a scope to live on
as a model for the Consilium de emendanda
ecclesia under Paul III in 1537. The Consilium
was a devastating analysis of Church corruption
prepared by a committee of cardinals that
included Carafa as well a number of other former
members of his Roman Company of Divine Love
such as Matteo Giberti (1495-1543) and Gaspare
Contarini (1483-1542).
The document in question is one long
indictment of general clerical ignorance and
malfeasance, including everything from apostate
priests continuing their ministry without
permission to telling their confused penitents
that the sins they were committing were nothing
to worry about since Church penalties had no
meaning. Nevertheless, his greatest wrath was
directed at the venality of the Roman Curia, where
the temptations to misappropriate filthy lucre
were endless. Would that someone could awaken
the pope to:
“The most rapacious Cerberi that surround the
poor prince, selling, at base price, the soul and
the honor of His Holiness without his hearing one
case out of a thousand. It is from this source that
the immoderate favor comes which so many—not
merely the most pernicious and criminal, but also
those most heretical and hostile to Christ, His
Holiness, and the whole of Holy Church—find
and enjoy in that Court to the great dishonor and
offense of God and His Church.”

This brings us to a final frustrating problem,
that of the Holy See’s all too moderate response
towards heterodoxy and rebellion. The treatment
accorded heretical and rebellious clerics in Rome
amounted to passionate embrace of their errors,
so much so that dissidents were wandering about
claiming that acceptance of heresy was just the
tactic required in order to be “honored and named
and rewarded by His Holiness.” It was a notorious
fact, Carafa insisted, that dispensations from
sacred vows could easily be obtained in Rome,
simply through payment of the requisite fees.
When questioned regarding their status, laicized
friars merely displayed the bulls that they had
received, arguing that they were “forcibly placed
in the monastery as a minor,” or that they no
longer had “the spirit to stay there,” or that they
had “contracted an incurable illness, and other
lies.” How could the rest of the Christian world be
expected to move against error within the Church
when the Eternal City was filled with heretics,
and nothing was being done to dislodge them?
The lack of movement, the “unnecessary marks
of respect and pusillanimity” justified by the
fear that a harsh stance would drive the restless
into outright rebellion, depriving the Church of
sufficient ministers, was the “greatest favor” that
heresy could expect. It made the heretic “more
crafty and insidious,” harmed the reputation of
the Papacy, and “saddened the souls of faithful
Christians who see themselves offended by these
scoundrels…under the title of the authority of the
Apostolic See.” Was it not a scandal that the papal
power, supreme in the Church, was frequently
utilized to relax discipline, but never to enforce it?
Courageously and perhaps most interestingly,
Carafa insisted that “the fundamental cause of the
ills of the Church was the immense exaggeration
of the pontifical power occasioned by the refined
adulation of canonists without conscience.” These
exaggerations gave the pope the authority to do
things which he ought not to do. He begged the
man he hoped would hand his document directly
to the pope to “entreat His Holiness to put a brake
upon His Ministers,” and ensure “that such an
abundance of Apostolic Bulls not be released for
every most vile and alien thing.”
On the other hand, Carafa, had the most exalted
notions of that which the Papacy, acting in its

proper sphere, might be capable of accomplishing.
All that was required was simply vigorous,
uncompromising application of already existing
reform measures. As it was, escape routes were
constantly left open to reprobates, delineating
the conditions under which their abuses might
continue to flourish. These simply encouraged
the practice of obtaining dispensations from the
norm, which, given the nature of men, inevitably
became the rule rather than the exception.
“Then, when they are put into practice,
they are despoiled by men of those ‘legalizing’
circumstances and dressed, most often, in a
totally different fashion; thus, if one wishes
to end usury, it is not enough to say ‘such a
contract made with such a condition is licit,’
but it is necessary to see if it is made with that
condition, or true that the disease is inflicted by
the law. Therefore, I believe that things similar in
themselves, even under certain licit conditions,
when it is discovered that in fact and in practice
they have for a long time been badly used, must be
reformed by means of total prohibition, because
it is not enough to say: ‘I have written a good law’;
but it is necessary to see if it is used as well as it
is written, the prudence required being almost
impossible given the quantity of evil that reigns in
the world.”
No more councils were needed, no more
decrees, no more pious sermons. Action alone
could deal with the problem. Action was itself the
best argument. All useful steps, moreover, had
to begin in Rome, in the pope’s own garden. Only
then, with a proper example given by the Vicar
of Christ, could the movement for reform and
renewal be expected to spread throughout Italy
and the remainder of the Christian world.
Carafa was certainly true to his word upon
obtaining the tiara. Proponents of a new session of
the Council of Trent were not surprised to see that
it was not re-convoked during his reign. Instead,
Paul IV sought to reform by means of unilateral
actions, and it was here that his frustrated rage
demonstrated itself. The Theatine Pope fell down
upon the Curia with a sincerity that no man could
question, cutting his own revenues in half when he
could theoretically ill afford to do so. “Wandering
monks,” having failed to respond to his call to
return to their monasteries, were rounded up
57

Christian Culture
and shipped off to the galleys. So certain was he of
the importance of the work of the Inquisition that
he attended its sessions even on the verge of his
death. Paul’s discovery, after years of blindness, of
the corruption of those members of his own family
whom he had trusted, led to so swift and brutal
a punishment that the whole of Italy, reformers
included, were stunned by it. Indeed, his greatest
failure, a war with the Spain of Philip II, stemmed
chiefly from his uncompromising desire to free
the Church from regal secularizing influences. It is
ironic, however, as Paul himself may have realized
in the latter part of his reign, that he, of all men,
should have been guilty of placing what many
perceived to be a political issue above the cause of
reform in more clearly Church-related matters.
Some have claimed that this courageous call
for swift and brutal action did Carafa little good;
that in his rage Carafa, like most of those who had
spoken out for reform when it was not profitable to
do so, were too filled with rage when their moment
came, and therefore ultimately self-defeating.
What, in the end, did his zeal for the independence
and reform of the Church achieve? Defeated in
a most unfortunate war with Spain, reviled by
the Roman population, which entertained itself
after his death by attacking symbols of his reign,
treated by many subsequent historians as an
obscurantist fanatic, Carafa’s pontificate is said
to have been a double proof of both exaggerated
Theatine rigor as well as its ultimate uselessness.
One does gain the impression that the attitude
towards institutional reform represented by
Carafa lacked the prudence required to govern
the Church over a long period of time. It may,
however, be the case that, given the corruption of
the Church of the day and the cynicism of much of
the Christian population towards true renewal, a
constructive rage, a symbolic blood letting, in the
form of rigorous and even brutal house-cleaning,
was temporarily demanded to end Catholic torpor.
It is certainly the case that once Carafa’s scythe
had cut through the Papal Court and Papal Rome,
the props of the Renaissance Church were gone
forever. Long-hallowed corruption was no longer
sacrosanct. Old legends crumbled, as the Papal
States did not collapse along with the financial
corruption of the Datary. Open abuses were
obliged, to a certain degree, to go underground.
58

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September - October 2016

Some have noted that the next papal nephew to
hold a position of great authority in the Church
after Carafa’s sad experience with his own family,
was St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584).
If Paul IV, courageous confessor for renewal in a
time of general corruption, was not necessarily the
best instrument for directing a long term reform
of the universal Church, he was nevertheless
crucial for destroying the age-old barriers
blocking the pathway of surgeons carrying the
medicine of Trent. And as a travel guide indicating
the route to that personal Christian renewal for
which institutional reform was but a means to
an end, the importance of the message of St.
Catherine of Genoa for acting courageously in
your state of life as though you were constantly
being watched by Christ Himself is lasting and
unmatched. Courageous traditionalists of our own
Time of Troubles, consider the Carafa example
when and if an opportunity arises for us to imitate
him.
See Gennaro Maria Monti, ed., Ricerche su Papa Paolo IV
Carafa (Benevento, 1923).

