By Theodore Shoebat
A meeting was conducted in the Vatican to condemn the Catholic doctrine of Holy War, thereby condemning the Crusades and every holy war done by the Catholic Church against Islam and other evil forces. According to one report on the meeting:
A Vatican-hosted conference has called on the Catholic Church to abandon its ‘just war’ theory, asking Pope Francis to write an encyclical on nonviolence and ‘just peace’ instead.
The conference, sponsored by the Vatican’s justice and peace office and Pax Christi International, the Catholic peace movement, said the just war doctrine has been used too often to justify violence rather than prevent it.
Instead, Catholics should pursue “active nonviolence” befitting the gospel message of peace, they said.
The historic gathering of 80 senior Catholic peace leaders from 20 nations met at the Vatican between April 11-13.
It was the first time the Catholic Church has discussed abandoning the just war theory, which has been advocated for over 1,700 years. At the close of the conference an official statement was submitted to Pope Francis, appealing to “re-commit to the centrality of gospel nonviolence”.
…
They see a fundamental internal inconsistency in allowing violence in the name of the gospel. Instead, they argue that Jesus modelled a life of active nonviolence.
“Neither passive nor weak, Jesus’ nonviolence was the power of love in action. In vision and deed he is the revelation and embodiment of the nonviolent God, a truth especially illuminated in the Cross and Resurrection. He calls us to develop the virtue of nonviolent peacemaking,” the closing statement said.
The just war theory, by contrast, has “too often… been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war”.
“We confess that the people of God have betrayed this central message of the gospel many times, participating in wars, persecution, oppression, exploitation, and discrimination,” the statement added.
“Suggesting that a ‘just war’ is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict.”
What do they propose instead?
‘Just peace’.
In the context of “tremendous suffering”, the conference called on Christians to push for active nonviolence.
They are petitioning for the Church, and Pope Francis, to recognise that “peace requires justice and justice requires peacemaking.”
Based on gospel nonviolence, they suggested “a Just Peace approach offers a vision and an ethic to build peace as well as prevent, defuse, and to heal the damage of violent conflict. This ethic includes a commitment to human dignity and thriving relationships, with specific criteria, virtues, and practices to guide our actions.”
Rooted in the “unconditional love of God”, they looked to Jesus, who “in his own times, rife with structural violence… proclaimed a new, nonviolent order”.
The group, who submitted their letter to the Pope, also urged the Church to “lift up the prophetic voice of the Church to challenge unjust world powers and to support and defend those nonviolent activists whose work for peace and justice put their lives at risk.
These evil doers who have flooded the Catholic Church with their evils, their connivance, their toleration of evil that they masquerade as ‘peace’, desecrate the very beauty of the valor of the Christians of old who shed blood for the glory of Christ the King. From the blood of warriors the zeal of the carriers of the Cross emanates, and as high as the heavens does it ascend our souls. It is no wonder, that when the Cristeros of Mexico were fighting the antichrist government of Calles it was the institution of the Church (with the exception of many righteous priests) who condemned the warriors who defended Christianity. One Cristero said: “This was how I felt: I went out to win over armed people, willing to go to war to defend the freedom of God and my fellow men.” But such zeal did not receive the respect and admiration of bishops. In 1932, Bishop Ignacio Placencia of Zacatecas banned priests from giving the Sacraments to the Cristero warriors. One Cristero said: “Don’t be afraid that no one will help you, that neither the rich nor the clergy will shield you.” In the same year of 1932, the bishops of Mexico issued twenty two statements of condemnation against “violence” which were really directed against the Cristeros who fought and died defending the Faith.
The song of Christendom has been heard from the very depths of the soul; the harmony of her sound emanates from the annals of her history, the cries of her martyr’s blood, and hearing this sublime song compels one then to be confronted with the choice between advancing the empire of Christ or being a slave to the despotism of the devil. But how can one not choose Christendom after reading her valiant history? The inspiration of the Faith flows from an eternal spring; the enemies of truth may cut her down, but like a reed rooted onto a perpetual river, it always grows back. Eternity has no owner, time can never be possessed, and Christianity will never cease, for from the timeless realms do the words of Truth speak, and from them the soul is enflamed with the fires of love.
