Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm in the American South
Icons and the Iconic: Visions of the
Transcendent
Iconoclasm
January - February 2021

One of the most well-known events in the life of
St. Boniface is his felling of Donar’s Oak, a tree
sacred to the God Thor which grew in the area
around what is now Fritzlar, possibly in the spot
where the Cathedral stands today.
Johann Michael Wittmer, St. Boniface Felling Donar’s Oak. 19th
century.

Letter
from the
Publisher
Dear Reader,
This past year has been an eventful one if any, with the pandemic, followed by riots across
the country and culminating with a contested presidential election. It will come to you as no
surprise to read the present theme of The Angelus magazine.
Iconoclasm is not a new fad and it has been with man since the dawn of the Jewish religion,
if not before. If then it had antireligious connotations rooted in the Old Testament, it has become today a powerful tool in the hands of anarchists and ideologists. The media covered—in
more ways than one—mostly Confederate monuments because of political or racial discrimination. Yet in fact, most statues defaced, vandalized, or simply torn down by city officials were
those of Christopher Columbus (33 statues) and also religious ones (8 statues of Junipero
Sera; statues of Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin; icons across the country).
Perhaps the Kansas City memorial, dedicated to police officers killed in the line of duty,
reveals best the mindset of the perpetrators. It was marked with graffiti, including messages
with “Abolish the Police” and “No Room 4 Fascists.” In this one case at least, the mayor
promised to restore the memorial and arrested some criminals. But, by and large, most of the
vandals were never charged.
Was 2020 in the United States like the anti-Cristero Mexico of 1926 or the Spanish civil
war of 1936? No, not quite. Fortunately for us, it did not end the same way and things finally
dwindled down after hundreds of national and religious monuments went down. Yet, a bitter
taste lingers in our mouth as we review the impunity the rioters enjoyed and their glorification
by the mass media, along with the contempt heaped upon the forces of order and religion.
Could this be just a dress rehearsal for more trouble ahead?
Whatever the answer to this enigma, it is important for all us of to be educated in the perennial principles of authority and society, along with the tenets of our faith and morals. May Our
Lord and His Mother help to keep a steady front and stand for God and country.

Fr. John Fullerton
Publisher

January - February 2021
Volume XLIV, Number 1
Publisher
Fr. John Fullerton
Editor-in-Chief
Mr. James Vogel
Managing Editor
Fr. Dominique Bourmaud
Assistant Editor
Mr. Gabriel Sanchez
Associate Editor
Miss Esther Jermann
Marketing Director
Mr. Ben Bielinski
Design and Layout
credo.creatie
(Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Mr. Simon Townshend
Director of Operations
Mr. Brent Klaske

		
U.S.
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Contents
— Letter from the Publisher

4

Theme: Iconoclasm
— The Invisible Made Visible: The Church and Religious Images
— Icons and the Iconic: Visions of the Transcendent
— Iconoclasm in the American South
— The Iconostasis
— Christ the Pantocrator
— From Roman Emperors to Images of Christ:
Iconoclasm and the Byzantine Empire

6
12
16
23
26
30

Spirituality
— Meditation on St. John’s Gospel
— The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: The Canon—Part Two
— The Brown Scapular: From Habit to Soul
— Belief in the Visible and Invisible

38
43
48
52

Christian Culture
— Our Lady of Consolation
— Demolishing Thor’s Oak:
An Early Medieval Model for Modern Catholic “Iconoclasm”
— Passing on the Love of Reading
— Questions and Answers

56
62
69
72

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

Catechism
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.
©2021 BY ANGELUS PRESS. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE
PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

— Complex Questions & Simple Answers
— Can Apologetics Stand the Test of Reason Alone?
— The Last Word

76
82
87

Theme Iconoclasm

The Invisible
Made Visible
The Church and Religious Images

By Romanus

“The invisible things of God have been made
visible.”
—St. John of Damascus (676–749)
“The honor paid to an image traverses it,
reaching the model, and he who venerates the
image, venerates the person represented in that
image.”
—Ecumenical Council of Nicaea II

The Old Testament Prohibition
Idolatry is the worship of someone or
something other than God as though it were God;
making explicit acts of veneration addressed to a
person or an object, attaching to these creatures
the confidence, loyalty, and devotion that
properly belong only to the Creator.
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The veneration of images did not exist in the
Old Testament, and even the use of any images
was severely restricted. To affirm His spirituality
and transcendence and to protect His chosen
people from the seductions of the idolatrous
world surrounding them, God prohibited every
representation of a living being made by the
hands of man: “Thou shalt not make to thyself a
graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that
is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor
of those things that are in the waters under the
earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them”
(Ex. 20:4-5).
However, the second part of the commandment
makes it clear that what God has forbidden is
only the making of such images with the intention
of worshipping them; by no means has He banned
the creation of all images.

Iconoclasm—English reformation.

St. John of Damascus argued that if this
commandment had been absolute in its character
then God would have contradicted Himself, as
He directed or permitted the making of images
that pointed symbolically toward salvation by
the Incarnate Word. Thus, He commanded Moses
to erect a brazen serpent in the desert to heal
His people and instructed the Israelites to store
the Tables of the Law in an Ark decorated with
angelic beings, the Cherubim.
He also commanded the people to decorate
the places where they worshipped with gold,
bronze, and wooden images of animals and
plants, as the Cherubim decorating the Temple
and the oxen supporting the “molten sea” before
the Temple. Even the prophet Ezekiel described
carved images in the idealized Temple he was
shown by God in a vision: “From the ground even
to the upper parts of the gate, were cherubim and
palm trees wrought in the wall of the temple” (Ez.
41:20).
Obviously, then, the prohibition against images
was not absolute, but relative to the context and
suited for a particular place and time. In order
to prevent idolatry, God forbade the worship of

statues or painted images, but did not forbid the
use of those images in religious contexts.
Judaism itself interpreted the commandment
with different degrees of severity in different
periods and circumstances. The discovery of
the synagogue of Dura-Europos revealed a
tradition of Jewish narrative religious art—
frescoes depicting many scenes taken from the
Hebrew Bible—which qualified and tempered the
historical prohibition of images of living beings.

The Practice of the
Early Church
The veneration of images in the Church has a
long and complicated history, the fruit of men’s
gradual assimilation of the Christian faith.
Christianity was born in the Jewish cultural
environment, within the framework of GrecoRoman culture. During the 1st century and
the beginnings of the 2nd, the Church was still
struggling to leave behind some Jewish practices
and legal requirements—prominent among these
were circumcision, the dietary laws and the
7

Theme Iconoclasm

Modern iconoclasm.

injunction against images. The first two posed
an obstacle for the universal reach of the Church
and were soon abandoned, but resistance to the
use of images persisted. Living immersed in a
pagan world, the Church was keenly aware of
the dangers posed by idolatry, both as seduction
and threat, and consistently rejected it—an
abhorrence strengthened by the sad experience
of so much blood spilled because of refusing to
burn some grains of incense before the image of
the self-deified Roman Emperor.
Thus, during the first three centuries, the
Church does not seem to have addressed directly
and explicitly the theological problem of the
worship of images. Cardinal Newman remarked
that “Christians probably did not like to raise the
question of the legitimacy of images in Catholic
worship, while they had superstitions before their
eyes and the immoralities of paganism.”
Nonetheless, by the late 2nd century an
incipient pictorial art had already appeared in
the Christian Church. Those images were mostly
symbolic, a sometimes naïve visualization of the
belief of the faithful, which was being elaborated
and expounded in theological terms by the
Fathers.
By mid-3rd century, art inspired by pagan
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models as well as Christian themes began to be
produced throughout the Roman world. Much as
theologians were struggling to find the precise
terms that could express unequivocally the truths
of Christianity, artists were similarly seeking
proper visual terms to express the Christian
faith. In this situation, not having previous
Christian examples, artists resorted to their usual
models and patterns which were rooted in pagan
visual language, choosing from them those that
appeared more appropriate to express Christian
ideas.
From the 2nd and 3rd centuries onwards,
the Roman catacombs attest to the existence
of unmistakably Christian representations (the
Virgin with Child, the adoration of the Magi, Our
Lord as healer and miracle-worker, etc.). These
were straightforward, “literal” representations
of evangelical passages, directly pointing to the
mystery of the Incarnation—the images asserting
what early heresies denied, both the reality of the
human nature of Christ and the divine maternity
of Mary. It must also be noted that these images
were not objects of veneration, properly speaking.
They were intended as decorations, but also and
above all signs of recognition, a visual profession
of faith and hope and an invitation to visitors to
pray for those buried there.
That images were in use among Christians
is proven also by some texts. Although they
disapproved of the use of images, Tertullian
speaks of the Good Shepherd engraved in chalices
and Eusebius of Caesarea affirms having seen
painted images of Sts. Peter and Paul, and even of
Our Lord Himself.
The use of images spread in the Church, neither
imposed by a decree nor introduced by surprise,
but blossoming naturally from the Christian soul,
remaining human under the empire of grace.
Pictures began to be more widely used in the
churches when Christianity was legalized and
supported by the emperor Constantine in the
early 4th century, and they soon become part
of Christian piety. The veneration of the images
developed as Christians became less exposed
to the contagion of idolatry, although for a time
images continued to be opposed by some bishops
and regional synods.

The Enemies of Images
Indeed, a hostile attitude towards images
subsisted in the Church, and a long and complex
struggle gradually developed. When facing
the surrounding pagan world, it turned into a
sometimes violent iconoclasm that led to the
annihilation of much of the sacred art of the
pagan religions of the Roman Empire. Within
Christendom, the hostility to religious images
was most violently expressed in Byzantium by
the iconoclastic heresy of the 8th century.
The case of the Byzantine iconoclasts
(literally, “image-breakers”) originally relied
mostly on the Old Testament prohibition, but
the argument was easily refuted, as it was clear
that this prohibition was not absolute. Later,

the emperor Constantine V offered a more
nuanced argument, claiming that depicting Jesus’
human nature meant endorsing the Nestorian
heresy, which held that Jesus’ divine and human
natures were separate; likewise, depicting Jesus’
divine nature risked endorsing the heresy of
Monophysitism, which stressed Jesus’ divinity at
the expense of his humanity.
In the Latin Church, various medieval lay
movements and sects manifested their opposition
to the use of images, virulently culminating in
the 16th-century Protestant rebellion, when
numerous churches and monasteries in Germany,
France, England and the Netherlands were
plundered and their once-revered images were
formally condemned and publicly burned on
bonfires or mutilated by having their hands

Iconoclasm—Syrian church.

9

Theme Iconoclasm
and heads knocked off or their faces smashed.
Despite the different historical types of
iconoclasm, their theological argumentation
presents a great uniformity: they contend that
the divine is beyond all earthly form in its
transcendence and spirituality and to represent
it in earthly materials and forms is already a
profanation. They argue that the relationship to
God, who is Spirit, can only be a purely spiritual
one; the worship of the individual as well as the
Church can happen only “in spirit and in truth”
(Jn. 4:24), without the need of any external
support exercising its influence upon the senses.

The Theological Foundation
We have already seen in Scripture that God
Himself commanded the making of images as
good and appropriate for religious ends. We have
also seen that the first Christians had naturally
and spontaneously adopted this simple method
of instruction and edification. The ecclesiastical
magisterium expresses itself in the general and
local councils approved by Rome, in the papal
documents and in the teachings of the Fathers,
and, throughout the centuries, has shown
the usefulness of images and established and
regulated their veneration. Reason itself shows
us that the use of religious images is good,
useful, in accordance with the legitimate needs
of our nature and, therefore, acceptable and
praiseworthy.
But in the confrontation with iconoclasm, the
Fathers found the decisive theological argument
for the use and veneration of images in the
mystery of the Incarnation. The incarnation
of the Son of God as a human being, who was
created in the “image of God,” granted theological
approval to the images as, indeed, it is only since
the Incarnation that man can represent God in an
anthropomorphic way.
St. John Damascene and St. Theodore
Studite denounced the confusion underlying the
iconoclastic argument of Constantine V. Images
of Christ do not depict natures, either divine or
human, but a concrete person, Jesus Christ, the
incarnate Son of God. In Christ the meaning of
the Old Testament prohibition is revealed: God
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prohibited any representation of God (or anything
that could be worshiped as a god) because it was
impossible to depict the invisible God. Any such
representation would thus be an idol, a false god.
But in Christ’s person, God became visible as a
concrete human being, so painting Christ is an
assertion that God truly became man.
In the very words of St. John Damascene:
“How to make the image of the Invisible? As
long as God is invisible, do not make the image
of it; but, as soon as you see the Intangible who
has become Man, make the image of the human
form; when the Invisible becomes visible in
the flesh, paint the likeness of the Invisible.
Formerly, God, the Incorporeal and the Invisible,
was never represented. But now that God has
manifested Himself in the flesh and lived among
men, I represent the ‘visible’ of God. I don’t adore
matter, but I adore the Creator of matter.”
St. Theodore of Studion introduced a Marian
note: “Since Christ was born of the Indescribable
Father, He cannot have image; but, since Christ is
born from a describable Mother, He naturally has
an image that corresponds to that of His Mother.
If He could not be represented by art, that would
mean that He was born only of the Father and did
not become incarnate. But this is contrary to the
whole divine economy of our salvation.”
The Second Council of Nicaea explicitly
declared that images “provide confirmation that
the becoming man of the Word of God was real
and not just imaginary,” and thus decreed that
“the revered and holy images, whether painted
or made of mosaic or of other suitable material,
are to be exposed in the holy churches of God,
on sacred instruments and vestments, on walls
and panels, in houses and by public ways, these
are the images of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus
Christ, and of our Lady without blemish, the holy
God-bearer, and of the revered angels and of any
of the saintly holy men.”
The Council also made an important
distinction between veneration and worship:
“We declare that one may render to icons the
veneration of honor (proskynesis), not true
worship (latreia) of our faith, which is due only
to the divine nature.” Latreia means absolute
worship, which is reserved exclusively for God.
Proskynesis refers to the bodily act of bowing

Fra Angelico, The Virgin and Child with Sts. Dominic and Thomas Aquinas, c. 1435.

down, meaning an expression of respect offered
to saints worthy of such honor on account of
their closeness to God.
Finally, the Council, quoting St. Basil of
Caesarea, affirmed that “the honor rendered to
an image passes to its prototype,” and “whoever
venerates an image venerates the person
portrayed in it.”
St. Thomas Aquinas explicitly concurs: “The
worship of religion is paid to images, not as
considered in themselves, nor as things, but
as images leading us to God incarnate. Now
movement to an image as image does not stop at
the image, but goes on to the thing it represents.”
Thus, the Christian veneration of images is not

contrary to the first commandment which forbids
idols.
Nicaea II summed up the Catholic position
in its final condemnation of the iconoclastic
heresy: “If anyone does not confess that Christ
our God can be represented in his humanity,
let him be anathema. If anyone does not accept
representation in art of evangelical scenes, let
him be anathema. If anyone does not salute such
representations as standing for the Lord and his
saints, let him be anathema. If anyone rejects any
written or unwritten tradition of the Church, let
him be anathema…”

11

Theme Iconoclasm

Icons and
the Iconic
Visions of the Transcendent

By Andrew J. Clarendon

The word icon evokes a number of
associations: a modern person might think of an
icon as a representational image on the computer
screen, or, in the looser sense, a person who is
idealized as a great cultural figure. In devotional
art, an icon is a sacred image that is usually
painted on wood with traditional lines and colors
involving rich symbolism; iconographers speak
not of painting an icon but of writing one. While
the artist depicts persons and events, there is
no attempt to produce a realistic image of the
subject in a material sense. As one commentator
puts it: “an icon is a sacred image of Jesus Christ
or a holy person in another reality, place, and
time . . . a religious icon is much more than just
a beautiful piece of art—it is a ‘window into
heaven.’” Furthermore, “icons do not speak
[in the ordinary sense of the term] or display
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any actions . . . they invite us into the world of
silence, prayer, and contemplation. They do not
show human emotions, as they are not intended
to force an intense emotional response,” but
rather seek to elevate above the physical. These
considerations lead to fascinating meditations
on the purpose of devotional art, differences
between the east and west, and even more
fundamental questions about the relationship
between the body and the soul. Whatever the
distinctions, of vital importance is that the aim
of iconic art—and of all the arts—is to create
something transcendent, a reflection of the
Creator Himself.

