Vol 13 Spain

REGINA Inspiring. Intelligent. Catholic.

The Secret Catholic Insider’s Guide to

Spain

Volume 13 | April 2015 www.reginamag.com

Beautiful Spanish Mantillas

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Editorial COVER STYLIST: Sequoia Sierra PHOTO CREDIT: Thomas Meister

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Editor

Beverly De Soto

Webmaster Jim Bryant

Writers

Don Jose Miguel Marques Campo Peter De Trolio III Harry Stevens Teresa Limjoco Donna Sue Berry Ed Masters Meghan Ferrara Losana Boyd Sequoia Sierra Bridget Green Beverly De Soto Barbara Monzon-Puleo Designer Helen Stead

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nina.jurewicz@outlook.com Photographers Teresa Limjoco Harry Stevens Beverly De Soto Thomas Meister Volume 13 | Spain www.reginamag.com

Special Thanks Convento de Santa Teresa de Jesús, Avila The Dean of the Cathedral, Jerez de la Frontera Deborah Gordillo Iglesia del Tercer Monasterio de la Visitacion, Madrid Centro de Exposiciones Arte Canal, Madrid Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Gijon Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Wilmington, California The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, Cordoba El Convento de Corpus Christi, Madrid Eastern Province of Dominicans, USA Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ Sanctuary of Our Lady of Covadonga Salesian Monastery of St John Bosco, Ronda

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Contents Pelayo......................................................................................04 Bipolarism of Catholic Spain...............................................30

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An Ancient Mass in Modern Madrid...................................62 The Great Champion of Christian Spain............................68

PELAYO

St Dominic & the Hounds of God.......................................82 Day Thirteen On the Camino.............................................108 The Drama of Isabella the Catholic..................................116 The Tragic Daughters of Isabella......................................134

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Queen of Chess..................................................................148

CONQUISTADOR

Serious Spanish Sweets.....................................................158 The Truth about Muslim Spain..........................................172 The Mozarabic Rite.............................................................184 The Strange Story of Cordoba’s Cathedral......................198

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Beautiful Spanish Mantillas................................................226 Teresa of Avila.....................................................................244

TERESA OF JESUS

Tomas Victoria.....................................................................266

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The Real First Thanksgiving...............................................290

Conquistador.......................................................................278

Nine Catholic Women of Spain.........................................294 St. Leocadia of Toledo........................................................308 Faith Under Fire..................................................................314

ST LEOCADIA

Spanish Fashionista Styling...............................................324 True Catholic Selves...........................................................328

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PELAYO & the Cradle of Catholic Spain By: Father JosĂŠ Miquel MarquĂŠs Campo Photos by: Teresa Limjoco

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ur story begins in 711 AD -- Dark Ages Spain, when Muslims from North Africa have invaded the entire Iberian Peninsula.

No one can withstand their terrible onslaught, with the exception of a few hundred Christian men, women and children in this lonely mountain valley, where they make their desperate last stand.

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Bendita la Reina de nuestra montaña, que tiene por trono la cuna de España… ¡Es Madre y es Reina! Venid, peregrinos, que ante Ella se aspiran amores divinos. Y en Ella está el alma del pueblo español Blessed be the Queen of our mountain, whose throne is the cradle of Spain… She is Mother and is Queen! Come, pilgrims, before Her we inhale loves divine. And in Her is the soul of the Spanish people.

With the inspiring words of this popular song, dedicated to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Covadonga, sung with all solemnity at the beautiful Sanctuary of her tender advocacy for the people of Asturias, we begin our adventure into the events which led to the epic, Catholic Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula.

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LEGENDS TELL US OF PELAYO (LATIN ‘PELAGIUS’) A VISIGOTH WARRIOR WHO FOUGHT ALONGSIDE THE DOOMED KING RODERIGO AT THE BATTLE OF GUADALETE. Pelayo was captured by the victorious Moors, who brought him to their newly-chosen capital, Cordoba.

On the way, his captors taunted him with the news that his beloved sister had been forced into a Muslim harem. Determined and desperate, Pelayo escaped and made his way through the Cantabrian mountains to his home in the land of the Asturs— what the Romans had called Lucus Asturum.

There, in an ancient city called Cangas de Onís, the princely Pelayo was chosen to be king of the Christians, in 718.

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THE CHRISTIANS WERE CONSIDERED “REBELLIOUS” by the Moorish governor, as they refused to pay the tax imposed.

The Moors then began their disciplinary action against these rebellious subjects.

Persecuted as they were, ill-equipped and disorganized, the Christians could not be expected to offer resistance to the powerful invaders. The Moors, however, disciplined and well-armed, fought the Christians in every valley

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Whatever damage the rebels could inflict on the oppressors was scanty at best. Providentially besieged in the valley of Cangas de Onís, the Christians sought refuge in the mountains. In this region, there is a cave called ‘Cova Dominica,’ (Cave of the Lady) a sacred place which since immemorial times had been a center of Marian devotion. Covadonga is an ideal place for shelter, surrounded as it is by a beautiful range of mountains known The Peaks of Europe, with narrow paths to and from the hidden caves.

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IT WAS IN THIS CAVE, carved in the rock escarpment over a thundering waterfall, where a group of Christians sought and found celestial refuge. The legends tell us that as they prayed, Our Lady appeared to them.

