Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop, Anthony Fisher, has described Greens policies as “nasty” and contravening “basic moral standards”.
Archbishop Fisher, 56, said mass at St Mary’s Cathedral yesterday after a five-month fightback from paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disease that damages the nervous system.
Worshippers, including Governor-General Peter Cosgrove and wife Lynne, packed the cathedral and rose to applaud the archbishop as he made it to the altar.
Staff from St Vincent’s Hospital and Mount Wilga rehabilitation centre, who helped him recover from the debilitating illness, also watched on.
The archbishop has condemned the contentious Safe Schools program as even more radical and dangerous social engineering than same-sex marriage, to which he is also vehemently opposed.
In an interview with The Australian, Archbishop Fisher said Safe Schools was foisting “an extreme form of the LGBTI agenda on children’’.
Archbishop Fisher also took aim at the Greens’ support for the removal of religious “exemptions” to anti-discrimination laws.
He said he was uncomfortable with aspects of the major parties’ asylum-seeker policies, especially offshore detention, which left young women, especially, vulnerable to attack and rape. Nor did he want a resumption of the kind of flotilla that brought 50,000 asylum-seekers to Australia during the Rudd-Gillard years, resulting in 1200 drownings and thousands more people in detention.
It was a “matter of striking a balance’’, he said, but added, “I don’t know all the answers’’.
Archbishop Fisher also wants Australia to take more refugees, but through official channels, not from boats. People desperate to escape danger should be encouraged to join the queue, he said, but declined to nominate an ideal number: “It depends on how many can be accommodated.’’
Nor would he be opposed to asking newcomers to live and work for a couple of years in regional and rural areas where workers were scarce, as many migrants did on the Snowy Mountains scheme decades ago.
He was disappointed over how few Syrian refugees appeared to have made it to Australia after the government pledged to take an extra 12,000 Syrians in September. There was a desperate need for Christians to receive greater help, he said.
Syrian Christians in Sydney knew where many of them were hiding and would help in resettling them.
Archbishop Fisher admitted he was “quite surprised’’ the Pope took only Muslim families back to Rome on his plane from the Greek island of Lesbos last month, reportedly because Christians did not have their paperwork in order. It was much harder, the archbishop said, for Christians to escape Islamic State and enter UNHCR camps so they could be eligible for resettlement.
Recent reports of Islamic State fighters setting fire to a woman underlined the terrorists’ grotesque barbarism, on a par with that of history’s cruellest despots, he said.
However, the Pope told French Catholic newspaper La Croix last week that while “the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam’’, it was possible “to interpret the objective in Saint Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus sends disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest’’.
Archbishop Fisher was more diplomatic, saying the Pope’s view, probably reflected his Argentinian background and the negative aspects of the Christian Spanish Conquistadors’ conquest of Aztecs in the 16th century, and the ensuing “slavery, theft and patrimony’’.
This past week, America got a glimpse into what was really meant when Barack Obama said we were five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. The president demanded that school districts across the country allow boys who identify as female have access to girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and even college dorms. Many people have been warning that Obama has a lot of time left in office to push through some of his most, shall we say, radical ideas in his quest for social change. People would have never imagined back in 2008, however, that this man would one day issue decrees that would ultimately redefine humanity itself by pushing the issue of transgenderism into the forefront of everybody’s consciousness.
The liberal left would have you believe that allowing transgendered people to use the restroom of their choice is a civil rights issue comparable to the struggle black Americans have faced. To them, America is an oppressive society that clings to the idea of a Gender Binary System. This is the idea that gender itself is nothing more than a social construct based off a person’s biological sex and that by separating gender into two distinct classes, male and female, society is engaging in gender oppression. This means that we are forcing individuals into the expected norms and social mores of the biological sex assigned to them at birth. The left uses the term “gender identity” in an attempt to differentiate between the ways a person self-identifies and their actual gender. In fact, they claim that gender itself is defined, not by the individual’s biological anatomy, but by a complex relationship between their actual biology, how they self-identify, and the behaviors they exhibit that project that particular gender identification, as well as the expected social roles of that gender.