The Foundation of
Western Culture
There is, however, another way to think about
the iconic, a discussion that embraces multiple
arts and forms a foundational basis of Western
culture. Firstly, words themselves, and therefore

Ceos, “Painting is poetry keeping silent; poetry
is like a picture.” Or again, centuries later, the
Roman poet Horace wrote that “poetry is like a
picture.” In one of her essays, Eva T. H. Brann
notes “that a painting should say something and
that poetry should depict something is arguably
the crux of the Western representation, mimetic

the poetic, can be iconic. In literary and semiotic
circles an icon is a special type of word: as one
reference book puts it, “at more sophisticated
levels of representation and presentation, a
verbal or aesthetic icon states a case and also
embodies or enacts the case”—to give a simple
example, the word “cuckoo.” What is more, from
the beginning of the literary tradition, there is
an ancient and deep connection between poetry
and the visual arts like painting or sculpture.
For the ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides of

[that is, imitating nature] mode . . . [and so] if
poetry is to be like a picture then, by a natural
transition, is might very appropriately be about
a picture.” These “descriptions of visual works
in poetry are . . . called ‘iconic.’” While painters
depicted scenes from Homer’s Odyssey, for
example, ancient Greek writers would compose
“pieces describing with the utmost pictorial
vividness real or imaginary works of graphic art,
images of images as it were.” It is noteworthy that
the Greek word for poet—poiein—literally
13

Theme Iconoclasm
means “maker”; this iconic mimetic tradition of
the visual arts and poetry is that of “sister arts”
that reflect in their own mode the work of the
Supreme Artist, the Supreme Creator. As Dante
writes in Inferno 11: “Nature takes her course
from the Divine / Intellect . . . / your art, too, as
best it can, imitates / Nature, . . . / so your art may
be said to be God’s grandchild.” True art is both
grounded in Nature and reaches higher, to the
source of reality.

An Example in Dante
A richly illustrative example can be found
later in Dante’s Divine Comedy, in Purgatorio

14

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10. Having passed through the gate into the
main part of Purgatory, which is divided into
seven terraces that correspond to the seven
capital sins, the Pilgrim starts walking along the
cornice in which pride is purged. While each of
the terraces include examples of the vice being
purged, each also has examples of the opposite
virtue, the first always taken from the life of the
Blessed Mother. In this first level, to present the
fundamental virtue of humility, Dante depicts the
Annunciation, creating a tour-de-force of iconic
poetry: “all the inner cliff / . . . / was pure white
marble; on its flawless face / . . . stor[ies] cut into
the stone.” These are “carvings that would surely
put to shame / not only [the great Greek sculptor]
Polyclete but Nature too”; they seem “a shape

alive, / . . . / an effigy that could have spoken
words. / One would have sworn that [the angel]
was saying ‘Ave!’” The statues, are, as Professor
Theodolinda Barolini writes, “re-presented so
wondrously that they seem not ‘re-presented’
but presented: they seem not art but life”; they
are, Dante writes later in the canto, “this art of
visible speech”—so perfect and delightful that
only God could have created them. Again, Brann
draws the two threads together: as “pictures
speak silently through sight, [a] poem can render
them visible through speech.” Normally, the
artist, limited by his own humanity, can only,
as Hamlet says, “hold the mirror up to Nature;”
but since Dante is displaying Divine lessons in
a supernatural realm, the art itself, both the
statues, and, eventually, the poetry, must be
greater than anything found on earth, including
Nature. Since the nature of art is imitative of
the visible world around it, poetry assumes a
character that reflects the visible world and the
visual arts assume a character like poetry; that
is, they must use a visual metaphor to represent
that which cannot be understood with the eye.
Dante writes later in Purgatorio: “as a painter
painting from his model, I / would try to show
you how I fell asleep. / But let whoever can paint
sleep, paint sleep!” Hence, at the highest levels,
visual art becomes more symbolic, less focused
on the material while maintaining a grounding
in the physically real; and poetry becomes
more metaphorical as the poet—like Dante
in Paradiso—strains to give even a sense of
supernatural realities and abstractions.
Our own decadent and destructive times
feature the often base and sensual materialism
of cinematic imagery coupled with an attempt to
obliterate, even physically, the beautiful works
of the past. The old icons are either a product of
a cultural past that is to be utterly repudiated
or, what might be worse, regarded with ignorant
indifference. It is a neo-iconoclasm not just
of statues but of the entire Western cultural
tradition. It is, as Richard Weaver notes in Ideas
Have Consequences, the triumph of egotism:
“modern man in his innumerable exhibitions
of irresponsibility and defiance . . . [displays] a
prodigious egotism . . . which is another form
of fragmentation, a consequence of that fatal

decision to make a separate self the measure
of value. . . . It is egotism which enforces the
separation between nature—by which is meant
here the enduring reality—and art.” Now, after
centuries of this fragmentation and egotism, the
citadels of civilization are the small communities
here and there trying to preserve the tradition.
Even in these dark times, “now, under conditions
/ That seem unpropitious,” we hope along with
Dostoevsky that “beauty will save the world.”

15

Theme Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm in
the American
South
By James Horne

16

“Remove not the ancient landmarks thy fathers
have set.”—Prov. 22:28

Bradford on the South

Every fact in history is contained in God’s
eternal decrees through either command or
permission. Thus, any attack against the facts
and outcome of history is ultimately an attack
against God Himself. Rebellious man in his
attempts to recreate the world in his own image
finds the need to do away with history. He will
first debunk and rewrite it. He then seeks to
arrest it, and finally to remove it from his reality
altogether. To do this the symbols must go.
History and the symbols of past civilizations,
particularly those that clearly demonstrate
God’s intervention or providence, will be most
vehemently attacked.

The Catholic historian M.E. Bradford has
called the antebellum South the last great
medieval hierarchical Christian civilization. It is
not the purpose of the writer here to try to prove
or defend this statement in an apologia, but to
show why the “progressive” modern man must
act as an iconoclast to the South’s symbols and
images.
All symbols have power. To any ancient or
traditional man, such a statement would be so
obvious to him, he would see no reason to state
it. Modern man at least subconsciously believes
this as well. Otherwise, contemporary society
would not be so vehemently trying to destroy
so many symbols of the past. Any student
of Southern American history immediately

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recognizes this as he sees Southern monuments
and memorials defaced and removed. All
conquering people have sought to defile, destroy,
and desacralize all icons of the conquered people.
In other words, they act in the nature of the
iconoclast.
For example, ancient Romans built their
temples on top of the temples of the people
they conquered, and ancient Egyptians defaced
sarcophagi of previous dynasties. Only the
Holy Roman Catholic Church has been hesitant
to engage in a wholesale removal of what a
converted people or civilization considered
sacred; only in cases where the symbols were
overtly satanic or diabolical. The reasons have to
do with the theology of the Church. Christianity
has always seen history as the working out of the
external decrees of God in time through primary
and proximate causes for His own glory and the
good of all the elect. Therefore, in all people’s
history we would expect to find the workings
of providence. There are no disassociated facts
of history. Even what man “means for evil, God
means for good.”
Thoughtful theologians and Church Fathers
thus could often find prototypes in the symbols
and thinking of pre-Christian civilizations that
were pointing to or prefiguring the coming of
the fullness of the gospel. The Church then
used many of these “pre-figurings” as tools for
converting the pagan peoples. St. Patrick is a
good example of this. In fact, the Reformers of
the Protestant Revolt would actually use this as
an accusation against the Roman Church. They
saw the Church as compromising with Paganism.

What Motivates Iconoclasm?
To fully understand the reason why people
want to destroy the symbols of the past, to
move or remove the boundary markers that
others before have established, one must first
understand what a symbol is. One might also
ask how a symbol or icon is a boundary marker.
Boundaries establish at least two things:
definition and limits. The symbol defines or
marks out what it stands for. These definitions
in the context of history usually come into

existence or at least are made articulate after the
fact.
The battle flag takes on all the connotations
for which the soldier fought: hearth, home,
and country. A symbol stands for, points to, or
embellishes something other than itself. In the
case of a mere advertising logo this might not
seem of great consequence; in the case of the
modus of a civilization, or more particularly a
religion (for one cannot have one without the
other) this becomes quite apparent. The symbol
will actually take on a religious connotation.
It is from this connotation, that is, a more
transcendent motive, that the symbol becomes
imbued with power. In the case of the Sacraments
of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, they actually
become the reality they point to. Obviously, all
man-made symbols fall into the natural sphere
and not the supernatural, but because of their
religious nature, they nonetheless have the power
to move men to action. Thus the old symbols
must go and the new symbols be installed.
Another property of a boundary has to do with
limits. One is more secure when one remains
in or recognizes limits. In the Douay-Rheims
translation of the verse in the heading of this
article, the use of the word “boundary” rather
than “landmark” would be much more apropos
when speaking of limits. Certainly, humility
and piety would circumscribe behavior. This
is another difficulty with the iconoclast; his
behavior is often motivated by hubris.

Iconoclasm and Hubris
Having given a brief outline of what I believe to
be theological reasons for iconoclasm, I want to
speak directly to this second property: the hubris
of the iconoclast. It is an envy born of a lack of
piety and humility. This appears rather blatantly
in many who today attack the symbols and icons
of the antebellum South. Richard Weaver, in The
Southern Tradition at Bay, gives the definition
of piety as a certain humility and understanding
of one’s place. Weaver states, “Piety comes to
us as a warning voice that we must think as
mortal, that it is not for us either to know or to
control all. It is a recognition of our limitations
17

Theme Iconoclasm
and contingency of nature which gives us the
protective virtue of humility.”
Both the theological and the more narrow
and petty reasons for iconoclasm that have been
referred to previously can be demonstrated in a
brief outline of the character of two of the most
iconic heroes of the antebellum South: Robert E.
Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest. In addition to
the character of these two men, their motives,
memory, and memorials have in recent years
been most viciously attacked and maligned by the
modern iconoclast.
These men represent two of the best-known
images of the Southern antebellum man. Lee
was the erudite blue-blood of the coastal planter
elite class, hailing from a long line of aristocratic
plantation owners even though he did not farm
himself. Stratford, where he was born, had been
in the Lee family since the late 17th century.
His father “Light Horse” Harry Lee was a
military man, and Robert followed in his father’s
footsteps.
Nathan Bedford Forrest represents another
type of the Southerner: the self-made man. His
generation of back-country “Westerners” were
only a few generations removed from the original
frontiersmen. Like Robert E. Lee, Forrest was
orphaned early in life. Unlike Lee however, he
had none of the financial and social resources to
rely upon.

Anachronisms in the Narrative
There are other images of Southern manhood
that could be discussed which do not fit the
accepted historical narrative. General Richard
Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor, had a
manservant who Stonewall Jackson observed in
a heroic act at the Battle of Second Manassas.
Jackson, who was certainly no stranger to
acts of bravery in the heat of battle, sought the
servant out to congratulate him after the battle.
Jackson stated in front of his entire staff and
other officers that the black man was “the bravest
man I have ever seen.” Such acts of courage and
fidelity to masters were noted by contemporary
sources too many times to have been rare
occurrences.
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Stonewall Jackson’s servant Jim, for example,
was known far and wide for his Christian
virtues and his love and friendship to Jackson.
Jim continued to attend and represent the
Confederate cause at Confederate Veteran’s
conventions up until his own death at the turn of
the century. These kinds of behavior and images
simply do not fit the modern narrative of the
antebellum age.
Nathan Bedford Forrest is most often
condemned because he bought and sold black
slaves. But what is less often told of Forrest is the
way in which he treated his slaves. If a slave was
to be sold, Forrest allowed the slave to go and
visit his or her new masters. If the owners did
not meet the approval of the black slaves, Forrest
would refuse the sale. In addition, Forrest would
not break up a family; often to his own financial
loss he would purchase the family members of
slaves he already owned in order to reunite them.
Over forty of his slaves rode off to war with him
in order to, as he put it, earn their freedom. Eight
of these slaves were part of his inner circle.
After the war Forrest gave them all land
and helped establish them in business. All
but one remained very loyal to him until the
end of his life. In a speech that Forrest gave
after the war to a group of black freedmen (a
group that would later go on to be part of what
became the NAACP), he told them that he would
always be their greatest advocate, and to call
on him when in need. At Forrest’s death over
30,000 people attended his funeral; over a third
of them were black. The records show that
Forrest’s contemporaries, both white and black,
remembered him for his great humanity as well
as his military genius. This aspect of the icon
must be restored.

Robert E. Lee’s Character
Until very recent times, one could find very
little direct criticism of Robert E. Lee’s character.
There is at least one poorly-written book entitled
The Marble Man by Thomas Lawrence Connelly,
but for the most part, all Lee’s biographers,
including some of the best-known writers of
American history, found the natural virtues in

Lee unassailable. This was a man who believed
that the word “duty” was the most sublime word
in the English language. In later years after
the war he was asked by a young mother that
one thing she might teach her son that would
make him a great man. Lee answered without
hesitation, “Teach him, Madam, to deny himself.”
There are many such vignettes and quotes
about Lee and from Lee himself that could fill
volumes. Robert E. Lee’s natural virtues could
be used by any humanitarian to teach young
men what a gentleman should be. Though Lee
was born to privilege, he rather easily translated
these privileges into social obligations for his
fellow man—as a leader, an educator, and a
mentor. Even a precursory review of Lee’s life
would reveal him to be a man set apart.
In this brief glance at these Southern icons,

one can easily see that their behavior does
not agree with modern sensibilities. However,
one would hope that this might inspire each
of us to closely study history and to be very
careful that we do not, in some misguided act
of righteousness, become iconoclasts ourselves
and start removing landmarks. Let us hope that
we might share this sentiment that Robert E. Lee
uttered near the end of his life:
“My experience of men has neither disposed
me to think worse of them; nor, in spite of
failures, which I lament, of errors, which I now
see and acknowledge, or of the present
state of affairs, do I despair of the future.
The march of providence is so slow and
our desires so impatient, the work
of progress is so immense, and
our means of aiding it so feeble,
the life of humanity so long, and
that of the individual so brief,
that we often see only the ebb
of the advancing wave, and are
thus discouraged. It is history that
teaches us to hope.”

19

For I think that God hath set forth
us apostles, the last, as it were men
appointed to death: we are made a
spectacle to the world, and to angels,
and to men. We are fools for Christ’s
sake, but you are wise in Christ; we
are weak, but you are strong; you are
honourable, but we without honour.
Even unto this hour we both hunger
and thirst, and are naked, and are
buffeted, and have no fixed abode;
And we labour, working with our own
hands: we are reviled, and we bless;
we are persecuted, and we suffer it. We
are blasphemed, and we entreat; we
are made as the refuse of this world,
the offscouring of all even until now.
– I Cor. 4:9-13

The
Iconostasis
By Gabriel S. Sanchez, J.D.

Walk into any church that follows the
Byzantine Rite and one is immediately struck
by the high altar, shielded with iconographic
depictions of Our Lord, His Mother, and
numerous saints. This structure, known as an
iconostasis or icon screen, comes in many forms,
though its origins date back to what is known as
the “Triumph of Orthodoxy,” that is, the defeat of
the iconoclast heresy in the Christian East.
As the history and theology surrounding the
condemnation of iconoclasm is already covered
in several articles in this issue of The Angelus,
this piece will focus more on the structure of the
iconostasis itself; its architectural predecessors
in Byzantine churches; and the spiritual and
theological meaning that has developed around
the iconostasis. As a point of clarification, this
article will refer to the Byzantine Rite generally

without pausing to make distinctions between
those in communion with the Roman Catholic
Church, namely Greek Catholics, and those that
remain separated, that is, the Eastern Orthodox.
Local churches on both sides of this tragic divide
also maintain their own specific traditions when
it comes to iconography and the general makeup
of their respective iconostases. To chronicle all
of these particularities would require far more
space than is appropriate for a magazine article.

The Pre-History of
the Iconostasis
Although exact dates are hard to pin down,
there is evidence to suggest that Eastern
churches began erecting templons to separate
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Theme Iconoclasm
the nave from the altar area sometime in the
5th century. These structures would consist of
several colonettes supporting an overarching
beam, and eventually featured a large “door” or
passage in front of the main altar and two smaller
passages on the side. Unlike the contemporary
iconostasis, templons did not originally obscure
or block sight of the altar or the liturgical
actions of the clergy serving before it. Over
time, templons would become more ornate, with
decorative stones and metals being applied to
both the colonettes and beam. It would eventually
become commonplace to put various inscriptions
on these structures, along with Christian
symbols and carvings.
As the first millennium drew to a close, the
templon was the normative structure separating
the altar from the nave. Eventually curtains were
placed over the three templon doors which could
be pulled back during various portions of the
liturgy to allow processions around the altar area
or to “seal off” certain liturgical actions such as
the consecration of the Body and Blood of Christ.
While curtains have mainly disappeared from
Byzantine churches, they can still be found in
some Armenian and Coptic churches. However,
many Russian Orthodox iconostases still retain
a central curtain that can be pulled across the
central door.
Again, even though precise dates are
sometimes difficult to pin down, templons were
eventually adorned with icons in the 8th century.
Sometimes icons were hung on the colonettes
while at other times they were placed on the
overarching templon beam. Over the following
centuries, the classic templon model was
replaced by the construction of wood-carved
screens designed to fit a number of iconographic
images. Curtains, for the most part, were
displaced by wooden doors.