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THE CHRISTIANS WERE MAINLY NATIVE, local Astures; they made their living on the northern Cantabrican coast.

In the summer of 722 AD, however, they found themselves in the mountain caves looking down upon a huge, powerful Muslim army.

At first, the Muslims had not really paid much attention to this insignificant rebellion. But Munuza, the local governor had learned to not trust the mere appearance of these ‘weak ‘ Christians.

Having asked for help from Córdoba, he had at his disposition some 10,000 troops to subdue the few hundred recalcitrant Christians hiding in their cave.

But the terrain was better known to the Christians, who were thus able to take advantage of the circumstances.

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IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WISER FOR THE MOORS TO HAVE BESIEGED THE CHRISTIANS UNTIL THEY WERE FORCED TO SURRENDER OR DIE OF HUNGER. Instead, in their contempt for their enemy, the Moors attacked.

But their attack had a major tactical and strategic error: as their army progressed through narrow, mountain paths, when fired upon by the entrenched Christians from above, by arrows and rocks, they were unable to retaliate effectively.

For the Moorish sharpshooters, needing to fire upwards from where they were positioned, their situation was difficult for accuracy. Many of their arrows simply bounced back down upon them from the mountainside.

And so, unable to manoeuvre, pinned down under a rain of both enemy and friendly arrows augmented by large rocks being flung down by the Astures, the situation was ripe for a Christian counter-attack.

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THIS CAME, A DESPERATE CHARGE LED BY PELAYO HIMSELF. In a vain attempt to reorganize, the Moors ended up disbanding and fleeing into the mountains, with their leader, Al Qama, dead. Later, a defeated Munuza surrendered the coastal city of Gij贸n, dying as he fled from the Christians.

The Reconquista had begun.

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Obviously, the Christian chronicles of the events differ from the Moorish chronicles, in that the Christian accounts tell of the staunch heroism of Pelayo and his small group of “rebels�, whereas the Moorish accounts downplay the defeat of their much superior forces.

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Be that as it may, the Moors had attempted a diplomatic solution to the Christian rebellion: before attacking they had sent as their envoy, a captured bishop, Don Oppas, who, through human frailty, had turned traitor for political expediency.

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THE BISHOP TRIED TO CONVINCE PELAYO that resistance to such superior forces was futile, saying: “I judge, brother and son, that it is not hidden from you that not long ago, all of Hispania was under Goth rule, whose brilliance was greater than other countries, by doctrine and science. And that, notwithstanding, with all the Goth army united, was not able to withstand the impetus of the Ismaelites.

Will you be able to defend yourself from the height of this mountain? It seems difficult to me. Listen to my counsel: Go back to your agreement; you will enjoy many goods and also the friendship of the Chaldeans.�

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The resolute Pelayo responded to the bishop, saying: “Have you not read in Holy Scripture that the Church of the Lord would become like a mustard seed and will grow anew by the mercy of God?�

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And so, the apparently insignificant Battle of Covadonga of 722, with tremendously adverse odds for the besieged Christians led by King Pelayo, was the first time the Moors had lost a battle in their conquest of Iberia, and the first time that Christians defeated them.

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Thomas More College of Liberal Arts A school for all seasons.

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PELAYO BECAME THE FIRST KING OF CATHOLIC SPAIN, the father, grandfather and great-grandfather of people who kept the light of the Reconquista alive.

His was the beginning of an unprecedented epic campaign the Catholic Reconquista of peninsular Spain - that would last nearly eight centuries, until that emblematic year of 1492.

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Even today, a popular saying holds that ‘Asturias is Spain; the rest of the lands were reconquered.’

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The Bipolarism of Catholic Spain Interview By:

REGINA

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

Peter De Trolio of Jerez de la Frontera is an American lawyer who has been living in southern Spain for more than 20 years, where he has worked in wine exporting. A married father of two, Peter is currently teaching in a private school.

Fr. José Miguel Marqués Campo was born in Spain but educated in Chicago, after which he entered the diocesan seminary at Oviedo, where he was ordained in 1996. He has been a parish priest in northern Spain for almost 20 years.

In this frank, wide-ranging REGINA interview, they discuss Catholic Spain–her history, her challenges and the realities that Spanish Catholics must face today.

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“For all their secularized lives, ironically, young people are just not captivated by ordinary, everyday language, accompanied by street or popular music in a supposed Mass setting. To insist on this proven, epic experimental liturgical failure, after fifty years or so, is nothing short of mind-boggling.”

-- FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO

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REGINA: Before we begin, can you tell us about the work you do with Catholics?

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: As a priest, along with ordinary faithful in my pastoral care, I have gotten to know many bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians and people from all walks of life, from the different Religious Orders, and Lay Apostolic Associations. ​ ETER DE TROLIO: I am preparing for the PermaP nent Diaconate and so I mix with much of the regular clergy but don’t have a great deal of contact with the Religious orders. I also have friends in Opus Dei and on occasion attend their monthly retreats.

REGINA: Do you have any general comments on Spanish Catholicism at the outset?

PETER DE TROLIO: Spanish Catholicism is a curious thing. It’s not like Catholicism in the US where you find liberal, conservative, etc. People here, at least in Andalucia, that identify themselves as Catholics are orthodox. People here who would be liberal Catholics simply don’t practice.