These ideas are Marxist in origin, as Karl Marx viewed the nuclear family as a vehicle of class oppression. In a civilized society the most basic institution of self governance is the family structure. Marxists on the other hand, view this structure as one that exploits the labor of women and reduces her to nothing more than a servant of men. They claim that because women are viewed as being the nurturer and caretaker of the home they are being oppressed. This was the idea behind Betty Friedan’sThe Feminine Mystique as well. While Friedan started the feminist movement masquerading as a typical suburban housewife, the truth is radically different. She was actually a radical left wing activist who pushed communist propaganda for nearly twenty five years before publishing her book. This means that she already held a biased, Marxist view on the traditional family and that she wrote her book with the intent of pushing change that would break the traditional view Americans held towards the family as an institution. The following is the first paragraph from The Feminine Mystique.
In her article entitled “On the Social Construction of Sex” Freya Brown, a Marxist, writes that the idea of gender is a set of baseless myths designed to “reinforce and ideologically” justify the oppression of women. Again, this comes from the Marxist idea that the family is an oppressive institution that exploits the labor of women while keeping them in the societal role of mother and caretaker. Consider the following from this source:
Some Marxists view the household as an institution that functions to support capitalism and it permits or even encourages exploitation. That is, by creating and recreating sexual inequalities, and keeping women in the home with responsibility for family subsistence, emotional support and reproduction, the family helps capitalism continue to exploit labour and helps maintains stability within a system of class oppression and inequality. There are various ways in which the family and sex roles do this. First are the strictly economic features. So long as women have primary responsibility for reproduction (physical and socialization) and household and family maintenance, women constitute a cheap form of labour, a reserve army of labour. T hey have been a latent reserve over the last forty years, some are a short term reserve over the economic cycle, and women are a labour reserve in a generational sense. That is, the expectation that women will not be as committed to many jobs as men, with time taken off for childbearing, child care, care of elderly parents, etc., allows employers to pay women less than men. The lower status of women within society also allows women to be paid less, since some wages and salaries are structured on status considerations.
Brown also goes on to say that it is the patriarchal ideology, or the idea that men are the head of the family structure, that needs to be dismantled in order to create true equality. She argues that a Marxist theory should govern society when it comes to gender identity.
At the end of the day, the sex/gender dichotomy is part of patriarchal ideology, and it is an idea that we need to break with in favor of a theory which is revolutionary and Marxist in character. The purpose of the present article is to provide an initial counter to the idea that sex assignment is “just biology.” A properly Marxist theory of sex will be more thoroughly explored in part two. Freya Brown-“On the Social Construction of Sex”
The whole purpose behind the transgender issue is not to push for civil rights, but to destroy the basic ideas behind the traditional gender structure and the institution of family. In its place would be a system based on Marxist theory where everybody is completely equal without the societal assigned pressures of having to behave according to our natural biology. Without a legal definition of sex, or male and female, there can be no family where there are traditional mothers and fathers recognized by law; therefore, the family would have been effectively neutralized. Riki Wilchins, in his or her article entitled “We’ll win the Bathroom Battle when the Binary Burns,” writes that the real struggle that gay and lesbian activists face is the hetero-binary system that queer people must inhabit. This is quite a telling admission, seeing as it was a convicted child rapist who wrote North Carolina’s transgender bathroom law. In another article entitled “Dismantling the Gender Binary System,” written by someone calling themselves Rae, it is admitted that educating people into the idea that gender is a social construct is the only way to break people from the rigid ideas of biological gender being what identifies us as individuals. This would explain why they are pushing the issue into our public school system. By conditioning students at an early age to accept transgender individuals into their personal space, the transition into a genderless society in their later years will be easy.
This is essentially a battle between the traditional Judeo-Christian view on the role of men and women and the Marxist view. The former views men and women as being complete equals with different roles to play in society while the latter argues that believing a woman should embrace her responsibility as a mother is a form of oppression. The left believes that, by destroying the idea of biological gender, they will essentially be creating a world of total equality where the stigma of behaving according to society’s definition of gender is gone. If this goal is realized, and the truth of biological sex is redefined by law under the guise of transgenderism and gender identity theory, the structure of our society would also be redefined because it is the family itself that has served as the basic institution of liberty. There would be no legal definition of men and women in the traditional sense, and the idea that fathers and mothers have separate but equal roles to play concerning the raising of children would thus be irrelevant and have no real meaning. If our country is to survive at all, this is an issue that must be fought on all levels.