The Structure of the Iconostasis
As noted, iconostases come in various shapes
and sizes, with local customs dictating the
particulars. Moreover, the size and shape of
the church building itself sometimes requires
alterations, particularly for churches not
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designed originally for Byzantine-style worship.
In its classic form, the iconostasis is placed at the
edge of the sanctuary, which is elevated three or
more steps above the nave. Typically, an ambon
or rounded area sits in front of the iconostasis
where the deacon can intone litanies and the
priest can read specific prayers in front of the
iconostasis during portions of Matins, Vespers,
and the close of the Divine Liturgy.
The basic structure of the iconostasis mirrors
that of the templon: a large opening in the middle
with a door on each side, known variously as the
Beautiful Gates, Holy Doors, or Royal Doors, and
two smaller doors to the right and left known as
the Deacons’ Doors. The overall length and height
of the iconostasis depends in significant part on
the size of the church building itself. Regardless,
every iconostasis has what is known as the
“Sovereign” tier with large icons of Christ and
the Blessed Virgin Mary flanking the Beautiful
Gates on the right and left (facing the nave),
respectively. The Beautiful Gates themselves,
which vary in height, often contain iconographic
depictions of saints or events from Christ’s
earthly life. Depending on the iconostasis’s
length, two or more saints are depicted next to
Christ and Mary. On the Deacons’ Doors, for
instance, it is common to see depictions of St.
Stephen, a deacon-martyr, or the archangels
Michael and Gabriel. The church’s patron saint,
too, is often depicted on the iconostasis. Ss. John
the Baptist and Nicholas the Wonderworker are
also routinely included on the “Sovereign” tier.
Most, though not all, iconostases feature a
second tier known as the “Deisis” tier with Christ
enthroned in the center and the Blessed Virgin
and St. John the Baptist on each side in a posture
of supplication. Further icons of the Apostles,
Church Fathers, and important local saints can
be included as well. Beyond this, the inclusion of
additional tiers continues as space allows. Some
of the great Kyivan and Russian churches, for
instance, feature up to five tiers, with some being
allotted to depictions of the 12 Great Feasts of
the Byzantine Church (for instance, Theophany,
Annunciation, Nativity of the Mother of God, etc.)
or the Old Testament Prophets and Patriarchs.
While certain churches developed strict rubrics
governing the design of iconostases and the

placement of icons, variations arose over the
centuries, and not always for the best.

from some of the most profound prayers of the
Byzantine Divine Liturgy.

The Theology of the Iconostasis

The Iconostasis Today

Over the centuries, various attempts have been
made to develop a “theology of the iconostasis”
or more properly a theological justification for
its existence and form. During the period where
templons were normative, the curtain across
the central door was likened to the “veil of the
temple” which separated most of the Temple of
Jerusalem from the “holy of holies” where the
Ark of the Covenant was kept. Only the Temple’s
High Priest could enter this area, and then only
once a year on Yom Kippur. Over time, Byzantine
liturgical rubrics dictated that only consecrated
persons, specifically bishops, priests, and
deacons could enter through the central door
of the templon to the altar, which today are the
Beautiful Gates on the iconostasis.
While some see the Beautiful Gates as a
barrier between the sacred and the profane,
other theologians have challenged this view and
instead maintain that the iconostasis, rather
than serving as a barrier strictly speaking, unites
the Christians in the nave with the new “holy of
holies”: the heavenly altar where the Eucharist
is celebrated. A similar line of thinking has
developed around the icons themselves, which
are commonly referred to as “windows into
Heaven” by Eastern Christians. Further, icons
serve as a point of mediation and instruction
for the faithful who attend Byzantine churches,
allowing them to prayerfully connect with the
person of Jesus Christ, along with the personages
and events of salvation history. Additionally,
certain liturgical acts, such as the clergy
processing in and out of the iconostasis doors,
have taken on their own symbolic meaning,
such as mirroring the entrance of Christ into
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Yet there still remains some controversy
concerning the various traditions that rest
beyond these theological explanations. Some
critics opine that iconostases grew out of
proportion to their original purpose over the
centuries, eventually “locking out” the faithful

Without delving too deep into various
controversies that have arisen among both
Greek Catholics and Orthodox with respect
to iconostases and iconography, it is true that
Eastern Slavic iconography began to drift
away from the historic iconographic forms
of the Byzantine Middle Ages toward a more
contemporary, Western style focused on “realism”
in its depictions of Christ and His saints.
Ukrainian Greek Catholics, heavily influenced by
their Polish Latin neighbors, incorporated images
and forms that had developed in the West. This
“Westernization” or “Latinization” eventually
became the subject of numerous uncharitable
polemics. Ironically, the Ukrainian Catholics’
neighbors to the east, the Russian Orthodox, also
adopted many of these Western forms up through
the early 20th century.
Today, some Christian churches following
the Byzantine Rite have, unfortunately, taken a
hostile view toward the iconostasis, even going so
far as to argue for their radical reduction or even
elimination. In an effort to make the liturgy more
“accessible” to the faithful, certain practices,
such as keeping the Beautiful Gates closed for
large segments of the Divine Liturgy, have either
been reduced or eliminated altogether. And, for
better or worse, few Byzantine churches acquired
or built in modern times feature the extensive
iconostases and iconography that was prevalent
during the Middle Ages and early modern period.
Thankfully, the Byzantine churches, either
Greek Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, have not
been hit with the tidal wave of iconoclastic
reform that has wiped out so many of the
liturgical traditions and classic ecclesiastical
structures of the Latin Church over the past
50 years. By God’s grace the “Triumph of
Orthodoxy” that preserved iconography and gave
birth to the iconostasis over 1,000 years ago lives
on today.

25

Theme Iconoclasm

Christ the
Pantocrator
By Jane Spencer

Christ Pantocrator, or “He Who can do all
things,” is an enigmatic icon—one of the first
images ever painted of Christ. Scholars have
discussed and disagreed on the meaning behind
His asymmetrical expression; some hold that the
two sides of the face depict mercy and justice,
while others argue that they represent the human
and divine natures. Some prefer to interpret the
softer expression as Christ’s serene divinity,
while the darker side is His suffering humanity.
Still others believe that the gentler side expresses
His humanity, while the sterner side is the aweinspiring divinity. Interpretations widely differ,
and while we don’t know the artist’s original
intention, the piece sparks many meditations,
each true in its own light. It’s no wonder that
the icon—painted around 300 AD, continues to
spark discussion and investigation; it is at once
26

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strikingly beautiful, mysterious, and theologically
rich.

Byzantine Iconography
and Modern Sensibilities
Byzantine iconography often leaves our
modern sensibilities feeling cold. The figures
are flat, rigid, and solemn. Unlike the currently
popular holy cards of sweet saints surrounded by
soft clouds in pastel pink, the ancient simplicity
subjects our eyes and our emotions to a Lenten
fast. These artists, however, didn’t simplify their
paintings because they were incapable of more
complexity or naturalism; it was a deliberate
choice.
The early Christians lived alongside pagan

Greeks and Romans who used art not only to
celebrate, but literally to impersonate their
divinities. A statue of Venus, for example, wasn’t
carved to represent the goddess, but to be her;
the very marble was worshipped. Artists depicted
their gods naturalistically, trying to make the
statues so life-like that they were immediately
and easily present to the viewer. They also
idealized nature, removing ordinary human flaws
and exaggerating the body’s graceful proportions.
As a result, the piece of art was quite literally
god to the ancient pagans—sensual, natural, and
irresistibly beautiful.
The early Christian artists took a radically
different approach. For them, art was not
divinity, but symbolism. As if to preach that
God can’t be seen or touched, they deliberately
refrained from painting naturalistically. The
flat, rigid figures don’t show a lack of talent in
the artist; rather, they are his way of pointing
the viewer not to the three-dimensional world
of the senses, but to the transcendent spiritual
dimension. We might be tempted to call a
Byzantine icon less “realistic” than a classical
Greek statue or a later Italian Renaissance
painting; in fact, however, both styles are equally
real. One simply points to the reality which we

experience through our five senses, while the
other symbolizes the reality of the spiritual
world.

The Symbolic
Language of Icons
Byzantine iconography has a symbolic
language of its own. One of its silent ways of
speaking is through color. In the Pantocrator
icon, Christ’s deep purple mantle references
His kingship; purple was a color exclusively
(even legally) reserved for use on the Byzantine
emperor, and Christ. The gold of the background
shows Christ’s divinity. Red—which subtly flecks
the halo—symbolizes passionate love, suffering,
and resurrected life. Another symbolic tool of
iconography is the deliberate distortion of facial
proportions. The enlarging of the eyes and ears
can symbolize a habit of contemplation, while a
small mouth shows a humble silence. Icons seem
suffused with light; rather than painting shadows
and light sources naturally as later Renaissance
painters would, Byzantine iconographers
suggested a spiritual, internal light by minimizing
shadows.

27

These ancient paintings are the seeds for
later Christian art; since icons were small and
easily carried around for devotional purposes—
much like modern holy cards—their influence
spread from the Byzantine Empire around the
world. Late Medieval and early Renaissance
Italian art especially shows strong traces of
iconography; Cimabue’s Madonna Enthroned,
for example, depicts Our Lady and the angels
and prophets as somewhat two-dimensional and
stylized, and yet the artist situates Our Lady on
a three-dimensional throne which hints at future
Renaissance developments. Christian artists
were now exploring how a beautiful and accurate
portrayal of the physical world could glorify its
Author and inspire joyful awe in the viewer. By
the time artists like Michelangelo and Raphael
decorated the Vatican, Christian art showed
the same convincing naturalism as the pagan
Greek and Roman art, but with a very different
intention. Like Byzantine iconographers, these
Renaissance painters were symbolizing spiritual
truths, using art as a springboard to meditation.
For example, Michelangelo’s Creation on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel portrays the Creator
God as an old man full of strength and energy,
transmitting His life to the limp body of Adam.
The Renaissance painters used natural beauty
as effectively as the ancient Greek and Roman
sculptors; their goal, however, was to symbolize
divine beauty, like the Byzantine iconographers.
In a sense, all good Christian art remains close
to its iconographic roots because the Church has
always used art as a symbol. It isn’t meant to be
worshipped in itself, but looked through like a
window to a higher world. A Byzantine icon like
Christ Pantocrator is almost a poem; nearly every
line, color and shape conveys a deeper meaning,
more than meets the eye. The Catholic artistic
tradition, while it has embraced many styles,
always encourages the viewer to see first with
his eyes, and then with his mind and heart. Once
he develops this habit, the whole world becomes
an icon. Any beauty first delights him, and then
teaches him more about its Creator; mountains,
oceans, and the faces of his friends will be
symbols to him of the height, depth and richness
of God.

28

The Angelus

January - February 2021

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Theme Iconoclasm

From Roman Emperors to Images of Christ

Iconoclasm
and the
Byzantine
Empire
By Andrew Latham

The earliest Christian art had no distinct
style, but was based on Roman frescoes, and
to a lesser extent, Jewish ceremonial art. The
Roman arts favored by the Christians were of
two main categories: bucolic, decorative scenes
common in villas outside Rome, and imperial
scenes of power, showing the emperor as divine.
At first, the Christians could not depict Christ
at all, but would use hidden symbols such as the
anchor and the fish in order to mark their places
of worship and burial sites. Later, Christians
would become more bold, and depict Christ as
the Good Shepherd, though this was a “hidden
image” as well—for the uninitiated, this scene
would be simply another shepherd, like in so
many villas.

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Christian Art in the
Age of Constantine
Christian art in the strict sense began in the
age of Constantine, though it would only require
a slight shift to turn Roman imperial art into
Christian art. The conventions and traditions
were strong, even among Christians. Thus, one
of the first Christian paintings of Our Lady from
the 6th century in Santa Maria Antiqua depicts
Our Lady with the trappings of the emperor’s
wife, wearing the diadem, jewels, and the robes
of her office. In Santa Maria Maggiore, we see
Our Lady also seated on a throne as an empress.
The decorative Roman villa scenes became
depictions of grapes and wheat, no longer
symbols of a pastoral nature, but symbols of the
Transubstantiation.
The representation of Our Lord followed a
more circuitous path. Depictions of Christ first
began in the catacombs in the 2nd century as
a young, beardless man with bare feet—again,
nothing that was forbidden by the Roman
authorities, who saw this young man as simply
a shepherd or a peasant. In the 5th century,
two prototypes were settled on—the beardless
young man, draped in the Greek robes of the
time (based on Hellenistic conventions) and the
severe, bearded figure more popular in the East,
majestic and melancholic in appearance. In the

West, Christ would remain beardless until the
12th century, when growing influence from the
East would bring these conventions over.
But while depictions of Our Lord in the West
would remain representational and almost
decorative, images in the East were seen as
bordering on the Divine. The Pantokrator image,
showing Our Lord with sunken eyes, a deformed
nose, and straight hair was perhaps a copy of the
Shroud of Turin. The greatest image of Christ in
the early Eastern Church, treated with the most
reverence, was the Holy Image of Edessa, piously
believed to have been sent by Christ himself
to King Agbar of Edessa. The Eastern Church
celebrates the translation of this acheiropoetic
image, or an image not made by human hands.
From this image, other images were made, which
is likely the origin of the many icons of the Holy
Face, and the proliferation of “Veronica’s Veils”
throughout the East. Given the Divine—or
near-Divine—origins of these images, it follows
then that Christians in the East placed a greater
emphasis on them as devotional, and even sacred.

The Growth of Icon Veneration
In the 6th and 7th Centuries the icon and
worship with icons became widespread. There
is an apocryphal story surfacing at about

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Theme Iconoclasm
this time, which tells of a portrait of St. John
the Evangelist kept at the home of a disciple,
flanked by two lit candles. This is a direct
relation to the Roman practice of venerating
images of emperors and ancestors, carrying on
the tradition of holding in an almost divinized
manner any images, possessions, or writings of
that person. The Byzantine emperors at the time
would tolerate and even promote the production
of icons, and some would appear on them along
with the Virgin or Christ Himself, carrying
on this practice that began in Roman times of
venerating the emperor as divine.
While the Jews did have a strong prohibition
against graven images, their influence was not felt
by the Christians of the time. Conversely, it would
be an influence from the East, and the growth of
Islam, which would begin a period of iconoclasm
in the Eastern Church. The Muslims, as well, had
a prohibition against graven images and would
destroy Christian images in any location they
had conquered. The Byzantine emperor Leo III,
originally from the Eastern provinces where
Monophysitism (the heresy that Our Lord had
only one nature—the Divine) was strong, and
with influence from the Muslim’s prohibition,
took the first initiative of the iconoclast crisis.
His writings in 725 show signs of an intolerance
of these “graven images,” and more drastically,
in 730, he destroyed an image of Christ on the
Golden Gate of the Imperial palace, which had
been a source of great veneration.
This destruction of the Golden Gate icon sent
a lightning bolt through the Byzantine empire,
having an effect nearly equal to Martin Luther’s
nailing of his theses on the Wittenburg Cathedral
door. It was a call to reformation. Leo III and
indeed the iconoclasts at large considered
themselves to be purifiers of the Church, leading
the way to a return to tradition, which had been
corrupted by iconolatry. An iconoclastic synod in
754 declared that the devil “under the appearance
of Christianity, has surreptitiously led humanity
back to idolatry. Through his own sophisms,
he has convinced those who lifted their eyes to
him not to turn away from the creature, but to
venerate it, to worship it, and consider as God
this work named by the name of Christ [the
icon].”
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To be fair, it is worth noting that for the
common people, and even some in the hierarchy
at the time, the line between dulia and latria had
been blurred. It was a common practice to bow
profoundly before an icon, to kiss it devoutly, as
their ancestors had done before pagan images. In
the eyes of the reformers (and shortly following,
the eyes of the faithful) the biblical prohibition
was clear. They were rebuffed by this “reminder
of their sinfulness.” And to make matters worse,
it was even more shameful to be reminded of this
commandment by Muslim invaders.