There are also those that are very involved with the “Hermandades” -- confraternities that belong to parishes and participate in the Holy Week processions.

They tend to be very attached to their brotherhood and parish but don’t necessarily attend Mass regularly. There’s a strange bi-polarism that I cannot get my mind around.

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REGINA: The Church in Spain has an amazing history – the ancient buildings attest to this -- but are Spaniards today aware of this? Are they taught about the early Christians, the Muslim occupation, etc?

PETER DE TROLIO: From what I can see most people simply walk by the ancient buildings ignoring them in the way that a New Yorker ignores the Empire State Building; they are there but so what.

Everything is old, no one really notices.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: I do not believe that Spaniards, generally speaking, are really fully aware of Spain’s glorious Catholic history and civilization. And thus what one doesn’t know, one cannot really appreciate. For amazing as this history is, ever since the socially dominant liberal and regional independent agenda—especially though not exclusively, of a leftist persuasion—the national education system has been wired in such a way as to purposefully neglect Spain’s deep Catholic roots and culture, which were extended to her overseas provinces: North and South America, northern Africa, and Asia (Philippines).

PETER DE TROLIO: Yes, they don’t seem to know their own history. They don’t seem to understand the sacrifice of their ancestors to expel the occupying Moors. Most confuse it all. Most don’t know that many of the Churches are built on former Mosques which in turn were built on former Churches.

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The Bipolarism of Catholic Spain “Their belief in the legend comes very much from their lack of knowledge of their true history which has always been twisted to benefit the governing regime.”

​ EGINA: Are ordinary Spaniards aware of the ‘black legend’ about them that was R perpetrated by the Protestant powers in the 16th and 17th centuries?​ FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: Many Spaniards, alas, do not really know the genuine Catholic history of Spain, being seduced, as it were, by the typical, and very efficient, Protestant and Masonic propaganda. The infamous “Black Legend” during the Age of Exploration of the New World, thrown against Spain, was nothing more than fierce liberal-Protestant ideology against a Catholic Power of the epoch, which was, yes, expanding an overseas economic Empire, but in the process, extending to those territories a Catholic civilization.

Quite different than the British Colonial Empire, Spain’s Empire was not a colonial one at all; it was more akin to the ancient Roman Empire, in that her territories outside of the Iberian peninsula, were actually overseas provinces of Spain proper.

Thus, Mexico was actually the Vice-Royalty of Nueva España, Colombia was Nueva Granada, etc.

During the benevolent rule of Isabel I the Catholic, of Castile, she actually drew up royal laws for the governing of Spain’s American territories (not colonies!), which included a double protection of the local inhabitants: from the atrocious pagan practices of human sacrifices, and from the greed of some European economic exploiters.

Naturally, the Catholic Queen issued royal provisions for the evangelization of those lands by missionaries sent by the Church.

PETER DE TROLIO: They are in many ways victims of the black legend. Many of them actually believe it and the Anti-clericalism still present here in Spain does not do much to disabuse people of it. Spaniards show an outward arrogance at times that hides a massive inferiority complex that comes directly from their belief in the legend. Their belief in the legend comes very much from their lack of knowledge of their true history which has always been twisted to benefit the governing regime.

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“The Spanish Republic did its best to attack the Church and foment “pogroms” against Churches, religious orders, etc. There are stories of villages where the Priests were taken out of the Church into the town square and stabbed to death by the mob and then the church was set afire.”

- PETER DE TROLIO 36

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“In Europe we have created generations of pagans that went to church. It is extraordinary. Now that is not to say that there are not extremely devout people who are tremendously well educated in their faith, but they are the exception and not the rule.” -- PETER DE TROLIO

REGINA: Why do you think that the Church was so enmeshed in politics in 20th century Spain?

PETER DE TROLIO: The Church was the target of anti-clerical government officials in Spain from the middle of the 19th century. Beginning with the “dismortizacion de Mendezabal,” --- the expropriation of the property of the Religious Orders -- the Church has been targeted here. What went on during the Spanish Republic and later the Spanish Civil War was purely a continuation of the problems of the 19th century.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: The unique position of the Church in Spain was due to that symbiosis of Spanish society. By the 1930s, the radical left-wing had reached sufficient strength in order to impose their sociopolitical and economic ideology, doubtless assisted by subterfuge from the 38

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Soviet Union. The Second Republic, a complete and utter farce, especially with regards to maintaining public order, began in 1931 after the abdication of King Alfonso XIII. PETER DE TROLIO: The ‘Republic,’ was not the kind of democratic republics we have in America; it was simply a government without the King, controlled completely by the Socialists and the left wing unions, which in turn were affiliated with the Communists.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: And so, with the country under the inept government of the Second Republic, the radical left-wing actually started the “civil war” years before the commonly-held ‘start date’ of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

The Bipolarism of Catholic Spain

“Some Spaniards are marrying later on but because they want the pretty ceremony and the party -- not because of any religious conviction.”

- PETER DE TROLIO FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: The Left today has an obsession with re-writing history, claiming that Spain was a paradise before the rightwing, supported by the military, started a coup in 1936. But the facts… are facts: the truth of the matter is that Franco, although a “Nationalist” Catholic, actually supported the Second Republic, insofar as he believed that it could be a legitimate form of government that could maintain public order.