Vatican City, May 11, 2016 / 04:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said the father’s embrace in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is a reminder that we never ought to despair, because nothing and no one can take away our dignity as children of God. Pointing to how the father in the parable had watched and waited for his younger son’s return, Francis noted how “tenderly he saw him from afar, meaning that he waited for him constantly, from above.” “The mercy of the father is overflowing, unconditional and manifests itself even before the son speaks,” he said. Even though the son recognizes his sin and voices remorse, “these words dissolve in front of the forgiveness of the father.” Our state as sons of God “is a fruit of love from the heart of the father,” the Pope said, adding that “it doesn’t depend on our merits or our actions, and therefore no one can take it away. No one can take this dignity away from us, not even the devil! No one can take this dignity!”
Pope Francis spoke to the thousands of pilgrims present in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience.
Before beginning his address, he noted how due to the rain, the sick and disabled were watching from a screen in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, and encouraged those present in the square to send them a greeting. The invitation was met a hardy round of applause as Francis spoke. He continued his catechesis on mercy as understood in scripture, focusing his speech on the final scene in the Parable of the Prodigal Son when the younger son returns and is embraced by the father, while the older son is resentful. When the younger son finally returns home, his declaration that “I am no longer worthy to be called your son” is “unbearable for the heart of the father,” who interrupts him and rushes to restore to him the signs of his dignity as a son, such as a fine robe, a ring and sandals on his feet. Jesus, the Pope observed, doesn’t describe a father that is “offended and resentful who says ‘I will make you pay!’” but on the contrary, illustrates that the only thing the father is concerned about is that “this son in front of him is healthy and safe.” This parable teaches us “to never despair,” he said, and pointed specifically to parents who, like the father, see their children becoming distant and taking “dangerous paths.” He also noted that the same can be said of pastors and catechists “who at times ask themselves if their work is in vain,” as well as prisoners, “those who have made poor choices and aren’t able to look to the future (and) those who hunger for mercy and forgiveness but believe they aren’t worthy.” No matter what situation life brings, “I must never forget that I’ll never cease being a child of God, of a father who loves me and waits for my return. Even in the worst situations in life God waits, wanting to embrace me,” he said. Pope Francis then pointed to the figure of the older brother, who although he was always at home with his father, “is so different” from him.
When he speaks to his father, the older son “speaks with contempt,” never once using the words “father” or “brother,” but instead boasts of how he had always been near the father and served him, the Pope observed. Neither has this son ever lived the joy of being close to his father, but accuses him of not ever giving him a young goat to celebrate, Francis said, adding “Poor father! One son went away, and the other was never truly close!” The father’s suffering in this passage “is like the suffering of God and of Jesus when we distance ourselves or when we think we are close and instead we are not,” he said. Francis noted that the older son “also needs mercy,” explaining that that he “represents us when we ask ourselves whether it’s worth it to struggle so much if we don’t get anything in return.” However, when the father responds telling his older son telling him that “everything I have is yours,” his logic “is that of mercy!” In their conversations with the father, both sons miss the point, Francis said: “the two brothers don’t speak to each other, they live different stories, but both reason in a logic foreign to Jesus: if you do good you get a reward, if you do bad you get punished.” By responding with the logic of mercy, the father not only recovers his lost son but can now restore the relationship between the brothers, the Pope said, adding that “the greatest joy for the father is to see his sons recognizing each other as brothers.” Each of the sons can decide to either unite themselves to the joy of the father, or to refuse, he said, and noted how parable ends leaving us in suspense, because we don’t know what the older son decided. Pope Francis closed by saying that this cliffhanger is “is a motivation for us. This Gospel teaches us that we all need to enter the house of the father and participate in his joy, in the feast of mercy and brotherhood.”
Good reporters are always intrigued by paradoxes, and my friend Giacomo Galeazzi of Italy’s La Stampa newspaper is unquestionably a talented reporter. Thus it’s no surprise that his new book, Il Concilio di Papa Francesco: La Nuova Primavera della Chiesa, pivots on a paradox. (In English, the title is, “The Council of Pope Francis: The New Spring of the Church.”) The paradox is this: Francis is the first pope since St. John XXIII who had no role whatsoever in the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), yet Vatican II arguably is the foundation of his entire papacy. As Galeazzi puts it, “Francis’ program is the council … the realization and actualization of the conciliar spring.” To explain that seeming conundrum, Galeazzi argues that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future pope, came of age as a leader in the Catholic Church in the period immediately following the council. He served as a Jesuit superior in Argentina from 1973 to 1979, when implementing the council’s directives was every religious order’s top priority. He also moved in the world of CELAM, the Latin American Episcopal Conference, at a time when that body was working out its own continental vision about what Vatican II meant, and how it should reshape the life and mission of the Church. According to Galeazzi, Francis took away two convictions from that experience: That Vatican II was absolutely fundamental for the future, and that, to a great extent, its vision today remains not fully implemented and lived.