Art in the Era of Iconoclasm
Like every reform movement, there was a
bellicose fervor to knock down the statues, to
burn the images. However, this did not mean
that there was to be no art whatsoever in this
period. The use of symbols and motifs was
allowed, and even encouraged. And one category
of human images was allowed to continue—
that of the emperors. Not only did images of
emperors persist, but emperors still required
the traditional worship of them! Increasing their
own sovereignty, they replaced the traditional
representation of the Cross on the coinage of
the empire with their own portraits. The Biblical
prohibition so in vogue at the time, if taken
literally as claimed by the iconoclasts, would not
have allowed these images. We can see even at
the beginning of the iconoclast reform that the
argument was selective at best.
As the iconoclasts progressed, their arguments
progressed. They made a distinction between
the subject and the representation, saying
that the representation could not be the same
as the original, since it was “dead” and used
“lifeless” materials. Constantine V, Byzantine
emperor from 741-775, said, “[an image] must
be consubstantial with the depicted so that
everything can be safeguarded, otherwise it
is not an image.” In other words, no icon can
be possible. No image can be consubstantial
or be homoousion (of the same essence) with
God. This is a vastly different interpretation
of the image, compared to the Church in the
West, which was more influenced by the Greek

demolish it:
– The prosopo-n (or underlying Person) of Christ
is inseparable from His two natures.
– One of these natures—the Divine—cannot be
drawn.
– Therefore, it is impossible to paint the
prosopo-n of Christ.
Given this, Constantine argued, the
iconophiles have a choice between two heresies.
Either they have combined the two natures as
one and fall into Monophysitism. Or they have
painted only the human nature, and “they make
Christ a simple creature and separate him from
the divine word that is joined to him.” In that
case, they fall into Nestorianism.
Iconoclasts felt the divine was too lofty, too
beyond man, to be represented sufficiently as
an image or even a likeness. But by conflating
this artistic powerlessness with dogma, they
discouraged all representation. If an artist is
ideally supposed to represent the human form in
his art, the artist simply gave up, and became a
decorator of vines and trees. It is as if, resigned
to no longer depict heaven, he must give up any
representation of humanity in addition.

Overcoming Iconoclasm
Hagia Irene is an Eastern Orthodox church located in the
outer courtyard of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. The cross was
put in during the reconstruction by Constantine V.

way of thought. The Greeks saw images as
simply representations. They were a deficient
participation, or simply a likeness. This higher
standard placed on images by the East as needing
to be more perfect representations of their
subjects would be the philosophical underpinning
of the importance they placed on their icons, as
well as the misplaced devotion given to these
representations.
Constantine V, in addition to being a skilled
general, was an adept theologian for the
iconoclast cause. His argument, which takes the
form of a syllogism, was so well formulated that
it would take a full generation of theologians to

After 60 years, the flaw in Constantine’s
argument would be uncovered. He was incorrect
in asserting that the two natures cannot be
separated in an image of Christ. The painted
image does not circumscribe (or restrict) the
divine nature or even the human nature of Christ.
It does circumscribe the full understanding of
Christ’s two natures, but it is incorrect to place
this incapacity of understanding at the level
of the image itself—rather it is our own fallen
human nature that cannot fully grasp it.
The general argument of the iconophiles was
that to reject an image of Christ was to reject
the Incarnation. He had come to save man
from idolatry, from paganism, and to say that
Christians are idolatrous because of images
of Christ is to reject in part His message. They
further said that the prohibition on graven images
had become invalid from the moment of the
Incarnation, since God manifested himself in
33

Theme Iconoclasm
the flesh, sensible to our eyes. Therefore, God
Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, had a
sensible, visible character.
A clerk of the court of Damascus, St. John of
Damascus, in 730 wrote a detailed response to
early iconoclasm in which he makes a distinction
between latria, worship of God, and proskynesis,
or worship of sacred things. Christ’s words
“render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”
suggests a unique interpretation: “Since it is the
image of Caesar one has, it is of Caesar. When it
is the icon of Christ, render [worship] unto Christ,
for it is of Christ.” Interestingly, the metaphor of
the imperial Roman image was still strong in the
minds of the Byzantine Christians at this time.
Nicephorus, responding directly to
Constantine V, took up the argument against
the “circumscribing” or limiting of the Divine
nature by an image. “Painting has to do with
likeness … it is the painting of the archetype but
it is separate from it, exists apart and at a given
moment … Painting consists entirely of sensible
apprehension, in showing … it lies above all in
the realm of the notion.” In other words, he is
saying that a painting is not Divine but is simply
a depiction of the Divine and is a separate thing
altogether.
But for the iconoclasts, there was no such
separation. The choice was either iconoclasm
or idolatry—no middle ground. The iconoclasts
could not imagine that a divine image was
not infused with a spirit. One can see that the
iconoclasts were not following Divine law in
their strict interpretations, but in fact had fallen
into a form of pantheism due to the overt paganinspired practices of veneration common at the
time.
In contemplating the icon, we contemplate
Christ. The image is like a ladder, leading the
intellect from the sensible to the intelligible, and
once the intellect has arrived, the image can be
left behind. Contemplation via the intelligence
leads to the same place as contemplation via the
sense: what matters is what the icon shows, and
that is Christ Incarnate.

34

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January - February 2021

All of Creation rejoices in
thee, O full of grace:
the angels in heaven and the
race of men,
O sanctified temple and
spiritual paradise,
the glory of virgins, of whom
God was incarnate
and became a child, our God
before the ages.
He made thy body into a
throne,
and thy womb more spacious
than the heavens.
All of creation rejoices in
thee, O full of grace:
Glory be to thee.
—Liturgy of St. Basil the
Great

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd
giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling,
and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the
sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth
the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and
scattereth the sheep: And the hireling flieth,
because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for
the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know
mine, and mine know me. As the Father knoweth
me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my
life for my sheep.—Jn. 10:11-15

Spirituality

Meditation
on St. John’s
Gospel
Chapter Four

By Pater Inutilis

St. John tells us of his gospel that “these are
written that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God and that believing, you
may have life in His name.” In this chapter four,
he will present two incidents of believing in Jesus
the Christ: the ready and generous belief of the
citizens of Sichar, the Sichem of the Patriarchs,
and the tardy and gradual belief of Galileans,
reminding the Apostle of a saying of Our Lord:
“A prophet hath no honor in his own country”
(relatively). St. John will spread himself over the
pleasing picture of the Samaritan woman and
her townsfolk and sparingly over that of the ruler
come to Cana from Capharnaum.
All pilgrims and travelers from Galilee
to Judea, or vice versa, had to pass through
Samaria, as now Jesus did. These two peoples
of necessity had to deal with each other, but
38

The Angelus

January - February 2021

their relations were not cordial: “The Jews do
not communicate with the Samaritans.” The
disdainful and hostile attitude of the Jews
towards the Samaritans is centuries old, and
explained by the latter’s history. After the
deportation of the Ten Tribes of Israel to Assyria
in the eighth century B.C., the Assyrians peopled
it with other subjugated peoples, each bringing
their own gods with them. But they also still
worshiped the God of the land according to
His law and ceremonies, that He be placated.
The Samaritans kept the Mosaic books, the
Pentateuch, only. They even built a rival temple
on mount Garazim, destroyed by the Jews 160
years before this coming of Our Lord to Samaria.
They were, therefore, of mixed blood and mixed
religion. There is a people that “is no nation,
which I hate... the foolish people that dwell in

Sichem.” The Samaritans were the pits; and to
insult Our Lord the Jews could think of nothing
worse to call Him: “Do we not say well that Thou
art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” Even St. John,
on another occasion, wanted fire to come down
from heaven and destroy a Samaritan village that
closed its gates to them going to Jerusalem.
And now Our Lord comes to Samaria. He
comes to Sichar; He comes to Jacob’s well.
Thither comes a woman of Sichar at the sixth
hour, much later than the other women of the
town would have come—because of her life
situation, to have had five husbands and now

be with one who is not her husband. Jesus will
address Himself to her, “Give Me to drink.” As
His “I thirst” on Calvary, this has a material and
a spiritual meaning. Our Lord will play on this
double meaning sweetly to draw her to higher
needs. “If thou dídst know the gift of God... he
that shall drink of the water that I shall give
him, shall not thirst forever.” He has piqued her
curiosity, but it is when He reveals to her that He
knows things hidden, that He is a “prophet,” that
she straightaway passes to the realm of religion:
the difference between that of the Samaritans
and that of the Jews. Jesus tells her that the

Christ and the Samaritan Woman, by Duccio di Buoninsegna
39

Spirituality
Samaritans are in the wrong, “You adore that
which you know not,” having a diminished idea
of God, allowing others besides Him, whereas
the Jews have been in the right. But even the
religion of the Jews is to be surpassed: God
would no longer be adored just in Jerusalem, but
in spirit and in truth, for “God is a spirit.” Our
Lord is speaking as loftily to her as He had to
Nicodemus, but more plainly, for a more simple
soul and one without knowledge of the prophets
of Israel. She, too, is not following too well, but
believes that God will send His Messiah, His
Christ, and then all will be put right. “I am He
who am speaking with thee.” Extraordinary.
His own disciples will have to work that one out
for themselves, and Jesus certainly will not be
so open with His Jewish interlocutors, who are
poorly disposed.
“You adore that which you know not.” One
can have a right idea of God, indeed one must,
that still leaves much implicit—St. Paul tells the
Athenians their “unknown God” is what he is
preaching to them. And one can have a partial
idea of God, affirming Him too; what he is not,
e.g. materiality, or positively denying what He
is: Three in One. St. Thomas Aquinas explains
that then one’s idea of God is not God, the true
and living. To adore that false idea of God is to
adore a false god; false religions are idolatrous,
and separate farther from the God who is to be
adored in spirit and in truth. St. John, for his part,
will say quite simply “Whosoever denieth the Son,
the same hath not the Father.” In saying this, he
will become a “son of thunder” again: “Whosoever
revolteth and continueth not in the doctrine of
Christ, hath not God... If any man come to you
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into
your house...” There is no foundation for religious
liberty in Scripture.
The Samaritan woman, known also as St.
Photina (feast 3/20 in the Roman Martyrology),
is thrilled, and abandons her waterpot. Going
straight to the Sicharites, she very prudently
invites them to the conclusion that Jesus is the
Christ from what He had spoken to her: His
knowledge of things hidden. Jesus will spend
two days evangelizing them—His “meat to eat”—
leaving them convinced “this is indeed the Savior
of the world.” This expression in its spiritual and
40

The Angelus

January - February 2021

universal sense is found only once elsewhere: St.
John will adopt it.
After the two days, they move on to Cana of
Galilee whither a ruler of the Jews will come to
Jesus from Capharnaum begging that He heal
his son. It is Capharnaum that Christ made “His
own city” during His public life, where He worked
most of His miracles, and which He eventually
quit with a damning farewell. There are different
degrees of faith. Our Lord shows Himself
reserved towards that faith which is mainly an
emotional impression caused by His miracles, or,
worse, just feeds the appetite for the wondrous,
or loses sight of their spiritual purpose, treating
them as “useful.” This ruler believes Jesus can
heal his son; but is this just a “last resort”?
“Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe
not.” A common attitude among the Jews shared,
it would seem, by this ruler. He is desperate,
and so again pleads that Our Lord “come.” Jesus
pities him and works the miracle, but without
going there. “Go thy way, thy son liveth.” The man
believes, and even more so when a report comes
of the healing, performed at the very hour of Our
Lord’s word. Jesus Christ wants from us a great
faith, through thick and thin; more of that when
next we see Him teaching in Capharnaum.

Titian and Workshop,
Saint John the Evangelist
on Patmos, c. 1553/1555

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Spirituality

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

The Canon
Part Two

By Fr. Christopher Danel

In this article we continue an examination of the Canon of the Mass, presenting the work of Msgr.
Nicholas Gihr in his fundamental liturgical commentary The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically,
Liturgically, and Ascetically Explained. Msgr. Gihr was a priest of Freiburg in Breisgau whose work of
liturgical research took place during the time frame spanning the pontificates of Popes Pius IX to Pius
XI, including that of Pope Saint Pius X. The early years of his work were contemporaneous with the last
years in the work of Dom Prosper Guéranger. (The English translation of his study appeared in 1902; the
original is: Gihr, Nikolaus. Messopfer dogmatisch, liturgisch und aszetisch erklärt. Herder: Freiburg im
Breisgau, 1877.)

Te Igitur…
The first prayer of the Canon is considered
here, and it consists of three parts: the Te
igitur, the Memento of the living, and the
Communicantes. All three parts are united
and form a whole, that is, one complete prayer,
as is evident from the context and the single
concluding formula (Per eundem Christum

Dominum nostrum). This article will consider
the first two of these parts, namely, the Te igitur
and the Memento of the living.
The beginning of the prayer is accompanied
by several ceremonies which, in an impressive
manner, serve to emphasize its contents. Before
presenting his petition to God, the priest raises
his hands and eyes, then presently he lowers
43

Spirituality
merciful Father…we pray and beseech.”
According to the example and admonition of the
Savior, the Church addresses this prayer to the
Father; God is addressed as “the most merciful
Father,” and this petition is offered “through
Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord.” Through “His
Son” and “our Lord Jesus Christ” the Father hears
our petitions and bestows upon us all benefits.
We beseech so persistently and so imploringly,
because the object of our ardent desire is so
sublime and so holy, namely, the gracious
acceptance and the blessing of the sacrificial
oblation prepared on the altar.
The sacrificial gifts designated are offered
up to God for the welfare of the Church and
her members. But since not the natural matter
of bread and wine, but the Body and Blood of
Christ alone are the real sacrifice of the Church
and her fountains of grace, it is evident that this
offering cannot exclusively have for its object
the gifts of bread and wine, but must also be
referred principally to that which they are soon
to become, that is, the Sacrifice of the Body and
Blood of Jesus Christ.

Graces Implored

them, bowing profoundly and placing his joined
hands on the altar; it is in this posture that he
begins the Canon. What posture of the body
could be more appropriate for the priest at this
moment, when with all humility and reverence
he suppliantly addresses the Lord? Before the
words “that Thou wouldst accept and bless,” the
priest kisses the altar, and whilst he is saying
“these gifts, these presents, these holy unspotted
sacrifices,” he makes three times with his hand
the sign of the Cross over the oblation.
The priest prays: “Thee, therefore, most
44

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January - February 2021

“Principally” and “in the first place” (in
primis) the Eucharistic Sacrifice is offered for
the “holy Catholic Church of God” (pro Ecclesia
tua sancta catholica)—hence from every Mass
there flow to her abundant fruits and blessings.
Four graces are here specifically implored for
the Church by virtue of the Eucharistic Sacrifice;
we beg the Lord, namely: (1) Pacificare: to
grant and preserve peace to her; (2) Custodire:
to protect and to shelter her; (3) Adunare: to
confirm her in her unity; (4) Regere: to guide and
to direct her, and this “throughout the whole
earth” (toto orbe terrarum).
The general fruit of the Sacrifice falls the more
copiously to the share of the individual members
of the mystical body of Christ in proportion as
they contribute to the common welfare of the
Church; hence we have now a special and an
express offering and prayer for the pope, and for
the chief pastor of the diocese in which the holy
Mass is celebrated.

Then is added a general intercession for all
those persons who not only preserve the true
faith in their heart and confess it with their lips,
but who, moreover, according to their ability
defend and propagate it (“all the orthodox
who profess the Catholic and Apostolic faith”).
According to the definition of the word, such
persons are here designated who not only are
“orthodox believers” (orthodoxi), that is, who not
only confess the pure, genuine, unadulterated
faith in word and deed, but who, at the same
time, are called and exert themselves to plant, to
nurture, to propagate and establish the true faith,
which is “Catholic and Apostolic” (cultores fidei).
Among them must be reckoned, first of
all, the bishops and priests, because they
are the pastors and teachers appointed by
Christ for the edification of His mystical body,
for the consummation of saints and for the
administration of divine service. Moreover, it
corresponds to the context that, after mentioning
by name the pope and the bishop of the diocese,
the remaining hierarchical rulers and leaders
of the Church of God should be remembered,
in order that they may worthily exercise their
pastorate for the honor of God and the salvation
of souls. But since the words “orthodox
promoters of the Catholic and Apostolic faith”
have a general meaning, there is nothing at
the same time to prevent their reference and
application to all those of the faithful who,
although not by the office of the apostolate and
by preaching, but still in other ways contribute
according to their ability to the propagation of
the faith.