But public order was totally non-existent, since the government was unable or unwilling to halt the leftwing cruel persecution of Catholics, including the vicious murder of bishops, countless priests, religious, ordinary lay Catholics—by the thousands—burning of churches, images of saints, profanation of tombs (there are ghastly photographs of the streets of Barcelona with opened coffins of profaned nuns).

PETER DE TROLIO: There is no question that the civil war was caused and spurred on by the radical Left. The idea was to get the Right to rise up, then to crush it and install a Stalinist-type government. There is a wonderful book called “The Spanish Tragedy,” published in 1936 just after the beginning of the war that explains with great detail what really happened.

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REGINA: What evidence is there today of what happened during Spain’s Civil War? PETER DE TROLIO: There are villages where you find one Church where there should have been three or four and inside it is an odd patchwork of styles and eras.

Then you find out that after the Republic the Church that was in the best repair was filled with the pieces that were saved from the flames in the other Churches and a hodge podge was created in the only Church left. The vast majority of the population were practicing Catholics and this type of attack by the Left did nothing to engender confidence with the public.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: Between 1936-1937, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Gijón where I am working was taken by the left-wing, and used as a jail to imprison Catholic of all walks of life and ages, including children. Our diocesan seminary of Oviedo has in process of canonization several seminarians who may have died heroically as martyrs.

One anecdote is particularly touching: a 12-year old boy from Toledo, Santiago (James), had been kidnapped by left-wing, anti-Catholic radicals. He was taken to a church cemetery and forced to reject Christ and utter blasphemies. He steadfastly refused to do so. His cry was the cry of many Spanish martyrs of the era: ¡Viva Cristo Rey! / Hail to Christ the King! He was subsequently shot in the legs, was abandoned in that cemetery to think about it overnight, crippled and bleeding.

Next morning, his cruel captors came back to force him again to reject the Catholic faith. He remained resolute.

Santiago was then shot to death. This is a documented fact. A glorious martyrdom!

Since that time, the Church has beatified hundreds of Spanish martyrs and canonized quite a number of them. True enough, terrible personal suffering but whose generous blood will prove a blessing for the future of Catholic Spain. All in all, for all the cruel suffering on both sides of the civil war, historical facts clearly reveal an attempt by the left-wing to forcibly impose its communist revolution—at all costs, including the massive murder of Catholics at large—on an unwilling, ancient, noble, Catholic nation.

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REGINA: The Church had Francisco Franco as its champion during the Civil War and afterwards. How did this happen?

Today, what effect did Franco have on the Church and Spanish society?

PETER DE TROLIO: During the Republic the Church was thrust into the politics of the situation and when the Civil War broke out they were one of the interested parties that had a block of supporters. Franco, after he was named leader of the revolt by his peers, began to make a coalition. It was clear that the Church wasn’t going to support those that had caused it so much damage and so the Church joined the coalition that also included the Monarchists, the Carlists (a group supporting a pretender to the throne), the Falange and the Military. Franco promised to reinstate the Church to its previous position of importance and influence.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: Though Franco was no saint, and his government held a firm grip on society, and indeed, the severe repression of left-wing dissidents in the years after the civil war, it was a providential intervention, for not one Catholic would have been left alive in Spain, and the country would eventually have gone down the path of being a Soviet satellite in Western Europe.

Franco died in late 1975, just ten years after the conclusion of Vatican II, when the Church was reeling under an unprecedented crisis of faith and identity. (The then-disenchanted Paul VI had publicly lamented three years earlier that by some crack in the Temple of God, the smoke of Satan had entered to disorient the Church like never before in her two thousand year history.)

PETER DE TROLIO: After Franco the Church lost a considerable amount of influence. Roman Catholicism was disestablished. Crucifixes were removed from public buildings, the censorship ended for movies and books, religion was no longer a required subject in school. Many priests stopped wearing clerics and anti-clericalism began to rear its ugly head again. Church attendance dropped radically. Obviously didn’t happen overnight but slowly over time. For a while religion was not a graded subject at school as it had been. It is again now but depending on who wins the general elections that could change. There were no other obvious liturgical changes, at least here in the south. So our churches remain, mostly, intact with free standing altars made to fit in well with the rest of the architecture. We did lose many important religious holidays as days off, the feast of St. Joseph, Saint John the Baptist, Santiago, Corpus Christi and Ascencion Thursday. Anything that was a Holy Day of Obligation was a day off if it fell during the week.

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“In our city, lines wrap around the building at the convent of the Daughters of Charity at mealtimes. The Spanish welfare state could not provide for all of these hungry people and they would never do it with the kind of love and devotion that these nuns do.”

- PETER DE TROLIO REGINA: What happened in the Spanish Church in the years following the Second Vatican Council?

PETER DE TROLIO: After the Council things changed considerably. There began a movement called “worker Priests,” a group of liberal priests who went out and worked as common laborers. In the end they did more damage than good. In the places where they lived and worked, the churches emptied out. Later on, Paul VI condemned Franco for the execution of several Basque terrorists. As well, much of the hierarchy and the clergy began to condemn the regime. Liturgically, in contrast, things didn’t get too bad. In most places there was not wholesale architectural destruction as occurred in America. As well, the old vestments were preserved and continue to be used.