The fire is sparked, the heavens breath, the winds rush and the light coming forth from the coal becomes brighter. Such is the spirit of zeal. The soul is like coal, without the spark of zeal from the spirit it remains cold and callous. But once the soul is enflamed, once it has spirit, then its zeal and valor never die, because a heart burning with fire is a heart gripped by the hand of eternity. God is love, as St. John tells us, and a heart gripped by the liberating spirit of God will never cease in its battle against the enemies of love. The zeal, the enthusiasm, the valor, the will, the indomitable spirit, the thirst for justice, the aspiring to see evil vanquished, all of these virtues will never end once they are ignited in the soul.
All it takes is the flame to be ignited in our hearts, for the rising of Christendom, for the world to see our zeal, to behold Christianity and thus, to see God. Through beholding zeal, man sees the light of eternal love. “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
The modern world saw the light of the Faith in the 20th century, in that almost forsaken land of Mexico, when the government of the tyrant, Plutaro Elias Calles, imposed his despotic edicts to uproot Christianity from the land. The Episcopalian and Methodist churches sided with the government; the US government sided with the Mexican despot; Margaret Sanger and the Ku Klux Klan sided with the antichrist government. But only a small group of valorous warriors, were for Christ. These were the Cristeros, and they let their whole souls be illuminated by the light that beams from the Cross of selfless love and inspires us to sacrifice ourselves as the Holy One sacrificed Himself.
These Crusaders of Mexico were not just warriors, but intellects, who understood how their war was not one of physical desires, but of aspirations that transcended all things corporal. The Cristero general, Aurelio Acevedo, declared: “Our leader is Christ the King”, and the Cristero and martyr, Noberto Lopez, declared before government soldiers executed him:
“Since I took up arms, I was determined to give up my life for Christ”
These warriors of the Cross, indeed did they take up arms for Christ, and they dauntlessly combated the evil government that ruled Mexico, which was filled with Freemasons and occultists. It is true that when the Cristeros fought in battle with government soldiers, that they cried out “Viva Cristo Rey!” (Long live Christ the King), while the enemy troops screamed, “Hail Satan!” The story of the Cristeros is the story of Christendom: a perpetual war beginning from the most ancient of times between the sons of God and the sons of Belial, between those who sit on the table of God and drink of the cup of God, and those who sit on the table of Satan and drink of the cup of the devils.
Cristero warriors
The Cristeros were Catholics who partook in the Mass and consumed the Eucharist — the Body and Blood of Christ —, and the enemy was a mixture of occultists and protestants who hated everything about the Catholic Church. The dictator of Mexico, Calles, was in fact a protestant who received support from the protestant Episcopalians (Margaret Sanger being one of them), the protestant Methodists, and the protestant Ku Klux Klan, and Calles even started his own church. While he was governor of Sonora, Calles wanted to create his own protestant church, and to drive out the Catholic priests and replace them with a new priesthood. He worked heavily on this goal with the Confederacion Regional Obrera Mexicana (Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers). This institution was headed by Luis Morones who hated all Catholic workers’ unions, and who also founded the “Mexican Catholic Apostolic Church,” founded as a protest against and a replacement for the Catholic Church.
An secret Catholic Mass during the tyranny of Calles
Thus, when the Cristeros rose up against the shackles of occult despotism, it was a war between those of the Catholic Faith and enemies who were but mere successors of the Protestant Reformation. The Cristeros, when they fought, they held up giant crosses and strived in the struggle against evil with total trust on and submission to the will of God. The Cristeros were the last of the Crusaders.
Hope overcame their souls and the eternal rivers of love and selfless compassion flowed into their beings and ignited zeal within them, and what kept their spirits up was a fervor ascending from the very depths of an enflamed heart. A journalist once asked the Cristero veteran, Antonio Alfonso Galvez, “Were you a Cristero?” and he responded with, “Yes, from the heart!” It was from the heart that he knew himself to be a combatant for the Holy Cross. It was from the heart that the Cristeros were aware that they were soldiers for a spiritual struggle, for the saints in Heaven — the spirits of men made perfect —; for the valorous angels who won the first sacred war which took place in Heaven; for the Son of God Who is Our Victory and our Hope and Our Inspiration, for it was He who vanquished evil on the Cross, as they combated evil while they carried their cross. Where did the zeal of the Cristeros come from? It came from Christendom; the ardour of the Cristeros was a continuation of Christendom that sprung from the beautiful heritage brought to Mexico through Catholic Spain.