Memento
Memento, Domine, famulorum
famularumque tuarum. With these words begins
the second link of the first prayer of the Canon;
in it the special petitions at the Holy Sacrifice
are continued, or taken up again. “Remember, O
Lord, Thy servants and handmaids,” that is, have
regard to their necessities, grant them Thy favor
and mercy, give them grace and happiness, bless
them.
The letters N. and N. indicate to the priest,
in this place, according to the direction of the

rubrics, to mention some persons by name and
especially to include them in the Sacrifice; the
names themselves he can either mention in
silence, or merely think of and have present to
his mind. The choice is left free to the celebrant:
of the living he can here mention whom and as
many as he wishes, for the prayer of the Church,
especially in connection with the Sacrifice, is
exceedingly powerful and efficacious.
Then the priest proceeds in the name of the
Church to beg of God to be mindful of “all here
present” (omnium circumstantium), that is, of
all those who are present and are hearing the
Mass. For this reason also the time spent in a
devout manner at the foot of the altar during
the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, is a time of
grace and salvation. The words, God “knoweth
the faith and devotion” of those who are
recommended to His favor and mercy, confirm
the petition offered, and designate the interior
disposition which all, especially those who hear
Mass, should have, in order to share largely in
the fruit of the Sacrifice. God knows, that is, He
graciously and complacently acknowledges the
faith and piety which strike deep roots in the
hearts of the faithful.
Those who assist at divine worship, that is,
the servants and handmaids of God mentioned,
are by the words pro quibus tibi offerimus vel
qui tibi offerunt, represented under a twofold
aspect; namely, first, as the ones “for whom we
offer,” and then as the ones “who themselves
join in the Sacrifice.” The devout participation
in the Sacrifice by assisting at Holy Mass and
by being included therein, draws on the faithful
sharers abundant blessings of grace. The words:
“for whom we offer to Thee and who offer to
Thee” refer, therefore, to the same persons, but
designate them in two different ways.

Sacrificial Intentions
This Sacrifice is at the same time the source
also whence flows forth all grace and mercy,
salvation and blessing, peace and benefits of
all kinds upon our poor earth; hence it is said,
the faithful offer the Sacrifice of the altar “for
themselves and all their relations” (pro se
45

Spirituality
suisque omnibus). Those present may, moreover,
offer the Holy Sacrifice not only for themselves,
but also for others; the Church herself supports
and recommends with God, as it were, the special
intentions, inasmuch as she is here mindful even
of those for whom the assistants on their part
offer the Sacrifice. It is an exercise of charity
most pleasing to God to include in this manner in
the Holy Sacrifice our own family, our relatives,
friends and other persons in general, in order,
by its virtue, to draw down grace upon them. In
union with the priest, the faithful offer the Holy
Mass for themselves and for all those who are
dear to them, as an atoning Sacrifice “for the
redemption of their souls” (pro redemptions
animarum suarum) and as a Sacrifice of
petition “for the hope of their salvation and
safety” (pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suae).
The Eucharistic Sacrifice effects the
redemption of souls, inasmuch as it conveys
and applies to them the graces of redemption
acquired by the Sacrifice of the Cross, that they
may be made perfectly pure and worthy to enter
the temple of eternal glory. Although redemption
in its full sense comprises not only deliverance
from all evil, but also the bestowal of all that is
good, here only the former is meant; the faithful
offer “for the redemption of their souls,” that is, to
propitiate the justice of God, and to be freed from
every evil of guilt and punishment.
That the Eucharistic Sacrifice does also open
to us the treasury of the divine goodness and
liberality and procure us every good, is contained
in the words, that they offer it “for the hope of
salvation and safety,” that is, for the obtaining of
redemption and prosperity. The word “salvation”
(salus) here comprises all spiritual, all
supernatural gifts: grace in time and for eternity;
the word “safety” (incolumitas) designates not
merely health of body, but generally success and
happiness in temporal things, that is, the goods
both immaterial and material which belong to
the natural order. They too may be obtained by
sacrifice and prayer, in as far as they serve for the
attainment of eternal happiness.
The concluding clause: “and who pay... their
vows to Thee” (tibique reddunt vota sua...)
is a continuation of and a supplement to the
preceding words: “who offer to Thee this
46

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January - February 2021

Sacrifice of praise.” Votum does not always in the
strict sense of the word signify a vow, but it has in
the liturgical language a far more comprehensive
meaning. It frequently occurs therein and, at one
time, denotes the oblations on the altar, at other
times, petition, supplication, resolutions, and in
brief, all the interior and exterior acts of religion.
Already at baptism we received precious gifts
and glorious promises, and in return we solemnly
vowed to die to the world and to sin, to live only
for God and heaven. These holy vows we pay at
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, inasmuch as we
offer not only the Eucharistic Victim, but in union
with it we offer ourselves also, our body and our
soul, our prayers and our homage, our labors
and trials, our sufferings and our joys, as gifts
due to the Lord. But by so doing we give “to the
eternal, living and true God” that only which we
have previously received from Him; we but return
to God that which He bestowed on us (tibique
reddunt vota sua).

Conclusion
Having considered the first two parts of
the first prayer of the Canon, Te igitur and
Memento, the next consideration will be of the
Communicantes, which reflects in an admirable
way the whole communion of the Saints. Among
all the citizens of the Kingdom of God, whether
they have already happily reached the term, or
are still in combat on earth, or making atonement
in the place of purification, there is a living
communication, a reciprocal interchange. It
is precisely at the celebration of Mass that we
are reminded of the happiness and dignity of
belonging to so glorious a community, that is,
that we are “fellow-citizens with the saints and
domestics of God” (Eph. 2:19).

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Spirituality

The Brown
Scapular:
From Habit
to Soul
By Fr. Vincent Bétin

One day, each of us enrolled in the scapular of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel because we looked
to have particular protections from Our Lady,
as had been revealed to Saint Simon Stock in an
apparition on the 16th of July 1251. Unfortunately,
perhaps our devotion to Our Lady of Mount
Carmel has become limited to wearing the
scapular.
Decor Carmeli—the beauty of Mount Carmel:
the history of this Marian devotion is deeply
connected with that of the Mount. Our Lady is
the Queen and Mother of Carmel because she
is the Queen and Mother of the interior life. In
Carmelite tradition, the cloud seen by the prophet
Elijah on the top of Mount Carmel during a time
of droughtwas an image of the Blessed Virgin.
“Here is what appeared in the sky, coming from
this sea, a small cloud, big like a fist.” This small
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cloud is the life that is going to blossom again. It
is our Blessed Lady who gave the Word Incarnate,
“de Spiritu sancto, ex Maria virgine.”

Our Lady’s Faith
The Blessed Virgin Mary knows all the secrets
of the interior life. From her conception, she
simply and perpetually renewed her act of
seeking God. This longing for God is, at the same
time, of love, adoration and self-sacrifice. Just
as Elizabeth said, she is “the one who believed”
(Lk. 1:45). Our Lady cooperated, like no other,
in the mysteries of our salvation. She internally
lived divine things of which the good Lord
spared her neither abstruseness, nor mystery.
The Annunciation exceeds her reason, “How can

this be?” (Lk. 1:34), nevertheless, she adheres to
the word of God, “be it done unto me according
to thy word” (Lk. 1:38). The Blessed Virgin is
overwhelmed by the presence of this little being,
Jesus Christ, who receives everything from her,
all the while giving her everything. Flooded by
the light of the Word, she continues to live in
the shadow of faith. Like us, she never had the
beatific vision and only saw God through the
mirror of his creation or from revelation. This
“like us” seems odd. The faith of the Blessed
Virgin Mary was of the same nature as ours,
even if hers was incomparably clearer. And like
this, her whole life, she saw her Son through the
light of faith. Her faith was pure and without
obstacles, completely penetrating all the
mysteries of God with the certainty of vision, but
only her faith, because, here below, God appears

only through a veil.

She Lived Through Grace
Without a doubt, there will always remain the
ever-present abyss of sin between her and us.
From the darkest depths within us, there is this
seed of death from which all our acts arise. Such
acts are in direct opposition to the acts of love
of God. However, this abyss gives us all the more
reason to raise up our Lady as Queen. It is not in
delivering the body from death that will define
its interior life, but rather by satisfying ourselves
with the grace given us. Like Saint Paul, we
should understand, “My grace is sufficient”
(II Cor. 12:8). Our Lady lived by this grace. She
believed that the grace within her soul was the
49

Spirituality
work of love of God and she lived by this faith.
Like her, everyone should believe that Almighty
God gives each and every soul grace, and it is
precisely this grace which makes us beautiful in
the eyes of God. We can always be saved by the
virtue of this promise.
“How beautiful are your steps, daughter of the
prince!” (Cant. 7:1). Without obstacle, this blessed
soul of Our Lady responded to grace through her
faith. Mary adopts every move of the Holy Ghost
yet her greatness remains obscure. She gives off
no external brilliance; she is a Nazarene whose
life could seem mundane in the eyes of the world.
She is aware of her littleness: the knowledge of
God and the knowledge of self is one. The small
servant of God is absorbed in the mystery of God,
“for he who is Mighty hath done great things unto
me” (Lk. 1:49). The greatness of the soul of the
Blessed Virgin is in God.

Mother of Fair Love
“How beautiful are your steps!” These steps,
this journey towards God, are a continual fiat.
In her humility, she offers herself completely to
God. She did what others have done, but she did
it with such a delicate love; she did it by giving,
and this giving was acting in the Spirit of love.
All the love of God is concentrated in Our Lady
the moment the Word becomes incarnate in her.
In her heart, the Father exerted his eternal act
of fatherhood with his eternal love for his Son.
Mary is where exists the deepest relation to God,
of the worship of God, of prayer to God. From
this point forward, every time man looks for
God, this searching will depend on the fiat of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. Every endeavor to return to
the Father depends on these few words: the Word
becomes incarnate “de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria
Virgine.” The Mother of God is the Mother of the
life of our soul. “Thanks to a little word from you,
we are brought into existence again, we will be
called to life,” said St. Bernard.
Fons amoris (cf. the Stabat Mater), source of
love, whose heart burns silently for God, pour out
in souls who chose God this love which draws
them to Him. Introduce us into the land of Mount
Carmel so that we may feed on its fruits.
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Gaspar Miguel de Berrío, Our Lady of
Mount Carmel with Bishop Saints

Spirituality

Belief in the
Visible and
Invisible
By a Benedictine Monk

Every Sunday, when we recite the Creed of
the Mass, we proclaim our faith in the Creator
of “all things visible and invisible.” Knowing our
limited capacities, God helps us in our struggle
to believe. The invisible God gave us the visible
gift of His only-begotten Son. Through His
visible human nature, we can see the invisible
Father. The human nature of Christ is our
means to salvation and the only way to come
to the Father. Since He became man, He can be
represented as a man with His human body in its
material dimension. To deny this reality would
be to refuse to believe in the visibility of the
Incarnation of Christ, the most essential of the
“visible things” created bys God.
Iconoclasm denies that God can be seen
through the human nature of Christ. In the Synod
of Constantinople in 754, they claimed that the
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only representation of the divinity of Christ can
be found in the Eucharist. St. Theodore, Abbot
of the Studium Monastery at Constantinople,
accused the Iconoclasts in 815 as “Christological
heretics, since they deny an essential element
of Christ’s human nature, namely, that it can be
represented graphically.” Iconoclasts believe in
the invisible God and refuse the visible, human
element of Christ. They believe in the spiritual
and invisible reality of the divinity of Christ,
but they do not accept Christ in the totality of
His human nature. They accused those that
venerated the image of Christ or the Saints as
idolaters worthy of punishment and death. Many
of the Catholics were put to death at this time,
many were scourged and sometimes branded on
the face as public idolaters. The prisons of the
Empire were filled with faithful Catholics, many

Juan Andrés Rizi, Saint Benedict Destroying Idols

fled in exile, and those that remained went into
hiding to avoid persecution.
The Catholic faith affirms that Our Lord
is truly man and consequently is able to be
materially portrayed in paintings or sculptures.
This representation would be a likeness of the
Man named Jesus, but Jesus is God Himself.
Obviously, no painting is divine, but an image
of Christ would represent the human nature
that is united to the divine Person of Christ
and thus worthy of veneration as a sacred
object. The Catholic faith is founded upon the
seven sacraments which Our Lord confided
to His church. As our catechism teaches, the
sacraments are material signs conferring an
invisible grace. For example, water cleanses the
child’s forehead at baptism; this is a material
sign of the invisible grace of being cleansed from
Original Sin. As human beings, we need material
signs for invisible things.
In the history of humanity, we can see that
the struggle between ideas is materialized by
the destruction of the images of these ideas.
St. Benedict, upon arriving at Monte Cassino,
threw down the images of the idols, replacing
them with oratories dedicated to St. John the
Baptist and St. Martin. He attacked the falsehood
of idolatry, replacing it with the objective truth
of the Catholic faith. As the Catholic faith was

introduced into pagan territory, their idols were
destroyed. In reverse order, the same is true
in the history of apostasy by the once Catholic
nations. The French Revolution, the communist
movement in Russia, Spain and Mexico all
fought for the destruction of churches and Holy
images representing the Catholic faith. This same
type of iconoclasm can be found in the wake of
the second Vatican Council. It was a struggle
between traditional and modern ideas, which
ended in the elimination of statues, communion
rails, and other material supports of our faith. St.
Augustine explains this continual conflict found
in history as a war between the City of God and
the City of the World.
In today’s society we see a very similar
situation. In our country there are many
movements claiming to react against social
injustice, but in reality are agents of the
Communist Revolution seeking to replace the
Catholic faith with militant atheism. An image
of Our Lady was defaced in New York, the statue
of St. Louis in Missouri was threatened to be
destroyed, in California the statue of Junipero
Sera was torn down and the mission church of
St. Gabriel was burned. The statues were images
of the Mother of God and of saintly men and they
expressed the idea of holy lives offered to our
society. The mission church of St. Gabriel was a
standing monument to the harmony that existed
between the indigenous people and the Spanish
missionaries. These very visible signs represent
the invisible ideas of God revealing Himself in the
Catholic Church.
Do we fall into the category of an iconoclast
in our personal lives? Do we reject the visible
signs of the Church because we are ashamed to
be Catholic? Are we ashamed to say grace before
meals in public places, wear a cross or a scapular,
or publicly defend our faith? If we continue to
reject the visible signs of our faith, we will reject
the invisible reality of grace. We believe in the
Creator of all things “visible and invisible.” As
men, we need visible things to grasp the invisible.
We need the human nature of Christ to be
incorporated into His divinity.

53

May the sacred festival of this day, on which the
holy Mother of God endured temporal death, help us
towards salvation. For the bonds of death could not
detain her who bore our Lord, your Son incarnate.
—Collect for The Assumption (Dominican Rite)

Christian Culture

Our Lady of
Consolation
By Anonymous

Starting in the second century, Catholics
venerated Mary as Our Lady of Consolation, one
of her earliest titles of honor. The title of “Our
Lady of Consolation,” or “Mary, Consoler of the
Afflicted,” comes from the Latin Consolatrix
Afflictorum. It is found in the Litany of Loreto.

Augustinians
The origin of this invocation is derived from
the Augustinian monks who propagated this
particular devotion. In 1436, the Confraternity
of the Holy Cincture of Our Lady of Consolation
was founded in Bologna, Italy. It was based on
an Augustinian tradition which holds that Saint
Monica in the fourth century was distraught with
anxiety for her wayward son, Augustine, and that
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Mary gave her a sash which the Virgin wore, with
the assurance that whoever wore this belt would
receive her special consolation and protection.
Along with Augustine and Monica, Our Lady
of Consolation is one of the three patrons of
the Augustinians. The “Augustinian Rosary” is
sometimes called the “Corona (or Crown) of Our
Mother of Consolation.”
In the 1700s, members of the Augustinian
Order introduced devotion to Our Lady of
Consolation to the island of Malta. On December
1, 1722, the Prior General of the Augustinian
Order, Fr. Thomas Cervioni, issued the Decree for
the erection of the Confraternity of Our Lady of
Consolation in the Church of St. Mark, run by the
Augustinians at Rabat, although the devotion had
been practiced for some time before. By this time
the custom of asking for the final blessing before

death in the name of Our
Lady of Consolation was very
popular, and the monks were
given a dispensation to leave
the monastery at any time to
confer it. Processions in Our
Lady’s honor were suspended
during the French occupation
of 1798 to discourage the
gathering of crowds. Today,
the feast day is celebrated on
the last Sunday of October
with pyrotechnic displays
by Our Lady of Consolation
Fireworks Factory.

Consolation by establishing a
confraternity.