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FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: If Spain had been spared perhaps the worst of the aforementioned Dutch and German apostasy in those first ten years after Vatican II, after Franco’s passing, the dam seems to have burst to let in an ecclesial flood that swept many good things away. It’s as if Catholic Spaniards, due to Spain’s supposed “backward” staunch Catholic past, had been denied all the wonderful post-conciliar novelties, including a secularized liturgy, a secularized clergy wearing laymen’s attire, and the liberating new modern morality, that the overly-prolonged Franco régime had kept at bay with undemocratic censorship. Of course, all of this was avidly promoted by the left-wing elements in political society and those of the same persuasion within the clergy.

REGINA: The Church had always been the major provider of social services in Europe, historically.​ Was this also true in Spain?

of the Industrial Revolution, that does not mean that, in purity, we can affirm that the Church developed what would even later be called her “social doctrine.”

PETER DE TROLIO: Yes. The Religious orders not only provided places for unwed mothers to go during their pregnancy, they served as adoption agencies, provided milk for mothers who were unable to nurse, fed the poor, established school, created free hospitals and cared for the aged.

The Catholic faith from its divine-apostolic origins already had a social dimension, that traditionally would be known as the social reign of Christ -- that is, a civilization with a social order in conformity to God’s design. And that means everything, including of course, social services, such as education, hospitalization, orphanages, and works of charity, to name a few.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: Certainly! It really surprises me that today, we are led to believe that the Church’s social doctrine started with Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum.

While certainly addressing the social circumstances

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REGINA: What kinds of services does the Church provide today in Spain?

PETER DE TROLIO: They still continue to run hospitals, homes for the aged and soup kitchens. Without these services in these difficult days many, many people would starve.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: One highly respected ecclesial organization is Cáritas Española / Spanish Charities, which takes care of the poor and needy of a modern, secularized society, reeling under a profound moral and economic crisis of late. Another excellent ecclesial social service is the Cocina económica / Economic kitchen, run by the Daughters of Charity, whose mission is to maintain a dignified dining room, providing a good quality food service (for the symbolic price of 1 euro) to anyone in such need. In conjunction with the food service, there are the Albergues / Lodging Houses, also run by the Daughters of Charity, providing a temporary room for the night for those living on the streets.

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REGINA: What about the Spanish Cath family in these difficult times?

PETER DE TROLIO: Much like in the re Europe the family is in decline. The rate o imacy is extremely high. People are co-h without the benefit of marriage and havin children.

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Spain indeed has a terribly low birth rate, not only in Europe, but ranks among the lowest in the entire world. It’s not a promising prospect.” FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO

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FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO the traditional and natural family structu man and woman getting married, having and raising them, of course is still in exist But the perverse ideology of gender is wr havoc in Spanish society. The former Car nal-Archbishop of Toledo, later appointed fect of the Congregation for Divine Wors Benedict XVI, and now currently Cardina bishop of Valencia, once gave a most inter conference in Gijón several years ago, pre

holic

est of of illegithabitating ng

O: Well, ure of g children tence! reaking rdid Preship by al-Archresting ecisely on

the future of the family. He warned us very seriously that the so-called gender ideology was the most dangerous ideological revolution in history, more damaging to society than were the French or Communist Revolutions.

REGINA: Spain has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. Is there also a high divorce rate?

Are families forming?

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: It would seem that the contraception mentality has found Spain to be a sort of paradise, oddly enough. I say this because contraception is, essentially, an egocentric mindset, yet Spain is an otherwise generous country, for example, in numbers

of regular blood donors, social services, solidarity initiatives, and in ecclesial terms, with liberality in charitable works of mercy, and a still strong missionary apostolate overseas.

But somehow, the anti-life, contraception mentality has sunk in deeply, no doubt helped along in Catholics by the typical liberal-progressive heterodox who do not catechize families about being open to life, with all that implies for personal morality, as well as social morality.

PETER DE TROLIO: There was a very high divorce rate here and I heard on the news the other day that the divorce rate is climbing again.

That was being used as a sign that the economy is improving. When the economy collapsed people couldn’t afford to get divorced so the divorce rate plummeted. But, in this society, marriage has become as throwaway as it is in the rest of the world.

People still marry but not like before.

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The few vocations in Spain are to the religious Orders which have preserved their traditions.

REGINA: Are multigenerational Catholic families still influential in the raising of children in Spain?

REGINA: What about catechesis? Has it been as dismal as the rest of Europe?

PETER DE TROLIO: The multi-generational family had all but disappeared until the tremendous economic crisis we are in arrived. But, it was the reverse of before. Before, older people moved in with their adult children -- today adult, unemployed children are moving with their families back into their parents’ house.

PETER DE TROLIO: ‘Dismal’ would be being kind; I need a word more pejorative than that. These people are truly what we would have called “unchurched.” The people that went to Catholic schools have a slightly better understanding of their faith but it still remains low.

Now, these people want to move out as soon as they can, so the trend ended but the understanding that families need to help one another has not ended.