John Rao, Ph.D., is a professor of history at
St. John’s University in New York, New York.
He is the author of Removing the Blindfold,
in addition to articles written for The Angelus,
The Remnant, and other periodicals.

Join Us for our Seventh Annual
Conference for Catholic Tradition

The Missions: Teaching all Nations
October 7-9, 2016
Kansas City, Missouri
And He said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mk. 16:15)
Our Lord commanded the Apostles to spread the faith and teach all nations; yet, we live in a word where
the errors of atheism, agnosticism, paganism, and religious indifference are spread at an alarming rate.
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Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

Christian Culture

Forming the
Conscience
by SSPX Sisters

Sunday, 1:00 p.m.: the Martin family just got
home from Mass. The children have been good
for a long time, they are hungry, and Mom is
rushing to get lunch on the table: the air is full of
electricity. 7-year-old Henry is running around all
over the place…and it ends badly: he runs into his
mother, who spills the sauce on the new carpet.
“Look what you’ve done, the sauce on the
carpet, can’t you see it’s serious?”
“It’s serious, Mom?”
“Yes, it’s serious; get out of the way so I can
clean it up.”
Twenty minutes later, the mess is cleaned up
and the family has sat down to eat…all except
Henry who has disappeared. His mother finds
him crying in his room.
“What’s the matter, Henry dear?”
“I committed a mortal sin!”
60

The Angelus

September - October 2016

“You? A mortal sin? What did you do?”
“You know what I did, I spilled the sauce, and
you said it was serious…”
The poor child is sobbing. With great affection,
his mother takes the time to explain and correct
her little boy’s conscience.
“When I said it was serious, I meant that it
couldn’t be undone. But it really isn’t a very
serious wrong, it’s not as if you had set fire to
the whole carpet. And even if you had caused a
catastrophe like that, it would only be a mortal
sin for you if you had done it on purpose, and
I can’t imagine you doing that. Even when you
spilled the sauce on the carpet, which isn’t really
that serious, you did not do it on purpose. You
didn’t commit a sin at all, my little Henry, you
were just clumsy.”

A Judgment to Educate
Children’s consciences are very often
imprecise. In catechism class they learn in theory
what a mortal sin is and what a venial sin is.
But when it comes to putting it into practice…
Out of ignorance, because their judgment lacks
maturity, because they are impressionable and
judge the gravity of the fault by the vehemence of
the reproach, children can sometimes consider
mortal a sin that is only venial, or vice versa. And
with all the harm this causes: a soul that sees
mortal sins everywhere can become discouraged
or rebel against a morality that is so burdensome
it becomes impossible to practice. But a lax
conscience that does not see the reality of sin and
its gravity can also abandon the path to heaven.
There is no need to take the place of the

priest. Nor must one penetrate indiscreetly into
the child’s conscience where the soul, face to
face with God, recognizes and admits its guilt.
But simply by the education they give, parents
contribute greatly to the formation of their child’s
conscience: “Mom congratulated me, so what I
did was good; she punished me, so what I did was
wrong. And if she really scolded me, it was really
wrong.” Do we think to weigh our compliments
or reprimands against the actual moral value of
the act? Sometimes fatigue or annoyance brings
the educator to deliver reprimands in proportion
to the inconvenience caused rather than to the
sin committed. Yes, children are often loud,
awkward, clumsy, and scatterbrained: they are
children, these defects are typical at their age,
but their moral responsibility is often minimal or
nonexistent, as in the example above.
61

Christian Culture
The Cause and the
Consequences
But here is another example of clumsiness. It’s
raining outside, Bruno is bored, and to keep busy,
the only idea he finds is to play with the ball in
the living room. But his father has already twice
forbidden him to do so:
“The ball is for outside.”
“No, Dad, look, I’m very careful.”
Obviously, the afternoon ends badly, with
the beautiful China vase in a thousand pieces.
His father is very angry: the China vase was so
expensive… Yes, but Bruno’s real fault is not so
much the material damage as his disobedience.
And the little man would have been wrong even
if he had not broken anything. That evening,
while giving Bruno his goodnight kiss in bed, his
mother takes advantage of this intimate moment
to put things gently in their place:
“You made Dad very angry this afternoon, my
little one. None of this would have happened if
you had obeyed like Dad told you to. Sometimes
God allows our disobedience to have immediate
consequences, to help us understand that it is
wrong to disobey. You are very sorry, and you
won’t do it again, right? Let’s not talk about it
anymore, it’s all over and forgotten.”
A little word at bedtime can thus be
an occasion to form or correct the child’s
conscience, in the calm after a fit of anger,
stubbornness or jealousy… Both parents must
then be the image of God’s mercy: when the child
has understood what he did wrong, when he is
sorry, and ready to make reparation if necessary,
everything must be forgotten and he must once
again find his parents’ affection. The worst
punishment for a child who persists—refuses to
forgive, for example—is to have no goodnight
kiss.
“I cannot give you a kiss tonight, Alex: you
refuse to make up with your sister, and you are
not at peace with God either. I will come back in
ten minutes to see if you have changed your mind
and if I can give you a kiss.”
Family night prayers are also a good time to
form the conscience. After thanking God for
all the graces of the day, we take the time to
see what could have displeased Him in us; the
62

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September - October 2016

father or mother can suggest a few possible sins,
different ones every evening: “Did I behave in
church? Did I think to help out or was I selfish?
Did I sulk? Did I get angry? Is there anything
else?” After a short silence in order to think of
things that are not on the list, everyone recites
the act of contrition together. The suggestions
allow the child to realize concretely the sins
he may have committed. But it is important to
remain discreet: it is not a public confession!
Once a mother suggested: “Did I refuse to eat
my food?” All the brothers and sisters turned
towards Yves, who had just been punished at
dinner for an enormous tantrum. He turned red
as a beet and his mother promised herself to be
more careful in the future so as not to rub salt on
the open wound!
An upright and well-formed conscience, a
delicate conscience, full of horror for all that
offends God: that is the conscience of saints, the
conscience that will lead us to Heaven!

Two of the most outstanding
accomplishments of
Pope St. Pius X were
the inauguration of
the liturgical renewal
and the restoration of
frequent communion from
childhood. He also waged
an unwavering war against
the heresy and evils of
Modernism, gave great
impetus to biblical studies,
and brought about the
codification of Canon Law.
His overriding concern was
to renew all things in Christ.