Luxembourg

The devotion to Our Lady
of Luxembourg, Comforter
of the Afflicted, was initiated
by the Jesuits in 1624 and led
to the election of Our Lady
as the protectress of the City
in 1666 and of the Duchy in
Icon of della Consolata, Turin.
1678. After the destruction
of the old pilgrimage chapel
at the time of the French Revolution, the statue
of Our Lady of Luxembourg was moved to St.
Peter’s Church, today’s Notre Dame Cathedral
in Luxembourg City. Statues depicting her can
An ancient story relates that St. Eusebius of
be found in niches in buildings throughout the
Vercelli brought back an icon of Our Lady of
city of Luxembourg. From there, the devotion
Consolation when he was returning from exile
was adopted by the English Benedictine nuns of
in Egypt in 363. This icon was presented to the
Cambrai.
city of Turin. Later St. Maximus, Bishop of Turin,
established a small shrine to house the icon
in a church dedicated to St. Andrew. The icon
became the object of great veneration, and the
church became the Santuario della Consolata.
Immigrants from Luxembourg transposed
Giuseppe Allamano, rector of the Santuario della
the devotion to Our Lady of Consolation to the
Consolata, founded the Consolata Missionaries
United States.
in 1902; they brought the devotion to Africa. At
In 1848, Luxembourger immigrants began
the age of 19, Joseph Marello of Turin contracted
to settle in the area around Dacada, Wisconsin.
typhus. He attributed his recovery to Our Lady of
The oldest statue of Our Lady of Luxembourg
Consolation and went on to found the Oblates of
found in the United States was brought to
St. Joseph.
Dacada by a Luxembourger immigrant, Anna
There are several versions of the image of
Margaret Deppiesse, in 1849. Mrs. Deppiesse
Our Lady of Consolation. The original one is in
donated it to St. Nicholas Church, where it can
Turin at the Santuario della Consolata. A star on
be found in an alcove shrine below the choir
her shoulder is characteristic of almost all the
loft. When the church was remodeled in 1941, a
images. The traditional depiction of Our Mother
mural depicting Our Lady of Luxembourg (Mary,
of Consolation in Augustinian houses shows
Consoler of the Afflicted) was added to the apse
Mary holding the child Jesus on her lap. Jesus
in the sanctuary. The mural, which honors the
and Mary both hold the Augustinian cincture in
parish’s Luxembourgian roots, was painted by
their hands.
liturgical artist, Bernard Grenkhe, using the al
In France the dioceses of Vannes, Valence,
secco method (i.e., painting on wet plaster so as
Montpelier, Laval, Nantes, Périgueux, Tours and
to make the image permanent.
many others, possessed churches or chapels
During the Civil War, three parishioners of St.
dedicated to Mary under this title. In 1652, Pope
Augustine’s Parish in Leopold, Indiana fought
Innocent X encouraged devotion to Our Lady of
for the North and were imprisoned at the

Turin

United States

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Christian Culture
notorious Andersonville Prison. Henry Devillez,
Isidore Naviaux and Lambert Rogier, formerly
of Belgium, vowed that if they survived, one of
them would makeN a pilgrimage to Luxembourg
and obtain a copy of the statue of Our Lady of
Consolation that stood in their ancestral church.
Rogier went to Luxembourg in 1867 and upon

58

of Consolation is located in Carey, Ohio.

Germany
Another center of veneration and pilgrimage,
which also adopted Our Lady, Comforter of the

Consolatrix Afflictorum, Luxembourg.

The statue of Our Lady of Consolation inside the basilica in
Carey, OH.

his return enshrined it in St. Augustine’s, where
it now stands to the left of the main altar. In
September 2013, Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin of
Indianapolis dedicated a larger outdoor garden
shrine.
One of the two main celebrations held each
year in the Tacony section of Philadelphia was
Our Lady of Consolation’s Feast Day Parade. (The
other was Memorial Day.) Each July statues of the
saints were paraded through the streets of the
neighborhood.
The Basilica and National Shrine of Our Lady

Afflicted, is Kevelaer in Germany, not far from the
Dutch border. In 1642, a copperplate engraving,
representing Our Lady of Luxembourg, was
installed in a sanctuary erected the same year.
It is one of the best visited Catholic pilgrimage
locations in north-western Europe. Pope John
Paul II visited in 1987.

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England
There is a shrine of Our Lady of Consolation

in West Grinstead, in the Diocese of Arundel
and Brighton in England. The Shrine Church of
Our Lady of Consolation and St. Francis dates
from 1876 and is the first shrine in honor of Mary
to be established in England since before the
Reformation. There was in the Church of St. John
the Baptist at Perth an altar inscribed to “St.
Mary of Consolation.”
With the approval of the Archbishop of Turin
in northern Italy, the new church was affiliated
with the original sanctuary of Our Lady of
Consolation, and a painting, closely resembling
the miraculous shrine painting in the Santuario
della Consolata of Turin, enriched with similar
indulgences and privileges, was brought to West
Grinstead. The Shrine Statue was canonically
crowned by the Papal Delegate, Bishop Butt, on
behalf of Pope Leo XIII, in July 1893.

Other Places
The Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la
Consolación is located in Táriba, Venezuela.
The Augustinian church of Our Mother
of Consolation in the Shiroyama district of
Nagasaki is also named in her honor.
The SSPX chapel in Iloilo City, Philippines, is
named in honor of Our Lady of Consolation and
St. Joseph.

Feast Day
The feast of Our Lady of Consolation is one
of the solemnities not inscribed in the General
Roman Calendar, but which are observed in
particular places, regions, churches or religious
institutes. Augustinians observe September 4; the
Benedictines July 5.
The popular girl’s name “Consuela” is derived
from this title.

Our Lady of Consolation, Grinstead, Great Britain.
59

All her people sigh, they seek bread: they
have given all their precious things for
food to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and
consider, for I am become vile. O all ye
that pass by the way, attend, and see if
there be any sorrow like to my sorrow: for
he hath made a vintage of me, as the Lord
spoke in the day of his fierce anger. From
above he hath sent fire into my bones,
and hath chastised me: he hath spread a
net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
he hath made me desolate, wasted with
sorrow all the day long.
—Lam. 1:11-13

Christian Culture

Demolishing
Thor’s Oak
An Early Medieval Model for Modern Catholic “Iconoclasm”

By John Rao, D.Phil. Oxon.

St. Willibald (c. 700-c.787), founder of the
diocese of Eichstätt in Bavaria, is our first guide
to the life of St. Boniface (c. 675-754), a fellow
countryman from Anglo-Saxon Britain. Born as
Winfrid, St. Boniface was given this, his second
and better-known name—which was taken from
that of an early episcopal martyr of Tarsus in
Asia Minor—at the behest of Pope Gregory II
(715-731). It was that great pontiff who appointed
him as a missionary bishop; as the Apostle to
the still heathen German tribes; the Saxons in
particular.
St. Willibald tells us that in 723, quite early in
his mission, St. Boniface dealt with one specific
problem in his mission territory in a quite
dramatic manner. Taking an axe into his hand, he
chopped down a sacred tree—variously named
as Thor’s, Jupiter’s, or Thunder Oak—located at
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Gaesmere, near the present day town of Fritzlar
in northern Hesse. Modern Catholics in these
current dark days can draw three crucial lessons
of perennial value from this clear-cut act of
brazen public “iconoclasm.”
The first, fundamental, and perhaps most
obvious of such lessons is that there is a good
kind of “image-smashing” alongside a bad
one. Affirmation of this truth flows inevitably
from a faithful acceptance of the fullness of
the message of the Incarnation of the Word.
Magnificent testimony to this truth can be found
in the writings of many of the Eastern Church
Fathers, especially those of St. Maximus the
Confessor (c. 580-662), elaborated upon by St.
John of Damascus (c. 675-749) and St. Theodore
the Studite (759-826) in the era of the Iconoclast
Controversies (726-842). Their teachings helped

Johann Michael Wittmer, St. Boniface Felling Donar’s Oak. 19th century.

mightily to ensure the dogmatic decisions of the
Second Council of Nicaea (787) and the ultimate
“Triumph of Orthodoxy” over the Iconoclasts in
843, commemorated every year in the Eastern
Churches through the recitation of various
“anathemas,” such as the following:
“To those who persist in the heresy of denying
icons, or rather the apostasy of denying Christ,
and who are not counseled by the Mosaic law to
be led to their salvation, nor convinced to return
to piety by the apostolic teachings, nor induced
by patristic exhortations and explanations to
abandon their deception, nor persuaded by the
agreement of the Churches of God throughout the
whole world, but who have once and for all joined
themselves to the portion of the Jews and Greeks:
for the blasphemies cast by the Jews and Greeks
at the prototype, have been shamelessly used by

the former to insult through His icon Him that
is depicted therein; therefore, to those who are
incorrigibly possessed by this deception and have
their ears covered towards every divine word
and spiritual teaching, since they are already
putrefied members, having cut themselves off
from the common body of the Church, anathema.”

Creation as an Icon
This wondrous “anathema” points to Sts.
Maximus, John, and Theodore’s realization
that there is no way that one can accurately
understand that God’s Creation as a whole is an
“icon,” a sacred image, unless every one of its
elements is “venerated” in its fitting and proper
place in the divine hierarchy of values. This
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Christian Culture
hierarchy of values, before all else, demands
recognition of the need for man’s Redemption
from sin, and the constant, corrective, and
sanctifying, transformative Grace that can only
come from the greatest of the iconic elements
of the natural world: Jesus Christ, who is the
Incarnation of the Word, the Second Person of
the Trinity, responsible for the creation of the
universe in the first place.
Severing the iconic character of any given
aspect of Creation from the saving and
sanctifying Grace of the Cross of the Incarnate
Word, and then offering to that isolated natural
element an unquestioning acceptance on its
own terms is a hideous error at the very least.
Worshipping it as a floating bit of fallen debris
that has wandered away from its true place in
nature is a pagan blasphemy at its very worst,
crying out to the heavens for a good “iconoclast”
to expose and crush its hopeless but nevertheless
destructive attempt at a coup d’état against
the hierarchy of values. Failure to take up
the “Catholic Iconoclast Burden” would be a
dereliction of duty contributing to the blocking of
fallen man’s need to focus on the corrective and
transformative work of the Incarnate Word. This
labor alone clarifies the supernatural framework
in which each and every specific element of
nature actually can and indeed must play an
iconic role reflecting and leading men to the glory
of God, explaining why acts of bad iconoclasm
against them are an insult to the Divine Plan in
the process.
A second lesson of great importance emerging
from St. Boniface’s assault also involves the
hierarchy of values, but this time with respect to
the conditions under which one may legitimately
undertake an act of good “iconoclasm.” Allow me
to introduce this teaching by citing in detail what
Willibald tells us about the demolition of Thor’s
Oak:
“Now at that time many of the Hessians,
brought under the Catholic faith and confirmed
by the grace of the sevenfold spirit, received
the laying on of hands; others indeed, not yet
strengthened in soul, refused to accept in
their entirety the lessons of the inviolate faith.
Moreover some were wont secretly, some openly
to sacrifice to trees and springs; some in secret,
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others openly practiced inspections of victims
and divinations, legerdemain and incantations;
some turned their attention to auguries and
auspices and various sacrificial rites; while
others, with sounder minds, abandoned all the
profanations of heathenism, and committed none
of these things. With the advice and counsel of
these last, the saint attempted, in the place called
Gaesmere, while the servants of God stood by his
side, to fell a certain oak of extraordinary size,
which is called, by an old name of the pagans,
the Oak of Thor. And when in the strength of his
steadfast heart he had cut the lower notch, there
was present a great multitude of pagans, who
in their souls were earnestly cursing the enemy
of their gods. But when the fore side of the tree
was notched only a little, suddenly the oak’s vast
bulk, driven by a blast from above, crashed to the
ground, shivering its crown of branches as it fell;
and, as if by the gracious compensation of the
Most High, it was also burst into four parts, and
four trunks of huge size, equal in length, were
seen, unwrought by the brethren who stood by. At
this sight the pagans who before had cursed now,
on the contrary, believed, and blessed the Lord,
and put away their former reviling.”

Caution Approaching
the Pagans
What we read here is very much in tune
with previous and future guidelines given to
missionaries from Rome, such as those provided
by Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) for
St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604) in his
expedition to Anglo-Saxon Britain in 598, as
recorded by St. Bede the Venerable (c. 672-735),
along with the Responses of Pope Nicholas I (c.
800-867) to the Bulgarians in 866 at the time of
the Latin missions in the Balkans. Both these
pontiffs identify the role of the missionary as one
requiring great caution in approaching pagans,
their beliefs, and their sacred images.
Underlying their nuance is a profound
perception of just how existential the
“turning around” is that “conversion” entails.
Psychologically astute, these papal instructions
drive home the fact that what one wants to do

Eichstätt Cathedral, Blessed Virgin Mary with Sts. Richard, Willibald, Walburga, and Wunibald.

through “conversion” is to allow a man to “turn
around” from a belief rooted in a valid natural
desire which is giving meaning to his life in an
impossibly false and self-destructive way to one
answering that legitimate longing for existential
meaning in a fully true and fruitful manner. Too
harsh and too immediate an assault on a rooted
pagan belief or custom could destroy these ties
to a praiseworthy hunt for Truth in a dangerous
way, replacing them only with a hopeless nihilism
that benefits no one but Satan. But balancing
prudence and evangelical zeal is not an easy task;
missionary work is not to be left in the hands of
the unprepared.
St. Willibald’s account of St. Boniface’s
dramatic action near Fritzlar is in conformity
with the guidelines of Gregory and Nicholas. For
the Apostle to the Germans does not set about his
obviously iconoclastic deed as a direct assault
upon untutored pagans’ central beliefs. Quite the
contrary is true. Willibald tells us that Boniface’s
primary reason for the demolition of Thor’s
Oak was the backsliding of German Catholics
who had already converted. These new believers
were returning to blasphemous image worship,
and it was they who, first and foremost, were
the object of his concern. If we are to infer

anything about the remaining German pagans
in the region, Willibald’s chronicle seems to
identify a disturbed state of mind regarding
the battle of divine images and whose side to
come down upon definitively: that of the old
pagan gods and their totems or the Cross of the
God of the Christians. It seems to me that St.
Boniface, completely convinced of the falsity of
Thor and the truth of Christ, understood that his
successful destruction of a tree whose proper
iconic role in the hierarchy of values was being
obscured through its improper pagan adoration,
would bring these wavering pagans firmly, once
and for all, into the Camp of the Saints. In short,
the act of good “iconoclasm” had bad or weak
Catholics as its primary target, and fence-sitting
outsiders as its secondary focus.

The Loss of Faith
Many contemporary Catholics globally—but
most commonly in the formerly Christian West—
have lost their Faith or are in the process of
abandoning it. Perhaps even worse, those who
have already left the flock often openly work to
demoralize and undermine the commitment of
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Christian Culture
those who wish to remain loyal members of it by
disguising their very real apostasy. This apostasy,
both open and disguised, is taking place from the
top of the Catholic world to the bottom, displayed
in everything from the adoration of Pachamama
to the worship of the LGBTQ agenda as
something eminently moral but long hidden from
wicked Christians’ world view, to the adulation
of Joe Biden and his Moloch-like love for abortion
as though he were the model of a solid Catholic
statesman.
Our remaining brothers and sisters in the
Faith are scandalized and demoralized by this
ever-expanding madness, given that it is rarely
contested by much of the clergy, who lead their
flock to the unquestioning veneration of patently
false images. The faithful’s scandalized and
endangered belief cries out to the heavens for
good iconoclasts to destroy such open idolatry
root and branch. Once again, a failure to answer
that cry would be a dereliction of duty: not only
to already existing and imperiled Christians,
but also to the many, many people outside of
the Catholic world who are longing for the True
Faith and need its fundamental “icon— the Word
Incarnate and all that is corrected, redeemed,
and transformed through His Revelation and
His Grace—to shine forth and smother the dark
light emitted from the manifold “Thor’s Oaks”
worshipped by our sick and dying world.
But there is also a third lesson to be gained
from what happened at the original Thor’s Oak.
Let us remember that St. Boniface undertook his
missionary labor after having gained the promise
of military protection from the chief Frankish
political leader, Charles Martel (c. 688-744), who
was extending his political influence eastward
into more easterly German regions at the time.
Now the letters of the Apostle of the Germans
admit that this military and political alliance was
a double-edged sword, since his “protector,” like
all men, could do bad as well as good. In point of
fact, he believed that Charles Martel had all too
often flexed his muscles in the religious realm
in the wrong way, and to such a degree that he
told his son Pepin that he believed his father
was actually rotting in hell. In admitting this
danger, Boniface was doing nothing other than
reiterating the truth that the sacred character
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of each and every aspect of nature could only
exercise their iconic roles properly under the
corrective and transformative guidance of
Christ and Christ’s Church. Many confessors and
martyrs were to drive that point home in other
acts of good iconoclasm; in public preaching and
exhortation designed to humble an invasive State
claiming to know what was pleasing to the Lord
on its own steam, and demanding worship of its
improper decisions as the God’s honest truth.
But exercise that role properly the State must.
The Great Commission specifically indicates
that it is not just individuals but nations that are
to be converted to the worship of the Christian
God. Nations involve authoritative institutions,
and one of these is the State—the legitimate
State—whose God given task is to crush
what harms the people that it rules. The good
iconoclasm represented by the demolition of
Thor’s Oak—aimed primarily at saving Catholics
from plunging back into the hands of the devil,
and secondarily at giving the final push to those
wavering between the worship of proper and
improper “icons”—must ultimately demand
authoritative State protection for a necessary
image smashing. If it does not do so, legitimate
State authority is replaced by illegitimate,
egotistical, arbitrary, often hidden force. And
this—whether in St. Boniface’s day or that of Joe
Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi—shows
no nuance or prudence in its demand for tossing
the icon of the Cross at the foot of the Antichrist.
Catholics of the world: Sharpen your axes! The
choice between battling for the True Faith, aided
by the legitimate State, and the Bad Guys, leaning
upon raw power, is all too clearly not outside
Fritzlar but at our doorstep.