This too will disappear as the family continues to come apart. To make matters worse, Spain allows gay "marriage" to occur and these "couples" can adopt children.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: With all the secularization typical of Western society, and of which Spain is, alas, also influenced, it does seem that family ties here, multigenerational, are strong enough to resist the ideological assault on the family.

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FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: Traditional catechesis, that is, before the postconciliar “springtime,” and so-called “new Pentecost,” was realized by excellent national catechisms based on the universal Roman Catechism published under the auspices of the Council of Trent, and then more recently based on the Major and Minor question-and-answer Catechisms published under the authority of Pope St. Pius X. One such famous catechism is the one prepared by Padre Astete, used with great spiritual and instructional benefit, for countless generations. And other catechisms with similar orientation.

The Strange Bipolarism of Catholic Spain

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: After Vatican II, catechisms became increasingly anthropocentric, much like the “reformed” liturgy, and also sociological, poor in actual doctrinal content. Thankfully, in more recent times, diocesan catechetical material has improved in orthodox doctrinal content, and there exist special training sessions for catechists.

But even with these betterments, there is still a very long way to go, however, in this regard.

REGINA: How about vocations in Spain?

PETER DE TROLIO: At least here in Andalucia our seminaries have very few candidates. That being said, they have candidates. I was told by a priest I know that in one diocese in the North of Spain, before the Council the diocesan seminary had 1000 candidates at any given time. A few years after the Council had ended they had five.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: Vocations in Spain have obviously gone down the same path as the rest of secularized Western civilization which has forgotten their Catholic roots. Though to be sure, not quite as an alarming drop in vocations, like in France, Holland, and Germany, to name but a few. Certainly, a very low birth rate has, doubtless, its role to play, but that in itself is not the main problem.

The crucial issue is the poor catechetical formation of families, who no longer live the faith at home, and thus no longer transmit and pass down the Catholic faith from generation-to-generation. So, even though there continues to be a Catholic cultural environment in Spain—unavoidable, obviously, the roots run so very deep—that is not equal to a living and vibrant Catholic faith being passed on. Of course, this is a generalization, since there are many families who do in fact live the faith at home, and do an extraordinarily heroic job of transmitting the faith to their children, in the midst of an indifferent or even hostile social environment.

PETER DE TROLIO: The collision of the Council, the end of the state/religion union and the disaster that were the 70’s caused numbers to plummet. They still have not recuperated.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: Today there are numerous pastoral actions, among diocesan and religious orders, intended to foment vocational curiosity. One such activity at the diocesan level, are yearly gatherings of “altar boys” at the seminary. The problem with such an initiative, is the fact that “altar girls” are also welcomed, which of course, defeats the entire purpose of fomenting vacations among the altar boys to the priesthood. Putting them together just won’t work, because it isn’t a good combination.

You either see it, or you don’t. The excuse is that altar girls may also be encouraged to pursue a vocation.

But not to the priesthood, right? So what’s the point?

Surely, there can be other pastoral initiatives for altar girls—quite frankly, beginning with the fact that they shouldn’t serve at the altar like the boys—that will not get in the way of fomenting a vocational awareness to the priesthood for altar boys. Really, until such time we do away with politically correct, total, “sexual equality,” ideological paradigms, these misguided pastoral initiatives will not get very far...

Other diocesan initiatives involve “youth Masses” on the third Sunday of the month in the main chapel of the seminary. Though there are positive aspects, such as orthodox homilies by a young priest, these celebrations suffer from the same, worn-out, pseudo 1970s-1980s guitar music Mass mindset, that I think time has proven beyond any doubt whatsoever, that this simply does not work! That it simply will not work! That it simply cannot work! Why? Because we are so absorbed in ourselves in these piously secularized celebrations, that we give of ourselves, and thus become so full of ourselves, that we leave no room for God to give of Himself to us.

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“Anti-clericalism is a totally ideological, and indeed even pathological perception, because although the Church certainly has a role in society, she really does not exercise all that much influence. Were that true, some of the nefarious civil laws, like ‘divorce express,’ the ‘right’ for women to abort, and others, would never have been approved in Parliament, nor indeed, would ever have been tolerated by Spanish society.” FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO 52

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The Strange Bipolarism of Catholic Spain

PETER DE TROLIO: Today, the few men who are entering are dedicated and have a true calling. What we lack in quantity we are gaining in quality.

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: I would suggest introducing these young people, with an appropriate catechesis, to a non-secularized, truly pious celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, with appropriate organ music and singing, with all the indispensable liturgical moments of "sonorous silence," as our very own St. John of the Cross would so aptly put it. But alas, the ecclesial situation is not prepared for this.

Still, it would be so totally different for these young people, so totally new to them, deprived as they are of this venerable, ancient Roman Mass, why... it might even awe them into orientating their entire lives towards God! REGINA: Today, many Germans see the Catholic Church in their country as hopelessly corrupt. Is this true also in Spain? Is corruption a major problem for vocations?

PETER DE TROLIO: I don't think people see the Spanish Church as corrupt, especially today. In the past people thought the Church had too much power and influence. In the previous regime, a Nun or Priest could fix many problems for a person. They also could block you from getting something if they chose. It was a double edged sword. And, as in much of the rest of the world, many women entered religious orders to be "career women" which was impossible outside and/or not to have to marry and many men entered for the security and for the ability to get an education. These people became unhappy and bitter as they lived lives that they weren't called to. As such there were many complaints about truly wicked nuns and nasty priests. That is all gone now as the vocations that exist are true. It is difficult to be a Nun or a Priest here today so no one is entering for the "advantages."