When the Cristeros rose above the enslaving ways of conformity, and ascended to a higher awareness, one that looks beyond servitude to tyranny and gazes upward to Heaven; when they vanquished armies through Faith and subdued trained soldiers with the flames of passion and avidity, the American government gave weapons to the Mexican government so that they could slaughter the Catholics. Just as the protestants helped the Ottoman Empire to kill the Catholics, the protestant forces assisted the antichrist government of Mexico to slaughter the Catholics warriors. But as the Maccabees were a small body of warriors when they strived against an empire, the Cristeros continued on in their eternal struggle, regardless of their small number and of what power their enemies had.
It was from a heart burning with ardor that they cried out, “The soldiers of Christ will not be defeated!” Galves recounted how that when they exclaimed this war cry, and when they cried out “Long live Christ the King and our Lady of Guadalupe!”, that, in his words, “we felt incredible bravery … incredible.” This is because they had zeal sparked from the enflaming of the heart, and from that zeal, their enemies knew what true Christians were. They knew that true Christians are not those who comply with evil, who make deals with tyranny, who submit to despotism; they comprehended that true Christians fight evil and obey God rather than man. In the valor of the Cristeros, the world beheld true Christianity, they beheld the light of love that springs forth from mystical union between the heart of humanity and the Heart of Christ.
As the Serbian hymn says, “Lord, I am listening to you, speak to me until my heart burns”. And in that day, the hearts of these Christians who sold their purses and bought swords, burned. Gregory Palamas spoke of the person united with God, that he knows that he is one with Him “from the peace which fills his mind, and the fire of love for God which burns in him.” (Palamas, The Triads, 1.3.22) The warriors of Christ thirst after righteousness and they fight for it, as Moses fought the shepherds so that the women could take water from the well. They thirst for that which they fight for: righteousness, “judgment, and mercy, and faith.” (Matthew 23:23) Their faith is manifested in their actions, and through their actions the world beholds the light that enlightens.
Cristero fighters
The warriors of Christ, the Cristeros, manifested their faith by their actions of selfless compassion, and truly could they say with the Apostle, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) These words of the Apostle, indeed they are speaking of theosis, that union with God that all of humanity was created for, and surely are the emulator’s of Christ’s valor one with the Divine.
The soldiers of Mexico fled, but the Cristeros pushed forward without fear nor trepidation, because their enemies fought for transient things while they fought for that which is beyond the self. Surely can we say with these Cristeros,
“The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.” (Psalm 58:10)
Where are the Christians today reciting these verses? They are ashamed of them, ashamed of their own history, and thus have no identity. People who say they are Christians, but have no connection with the history of the Faith, have no connection with the martyrs of the Faith, no connection with its warriors, its selfless combatants, have no identity. The lie of the devil is that we can create our own identities, but the only true identity is one founded in Christ. Without Christ, we are nothing but dry leaves ready to be dissipated through the vicious winds, we are “clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever.” (Jude 3:12-13) It is in Christ that humanity has its identity, and in Christ is all of His warriors and martyrs. Thus to see a holy combatant of the Cross, is to see Christ. As Juan Donoso Cortes wrote:
“The Church militant, the Church suffering, and the Church triumphant are one in our Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of Christians in heaven, whose petitions descend as a beneficent dew upon those who combat”
The martyr and Christ are one; the warrior and Christ are one, for both sacrifice, and wherever there is sacrifice, there is Christ. Every drop of saintly blood that drips upon the earth, is a reflection of the Cross, a small image of the blood of God that dripped in the victory over the Mountain of Death. The Crucifixion is not some mere execution, the Crucifixion is the war of all wars, for it is the war of humanity. It is the war between those who love humanity and those who want to destroy humanity; it is the war between those who emulate Christ and those who emulate the devil. When the Cristeros fought the enemies of God they saw themselves as in God, as participating in His divine nature. As the Cristero colonel, Ezequiel Mendoza Barragan said:
“You and I regret in a heartfelt way the death of those men who by faith gave up their lives, families, and other earthly interests; and shed their blood for the sake of God and our beloved homeland as true Christian martyrs do. Their blood, together with that of our Lord Jesus Christ and that of all the martyrs of the Holy Spirit, will afford us from God the Father the blessings we hope for on earth and in heaven.”