Book Review

The Awakening of Miss Prim
By Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

He Is Still Speaking To US
My father touched many souls over the course
of his life. He did so first of all, directly in the
classes he taught and with the contact he had
with students outside of class. He also met many
people in his travels and the many speeches he
gave. He reached an even wider audience, and
continues to do so through his books, The Death of
Christian Culture and The Restoration of Christian
Culture. Over the years there were so many
conversions, there is no doubt in my mind that it
was miraculous.
In his teaching, he put into practice those
famous words of Newman: “The heart is commonly
reached, not through reason, but through the
imagination, by means of direct impressions, by
the testimony of facts and events, by history, by
description. Persons influence us, voices melt us,
looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will
live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr
for a conclusion.” He did not teach abstractly,
mechanically or scientifically, but poetically, “by
the sweet power of music.” He was a Pied Piper
who played his music, and so many followed, and
still are.
Although he was a wonderful teacher and
an author of several great books, one thing my
father always wanted to do but never did, was to
write a novel. He wanted to put his ideas into the
complexities of a plot, and to thus win hearts by
the movements of a story. Actually, he did write a
novel or two, but he was never satisfied with them,
so he threw them away.
At his funeral, one of the most memorable
things that Fr. Angles said was: “He is still speaking
to us, through his family and friends, through his
books, through his many students and followers,
and in other ways.” And later he said: “His name
is written in the stars.” And now, seventeen years
after his death, he is still reaching hearts, and
he is speaking again, in a most surprising and
mysterious way.

Far away from Kansas, across the sea in
Spain, a wonderful woman has now done what
my father dreamed of doing. It seems incredible,
but somehow she found out about my father and
his ideas, and she wrote a powerful and beautiful
story, which brings those ideas to life. I am talking
about the new novel so many have heard about,

The Awakening of Miss Prim, by Natalia Sanmartin
Fenollera. Who would have thought that someone
could write an international bestseller (now in
eight languages and 70 countries) based on
the ideas of Chesterton, Newman, St. Thomas

Aquinas, and John Senior, and more! It is quite
extraordinary.
One’s first impression might be that this
is merely a delightful, romantic novel in the
tradition of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.
But for those with a little more sense and
sensitivity, there is much more than superficial
pleasantry or nostalgia in this book. It is indeed
a delightful book, for comfort and leisure on
one level, but it contains much more serious
reflection for those who delve a bit deeper.
It is the story of a rather modern young lady
who responds to a rather strange ad, and takes a
position as a librarian in a odd little village, where
people live a slower, more traditional life. Her job
is to organize and make a catalog of all the books
in the library of “The Man in the Chair.” This
mysterious character is a teacher of children in
the village, and for those who might recognize
him, through subtle hints as well as the way he
teaches, he is something like my father, and he
also sounds a lot like Chesterton and C. S. Lewis
too. He teaches the children Latin, and the 1,000
Good Books! Miss Prim is at first shocked by the
behavior of the people in the village, but slowly
she comes to be somehow intrigued by it all. At
first she thinks the people in the village are at
best quaint and odd, and she is quite sure that
she is a normal modern girl. But gradually as
the story unfolds she comes to realize that it is
actually modernism that is strange and odd, not
tradition. She had always thought that tradition
was old and dead; she comes to realize that it is
ever ancient and ever new. Well, without giving
away the plot, suffice it to say that it is a very
good story.
The best way I can describe how I felt after
reading this book is, as usual, through a literary

reference. one of my most favorites, and of
course my father’s as well.
“The present life of man, O king, seems to me,
in comparison of that time which is unknown to
us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through
the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with
your commanders and ministers, and a good
fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and
snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying
in at one door, and immediately out at another,
whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry
storm; but after a short space of fair weather,
he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into
the dark winter from which he had emerged. So
this life of man appears for a short space, but
of what went before, or what is to follow, we are
utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine
contains something more certain, it seems
justly to deserve to be followed” (Bede, Historia
Ecclesiastica, Bk II, Ch XIII).
This book is delightful, enchanting, inspiring,
. . . while I was reading it I was under its spell, so
warm, cozy, familiar, comfortable. While I was
there in that village, I was like the little sparrow of
Bede. I felt at home, and I wanted to stay.
As Fr. Angles said, he is indeed still speaking
to us. He has been heard as far away as Spain,
by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera; he has spoken
to her, and now speaks again through her.
Somehow she heard his music, sibilis aurae
tenuis; she looked up and saw the same stars.
I highly recommend this book, and I hereby
officially add it to my father’s list of The 1,000
Good Books.
Andrew Senior

From the beginning of the 3rd century there is evidence in Western
Christianity of the existence of what became the four minor orders
(acolytes, exorcists, doorkeepers and lectors), as well as of cantors and
fossores (tomb diggers). The evidence for lectors is probably the earliest.
In the West, unlike the East, where imposition of hands was used, the
rite of ordination was by the handing over to them of objects seen as
instruments of the office.
Bishop Fellay confers the orders of Porter and Lector to two members of Our Lady of Guadelupe Monastery, Silver City.

Christian Culture

by Fr. Peter Scott, SSPX

Can a priest require a child
to perform apostolic or social
work before receiving the
sacrament of Confirmation?
The Church’s requirements for the reception of
Confirmation are clearly laid out in the 1917 Code
of Canon Law and in the appendix to the Roman
Ritual. These are that he be validly baptized, have
at least the age of around seven years (Canon
788), that he be in the state of grace, and that if
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he have the use of reason, that he be sufficiently
instructed (Canon 786), according to his level of
understanding, in the nature, dignity, and effects
of this sacrament and the dispositions necessary
to receive it worthily, and that, accordingly to the
traditional custom, he be fasting.
The rights of the pastor in this domain
correspond to his duties. He must establish the
certitude of baptism by obtaining an original
baptismal certificate, he must ensure that all
candidates for Confirmation have the opportunity
to make a good confession beforehand, and he

must determine that the candidates have been
sufficiently instructed. The level of instruction
is going to depend upon the age, abilities and
education of the candidate. He must ascertain
that the candidate knows the basic truths of
the Catholic Faith, that he understands that
Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments
and what this means, and that he knows
the four principal effects of this sacrament.
Although a more detailed knowledge is required
with increasing age and ability, the priest will
generally not refuse the sacrament to a child who
has the knowledge of which a well instructed
seven or eight year old is capable, unless the
gross negligence in learning the catechism
demonstrates the lack of sufficient disposition to
profit from the sacrament.
The Church in no way requires that the
candidate for Confirmation perform works of
an apostolic or social nature, such as bringing a
friend or relative to the traditional Mass, teaching
catechism, speaking to non-Catholics about the
Faith, or picketing an abortion clinic. Apart from
the fact that a child of around seven is generally
not capable of doing such things, they require
the fortitude that is given by the sacrament, not
presumed ahead of time as a preparation. The
priest’s duty is rather to ensure that those who
have already received the sacrament, exercise the
seven gifts of the Holy Ghost in a special way, and
are encouraged afterwards to live up to the grace
of their Confirmation by the open profession of
their Faith and by living an exemplary Catholic
life, which is most apt to draw souls to the Church.