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: It is not my impression that many Spaniards view the Catholic Church as "hopelessly corrupt." Sure, the old, persistent anti-clerical sentiment still runs fairly strong in many, but that's not the same as viewing the Church itself as a corrupt institution. If anything, the anti-clerical mindset views the Church as the one institution that must be fought and annihilated, not because of corruption, but rather because of the strong influence the Church still exercises in Spanish society.

REGINA: ​Are Spain’s famous local traditions of piety -- feasts and processions -- still ​​intact?

PETER DE TROLIO: Traditions of piety are alive and well in Southern Spain. Strangely, not at all connected to how religious a person might be, they are fiercely guarded and the youth actively participate.

Membership in a confraternity is a thing of pride and there are family traditions as to which one a child will belong to.

In fact, one of the upstart political parties on the extreme left, at a meeting in Seville, declared that Holy Week processions would be abolished. There was so much hue and cry that they had to rectify their statement immediately. No one can win an election in the south if they are openly against the confraternities.

The Holy Week processions are all-important down here in the south and everything stops for them.

There are also processions at Corpus Christi and on the feasts of Patron Saints and especially on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

There are so many people at these processions that you have to push through the crowds and I’ve always felt like I was about to be trampled by the pushing crowd. So in some way Christianity is being preserved, in an odd way, amidst all the de-christianization.

Having said that, there is still faith in Spain. The people who practice are real believers and that is the seed we need to re-evangelize the nation.

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REGINA: If you were to point to bright spots for the Faith in Spain, what would they be?

FR. JOSÉ MIGUEL MARQUÉS CAMPO: As the great Catholic author, J.R.R. Tolkien, would say: there is always hope! Bright spots for the faith in Spain include her ample tradition of canonized saints for the Church, whose lives and spiritual legacy will continue to provide an authentically Catholic culture for endless generations to come.

The hundreds of already beatified martyrs of the persecution of Catholics during the 1930s, is the blood that will prove to be the generous seed for more Catholics in Spain, since the Church has always grown, miraculously, with the precious blood of those martyrs who die for the Lord.

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“GIVEN OUR VERY DEEP CATHOLIC ROOTS, culture, civilization, heritage, history, and indeed Catholic soul, we have a lot of great things going for us! We just need to re-discover it all, and many may even need to discover these priceless treasures for the first time. Being sincerely and humbly true to our Catholic nature, is simple enough, with the promise of unsuspected horizons for evangelization.”

--Fr. José Miguel Marqués Campo

Our hope is to rekindle our genuine Catholic identity. St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation during his Visit to Santiago de Compostela in 1989 (the year I entered the seminary), best sums it up: that Spain and the rest of Europe, by re-discovering the true roots of our civilization, make it possible for each of us to again be our true Catholic selves. •

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ENCOUNTER ON A TRAIN It happened one fine autumn Sunday morning, several years ago. Fr. José Miguel Marqués Campo, 52, is a diocesan priest of the archdiocese of Oviedo, Spain. He was recuperating from a cold and awaiting the commuter train to the coastal city of Gijón, province of Asturias, Spain, about a 25-minute trip. Here, he recounts an encounter on that train.

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our youths, two guys and two girls, about twenty-one years of age, approached the platform, awaiting the train. They were not entirely sober, nor were they entirely drunk.

We all boarded and I took a lateral triple-seat, and to my surprise, they all sat immediately nearby.

Well, thought I, this was going to be an interesting trip! The train started and they continued their conversations about the long Saturday night they had been out, etc. Nothing bad, just pretty superficial.

But I noticed that one of the young guys, who took a seat right next to me, had taken curious notice of me. He just said “hello” and nothing more. But a couple of times, he wanted to start a conversation, but mainly about what he and his friends had been doing all night long; obviously I would not be of much interest in that regard. The train kept on, stopping at the various stations, taking on and discharging passengers, and they kept on at their conversation, laughing when remembering their night together.

But the young guy next to me took on a more serious semblance and kept looking at me.

So I looked back and, smiling, said: “So, how are you doing?” It was just for the sake of saying something nice.

But he kept looking at me and said: “You’re a priest, aren’t you?” You see, because of my cold, I had a scarf wrapped around my coat and clerical shirt (I wear the cassock at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Gijón), so he could not possibly have seen my white collar.

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Taken aback, I responded thoughtfully: “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a priest. Do we know each other, have we met somewhere before?”

He said flatly: “No, I’ve never met you before.”

But I was of course intrigued that, never having met before, that he should figure out that I was a priest. So after a few moments of silence, I asked: “Well then, how do you know that I’m a priest?”

And he, with the index finger of his right hand, put it next to his right eye, and said: “I could tell from the look in your eyes.”

I was touched and very deeply moved. He could tell from the look in my eyes, he said, dear Lord. What exactly did he mean by his startling remark? Was he Catholic? What did he perceive that made him think I was a priest by the way I looked at him, daring to ask if I was, and even getting it so right? And all in about fifteen minutes!