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Carved corbel in the parish church of
Saint Martin, Venette, France.

Passing on
the Love of
Reading
By the Sisters of the Society St. Pius X

“If my children had an appetite for reading...
they would acquire a solid foundation; they
would no longer go in circles on rainy days; they
would no longer become the victims of media
propaganda.” Yet how can we inspire children to
relish such an activity?
The number of qualities that children acquire
by imitating those around them are uncountable.
If you read regularly, with visible interest and
pleasure, and have family conversations that are
pleasantly centered around the books that family
members have read, a large part of the work has
already been accomplished.
Before learning how to read, children are
familiarized with books while sitting on their
mother’s lap. Oftentimes, left on their own,
children ‘read’ their picture book within 30
seconds: they see everything without looking

more profoundly. With Mom, children take the
time to give detail to each picture: where is
the rooster? What color is the cat? In this way,
children develop their ability to concentrate, all
the while gaining a rich and precise vocabulary.
When books are a part of the family sphere,
at around five or six years old, children will
ask to learn how to read. They will want to be
like the adults. They will have had enough of
asking others to read them stories. They want
to understand the references heard in family
conversations about King Richard the Lionheart
or the Outlaws of Ravenhurst. Offer them an
alphabet book while awaiting the start of school,
growing accustomed to recognizing language
sounds: the mosquito goes buzzzz, the conductor
says all aboard... We could go even further if we
have pedagogical knowledge or the advice of a
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Christian Culture
teacher.
Learning how to read is crucial. Reading needs
to become easier with time so that the focus is
no longer on the act of reading, but rather on the
content of what is being read. Without remorse,
we must ban global and semi-global reading
methods; they do nothing except produce a small
percentage of illiterate or poor readers. The only
method that conforms to the analytical process,
as it is exercised by the brain, is the SyllabicBased Approach.
As soon as children learn how to read, books
need to be provided which are adapted to their
still limited reading capacity (simple vocabulary,
big letters, short stories and chapters). And
of course, don’t hesitate to read with them,
alternating for example, in order to arouse their
interest.
What should be done if a normal reading level
has not yet been obtained by the end of first
grade? Every child learns at their own pace.
Under certain circumstances, it is not possible for
the mother to help her child catch up by working
during the summer vacation. Sometimes the
gap is just too significant. In this case, it is often
better to work in close collaboration with the
teacher and hold back the child another year in
first grade. This will ensure giving a solid basis
instead of insisting that the child go on to second
grade where they would have a hard time keeping
up with the class and, ultimately, risk being
discouraged.
A book which is well-liked could set in motion
other activities which, in turn, will call for
further reading. For example, a novel on the
Crusades could incite children to build their own
collection of knights made out of cardboard.
Yet, in order to portray the knights accurately,
it becomes necessary to gather information in
books. And what about the fortified castles? And
the life of Saint Louis? And so on.
For the children that are impervious to
reading habits, one can imagine a ludic question
game that will occupy the whole family during
vacation. For example: “question 1 – How did
the red fish die? question 2—How many times
was Sophie punished? etc.?” These questions
are impossible to answer without having read
Sophie’s Misfortunes.
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Reading calls for certain favorable conditions,
namely silence and time alone. The loud games
of the smaller children, or a tiny house, could be
a real obstacle for some children who need extra
help. During summer vacation, the hot hours of
the early afternoon offer an opportune time for
reading; while the younger children are napping,
the older ones take their book, and the household
enjoys a moment of calm.
It is naturally understood that only good books
are allowed into the house. In order for a book
to be considered adequate, the hero does not
necessarily have to be a Saint. On the other hand,
it is vital for the plot to take place in a sound,
upright atmosphere. We gain a lot by discussing
with our children about what they are reading.
We learn what they have liked about the book,
what they dislike and why.
Could comic books help develop a love
of reading in children that are not inclined?
Without going into the debate on the benefits
and drawbacks of comics, let’s be realistic.
Experience has shown that children who already
have a desire to read, and read good books often,
could unwind with a wholesome comic book
without any harm. However, if children read
comic books exclusively, they seldom do any real
reading; their laziness is being satisfied by the
“reading” of pictures.
Where can we find good books at a reasonable
price? Public libraries, quite frankly, offer
too many inappropriate books for parents to
prudently allow their children to explore on their
own. Parents can find great classical literature
for children in bookstores at a nominal price.
Another solution could be for families to loan
each other the books that they have. This will
also give parents the opportunity to teach their
children how to be careful and respectful of
other people’s belongings. Traditional publishing
houses are also trying to offer children
quality reading materials, where Grannies and
Godmothers will find ideas for presents. This all
being said, here is my wish: happy reading!

By Archbishop Lefebvre
This collection contains the fundamental works of Archbishop
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ambiguities of Vatican II, and on the Society of St. Pius X.

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Christian Culture

By Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX

What is the object of
Faith? That is, what do
we have to believe?
The First Vatican Council (Dz. 1792) taught
with all precision and clarity what is the object
of Faith: “By divine and Catholic faith, all those
things must be believed which are contained in
the written word of God and in Tradition, and
those which are proposed by the Church, either
in a solemn pronouncement or in her ordinary
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and universal teaching power, to be believed as
divinely revealed.”
Let us explain the terms of this proposition,
which is a model of precision and accuracy.
It is necessary to believe by divine and
catholic Faith, that is, with a supernatural
faith supported by the authority of God, Who
reveals, and that of the Church, which infallibly
guarantees the existence of divine revelation.
All that is contained in the written word of
God or transmitted by Tradition. This indicates
the two sources of divine revelation, that is,

Sacred Scripture, which transmits it to us in
writing, and Catholic Tradition, which transmits
it to us in writing or orally from generation to
generation. Most of the Protestant sects do not
admit as belonging to the faith but the truths
expressly contained in the Holy Scriptures; but
this doctrine is entirely false and heretical and
as such has been condemned by the Church (Dz.
783-784).
These words also exclude, as an object of
divine and Catholic faith, the private revelations
that some people in particular may receive. Only
they are obliged to believe it with divine faith
if its divine origin is known to them with all
certainty, by virtue of the prophetic light.
And that the Church proposes as divinely
revealed. The proposition of the Church is a
condition sine qua non for the assent of our
understanding to be an act of divine faith.
The reason is because the testimony of God
cannot be known with certainty and infallibly
applied to ourselves except by prophetic light
(which illuminates only the person who directly
receives divine revelation) or by the infallible
proposition of the Church, who, by virtue of the
special assistance of the Holy Ghost, cannot
commit error. For this reason, in the Protestant
sects that reject the authority of the Church,
there is a real confusion and chaos around the
truths that must be admitted by faith, as each one
of them believes or rejects what they see fit, with
no more guidance than their own whims.
By solemn definition. It is one of the ways—
the clearest and most explicit—of proposing to
the faithful the truths of the Faith. It takes place
when the pope defines ex cathedra some dogma
of faith or expressly declares it by an Ecumenical
Council presided over and approved by the pope.
Or by its ordinary and universal
Magisterium. It is the other way in which the
Church proposes to the faithful the truths to
be believed with supernatural or divine faith. It
consists in the common and universal teaching of
a certain doctrine by all the bishops and doctors
scattered throughout the world. This universal
teaching cannot fail or contain any error, by
virtue of the special assistance of the Holy Ghost,
who cannot allow the entire Church to err in
some doctrine relative to faith or morals.

When the Church, whether by solemn
definition or by her ordinary and universal
Magisterium, proposes to the faithful some truth
to be believed as revealed by God, that truth
acquires the name of dogma. Consequently, a
dogma is a truth revealed by God and proposed
by the Church as such.

To what are we obliged by
the law of “Sunday rest”?
By the simple statement of the precept as it
is read in Sacred Scripture (Ex. 20:8-11), it can
be seen the rigor and severity with which the
Old Law prescribed the sabbatical rest. The
Israelites sometimes interpreted it in a way that
was too literal and material, as Our Lord Himself
pointed out (Lk. 13:14-16). The Law of the Gospel,
while maintaining the precept of the Decalogue,
has softened its practical interpretation, as St.
Thomas Aquinas explains: “In the New Law the
observance of the Lord’s day took the place of
the observance of the Sabbath, not by virtue
of the precept but by the institution of the
Church and the custom of Christian people. For
this observance is not figurative, as was the
observance of the Sabbath in the Old Law. Hence
the prohibition to work on the Lord’s day is not so
strict as on the Sabbath: and certain works are
permitted on the Lord’s day which were forbidden
on the Sabbath, such as the cooking of food and
so forth. And again, in the New Law dispensation
is more easily granted than in the Old, in the
matter of certain forbidden works, on account of
their necessity, because the figure pertains to the
protestation of truth, which it is unlawful to omit
even in small things; while works, considered in
themselves, are changeable in point of place and
time” (II-II, 122.4 ad 4).
As stated by the Code of Canon Law, on
Sundays and feast days, the Church prohibits
73

Christian Culture
servile work, legal acts and public trade,
shopping, etc. (Can. 1248).
Servile works are those which ordinarily
require the exercise of physical force, as those
executed by farmers, day laborers, masons,
carpenters, etc. The servile works should not be
judged by the purpose of the person doing them
or by the physical fatigue that they cause, but
only by their own nature; thus, they do not cease
to be servile even if they are done for simple
recreation and without any bodily fatigue.
Thus, on holy days of obligation servile works
are prohibited under pain of mortal sin; but
dispensations and exceptions are possible.
Legal acts that require certain apparatus and
publicity, such as summoning witnesses, holding
a public hearing, sentencing, etc., are prohibited
on holy days of obligation, but not those that can
be done in private, such as consulting, writing a
report, giving advice, etc.
Due to the inconveniences that they usually
bring for the sanctification of the feast day
(difficulty in hearing Mass, excessive profit
motive, etc.), the Church also prohibits public
markets, fairs, and other public purchases
and sales on holy days, unless authorized by

legitimate customs or by special permissions
granted by the ecclesiastical authority.
In addition to these legitimate dispensations,
some other causes may circumstantially excuse
the law of Sunday rest, for example:
Piety towards God; thus, it is lawful to work in
what is immediately connected with the worship
of God, decorate the altars, prepare the litter for
a procession, etc.; but not in what has a more
remote relation, as repairing the church, making
sacred vestments, etc.
Charity for neighbor; thus, it is lawful on feast
days to do whatever physical work is necessary
to relieve the needs of the sick, etc.
Our own pressing needs; for example, in
the case of workers who are required to be at
their jobs by their employers, under pain of
losing those jobs; the poor to obtain their daily
sustenance, the farmers to avoid damage from
a threatening storm, the mothers occupied in
domestic chores, and other similar cases. But we
must be careful to avoid scandal and be sure that
there is always a true and proportionate cause,
avoiding any self-deception or malice.

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– Marriage, Parenting, Family Life
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The Angelus

January - February 2021

Mary, Angels, and Saints

– Life After Death

– The Mass and the Liturgy

– Church Practices and Customs

– The SSPX and the Crisis

– The Papacy and the Church Teachings

74

– The Bible and Biblical Matters
– The Trinity, Jesus Christ, The Virgin

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Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War
Catholics Murdered for the Faith in Spain

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Catechism

Part Five: Prof. Felix Otten, O.P. and C.F. Pauwels, O.P.

Editor’s Note: This article continues the series of straightforward responses to frequently-encountered questions and objections
concerning the Catholic Faith. The questions and answers are adapted from Professor Felix Otten, O.P. and C.F. Pauwels, O.P.’s
The Most Frequently Encountered Difficulties, published originally in Dutch in 1939.

The whole Catholic Faith is against
common sense. This is admitted
frankly by the ancient Christian writer
Tertullian, who confessed: “Credo quia
absurdum”: I believe it because it is
absurd.
Catholics believe nothing which is to reason
absurd or impossible. But they do believe
many truths which are mysteries and which
go beyond the power of the understanding. These
are things of which the mind alone cannot judge
whether they are true or not.
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Such belief is not unreasonable. For first, the
human mind is not so perfect and mighty that it
could judge everything. There are things beyond
its reach. And secondly, through apologetic
arguments, Catholics can justify their faith very
well, even to the mind. Therefore, Catholics
are sure that they can disprove all troubles
that reason would make against faith, and all
efforts to prove that the secrets of faith go
against reason, science, and philosophy. But
Catholics are willing to admit that the truths
of the Faith may at first glance seem absurd
to someone who is not familiar with their true
meaning. So if Tertullian, with his much-quoted

statement (which actually reads: I believe,
because it is foolish), had really wanted to say:
the reason I believe is the absurdity of the truth
of the faith, then he would not have been a
Catholic. Incidentally, that is not entirely untrue,
because later on in his life he actually fell away
from the Faith.
However, he meant something completely
different than what some assume.Tertullian
was someone who liked paradoxes and liked
to bring things to a head to express them in
an exaggerated way. Moreover, he fiercely and
sharply polemicized against the skeptical and
rationalist philosophers of his time. And in
his book On the Body of Christ, from which
the famous quote is taken, he elaborates a
whole climax of paradoxes, in which he also
says, among other things: “it is certainly
impossible.” And from here he concludes with
the words: “God’s son has died; I believe that,
because it is absurd.” The words quoted must
therefore be read in its context, that is, as a
climax of paradoxes, which Tertullian throws at
his opponents.
No one is obliged to like paradoxes. If one
wants, one can safely find the expression of
Tertullian less elegant and beautiful than he may
have found it.

Catholics, like all Christians, must
first of all practice the commandment
of love. How, then, is it possible that
Catholics are so intolerant, that they
condemn dissenters, and that they
separate themselves from the others
as much as possible?
Undoubtedly, Catholics must first of all obey the
commandment of love. But they also have to do that
in the right way. And true, good love must be united
with the keeping of all other commandments and the
exercise of all other virtues. That’s what Catholics
have to take care of.
They believe that they have received the
truth through God’s revelation and the Church’s
magisterium. They must show their gratitude for this
by watching for the purity of Catholic teaching. And
they cannot do so without rejecting dissent or

misrepresentations of revealed doctrine. So, they
should do that too. Now Catholics call errors contrary
to revelation heresies. That’s not a swear word, but a
description. And so, when Catholics call someone a
heretic, they are only saying that he does not know the
truth. They do not say that he persists in error against
his better judgment or through his own fault. They
do not claim that he will necessarily perish because
he keeps that error. They only say that his view is
contrary to God’s revelation.
The Catholics are therefore intolerant of false
doctrine. Of course, that is true of any person who
believes he possesses the truth. But Catholics are not
intolerant to the persons holding wrong beliefs, and
therefore Catholics do not lack love for them. After
all, the ideal of love is not to cover up the truth!
Catholics must live according to the precepts of the
Faith, and so they must live differently from those who
dissent from the Catholic Faith. Moreover, Catholics
also have to fight to defend their views and stand up
for their rights, and for that they need each other’s
support. That is why the ecclesiastical authorities
have prescribed principles of Catholic organization
and action. That does not exclude love for others. It is
simply a slander to hold that Catholics wish to force
others by violence to convert to the Faith. Rather,
leading by example and demonstrating by persuasive
argument, Catholics wish for all to come to the full
knowledge of the truth.

For Christ, we are all alike: poor and
rich. Why, then, does the Catholic
Church differentiate between the
poor and the rich, not only by letting
the people who make large donations
sit in places of honor in the church,
but also by allowing them larger
ceremonies at funerals, weddings,
and so forth?
We must emphasize that the Church and its
ministers are to be maintained by the faithful, and
that everyone must contribute to this according to
their ability. Furthermore, the Church must judge for
herself how best to entice people to do so. She has to
adapt to the circumstances.
Next, we must point out that the poor of
the Church, apart from the alms, receive
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Catechism
all the spiritual help they need without paying
anything. Nothing is paid to the Church for receiving
the sacraments. There are free places for the poor
in every church and the pastor is obliged to perform
a Christian funeral for everyone who dies, free of
charge. So nobody in the Catholic Church is short of
anything because he is poor.
But in the United States, where the government
contributes almost nothing to the Church, where no
ecclesiastical tax can be collected, and where men
are no more perfect than elsewhere in contributing
according to their own ability, the following
arrangement is sometimes initiated:
Those who would like to have something extra
have to pay extra for it.
Those who would like to sit in a particularly
good or honorable place must contribute more to the
maintenance of the church building. Anyone who
wants additional decoration, lighting, songs, etc. at
a wedding or funeral must therefore make a special
contribution to the maintenance of the clergy. And
the Church can safely do that because the essence
and value of the Holy Mass does not change at all by
additional ceremonies.
The rich only get more outward shine than the
poor. This arrangement may not be ideal, but it is the
best under current circumstances. And so it cannot be
said that the Church is contrary to Christ’s spirit in
this way.