The Cristeros did not see their war as secular, rather they knew that their struggle was simply a continuation of that war that commenced in Heaven, between God and His Angels and Satan and his demons. The Cristero warrior, Ezequiel Mendoza, knew of this spiritual war and comprehended the sublime truth that it was in the midst of the cause against the tyrannical government of Mexico:
“All those impious men who, from Cain to those who desolate the universe now, who appear to be great and powerful, who make a great noise and demand that men worship them, are only princes of error; they are nothing but beasts come up out of the abyss, but God has always sent truly great men to fight them, ever since the Archangel Michael in Heaven, all history is the history of this war. Woe to the tyrants who persecute Christ the King! They are the beasts in human shape of whom the Apocalypse speaks! … Now the Calleses are pressing us, they say it is because we are bad, because we are stubborn in wanting to defend the honour and glory of Him who died naked on the highest Cross between two thieves, because He was the worst of all humans because He did not wish to submit to the supreme lord of the earth.”
When we read of how Don Juan de Austria fought the Turks, how the soldiers in the Battle of Lepanto, in unison, exhorted the Virgin Mary to pray for them in the fight; when we read of how El Cid pushed forward against the Moors for the retaking of Catholic Spain; when we read of how the Crusaders valiantly retook entire regions from the Muslims for the glory of Christendom; when we read of how Romanos Diogenes sacrificed everything he had, even his very life, for the empire of Christianity; when we read of how Constantine crushed the pagan tyrants through the power and valor of the Cross, we must never forget that the flame of Christendom was never extinguished. Christendom is ever ready to be awakened in our hearts. Once the flare of enlightenment is kindled in the hearts of the people, the world will witness the conquering Christendom rise again. Now is the devil’s hour, but his hour will soon be eclipsed by the flaming sun of Christian warriors.
Hernan Cortez conquered Mexico and overthrew the Aztec empire. When he entered, the indigenous saw in him a humanity unknown to their souls which were so conditioned to sinister despotism. Catholic Spain brought to the Indians a new way — the Way — to life. And when they saw the righteous actions of these warriors of the Cross, they witnessed Christianity, they beheld the light. It was through arms and warfare that Christianity entered this land where God was unknown. Cortez commenced and led a revolt against the tyrannical Aztecs, and brought the people to freedom. Once the pagan bastions were destroyed, the Virgin of Guadalupe was seen by St. Juan Diego,and by the image that she imprinted on his poncho, Mexico was converted. If you say that the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is “idolatrous,” do not forget that what you see on the icon is what John beheld with his own eyes:
“And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1)
Do you not see, how the saints of Heaven work with the warriors of God to convert nations?
God used the Conquistadors to overthrow pagan despotism, and it was the Mother of God the Son who brought the nation to the Faith. And if you think that Mary cannot bring people to Christ, read in the holy Gospel where it says, “His mother saith to the waiters: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye.” (John 2:5) Mary commanded people to obey her Son, and so she can have entire nations follow Christ.
Gorosieta, leader of the Cristeros
Mary asked her Son to make more wine, and He did. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “that a woman should command the Son of God is a dignity without parallel.” At the word of His mother, Christ made water into wine. Christ did not arise and do this miracle, until His mother told Him to do so. When she said to her Son, “They have no wine” (John 2:3), Christ told her, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.” (John 2:4) Christ did not say this to chide her, rather He told her that the hour of His Passion has not yet come. But what does wine have to do with Christ’s passion? Wine is symbolic of blood and death, thus why Christ tells His Father, “let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39), and to Peter He says, “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me” (John 18:11). The cup is pictorially sublime, being filled with wine, that is, suffering and anguish.