As Luigi La Spina has observed in his own review of the book, by framing things this way Galeazzi overcomes the facile tendency in much commentary on Francis to assess things in terms of “rupture” v. “continuity.”
Yes, Francis is a pope of continuity, but it’s continuity with a council that itself represented a significant departure – a radical return to the sources of Christianity, which, Galeazzi says, Francis believes is still to be achieved. To be sure, as Galeazzi thoroughly documents, Francis’ vision of Vatican II is a distinctly Latin American one.
For many European and North American Catholics, the primary “cash value” of Vatican II was in the liturgy, especially the use of vernacular languages and the transition to the priest facing the people in the Mass. That’s why to this day, it’s almost impossible to have a conversation about liturgical practice in the West that doesn’t immediately get swept up into charged debates over “turning back the clock” on the council. Culturally, Vatican II intersected with the Western sexual revolution of the late 1960s, which made the primary lens for evaluating the impact of the council the extent to which it would prompt revisions in Catholic teaching on sexual ethics and women’s emancipation – a narrative that still dominates Western media coverage. In Latin America, however, the most significant wave unleashed by Vatican II was the “option for the poor,” which flowered in various forms of liberation theology, and more basically, in a decision by many Catholics to upend the Church’s traditional dependence on social elites and instead to embrace the broad mass of ordinary people, especially the marginalized.
More from CRUX
As Galeazzi shows, this had nothing to do with Marxism – for Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his like-minded Latin American pastors, it was a practical strategy of evangelization, taking account of the sobering reality that a tight union between throne and altar in Latin America over the centuries had distanced the Church from the people. In that sense, Galeazzi’s book helps American readers make sense of another seeming paradox about Francis: He claims to be a man of Vatican II, yet he’s not adopted the ecclesiastical reform agenda that many Americans associate with the council, such as women priests or changes in teaching on birth control, abortion or homosexuality. In part, it’s because that wasn’t the Vatican II Bergoglio experienced in Latin America. The key insight here is not that he hasn’t upended Church teaching, which was always unrealistic, but that these aren’t even the issues he naturally connects to “the spirit of Vatican II.” The Council of Pope Francis carries forewords by Bishop Nunzio Galantino, Francis’ hand-picked secretary of the powerful Italian bishops’ conference (CEI), and by Galeazzi’s colleague at La Stampa, the eminent Vatican writer Andrea Tornielli. The book will be presented on Thursday in Turin, where La Stampa is based. At the moment there are no plans for an English translation, but let’s hope a publisher steps in soon, because The Council of Pope Francis offers perspectives that American readers in particular could benefit from considering.
Pope Francis invokes Our Lady of Fatima during last year's general audience, held on 13 May 2015. - AFP
11/05/2016 11:46
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday said Our Lady of Fatima “invites us once again to turn to prayer, penance, and conversion.”
The Holy Father noted the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima is commemorated this year on this Friday (13 May) during his remarks to Polish-speaking pilgrims at his General Audience.
“She asks us to never offend God again. She forewarns all humanity about the necessity of abandoning oneself to God, the source of love and mercy,” Pope Francis said. “Following the example of St. John Paul II, a great devotee of Our Lady of Fatima, let us listen attentively to the Mother of God and ask for peace for the world,” – he continued – “Praised be Jesus Christ!”
Thirty-five years ago, Pope St. John Paul II was shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca during the General Audience, which took place on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima in 1981. The saint attributed his survival to Our Lady, and gave one of the bullets used in the attack to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal. The bullet was placed in the crown of the statue of the Virgin Mary which is housed at the shrine.
This is an infamously historic day for Victoria and you could be forgiven for not noticing that anything has changed at all. No church bells pealing, calling people to prayer, asking God for His mercy on our State. However over 100 Helpers were there in prayer on Saturday after a beautiful Mass with seven Priests in Carlton. Some people processed in prayer to the modern-day Calvary and others stayed to pray in the church before the Blessed Sacrament. Thank you to those who have supported us in prayer from afar.