78

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January - February 2021

1,408 pp. – Printed hardcover – STK# 8770 – $74.95

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history of these troubled times is written.—Michael Davies

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Notre-Dame du Guet, a limestone statue of
the Virgin and Child dating from the 14th
century, kept in the church of Saint-Étienne,
Bar-le-Duc, France. A legend from the Middle
Ages made her the protector of the city, which
gave her her name. Later, the city having been
spared during the First World War, it was
crowned on July 14, 1920.

Theological Studies

Can
Apologetics
Stand the
Test
of Reason Alone?
By Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize

St. Augustine once said of the Manicheans that
they were “more eloquent and fuller in their refutation of others, than firm and sure in proof of their
own doctrine.” Cajetan experienced the relevance
of this remark when he met with Martin Luther in
the city of Augsburg from October 12 to 15, 1518,
over 500 years ago. As the official representative of
Pope Leo X, Cajetan received Luther with paternal
kindness. He asked three things of him: that he
return to better sentiments and retract his errors,
that he promise not to fall into them again, and that
he avoid anything that could trouble the Church.
At their last meeting, Luther brought a written text
to justify his positions. Cajetan took no interest in
this explanation. He sought by means of a presentation of the Thomistic doctrine to convince Luther
of his error and allowed him no comments. His final
words in dismissing him were, “Go, and do not come

82

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January - February 2021

before me again unless you wish to retract.”
Luther’s Implicit Denial
And yet, in Augsburg, Luther had not yet denied
the divine institution of the Sovereign Pontificate,
but this denial was already implicit in his theses on
indulgences, and Cajetan had enough insight to see
it coming. It would become explicit the following
year in the Leipzig debate during which Johann Eck,
another representative of the pope, would reproach
Luther for defending the previously condemned
positions of Jan Hus.
Luther used Scripture to defend and justify
himself, for he knew it inside and out; he had an
excellent knowledge of all the passages on which
traditional theology and exegesis base the central
affirmation of the Primacy of St. Peter and his successors, in particular the passage from the Gospel

of St. Matthew, Chapter 16, verses 18 and 19, the
famous “Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam.” From this verse, even though
it is the very foundation of the Church’s Romanitas,
Luther deduced the denial of the supreme and universal power of the Bishop of Rome. Was the meaning of Scripture so very transparent?. . . While it is
easy to invoke “biblical arguments” in favor of the
existence and nature of the authority in the Church,
it is far less easy to draw from them the full significance they can appear to have in the context of
far too naïve an interpretation. This naivety can be
excused, especially when it is due to an excessive
apologetic enthusiasm. But on this particular issue,
it would cause too much harm and would urgently
need to be dispelled. Be they conscious or not, the
presuppositions on which it is based imply a false
conception of the Tradition of the Church, Divine
Revelation, and its authorized sources.
The principal—and decisive—argument that suffices to establish the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome
in the face of all the Protestant contestations, is not
biblical. Or at any rate, it is only materially biblical,
for while it does invoke the phrase from the Gospel
of St. Matthew and rely on the “Tu es Petrus,” the
force of its demonstration comes first and foremost
not from Scripture but from the authority of the
Magisterium.
The true strength of this argument lies in the
dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus from Vatican
Council I, in 1870, whose terms echo a constant and
unaltered Tradition. This Tradition was expressed
as early as the fourth Council of Constantinople,
in 870, then at the second Council of Lyon, in 1274,
and again with the Council of Florence in 1439. “We
teach and declare that, according to the Gospel
evidence, a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole
Church of God was immediately and directly promised to the blessed apostle Peter and conferred
on him by Christ the Lord. It was to Simon alone,
to whom He had already said: ‘You shall be called
Cephas’ (Jn. 1:42), that the Lord, after Peter’s
confession (‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God’) spoke these words: ‘Blessed are you, Simon
Bar-Jona. For flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I
tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build
my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall
not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the

kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose
on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ (Mt. 16:16-19).
And it was to Peter alone that Jesus, after His resurrection, confided the jurisdiction of Supreme Pastor
and ruler of His whole fold, saying: ‘Feed My lambs,
feed My sheep’ (Jn. 21:15-17).”
The phrase “Tu es Petrus” receives all its clarity from the declaration of the Magisterium, which
gives the authentic interpretation in the name of
God and infallibly defines its meaning. It bestows on
the faithful Catholic the absolute and unshakeable
certainty that in the passage from St. Matthew, the
Holy Ghost intended to designate, in the metaphor
of a rock, the very person of St. Peter and of every
one of his successors.
Biblical and Magisterial Arguments
This argument, which is to be formally taken not
as a biblical but as a magisterial argument, is doubtless not the only one there is. But it is the principal
one, and by that very fact, it is necessary and sufficient. Conversely, taken as it figures in the Gospel
of St. Matthew, the passage “Tu es Petrus” is necessary but insufficient. It cannot suffice in and of
itself, for it presents a literal parabolic meaning that
calls for clarification. The Primacy of St. Peter is not
affirmed in direct and explicit terms. It is veiled, as
it were, by the indirect and implicit expression of a
metaphor. Obviously, the rock on which the entire
edifice of the Church is built could only be the first
cause of the Church’s very being, in dependency on
the unceasing action of Christ.
However, in order to go further and deduce that
St. Peter and his successors are therefore the
Vicars of Christ and ordinarily possess and exercise His power as supreme head of the Church, the
literal expression of Holy Scripture is not enough.
In fact, it even presents the danger to which any
reader is exposed when faced with a versatile
expression. For the Gospel’s “super hanc petram”
could actually refer to a variety of realities, and the
Fathers of the Church interpreted these words from
Mt. 16:18 in very different ways, some saying the
rock on which the Church is built should be understood to mean St. Peter and his successors, others
the twelve apostles represented by one of them,
others the Faith or St. Peter’s profession of Faith,
others the divinity of Christ.
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Theological Studies
Luther, for his part, opted for the third of these
interpretations. “There are some who affirm as if it
were a dogma,” remarked Cajetan, “that the papal
power was not entrusted directly to the man who
is its subject but that it was attributed to this man
insofar as he had received the gift of a virtue, in
such a way that if the gift of this virtue is lost, the
papal power is necessarily lost as well: as if this
virtue were in a way a substance that acts as a
bond between the man and the papal power. Thus,
according to their opinion, the keys were not given
to the person of St. Peter, but to the gift St. Peter
received, and this gift is understood as being able to
exist in a particular minister, for example, in a priest
or any just man.”
Luther did indeed take the phrase “Tu es Petrus”
into account, but his interpretation of it turns the
Church into an egalitarian communion of all the
just, in which each is identically priest and pope by
the very fact that he possesses the same gift as St.
Peter, that of self-justifying Faith. The biblical argument taken as such in a reasonable interpretation
would thus betray a Catholic apologist who places
too much trust in Scripture alone, and ultimately
destroy the dogma of the Primacy. In any case,
remarks Fr. Palmieri, for the Protestants, “the interpretation according to which the rock designates
St. Peter is uncertain, and if Catholics choose to
see it in this way, it is entirely their own responsibility; what is more, the third interpretation we have
mentioned is in their opinion the most probable,
for it seems to be backed by a greater number of
authorities.”
The False Principle of Sola Scriptura
The false principle of “sola scriptura” is therefore
false not only because it refuses the true principle
of the ecclesiastical Magisterium, “the proximate
and universal criterion of truth in matters of Faith
and morals,” but also because it ignores the true
nature of inspired Scripture. Indeed, this latter is
not so very clear on its own, that one can use it
alone and without need for further explanation to
define the object of belief precisely; as a matter of
fact, it is very obscure. Therefore, although there
are two sources of Divine Revelation, Scripture
and Tradition, they are not both on the same level,
for Tradition is a source that remains anterior to
Scripture from a threefold point of view: chronologi84

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January - February 2021

cally, with regards to its extent, and above all as its
rule or criterion. The oral transmission of Revelation
preceded its written transmission. Tradition transmits all of Revelation, whereas Scripture transmits
only a portion.
Tradition must above all serve as the rule for how
to understand the meanings of the truths revealed
in Scripture. And Tradition, just like Scripture, also
depends on another rule of interpretation which is
the Church Magisterium. Scripture therefore has
a twofold rule and is doubly dependent: it depends
first of all on Tradition, as one source depends on
another; then it depends on the Magisterium as a
source depends on the proximate and universal
criterion of truth in matters of Faith and morals.
The exegesis of “Tu es Petrus” is an example that
illustrates this situation perfectly.
The passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew,
chapter 16, verse 18, depends first of all on the
interpretation given by the Fathers of the Church,
which represents another source of revealed truths,
Tradition, which precedes Scripture. But as this interpretation of the Fathers allows for four different
explanations, it is up to the Church’s Magisterium to
define with authority which of the different possible
meanings admitted by Tradition is the first inspired
literal meaning on which the dogma of the Catholic
Faith is to be based. Thus did Vatican Council I
declare infallibly and definitively that the rock on
which the entire edifice of the Holy Church is built
is the very person of St. Peter and his successors,
and that consequently, the supreme and universal
primacy of jurisdiction belongs to the Bishop of
Rome by virtue of its divinely revealed institution by
Christ.
Vatican II’s Distortion
Paragraphs 9 and 10 of the Vatican Council
II constitution Dei Verbum are unacceptable in
this respect, for they commit a grave omission in
presenting the two sources of Revelation, Scripture
and Tradition, as two reciprocally complementary
channels that equally concur. “For both of them,”
says paragraph 9, “flowing from the same divine
wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and
tend toward the same end. . . . Therefore, both
Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be
accepted and venerated with the same sense of
loyalty and reverence.” In fact, Scripture does not

flow from the divine source exactly in the same
way as Tradition, since the written transmission
of Revelation flows from its oral transmission:
Scripture flows from its divine source through the
intermediary of Tradition. And that is why they cannot both be received equally: Tradition must take
precedence over Scripture.
That is also why apologetics must be careful not
to be naïve. The argument of a reasonable interpretation of Scripture should be handled with care. For
in order to be truly reasonable, the interpretation of
Scripture itself depends on another far more decisive argument, the argument of Tradition. And both
the biblical argument and the argument of Tradition
ultimately draw all of their strength from the authority of the Magisterium, which accredits them by
declaring with authority the authentic meaning of
the revealed truth. There is always a strong temptation to go meet the Protestants on their own turf in
order to win an easy victory since the meaning of
the Gospel seems to appear so evident in its biblical
simplicity. But a seasoned and experienced theologian knows to distrust such luce clarius patet that
make for easy controversy.
It is true that it can serve the purpose of confounding Protestants based on Scripture and by
means of a critical refutation according to the rules
of the art. This refutation shows that it is impossible
to use the text of the Gospels to justify the principle
of private judgment and that the divinely inspired
text rather leads one to recognize the divine
institution of an ecclesiastical Magisterium. But
this, like any other properly apologetic endeavor,
is an integral part of theology and as such presupposes the initial criterion of the Magisterium. The
only reason that can stand up to the false principle
of “sola scriptura” is theological reason, that is
to say, reason already enlightened by the Faith,
“ratio illustrate fide,” as Vatican Council I says. And
the truth of Faith that guides reason is the very
truth of which the Magisterium is the proximate
and universal criterion. Reason alone, without
the direction of the Magisterium, would be just as
powerless as Scripture alone, just as bereft of its
rule, and that is why it is in no way surprising to see
Protestantism sway back and forth between fideism
and rationalism.
Just like all the rest of the revealed deposit,
Scripture is the expression of a mystery. The mean-

ing of this expression, which is very often obscure
and ambiguous, necessarily eludes reason for this
very reason. Reason in and of itself can never offer
a complete, decisive and sufficient demonstration
of this meaning. But when the biblical meaning is
already presupposed, having been indicated by the
double criterion of Tradition and the Magisterium
(the former being itself ruled by the latter), reason can then show its soundness and the internal
coherency of the inspired text, in keeping with this
double criterion.
That is the way Cajetan proceeded—and most
masterfully at that—in his treatise on the divine
institution of the Sovereign Pontificate. “The entire
truth of this thesis,” he says of the dogma of the
Primacy, “depends on Sacred Scripture and there
are two principal passages that explicit treat of this
mystery: Mt. 16:17-19 and Jn. 21:15-17. Therefore,
it is in reference to both of these texts that one
must consider whether the words of Christ were
addressed to St. Peter and to St. Peter alone.”
Cajetan wishes to show that the divine institution
of the Primacy is expressed in the Gospel passages he cites, and that it is therefore formally
revealed by Scripture: that is the precise point of his
demonstration.
Addressing Luther just after the Augsburg
meetings, Cajetan resorts to an apparently biblical argument, but the rational interpretation and
precise explanation he gives of super hanc petram
flow entirely from the twofold argument of Tradition
and the Magisterium, which is developed at length
in chapter 14 of his work. He keeps this argument of authority ever in mind, even if he does not
explicitly hurl it back at the father of the so-called
“Reformation,” who is really the father of the revolt
of human reason against God that as such characterizes modern times. A revolt in which reason
refuses to depend on any rule. But in order to rid
himself of the pope, Luther had no other choice but
to pose as the pope. And in order to rid himself of
the divine rule of the Magisterium, modern reason has no other choice but to proclaim herself a
goddess.
At the time when the Lutheran revolution exploded, the successor of St. Peter was governing
the Church like a Renaissance prince, and historians have since passed a severe judgment on his
attitude. They have reproached this pope, and
85

Theological Studies
not entirely without reason, for not understanding profoundly enough what was truly at stake in
the crisis caused by Luther. We must nonetheless
recognize that Leo X did choose a true theologian
in the person of Cajetan to take things in hand.
Cajetan was, in fact, a true theologian, for his reason was enlightened by his Faith and the Faith came
to him from the Magisterium of all time, that Leo X
did echo. This Magisterium represents for a faithful
Catholic the true light that shines in the darkness,
and it is what is so cruelly lacking to Protestants of
every denomination, be they Lutheran or Calvinist,
illuminists or rationalists. Neither Scripture alone
in the face of reason nor reason alone in the face of
Scripture can make the light shine in the darkness.
The only one that can do so is the rock on which
Christ built His Church, and against which the gates
of hell shall never prevail.

86

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January - February 2021

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The
Last
Word
Human Respect
“Last week,” quoth I to Joseph, “my wife and I told our 13-year-old daughter she could
join Facebook. Within a few hours she had accumulated 171 friends, and I felt a little as if I
had passed my child a pipe of crystal meth. So says Bill Keller in The New York Times.”
“I’m sorry,” said Joseph looking up from his smartphone, “what did you say?”
“Oh, nothing” I replied. Joseph returned to his smartphone.
“Did you know,” I tried again, “that most young people don’t use email.” No response.
“I suppose it’s because they prefer writing letters.” No response.
“Would you like a million dollars?”
“What?” he laughed, “no, they’ve got Facebook. They don’t need email.”
“Hmmm,” I said, “I thought that Facebook was public. How can you communicate
privately with a friend when everybody else is listening in?”
“Everybody’s your friend!” replied Joseph. “Look, the average Facebook person has
229 friends. The whole buzz of the thing is that nothing is private. When you tell your
friend something, everybody can see it, you show everybody your photographs. If they
like them, if they like you, then they ‘like’ you and you feel good.”
“What happens if they don’t like you?”
“Well, you feel bad, I suppose.”
“I might be wrong,” I said, “no, I’m not wrong. That leads down a straight path to human respect and pride. First of all, you can’t possibly have 229 real friends. If you’re going to say everything in front of so many people, you have to be a crowd pleaser and only
then can you brag: ‘I’ve got more friends than you have. My friends like me.’ Who cares if
people like you as long as you’re doing what’s right? You need to do what is right because
it’s right, not because people like it or dislike it—that’s human respect.”
“But, maybe,” said Joe, “all my friends are good people.”
“Are they?” I said, “they never post any dodgy stuff?”
“Well, not that often. . .”
“And you never change your communication based on the fact that 229 people are
watching you”
“Well. . .”
“Can you get the Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter 8 on that thing?”
Fr. David Sherry

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