Now, In order for wine to be made, grapes must first be crushed and squeezed under a winepress, and this is symbolic of the shedding of human blood in war, and it is this very imagery that God uses when describing the victory over His enemies. For in Lamentations we read:
“The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.” (Lamentations 1:5)
Thus, we know that the wine Christ made from the water represents blood, fury and slaughter. But what of the water? Water is symbolic of nations, of peoples. Hence the angel tells John,
“The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” (Revelation 17:15)
As Mary entered Mexico to finish the conquest by the Cross, and as she told her Son to make more wine, so will she in the end participate with her Son in the Final Crusade in which the Antichrist will be defeated, all the world will be conquered under Christendom, and the flood of the enemies of the Cross made into blood as grapes crushed under the winepress. As Deborah exhorted Barak to crush the Canaanite tyranny, Mary will help lead the armies of Christendom to victory. St. Paul speaks of “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints.” (1 Thessalonians 3:13)
Since all of the saints will be with Christ, then Mary will as well be with Him, and because she has a position so great (the Mother of our Salvation), it is not inadequate to say that she will have a distinct position in the army of the Lord. As Jael, Deborah, Esther and Judith all had distinct positions in the wars and defense of Israel, so shall Mary in that Final Crusade when Christ will establish His Empire throughout all the world, vanquishing and conquering all of the governments of Islam, of paganism and heresy. The warriors of the Cross will be as burning flames, filled with zeal so great that it will be as a thousand suns before the enemy. St. Louis de Montfort describes these soldiers, and their leadership under St. Mary as such:
“They shall be a burning fire of the ministers of the Lord, who shall kindle the fire of divine love everywhere, and sicut sagittce in manu potentis—like sharp arrows in the hand of the powerful Mary to pierce her enemies. … They shall carry on their shoulders the bloody standard of the cross, the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, the sacred names of Jesus and Mary in their hearts, and the modesty and mortification of Jesus Christ in their own behavior. These are the great men who shall come. But Mary shall be there by the order of the Most High, to extend His Empire over that of the impious, the idolaters, and the Mahometans.” (Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, 1.56-59, ellipses mine)
When the Christians fought the Muslims in the Battle of Lepanto, every soldier had a rosary in his hand; when the Christians fought the Muslims in the Crusades, they held up the Cross; when the Cristeros fought Mexican troops, they held up the Crucifix. As these battles were, so shall it be in the Final Crusade, except that in that time the flames of zeal will be at their highest, greater than anything the world has seen.
Cristeros hold up the Cross
The Final Crusade will be between those who love and honor the Mother of Christ, and those who hate her. Read what St. John wrote of the end times, that “the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Revelation 12:17) The dragon — that is, the coming Islamic empire of the Antichrist — hates Mary and wars against her seed who are the Church. What John saw was a further expounding on what God said in Genesis: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed” (Genesis 3:15). Notice that the Scripture does not refer to an enmity, but enmities. The Scripture was saying that there will be many enmities, many wars and struggles between the seed of Mary, that is the Church of Apostolic succession, and the seed of Satan who despise Mary. As Montfort wrote:
“God has not only set an enmity but enmities, not simply between Mary and the devil, but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil” (Montford, True Devotion to Mary, 1.53)
What St. John wrote in regards to the enmity between the dragon and the woman, is an image of the entire history of Christendom, wherein tyrannies and despotisms war against those who revere Mary. The pagans warred against Christians who revered Mary, and Constantine defeated them. At around 250 AD, a hymn to Mary the Theotokos (God-bearer) was written that said:
“Beneath your compassion
we take refuge,
Theotokos! Our
prayers, do not despise
in necessities,
but from danger
deliver us,
only pure,
only blessed one.”
This prayer was written at around the year 250, before the reign of Constantine in 312, which flies in the face of all those who argue that reverence to Mary is of more recent origin. Christians were revering Mary as they were being persecuted by pagan Rome, and it was these Christians who Constantine, guided and destined by God, defended and liberated. the Muslims for a millennia have been trying to destroy both the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, both of whom revere the Mother of God.
When the tyrant Calles attempted to destroy Christianity in Mexico, it was not just some political move of despotism, but a manifestation of the eternal war that transcends all of the physical realm, of that war between the Mother of our Salvation and the devil, fueled by the desire to uproot the whole of the Faith, to prevent the people from worshipping Christ, from receiving the Sacraments, and from revering the Virgin of Guadalupe. St. John wrote the Book of Revelation and beheld the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and her head crowned with twelve stars, as he lived imprisoned in Patmos for defying the tyranny of Domitian; and the lowly warriors in Mexico, with humble hearts melting under the candlelight of hope, beheld the same woman John once saw, as the Virgin of Guadalupe, when they defied the tyranny of Calles.