This morning Richard, Ken and Doris prayed on the edge of the 150 metre zone. Two activists from the Sex Party were there taking photos of the Helpers (they had been inside the zone for some time before approaching to take the photos). The police showed up and thanked the Helpers for adhering to the new law. He told them that the Melbourne City Council would shortly be marking lines where the 150 metre boundary would be. That's a lot of line-marking! When Ken and Richard walked past the Fertility Control Clinic (FCC) praying the rosary on their way to the bank, a few of the FCC staff and the Sex Party activists, who were standing at the front gate, didn't say a word to them. The Snr. Sergeant had earlier affirmed the Helpers' rights to use the footpath.
Richard showed the policeman the leaflet that some people had distributed in neighbouring letterboxes (1,800 of them) on Sunday 1st May. It details the number of unborn babies destroyed at the FCC since 1973 - a shocking total which residents will now be aware of.
Following is our Press Release which we have sent to the media who have requested it. Don't expect they will use it.
Please pray for the intercession of St. Mary of the Cross for the future endeavours of the Helpers.
Press Release regarding the anti-Helpers law,
ludicrously named ‘Safe Access Zone’ Law Saturday 30th April, 2016
This law prevents anyone from acting peacefully within the designated area. “It must be the first law of its kind in Victoria to criminalise peaceful activities”, Mrs Tanya O’Brien said. Nowhere in the world has an extreme exclusion zone of 150 metres been imposed. Buffer zones of lesser restrictions have been struck down by the courts in various states of the USA.
Helpers have been praying and offering help outside abortion centres around Victoria for the past 23 years. In particular, Helpers have been present on a daily basis outside the ‘Fertility Control Clinic’ in East Melbourne. During all these years, not one of the Helpers has ever been convicted of an offence. There are laws already to deal with accusations of harassment and intimidation. The Helpers presence is peaceful and therefore a new law has been construed which moves the goal posts, imposing draconian fines and possible jail term for merely being present or offering a pamphlet to those who wish to receive it.
We have been able to assist over 300 pregnant mothers to date. It is incumbent on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to show the government how it will make up for the shortfall in services to mothers that our absence will create when this exclusion zone is enforced.
The law is clearly unconstitutional. It will inevitably be challenged in the courts and it will inevitably be struck down. It is arrogant for the Victorian Parliament to join with the abortion industry in passing an unconstitutional law to deny pregnant women any knowledge of the type of assistance that is available to them from the Helpers.
This law, which comes into effect from Monday 2 May, will not prevent the Helpers from reaching out to those in need. It is our aim to expand our activities in the future.
by Deacon Nick Donnelly • ChurchMilitant.com • May 1, 2016 Pope Francis, like a number of other modern popes, has a devotion to Bd. Bartolo Longo. Pope St. John Paul II beatified Bartolo Longo in 1980 and presented him as an exemplar of a life made holy by praying the Most Holy Rosary: As a true apostle of the Rosary, Blessed Bartolo Longo had a special charism. His path to holiness rested on an inspiration heard in the depths of his heart: "Whoever spreads the Rosary is saved!" As a result, he felt called to build a Church dedicated to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary in Pompeii, against the background of the ruins of the ancient city, which scarcely heard the proclamation of Christ before being buried in 79 A.D. during an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, only to emerge centuries later from its ashes as a witness to the lights and shadows of classical civilization. By his whole life's work and especially by the practice of the "Fifteen Saturdays," Bartolo Longo promoted the Christocentric and contemplative heart of the Rosary, and received great encouragement and support from Leo XIII, the "Pope of the Rosary." (Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, "Rosarium Virginis Mariae"). However, if you type "Bartolo Longo" into a search engine you'll get some shocking headlines: "The Satanist on the Path to Sainthood"; "Pompeii and a Satanist Turned Saint"; "Satanism, Pompeii and the Rosary — a Bizarre Tale Surrounds Francis' Next Trip." In 2014 Pope Francis flew by helicopter from the Vatican to Pompeii to visit the only Church dedicated to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary built by a former satanist. The Church has been raised to the status of a pontifical basilica and is home to a miraculous image of Our Lady of the Rosary. Pope Francis composed a special prayer dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, which he prayed before the sacred painting. His words refer to the deep wounds of sin that plague us and our society: We entrust our miseries, the many streets of hate and blood, the thousands of ancient and new poverties and above all, our sins. To you we entrust ourselves, Mother of Mercy: grant us the forgiveness of God, help us to build a world according to your