Is the administration of
Extreme Unction valid if
the priest does not anoint
the hands and feet?
The proximate matter of the sacraments
consists in the application of the remote matter

to the person receiving the sacrament. For
Extreme Unction the remote matter is the Oil
of the Sick. The proximate matter is the action
of anointing with the holy oils. In the different
rites of the Church and even in the history of the
Roman rite there have been different anointings,
indicating the purification of the sins committed
with each of the senses. The traditional Roman
ritual contains the anointing and order fixed by
the tradition of the Roman Church, namely the
anointing of the two organs, right first followed
by the left, in the order: eyes, ears, nostrils, lips,
hands and feet. The anointing of the loins is no
longer practiced, as it once was, and both the
ritual and the traditional Canon Law ask that it
be omitted.
It is quite clear from this variation in the
history and rites of the Church that Christ did
not institute the remote matter in a determined
way, but rather in a general way, as an external
anointing of the body, symbolizing and producing
the interior anointing of the soul by the grace of
the sacrament. Thus it is that the Code of Canon
Law states that any one anointing on any one
sense, or in any one part of the body, suffices
for the validity of the sacrament (Canon 947 in
the 1917 Code and Canon 1000 in the 1983 Code).
Consequently there can be no doubt that the
omission of the anointings on the hands and the
feet does not invalidate the administration of the
sacrament.
The question of the lawful administration of
the sacrament is quite different. A distinction
has to be made between the case of necessity,
or the urgent case, in which there is only
time for one anointing, as the person is at the
immediate moment of death. In such a situation,
the anointing, according to the traditional rite,
must be done on the forehead, as containing
all the other senses. However, if time remains
afterwards, the priest is to go back and then
perform all the other anointings that were
omitted, for the sake of integrity.
Outside the case of necessity, a further
distinction must be made. The anointing of the
feet, can be omitted for any reasonable cause at
all (Canon 947, § 3), such as the simple question
of modesty or inconvenience. Consequently, a
person ought not to be surprised or concerned
69

Christian Culture
if the priest omits the anointing of the feet.
This is not the case, however, with the hands,
which must always be anointed, with the correct
formula, for the sacrament to be lawfully
administered. There can, nevertheless, be an
exception even here. It happens from time to
time that a person is lacking the organ that is to
be anointed, such as an ear, or a hand or a foot.
In such a case, the anointing is to be done on the
adjoining part of the body, if it is possible. If this
is not possible, because there is no adjoining part
of the body, then the anointing is to be omitted.
For example there is to be no anointing of the
hands and feet in the extraordinary case of a
person who lacks both arms and legs. Outside of
these special cases, a priest who would carelessly
or deliberately omit the anointing of the hands
would be culpable of a fault, but the sacrament
would still be both valid and fruitful for the
person who received it.
It is very unfortunate that the new rite for
the “anointing of the sick” does not impose the
traditional order of anointing, with its profound
symbolism of the purification from the effects of
all the sins committed with the various senses,
and that as a consequence some might not
appreciate the true value of the traditional order
of anointing.

Should one always announce a
mystery when one announces
a decade of the rosary for
a special intention?
The rosary is both a mental prayer and a
verbal prayer. The completeness or integrity, but
not the efficacy, depends upon observing both
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aspects of this wonderful prayer in honor of
Our Lady. Consequently, just as the Our Father’s
and Hail Mary‘s ought to be recited correctly,
and without undue haste, so likewise ought the
mystery be announced that is to be meditated
upon. Furthermore, it is also very beneficial to
announce a special fruit or grace to be gained
through the decade or rosary, for it helps
the meditative aspect of the rosary when we
understand what grace we are seeking to obtain.
It can and does frequently happen that when
we recite a decade of the rosary for a special
intention, such as vocations, that the particular
mystery is not announced, especially if it is an
additional decade. The reason for this is that the
power of impetration is especially emphasized.
However, it would certainly be preferable in
such a case to announce a mystery, so that the
recitation of this particular decade could also be
a meditation as well as an intercession, and so
that it could profit those who recite it as well as
those for whom it is said. In this way, in fact, the
decade will in fact be more efficacious, for the
effectiveness of our prayers depends upon our
conformity with the will of God, and this in turn
is largely produced by meditation.
Let us, consequently, announce each decade
as completely as possible, indicating the mystery,
the grace requested, and the special intention (if
there is one) for which it is offered.

News from Tradition
A Mother’s Beautiful Response
Mrs. Courtney Baker of Florida has written
a very beautiful letter, posted on social media,
speaking about her 15 month old daughter who
has Down Syndrome. While this may not seem to
be a newsworthy item as touching as it may be, it
takes on a different character when the mother of
the child was writing to the medical doctor who
encouraged her to abort her child and chastised
him for his unwelcome and specious advice. Mrs.
Baker’s letter is a magnificent antidote to those
who view the value of a human life on a purely
utilitarian plane: what can this baby or person
do for me. The value placed upon each and every
human life is based upon who a person is as a
child of God, not what that person can or cannot
do in relation to his or her family or society at
large.
Mrs. Baker reminded her doctor of this fact
among other things. She wrote: A friend recently
told me of when her prenatal specialist would
see her child during her sonograms, he would
comment, ‘He’s perfect’. Once her son was born
with Down syndrome, she visited that same
doctor. He looked at her little boy and said, ‘I
told you. He’s perfect’.
Her story tore me apart. While I was so
grateful for my friend’s experience, it filled me
with such sorrow because of what I should have
had. I wish you would have been that doctor.
I came to you during the most difficult time
in my life. I was terrified, anxious and in
complete despair. I didn’t know the truth yet
about my baby, and that’s what I desperately
needed from you. But instead of support and
encouragement, you suggested we terminate
our child. I told you her name, and you
asked us again if we understood how low our
quality of life would be with a child with Down
syndrome. You suggested we reconsider our
decision to continue the pregnancy.
From that first visit, we dreaded our
appointments. The most difficult time in my life
was made nearly unbearable because you never
told me the truth.
My child was perfect.
I’m not angry. I’m not bitter. I’m really just
sad. I’m sad the tiny beating hearts you see
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every day don’t fill you with a perpetual awe.
I’m sad the intricate details and the miracle
of those sweet little fingers and toes, lungs and
eyes and ears don’t always give you pause. I’m
sad you were so very wrong to say a baby with
Down syndrome would decrease our quality of
life. And I’m heartbroken you might have said
that to a mommy even today. But I’m mostly
sad you’ll never have the privilege of knowing
my daughter, Emersyn.

Because, you see, Emersyn has not only
added to our quality of life, she’s touched the
hearts of thousands. She’s given us a purpose
and a joy that is impossible to express. She’s
given us bigger smiles, more laughter and
sweeter kisses than we’ve ever known. She’s
opened our eyes to true beauty and pure love.
So my prayer is that no other mommy will
have to go through what I did. My prayer is that
you, too, will now see true beauty and pure love
with every sonogram. And my prayer is when
you see that next baby with Down syndrome
lovingly tucked in her mother’s womb, you will
look at that mommy and see me then tell her the
truth: “Your child is absolutely perfect.”
In our day, when so many children who
are diagnosed with Down Syndrome while in
their mothers’ wombs are routinely killed, it is
important that we, as Mrs. Baker told her doctor,
stand in awe at the beauty of each human life
created by almighty God and give thanks to Him
for that gift of life.