Cristeros with the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe
The story of the Cristeros is the story of Christendom, a small kindling flame in which lies the whole spirit of the Cross, and the way of self-sacrifice; a shadow of the greatest glory in which humble men become self-sacrificers and ascend to be greater than empires; a small image of the greatest glory, an eternal love that saves us all.
Read the stories of Christendom, and what you will find is that her greatest warriors were either Catholic or Orthodox. What does this tell us, but that the Church Militant is of the Church that can trace itself back to the Apostles? and only the Catholic and Orthodox can do this. The Church Militant on earth is the Catholic Church, and it is this Church that can boast of being of the lineage from Christ to the Apostles to now. Throughout history the Catholic Faith — the Western and the Eastern — has fought the forces of evil, for its founder is Christ, the Holy One Who came to destroy the works of the devil.
The mission of the Church’s Founder is the same aspiration of His Church, and the war never ends, it is ceaseless until the final victory of Christ and His armies of saints. And who will be these saints but those in Heaven and on earth? They will all be together, they will be one army under Christ, and the victory will transcend all corporal happiness, all sadness, all despair, all tears.
To read the history of Christendom is to read the continuation of divine history. So many believe that divine history ends at the New Testament. But the Apostles were just as historical as they were spiritual. They had successors, and their successors had successors; Christianity’s history continued, and in it were martyrs, warriors, persecutions, empires, kingdoms and wars. As Israel had her miracles, martyrs, persecutions and wars, so did Christendom have the same. Christianity is not a letter on a book, but a living reality in which the beautiful and dauntless works of selfless men manifest the sublime and eternal truth that ascends our souls to the mountain of heavenly Zion.
To read the history of Christian warfare is to realize that Christianity did not go underground until the Protestant Reformation, or that it only kept going through some obscure heretical groups here and there; to read the stories of Christian wars is to realize Christianity itself, it is to realize that the Faith flowed like a river from an eternal spring, building empires and appointing great fighters and emperors, queens and monastics who upheld justice and charity; it is to realize that the Faith consists of so many peoples united by Christ for the cause of one struggle: to liberate all of mankind and bring humanity into the light of the Cross; it is to realize that the sword of St. Peter was never disposed, but always remained in the sheath of the Church; it is to realize the perpetual story of Christianity’s struggle, that it was continuously done by the hands of Catholics and Orthodox, and righteous men who honored the Catholic Faith. To read the history of Christendom and her wars, is to cease to be protestant.
After the British conquered Jerusalem in 1917, the great General Lord Allenby — who was neither Catholic nor Orthodox — treaded the holy ground of the divinely destined city as a pensive pilgrim, as the warriors of the First Crusade were in their conquest of Jerusalem. On August 5th, 1918, a Dominican lay brother guided the soldiers in a pilgrimage led by a Catholic sergeant-major, carrying up high a silver crucifix, as the Crusaders of old had done, and as the Cristeros did in their battle against the enemies of the Cross. It was a carrying on of the beautiful custom of Christendom. In this event, Englishmen, Irishmen, Scots and Australians became one under the Cross and in the sacrificial emulation of their Lord. As the English monk, Dom Bede Camm, who was present in this procession, wrote:
“Down the steep hill from the gate into the Valley of Hinnom, and thence up the Mount of Evil Counsel on the other side, on the road to Bethlehem, as far as the eye could see, stretched the long ranks of soldier pilgrims, two deep – English, Scots, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans, British West Indians, and even some Catholics from the Indian Army. … It was an inspiring sight that met one’s eyes. The big church was packed. The general [Weston] and the officers had seats in the nave, but the choir, sanctuary, nave, aisles, were thronged with men, some sitting on the ground, others standing pressed together so closely that the priests had the greatest difficulty in getting to the altar. I shall never forget facing that great throng of bronzed men who had been through so many dangers, endured so many hardships in order to deliver Jerusalem. …It was wonderful to hear them sing the familiar hymns during the Mass that followed. I have never heard anything like that Faith of Our Fathers shouted from fifteen hundred lusty throats, and it was even more wonderful to kneel in the hush and the stillness that fell on that great crowd when the bell rang out and the Host was raised. I don’t wonder that the celebrant burst into tears and could hardly go on with the Mass. He told us afterwards that he had never been so moved in his life, and he wrote a detailed account of the pilgrimage to Rome, which (as I found later on) had delighted the Holy Father.”
