Is it time to form another Holy League?

Photo by J Voitus

It was a ragtag remnant of whatever diminished armies Don John could pull together to face a mighty Muslim armada ready to deal Christianity its final blow. The disastrous fate seemed imminent for this hapless band of warriors.

Search sacred scripture; plow through everything written on salvation history, and the story is always the same: God chooses the small, the poor, and the weak to cast down the mighty from their thrones and send the rich away empty. It’s ALWAYS a remnant!

There are countless reasons why God may choose to do it this way, but among them has to be that God is showing off, so to speak. In other words, God needs it to be unmistakable that we know, without Him, we are toast.

Well? … we Catholics are about as diminished and weak and vulnerable as we have ever been. I say it is time to do the “Don John thing” again, and gather every Catholic men’s apostolate together to form the new Holy League.

Our sights should not be set on the victims of our enemy, whether it is the cafeteria Catholic or the misguided theologian … no, we must set our sights on our very real enemies: demons, fallen angels, evil spirits.

This war will not be waged with ships and guns and canons, but with the concerted effort of every Catholic man to choose to become a mighty warrior for God; one of His saints.  We are being Called to Be Holy so God can use us.  It’s about men who believe, as St. Pius V and Don John did, in the supernatural power of God … Deo submissus in Deo potens (the one who submits to God is powerful in God!)

Thanks to Mary Victrix, we have this inspirational story of the Battle of Lepanto, and the supernatural victory won by Our Lady of Victory …

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships (80-91).

These lines from G.K. Chesterton’s great poem Lepanto indicate the state of affairs in Europe (specifically France and Germany) when in the late sixteenth century Christendom faced the Islamic onslaught of the Turks. It was a time for heroism, but there were few heroes. It was time to rally under the banner of Christ the King and His Holy Mother, but only a remnant of Christian soldiers were prepared thus to fight. These were led by the twenty-four year old *** son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and half-brother to Philip II, King of Spain, by name Don John of Austria. He was among the few. He stood up and was counted. Don John was the human side of the victory of the Christian fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571. He was the instrument used by Our Lady of Victory that makes us still remember the fateful event that took place over four-hundred years ago. Every year Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Holy Rosary (formerly the Feast of Our Lady of Victories) because of the triumph at Lepanto.

This brief essay is a reflection upon the spirit of the Catholic resistance at Lepanto, led by Don John under the direction of the Church. This resistance saved Christendom and secured for Western Europe the free practice of the faith. It is a spirit that needs to be recaptured and reinvigorated for our time. It is the spirit of Marian-Chivalry.

The Holy League

The reigning pope at the time, St. Pius V, man of vision that he was (cf. 109-127), knew the peril of Christendom, and personally selected the young nobleman, Don John of Austria for his pure way of life, his unflinching courage, and his clear-sighted conviction that at the heart of the struggle between Christianity and Islam was a cosmic war between truth and error, between the “iron lance” of St. Michael and the black alliance of “Azrael, Ariel and Ammon on the wing” (78, 43). The saintly pope told the young man now charged with the command of the Christian fleet: “Charles V gave you life. I will give you honor and greatness” (Melvin Kriesel, “The Battle,” in Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton: With Explanatory Notes and Commentary, Ed. by Dale Ahlquist, Minneapolis: American Chesterton Society, 2003. 53).

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