Archdiocese of Philadelphia to Close
St. Charles Borromeo Seminary
In early June, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia
announced that it was abandoning plans to
reorganize and consolidate the buildings of St.
Charles Borromeo Seminary. Instead, plans
are being finalized to construct a new building
on the campus of either Villanova University
or St. Joseph’s University and leave the
current location in Lower Merion (Overbrook),
Pennsylvania.
According to the seminary’s website, Saint
Charles Borromeo Seminary is the oldest
Catholic institution of higher learning in the
Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The Seminary
was founded in 1832 by Most Reverend Francis
Patrick Kenrick , third Bishop of Philadelphia,
at his home on Fifth Street in center city. There
were only five students. After four subsequent
moves, Saint Charles settled at its present
location in Overbrook in 1871. The purchase of
the Overbrook property by Archbishop Wood for
$42,000 was criticized in the local newspaper
as “Wood’s Folly” because the ground was
considered to be located too far into the country
to be a practical setting. Saint Charles occupies

75 acres of ground and is comprised of 19
buildings measuring 630,000 square feet.
Although the Seminary has 142 seminarians,
not all are for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Represented in this number are seminarians
from some 14 dioceses and religious orders. The
current seminary rector, the Most Reverend
Timothy Senior, has stated that this is a positive
move aimed at improving the formation of the
seminarians as well as the lay students who
attend and receive degrees from St. Charles.
However, given the current financial difficulties
in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the
overall decline in vocations throughout Novus
Ordo seminaries in the United States, it is
difficult to see this closure as anything other
than a cost saving measure given the value of
the property the seminary currently occupies.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia is just the
latest in a long line of major Archdioceses in the
United States to consolidate and/or close their
historic seminaries due to declining vocations,
increasing costs and decreasing revenues.

73

News from Tradition
Christians in the Middle East and the West’s Silence

74

While the continuing plight of Middle Eastern
Christians living in the areas controlled by the
self-styled Caliphate down as ISIS is routinely
ignored by western governments and media outlets
alike, the horrific killing goes on and on.
In February of this year, Father Yacob Boulos
was publicly beheaded by ISIS murders for the
crime of offering the Mass. Father Boulos, a
Catholic priest from Syria, was arrested and later
executed by Muslims, members of the “religion of
peace.” While one may be tempted to assign this
murder to the actions of a misguided few, the fact
of continuing atrocities aimed at followers of Our
Lord would make such assignation duplicitous.
In May, a 12 year old Christian girl burned to
death in her own home by ISIS terrorists in Mosul,
northern Iraq. ISIS militants had come to claim

which seven Christian homes were also looted
and torched in a province south of the Egyptian
capital of Cairo. According to the local security
officials, the assault began after rumors spread
that the elderly woman’s son had an affair with a
Muslim woman, a rumor for which no evidence of
its veracity was presented. The 70-year-old woman
was dragged out of her home by the mob who beat
her and insulted her before they stripped her off
her clothes and forced her to walk through the
streets as they chanted “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for
“Allah is great”).
In June, suicide bombers attacked the Christian
village of Qaa in Lebanon which is located very
close to the Syrian border. Although very few
were killed, this attack targeting Christians took
place in a country with one of the largest Christian

a religious tax from the girl’s mother, paid by all
non-Muslims in ISIS-controlled areas, but when
the mother delayed in paying, they burned down
the family home. The mother and her daughter
both escaped, but the 12 year old was so severely
burned that she died a short time later in the
hospital. According to reports, the young girls last
words to her mother asked her to forgive the men
who did this.
Also in May, An armed Muslim mob stripped
an elderly Christian woman and paraded her
naked on the streets in an attack last week in

populations in the Middle East (40.5%).
Despite the mounting death toll and clear
evidence of ISIS and Muslims trying to drive
Christians from the Middle East, the silence of
western governments is deafening. Saddest of
all is that even the Holy Father himself has not
noted the targeting of Christians by Muslims as
a wholesale genocide. In a question and answer
session given at a Roman university during the
summer, the Pope said: “I want to say clearly,
I do not like it when one speaks of a genocide
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East”“This is reductionism! The truth is a
persecution which leads Christians to have
fidelity to the consistency of their faith… This
“sociological reductionism” does not apply
to “that which is a mystery of the faith, the
martyr!” While one may see the point the Pope is
trying to make (the intrinsic difference between
martyrdom and genocide), the problem is that his
words say nothing about the fact that Muslims
are intentionally targeting Christians in order to
drive them from their homes. It seems that his
silence may well be part of his attempt to convince
European governments to open their doors to
more Muslim refugees. Noting that the “religion
of peace” is intentionally targeting Christians
would not sit well with many in the countries Pope
Francis is trying to convince. In addition, when the
Pope has intimated that Islam is working toward

conquest of the world, he often does so in a way
which is deprecating towards the Catholic faith.
In an interview with the French newspaper La
Croix, the Holy Father said: Today, I don’t think
that there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS
and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn
from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is
inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also
possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s
Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all
nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.
To imply that the commission of Our Lord to
“teach all nations and to baptize them in the name
of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost”
is in any way similar to the Islamic notion of
“conversion by the sword” is insulting at best and
blasphemous at worst.

Pope Francis Appoints Apostolic Administrator
for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
On 24 June, Pope Francis appointed an
Italian Franciscan, Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa,
to serve as apostolic administrator of the
Latin-rite Patriarchate of Jerusalem, following
the resignation of Patriarch Fouad Twal upon
having reached the mandatory age limit of
75. Fr. Pizzaballa has been serving as the
Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land for the past
12 years and so is very familiar with the area.
The Custos of the Holy Land is the Franciscan
Friar who is superior for all the Franciscans
serving the Holy Sites in and around Jerusalem.
The Franciscans have been staffing these sites
for approximately 700 years from the time when
St. Francis of Assisi first sent his friars to the
Holy Land.
Some Arab Catholics have raised some
concerns about the appointment of
Fr. Pizzabella since he is not a native Arab and
does not speak Arabic. Since 1987, the Patriarch
of Jerusalem has been a native from the region.
Although Fr. Pizzabella has not been appointed
as Patriarch, there is still a sense among some
Catholics that the appointment of an Italian may

be a signal of declining support for the Arab
Catholics in the Middle East.
More information about the Custos of the
Holy Land can be found on the website:
www.custodia.org. The site contains the history
of the Custos and many photos of the holy sites.