The unity of races, the enflaming of hearts, the rushing of warm tears from the overwhelming presence of the General Christ in the midst of His warriors, who embraced sacrifice and became one with divinity — this is of the essence of Christianity. Though Allenby was not Catholic officially, he fully welcomed this procession with grace and a pious heart, so much so that we can say that he was Catholic in spirit, and one can go so far as to say that he was more Catholic than most who take upon that title today.
The Final Crusade will not be limited to just Christians versus Muslims, but Catholic Christendom — in which Latin and Orthodox will be united — verses those who protest Catholic truth. Muslims are protestant, for they protest the Catholic teaching of the Trinity, of the Eucharist, of baptism and of the saints. I would go so far as to say that Muslims are some of the most zealous protestants, because they tried to conquer Rome numerous times, and managed to even sack Rome, and till this day they are bent on overtaking this holy city wherein lie the people, “called to be saints.” (Romans 1:7) Do not forget how the protestants assisted the Ottoman Empire; do not forget how the reformers desired to see the destruction of Catholic Christendom; do not forget how protestant America, England and Australia gave weapons to the Indonesians so that the Muslims could slaughter the Catholics of East Timor simply because they wanted independence from an Islamic government; and don’t forget that it was a protestant government, allied with protestant churches, organizations and institutions, that wanted to obliterate the Catholic Faith from Mexico.
Cristeros
To read the history of Christian war, is to know how much the world hates the Catholic Faith, and that which is the most hated, should be the one that we turn to, and not the most popular. To read the stories of Christian war, is to read the history of the Catholic Church. The holy wars were not just wars fought by armies; they were cosmic wars, they were the wars for the souls of humanity, they were our wars. Our war continues, but now we are being conquered by the forces of modernism and disorder. What is needed is not more diplomacy, rather an entire reconquista must be commenced over the world. All that is needed for the commencement of the restoration of Christendom is the will of the Universal Church; passion, enthusiasm, emphatic affirmation, the spark of hope’s flame, this is all that is needed to commence the reconquest of the earth.
Christendom never ended, but is only waiting to be reawakened in our hearts. The Cristeros, the last of the Crusaders, the remnant of Christendom, the remaining flames that survived the floods of indifferentism, and who kept the ancient virtues of their ancestors lodged in their hearts, these men refused to bow the knee before the idol of diabolical conformity, and instead were determined to war against the enemies of humanity. For to war against Christ is to war against humanity itself, for in that most sublime day, when the Holy Virgin conceived the Savior of man, God became one with Humanity, and Mary gave birth to Emanuel, God with Us. The tyrant declared war on Christ, thus he made war against us. The war of the Cristeros is the war of us, it is the cosmic struggle of humanity, for it is the war for Love, the Creator of us all. Christ is Love, and in Christ, humanity becomes one with Love. All of the slaves of the devil, they hate humanity and are bent on destroying us, enslaving us with depravity and deceiving us to destroy ourselves in the name of some false good. Their hatred for humanity is always deeply rooted in their hatred for Christ, for in Christ we are one, and it is the unity of humanity that they so despise. A humanity that is in disarray and full of divisions and chaos, is a humanity easily controlled, but a humanity united under the Cross, under zeal, under will and the Divine Love, is a humanity that is one with God, in and in God nothing is moved.
A humanity united under Truth Himself, is a humanity filled with the flames of will to war against the imperialism of delusion.
This article is an excerpt from my upcoming book on Christian warfare and history, be sure to get it when it comes out. You will never see Christianity the same again. The war for Christianity and the Final Crusade is coming, and our souls must be spiritually prepared. This is why I spent over five years writing this book, to prepare the souls of the people for the Final Crusade.