heart. O Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain that ties us to God, chain of love that makes us brothers, we will not leave you again. You will be in our hands a weapon of peace and forgiveness, star that guides our path. Bartolo Longo's life is testimony to the power of the Most Holy Rosary to heal very serious, very deep wounds inflicted by the devil and sin. Bartolo was born on February 10, 1841, the son of devout Catholic parents who daily prayed the Rosary as a family. Bartolo's father died when he was only 10 years old, his mother remarried and he began to drift away from the Faith. During his studies at Naples University Bartolo became involved with the occult, taking part in séances, fortune-telling and sexual promiscuity. He was drawn deeper into occult practices, becoming a member of a satanic cult and eventually being initiated into the satanic priesthood. Like many involved in the occult and satanism, he was afflicted with demonic oppression, which was ruining his life. People suffering from demonic oppression experience self-destructive thoughts, self-harming, the urge to actions that are damaging to themselves and others. Bartolo has been described as suffering "despair, fear, hate, anger, an inability to forgive, resentment, and thoughts of suicide." Sinking deeper into self-destructive darkness, one day Bartolo heard the voice of his dead father beseech him, "Return to God! Return to God!" A friend of Bartolo put him in touch with a Dominican priest, Friar Alberto Radente, who taught him about the healing power of the Most Holy Rosary. At the age of 30 on October 7, 1871, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Bartolo became a Dominican tertiary and took the name "Rosario." Following his conversion Bartolo returned one last time to a séance at which he held up a Rosary and declared, "I renounce spiritualism because it is nothing but a maze of error and falsehood." But Bartolo's struggles against occultism didn't stop with that séance. In the town of Pompeii, Bartolo found Catholics trapped by the same superstition and dark practices. He longed to bring them the healing he had found through the Rosary. To this end Bartolo promoted devotion to the Rosary by forming a Confraternity of the Rosary, by restoring a dilapidated church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary and by personally sponsoring an annual festival in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. Bartolo also established the Marian devotion the Supplication to the Queen of Victories, first prayed in Pompeii on October 1883, and which is now recited all over the world on May 8, and on the first Sunday in October. As well as these Spiritual Works of Mercy, Bartolo Longo was inspired by his deep love for Our Lady and the Church to radical Corporal Works of Mercy, in the words of Pope St. John Paul II, transforming "Pompeii into a living citadel of human and Christian goodness." He established orphanages, Sons of Prisoners, Daughters of Prisoners, Daughters of the Holy Rosary of Pompeii and Dominican Tertiaries.
The Miraculous Painting
Miraculous painting of Our Lady In 1875 Bartolo received a special grace, though he didn't know it at the time. Father Radente gave him a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary. In bad condition, the painting was also of poor artistic quality. If that wasn't enough to put Bartolo off the painting, it had been brought to him in the back of a cart used to transport manure around the farms. However, seeing that it came as a gift from the priest who had helped him in his darkest hour, Bartolo accepted it, paid for it to be restored and placed it in the church he had renovated. The painting portrays Mary seated on a throne holding the child Jesus and handing a Rosary to St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena, who are standing at her feet. The moment Bartolo hung the painting in the church, miracles began to happen. On the very first day, 12-year-old Clorinda Lucarelli was completely healed of epileptic seizures diagnosed as incurable. A year after the first miracle, Bartolo began the construction of a larger church that was completed in 1891, becoming the Pontifical Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii. Bartolo "Rosario" Longo died in 1926 at the age of 85. His final words were "My only desire is to see Mary who saved me and who will save me from the clutches of Satan." Blessed Paul VI had a deep devotion to this miraculous painting of Our Lady of the Rosary, and following more restoration work, had it temporarily displayed in St. Peter's Basilica, before its return to Pompeii. During his veneration of the sacred image Pope Paul VI said, "[J]ust as the image of the Virgin has been repaired and decorated ... so may the image of Mary that all Christians must have within themselves be restored, renovated and enriched." In our own time, with the growing acceptance of depraved evil, satanists are becoming more brazen, raising up statues to Satan and other demons in Detroit and London. In His providence, God has given us Bd. Bartolo Longo, and the personal devotion of so many modern popes, to assist us in battling and defeating Satan through the power of the Most Holy Rosary. Blessed Bartolo "Rosario" Longo, pray for us.
Deacon Nick Donnelly is an author based in the diocese of Lancaster, England. You can follow him at @protectthepope.