75

It is as messengers that Angels most often figure in the Bible,
but, as St. Augustine, and after him St. Gregory, expresses
it: angelus est nomen officii (“angel is the name of the
office”) and expresses neither their essential nature nor their
essential function, that of attendants upon God’s throne
in that court of heaven of which Daniel has left us a vivid
picture:
“I behold till thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days
sat: His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head
like clean wool: His throne like flames of fire: the wheels of
it like a burning fire. A swift stream of fire issued forth from
before Him: thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and
ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him: the
judgment sat and the books were opened.” (Dan. 7:9-10)
Angels in Adoration, Sainte Chapelle, Paris France

Theological Studies

Fortitude
vs. the
Revolution
by Marcel de Corte, (Itinéraires magazine #242-243, 1980)

A New Christianity
The immense mutation, the immense degeneration that the word “mutation” almost always implies
has taken over the most noble, the most solid institution that the world has ever known: the Catholic
Church, through the new “social” reforms established by the law inspired by liberal individualism.
A “new Christianity” has incontestably infiltrated
the Church, in sinu ac gremio Ecclesiae, to quote
St. Pius X: the contemplation of the revealed truths
contained in the dogmas and the practice of the
theological virtues that lead the faithful towards
their supernatural end, are literally sacrificed to
earthly praxis alone, to efficacy alone, to exclusively
human means of saving men. The process of secularizing the Church, of which the discarded cassock
is a sign, a radical aggiornamento, and an “irreversible” adaptation to the “imprescriptible” demands of

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the modern world devoured by the liberal or collectivist democratic fever, are in full swing, and we
do not yet see the outcome. The Church of the “new
priests” is now centered on man, on the secularized
human person that considers itself as an end in its
desires, aspirations, ambitions and demands.
The supernatural order is completely overturned
under our very eyes: theology tries to be anthropocentric, with no fear of contradicting itself; God’s
transcendence submits to the multiform imperatives of immanence; catechism no longer obeys
dogma, but rather the prescriptions of the independent conscience, the urges of the subconscious, the
sexual instinct, the thousand and one extravagances
of a delirious dissociety; the liturgy obeys all the
whims of the game-leader and the entertainment
business; authority turns into opportunism and
bows down fearfully before the opinion created and

maneuvered by pressure groups or by the bureaucracy with which it has surrounded itself on the
model of a legal country; the supernatural becomes
natural; its transcendent order of which the Church
used to be the guardian has been evacuated in favor
of a technique of redemption of humanity copied
off the maneuvers of the permanent Revolution;
the clergy, for the most part, aspires to build the
Kingdom of God on earth on the strength of the
human word alone, or of the Word of God distorted
from its meaning; the faith becomes a political ideology; the foreigner takes the place of the neighbor;
the man of God abdicates his “magical” power and
transforms himself into a man like other men.
Subversion has set up camp in the Church and is
using her ascendency to destroy her, to do violence
to souls, and to institute, with a hypocrisy that is not
always conscious, especially in the hierarchy, a clerical Caesarism that penetrates into the very source
of the human being and substitutes itself for the
will of God clearly expressed in the Church: haec est
voluntas mea sanctification vestra (I Thess. 4:3).
The collusion of the new Christianity, emptied
of its supernatural substance and inflated by a
vague “social Christianity,” with Liberalism and
Communism was inevitable. Here we are face to
face with the very mystery of our times: it shows us
why the cardinal virtue of fortitude, upheld over the
centuries by the grace of God and Catholic tradition, is banished today from men’s mentality, as
well as from that of Christians, and why the mysticism of violence has replaced it. It is enough to read
the writings of contemporary theologians and the
episcopal mandates, as well as the constitutions of
Vatican II, to see immediately that this virtue has no
place in them and that if by chance its name appears, it appears reviled, vilified, as the ultimate sin
for which there is no pardon.
The Industrial Society
Indeed it has not been said enough that the
“industrial society” that is the great innovation of
our times and has evacuated most of the natural
forms of former societies, was born in the Christian
Western world, and nowhere else. Nor has it been
said enough that it is the result of the slow decay of
the Catholic Church after her admirable ascension
provoked by the Council of Trent. During the century
of the Enlightenment, the de-Christianization that

had already spread in the shadows attacked Europe,
meeting with scarcely any resistance from the
clergy, who was already won over to the process of
secularizing Christianity. It is significant that the
secular society and the ecclesial society were both
attacked at the same time in their living works and
in their own structures. The former saw its end,
the common good, attacked as being opposed to
individual liberty. The latter saw herself led by a
series of mediocre popes, preoccupied with political
disputes, through the figure of Benedict XIV. This
pontiff reigned for eighteen years and adopted an
extremely conciliating attitude towards the demands of Catholic and Protestant sovereigns and
towards the mentality of the “philosophers.” Grace
no longer strengthening nature, the political nature
of man and his subordination to the common good
thus had even less meaning.
So what remained to unite men among each
other, if not technique, work, the economy and the
foundation of a new individualistic “society” that
as such can have no other end than the material
happiness of each and every member. This overthrow of the common good in favor of the particular
good goes back unavoidably to the producers who
are also all consumers, with the following irresistible consequence: a struggle between the different
levels of producers to share the profit. There is no
more general justice, nor the virtue of fortitude to
defend it, and distributive justice consists simply
in the distribution by the new “society” established
of material and financial advantages to those who
work for its prosperity. The role of the oratores and
of the bellatores is over: the Europe that replaced
vanishing Christianity had room only for the laborantes, represented at the time by the bourgeois. What
need is there for moral and political strength when
man is harnessing all the energies of nature to his
own profit?
The modern industrial “society,” fruit of the
Enlightenment, is but the last avatar of a Christianity
that explodes into individualism as soon as the
ecclesial Institution committed by Christ to the
supernatural salvation of its members shakes and
cracks. Under the name of “a society of abundance”
to which capitalism leads it, or under the name of “a
perfect society,” in which the human person will be
completely alienated, the industrial “society” that
pretends to be the only possible society for our
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Theological Studies
times, as is proved by the fact that politics are completely absorbed in purely economical preoccupations, is the result of the vertical line of Redemption
being knocked down into a horizontal line. Thanks
to his technical power, man will soon be delivered
from all evils. The ideology of Progress with which
he is imbued persuades modern man that he can
henceforth be sure of obtaining happiness here
below. Thus do the immense majority of our contemporaries conceive existence: “Eat and drink, for
tomorrow we die.”
The Revolutionary Gospel
If we call revolution a complete overturning of an
order, it is clear that this “New Christianity,” as the
Count de Saint-Simon dared to call it, which consists
in inverting the order of individual salvation from
heaven to earth, is a revolution. And if all revolution
takes place in minds before being translated into
laws and customs, it is once again obvious that this
same new Christianity is the ultimate Revolution; and
it is more than that: it coincides with the permanent
Revolution at work in the world for the past two or
three centuries.
The new Christianity, that tries to create an industrial society to save the human person instead of
the Catholic Church, brings us into the most pitiless
of religious wars, that which opposes faith in God to
faith in Man. This war works upon the civil society
(composed of smaller societies of which the family is
the ultimate element, and not made up of agglomerated individuals) and upon the Church that it completely secularizes, the most inhuman of violences:
it tries to destroy in man, if it were possible, nature
and grace.
IF WE HOLD STRONG, by the virtue of fortitude
and the gift of fortitude that feeds it, to this evidence
that the Gospel, WITHOUT the Church, guardian of
Faith and morals, WITHOUT Tradition that keeps
them intact, WITHOUT the natural metaphysics of
the human spirit that the Greeks passed down to all
men of all time in all places, WITHOUT the complementary certitude that man is a political animal
subject to the common good of the different societies in which he is inserted, has for interpreter nothing
but individual reason abandoned to all the passions
that the virtue of fortitude no longer masters and to
the most terrible of all: the passion of “being like unto
the gods,” through the overturning of the order of

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salvation, THEN, but only THEN, do we understand
that this same Gospel can change into an agent of
corruption with an incalculable range and degenerate into a religion of Man with the overturning of the
order of all values that this religion entails. Without
the Church, without Tradition, without the philosophy
of common sense, without the primacy of the political common good, the Gospel turns into a revolutionary agent that denies all the supernatural and natural
realities because it turns the human person into an
entity with unlimited rights, principle and end of all
things.
The revolutionary Gospel precedes Subversion
and is its cause, its only source, because all that is
left in it is a rotten leaven: the divinization of the
Ego. Of all the religions in the world, Christianity is in
effect the only one to teach that God became Man in
order that man may become God, on the formal condition that man abdicate his Ego, that he renounce
the appropriation of his person by itself—“you are
not your own,” says the Apostle, without however
renouncing his essence as a rational and political
animal created by God: “May Thy will be done and
not mine.” That is where the Gospel as the Catholic
Church received it from Our Lord Jesus Christ to be
announced to men without alteration, faces off with
the revolutionary Gospel.
For ever since the Gospel, the Ego of Man has
only one possible disguise left: the mask of God,
the parody of divine knowledge and of the Divine
Love spectacularly spread over the theater of this
world. There are thousands of ways of using God
to serve one’s Ego, but these metamorphoses all
come down to aping Him. All that is left to man,
since Christianity, is ARTIFICE, the TECHNIQUE
with which he recreates the world, rebuilds society,
fashions a “new man,” operates a new “redemption,” finally “frees” and “saves” man. All the present
deviations, errors and attempts to subvert the human and divine order are Christian heresies. Today
the world is the victim of their furious folly because
many Christians, for lack of the virtue of fortitude,
no longer impose upon the falsifiers of the Gospel
the straightjacket they deserve, because Christians
resist less and less against the universal aberration
and refuse to attack it with the arms of nature and
grace.
So we understand the change of perspective we
must realize when we analyze the essence and range

of the virtue of fortitude. The end of the virtue of
fortitude is no longer just man’s resistance against
the murderers of the common good, especially in
“the blazing war,” but his unshakable firmness in the
face of the shape-shifting dangers that disintegrate
what is left of society and of the Church, that is to
say, of the ends of natural and supernatural life in the
human spirit in the grip of the “cold war.”
For that is the end to which revolutionary violence leads if we do not oppose it ahead of time with
the virtue of fortitude that we still have by a sort of
miracle, with all it presupposes and all the acts that
it engenders both in resistance and in attack.
A Return to Human Nature
We have to agree that the amplitude of this task
is immense and that despite the totalitarian violence
that scorns it and the liberal tolerance that vilifies it,
the virtue of fortitude—that has disappeared from
the vocabulary of politicians and churchmen—is
today the ultimate virtue, without which a return to
the intellectual, esthetic, moral, social and religious
health of man that is attacked from all sides, is rigorously impossible. We are just beginning to glimpse
in this end of the century, despite the rambling optimism that sails helmless from Renan’s L’Avenir de
la Science (The Future of Science) (1849) to Vatican
II’s Gaudium et Spes (1965), that we are entering
into the final phase of a civilization that, for substituting the homo laborans for the homo sapiens and
the homo politicus and in so doing turning its back
on the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church, is
now irreversible. Civilizations, of course, are mortal,
but at least the civilizations of Europe that succeeded each other over the span of three millenia
had something human to pass down to their respective heirs, so much so that the reality of the eternal
man (title of a book of G.K. Chesterton) remained
through their rises and falls and after their deaths.
If the industrial “civilization” we know today
continues, through successive crises from which it
recovers only through inhuman wars, what will man
become in it, if not an animal laborans, excluded
from true order, subject to computers from his birth
to his death? What will its legacy be, if it disappears?
The answer is clear: nothing. The only thing that can
agglomerate individuals thus isolated from each
other is, to quote Augustin Cochin’s words that are
more valid than ever, the socialization of thought by

myth, that is to say, by a language deprived of any
reference to reality, the socialization of the person in
the gears of a mechanical collectivity, and the socialization of goods by the suction pump of a totalitarian
State that forces the person to become more and
more lonely.
The three human activities of contemplating, acting and making, itself cut off from its end, no longer
exist or no longer have a truly human sense.
So starting now, before the final collapse, and
perhaps, God willing, in order to mitigate it, we
must return to what is specifically and elementarily
proper to man: to thinking first of all, thinking well,
admitting as true only what is true, only the results
of sensible experience enlightened by the first
principles of knowledge which are held by common
sense; renounce appearances, the fruit of the imagination and of our Ego amplified by our illusions; return to the natural metaphysics of the human mind.
Then to acting, acting well, acting for the common
good of the city and the universal common good,
the God of Revelation, two distinct goods that have
become inseparable since Our Lord Jesus Christ.
And lastly to making, to making all the products that
are necessary for the life of the individual, improving
them, making them available to as many as possible,
but under the rule of the common good that governs
them and subordinates to itself the particular goods
thus created, with that primacy of the common good
that aims above all at maintaining living social relations, which are always threatened by the individualism inherent in any economical activity.
It cannot be done in a day, nor in ten years, nor in
a century. It requires of us a continuity in the exercise
of the virtue of fortitude from generation to generation, both to resist the evils engendered by all decadence and to attack those that propagate it, and to
let the human plant grow under the sun of God.
Nature and God help us. The former has always
placed the remedy next to the evil. Natura malorum
remedia demonstrat. An exact diagnosis is at the
principle of any healing. And God will never abandon
the man who prays to Him. Indeed there are privileged places inhabited by a few rare persons who
resist the malady of the permanent Revolution, and
they are the starting point for a renewal, since the
supremacy of Technique that destroys everything,
once abandoned to itself, cannot destroy them without destroying itself. Technique will always need
81

Theological Studies
learned men and a minimal concern for the common
good in order to produce its material goods and to
put them on a consumers’ market that is neither a
free-for-all nor a barracks.
These are the natural and semi-natural basic
communities in which the realities of daily life resist
in spite of all the revolutionary violence that wishes
to strike them down and replace them with constructions of the autonomous human mind that
would thus consolidate its empire. Doubtless, “the
conditions for a normal family and professional life
are disappearing more and more, tending to turn
this life into a hell,” but the day there is no more
family, no more business in which the organic social
relations subordinate technical relations, humanity will have reached the end. It will be “the end of
History,” the very end of all History.
The Sense of Duty of State
Everything is there: in an attentive look at the realities that are daily one with our being, that cannot
be separated from it without us suffering, and that,
if we live them, fulfill us. In the communities of family and professional life, we are on a ground where
we can only be conquered if we abandon it to the
enemy: that of the DUTY OF STATE, an expression
scarcely met with in contemporary language, especially in the writing and babbling intelligentsia, and
for good reason! It is the supreme duty here below,
and ever since the Revelation it directly follows the
duty to love God above all things, and from it alone,
if it is accomplished, come rights.
The duty of state is what one has to do depending
on one’s fixed and immutable way of being. It is defined, constant, and invariable, like all that belongs
to nature. No one can take the place of anyone in
these little natural or semi-natural societies from
which we can separate ourselves in thought, in
imagination, in act, but never as to the being that we
are: I belong to this family, this profession, this country forever. In these societies, each person’s place
is determined by something does not depend on
him, by his coming into existence at such a time, in
such a place, by his vocation, by the answer he gives
to the call that transcends him and yet makes him
what he is, by the inclinations whose urge comes
from nature and the direction of his upright will.
Because the state and the being are one, we must
take it upon ourselves to fulfill our duty of state and
82

The Angelus

September - October 2016

realize our being. This eminently requires the activity
of the virtue of fortitude that resists the mirages of
egoism—which separates the Ego from its being—
the solicitations of the dissociety, and the easy ways
out offered by human weakness to intensify liberal
politics and modern socialism.
In these communities, the duty of state is always
hinged upon the common good of the members.
Far from opposing their respective goods, it makes
them up: working, for example, for the renown and
prosperity of the business of which one is a part,
leads to a particular consideration and material
advantages for oneself. Egoism, from whose temptation no one is exempt, is corrected by the undeniable presence and control of the other members
of the community. The obligations of the common
good to be safeguarded, that can be severe, imply
no stoic rigidity, no heroism, but rather joy: there is
hardly a greater satisfaction than having well filled
one’s day or seen true men, true women and true
children grow.
The exercise of the virtue of fortitude in the
accomplishment of the duty of state is always accompanied by contentment, despite the inevitable
miseries of this life. Most men have forgotten this
under the weight of the dissociety that buries them
in the chaos of its fleeting pleasures.
So we must fight with all our strength against the
liberalism whose starting point was the benevolent
humanistic conception in which man, “master of the
world” (Gaudium et spes), carries no seed of evil,
and everything wrong with our existence is the fruit
of evil societies, and against “socialism in general
and in all its details, which leads to the universal
annihilation of the spiritual essence of man and to
the leveling of humanity in death” (Solzhenitsyn, Le
Déclin du Courage, Discours de Harvard, 1978).
Rebuild the Natural Communities
The fortresses of the natural micro-communities
force us to this imperious necessity, if we wish to
survive as rational and political animals. Those who
wish to do so will have to speak out, write, and above
all set the example, teach fathers, mothers and
members of the family the ABC’s of the attitude to
adopt, which is the NO of the strength of resistance.
We cannot repeat enough that in the practical matter of an action aiming at its proper end, YES begins
with NO. The elementary principles of family moral-

ity will follow. We must teach all producers, at every
level of business, the rudiments of economic morality: one does not produce to produce or to produce
more and more; salaries, appointments and benefits
are the recompense for services rendered to the
consumers; the consumers are human beings.
These rudiments of a shining evidence, a thousand times confirmed by experience, demand the
virtue of fortitude in its double form: sustinere et
aggredi, resist and attack. To these humble gestures
of daily life in which still shine some sparks of the
concrete nature of man and of his virtuous activity
for the common good, we must add the breath of
truth taken at its center: the natural and Christian
law taught by the Gospel and by the pre-conciliar
Church. Unless our eyes are fixed upon the star, it is
impossible to walk on earth in the dark night we are
living through.
Thus, in these privileged circles where our action
can still develop and above all be transmitted, by
holding strong to both ends of the chain, the natural
and the supernatural, we can cover the intermediary
links and patiently restore society and the Church.
The only answer to the unlimited emancipation of
man by an omnipotent Technique, the only escape
from which left by the deprivation of the sovereign
lights of the True and the Good is subversive violence and permanent Revolution, the only answer to
the destruction of the concrete nature of man that
follows is the persevering restoration of the rational
animal and of the social animal in us by the virtue of
fortitude and by the exterior acts that lead it towards
its end.
The simple and moving story told by Ramuz in
Derborence illustrates the realism of the virtue of
fortitude in the most obscure men, but also those
closest to both earth and heaven at once. Some
shepherds climbed up to their huts above the clouds
to watch over their flocks in transhumance. One
night, the mountain on which their lodging was
built collapsed. Only one shepherd escaped the
avalanche. He found himself buried under a giant
heap of rocks. For two months he ate dry bread
and drank the water that seeped in. He felt around
under the rock. He dug his way out, tearing apart his
hands, sometimes vanquished but always victorious over his defeat. At last he arrived one day, mute,
stuttering, spectral. For he wished to live. His home
needed him. His family was waiting for him. He went

back down to the village, that was moved at the
sight of his ghost. The parish priest came to meet
him armed with a cross. His wife came toward him,
stopped. “And having looked at him closely, though
from a distance, as if she dared not approach, said,
“Oh, Antoine, is it you?”—“Just touch, it’s flesh, it’s
meat and now that I have gone through the cross…”
“Just touch,” he said, “you will see, it is not an idea,
it’s solid, it lasts, it’s me…” “Oh!” said she, “is it
possible?”
The future belongs to the magnanimity of the
humble, to their inexhaustible fortitude.
Translated by Mary Carlisle Moline.

83

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The
Last
Word
Dear readers,
“Fear not!”
Fortitude is one of the four great cardinal virtues. This means that it will be part of every
act of virtue, helping every single virtue to reach its end, especially when it becomes arduous.
That is the very object of this great virtue: the arduous or difficult good.
We all know by personal experience that a simple act of charity (just a smile at times), an
act of humility (to say “sorry”), one of patience, of controlling our curiosity or our appetite,
can be tough. Take any virtue: there are times when we just want to give up practicing it, it
seems to us too hard. “I can’t!” That is when fortitude clicks in. “Come on, with His grace,
you truly can!”
There is much talk about the problems our youth have to remain pure, to persevere in
whatever they do, be it studies, holding a job, marriage, a vocation… Whenever you’re tempted to quit, call for help, and remember He is the Almighty and wills to help us persevere in
the pursuit of good.
Fortitude also tackles fear, especially the greatest of all fears, the fear of death, “because
fear of dangers of death has the greatest power to make man recede from the good of reason” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, Q. 123, Art. 12). And just as Christian
civilization is based on trust in God, the true source of inner and social peace, many modern
evil systems are the very opposite, they make people live in fear. Let us just mention freemasonry, communism and Islam. Fear is a common feature of these when you look closely
at them. They rule by fear.
That is why there is a sacrament that corresponds to this cardinal virtue, and that is the
great sacrament of confirmation, which strengthens us precisely for the battles of life, ie.,
the battles for the practice of all virtues of our state of life. I am convinced that one of the
causes of the incredible debility, weakness of our modern Catholics is a result of having
meddled with the sacrament of confirmation after Vatican II, either by changing the matter
or the form or by delaying giving it in late teenage years.
With the Prophet, let this ancient prayer be daily on our lips and heart in order to practice
this major virtue: “O Lord, come to my aid!”
Fr. Daniel Couture

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