Did he perhaps perceive a special tender look, like the one Our Lord Jesus Christ gave that young rich man that the Gospel of St. Mark recounts? Maybe, but this young lad saw with his own eyes the look in my eyes, and from this contemplation, went far beyond the physical aspect and obviously “saw” something more; although he might not express it in this way, he perceived with incredible accuracy and depth, a much higher plane, a sacred reality: that of an ordained priest, a living sacrament of Christ, the Eternal High Priest, sitting right next to him, in that commuter train, on the way to Gijón, on that beautiful Sunday morning, in autumn.

Father Jose Miguel Marques Campo

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What Catholic Businesses Need Using Soci

Part I

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c Orders and to Know About ial Media

Part II

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The Ancient Mass in Modern

MADRID There is perhaps no country in the world where an inherited religion is repudiated as vehemently as in Spain. For decades, Spanish universities and media elites have kept up a constant drumbeat of ridicule and condemnation of the Church, her traditions and ideas.

Article by:

Teresa Limjoco

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

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t is fascinating, then, to find that Madrid, Spain’s media epicenter, is also home to two well-attended Traditional Latin Masses at the Parroquia de la Santa Cruz and the Iglesia del Tercer Monasterio de la Visitación. Recently, REGINA Magazine’s Teresa Limjoco attended Mass at both churches, and then interviewed a young Madrid couple about their experiences.

They are undoubtedly the future of Spain. Belén, 23, is a medical student in her fifth year of studies. Belén is the second of three children; her older sister is married, with a daughter. Her younger brother, Marcos, is a student in his final year at college. The family lives outside of Madrid.

Julio, Belén’s father, says he encountered the Latin Mass with ‘un gran emocion’ and that ‘it has allowed me to come close to the mystery of the Cross with great reverence and profundity.’ Hence, he made the decision over ten years ago to raise his children with this Mass.

Ignacio, who currently works in Switzerland, is Belén’s boyfriend. He also attends a Latin Mass every Sunday with his family. Here, they discuss their Faith and their view of the future.

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REGINA: How did you learn about the TLM? BELÉN: I found out about it through a friend of my parents who recommended the Traditional Latin Mass that was celebrated by the ICKSP (Institute Christ the King Sovereign Priest). Since then my parents started taking us to the TLM. At first we did not go every Sunday because the church was far from the house, but my parents liked it more and more so today we go every Sunday.

IGNACIO: My father has known about the Latin Mass his entire life.

REGINA: What piqued your curiosity?

BELÉN: I was about 12 years old when I began attending the TLM even if at the time I did not realize the value of this Mass. In reality, the ones whose curiosity was piqued were my parents, and they liked it more each time, and today we are very involved in it.

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REGINA: What was your first experience of the Latin Mass like?

BELÉN: It was many years ago when I first went and I was small and don’t recall it too well. It felt strange and different because it was not the Mass I knew and it was also in Latin, which I did not understand. It was in a church in Madrid in the neighborhood of Salamanca that was given to the ICKSP to celebrate the Mass.

IGNACIO: The first time I went to the TLM was in Madrid. At first you have many questions: Why does the priest have his back to us? Why does he kneel so much? Afterwards, you understand why, and everything then makes sense.

REGINA: Would you say the TLM has deepened your faith?

BELÉN: Ten years have passed since I began attending

the TLM, and during this time I grew from a girl into a woman. While maturing as a person, I also grew spiritually.

I think it takes a certain maturity to value and understand the real meaning of the TLM. Even with the little that I have understood, I think the TLM is the best way of approaching God and living through the faith to the fullest. Not only has this form of the Mass helped me, but it also helps the formation by the priests of the ICKSP who, through their activities, spiritual direction, etc. let my relationship with God become deeper. And the people at the Mass are like family -- they make you feel comfortable.

Mrs. María Cano and two of her children, Marcos and Belén, outside Madrid’s Iglesia del Tercer Monasterio de la Visitación.

IGNACIO: There was a time I was going to both the TLM and the Novus Ordo. However, my authentic conversion and autonomy in the faith was thanks to the TLM. In the TLM, one lives the faith in a form with little sentimentality. It is very masculine, and makes one proud to belong to the Catholic Church. It offers a lot of security.

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“Yes, of course!

Everyone is impressed, this Mass brings you closer to God.�

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REGINA: Do you bring others to the TLM? BELÉN: When I have invited some people (not many, I admit) to the TLM, they’re always very glad to have done so and want to go again because they say it is fulfilling.

IGNACIO: Yes, of course! Everyone is impressed, this Mass brings you closer to God. REGINA: Have you encountered any resistance?

BELÉN: The difficulty I have encountered in going to the TLM is that the priests are not given many facilities for celebrating the Mass so the hours are very limited and so, too, are the churches where they celebrate. But never have I been ridiculed for attending the TLM. In fact, people become curious and ask me about it all the time.

IGNACIO: Not from my family. Many Catholics do not understand the importance of the TLM and they smile, they believe that we are old-fashioned.

What they do not know is that the traditionalist seminaries are getting filled while the dioceses are increasingly empty.

Click here for Traditional Latin Masses in Spain

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The G

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Great Champion of Christian Spain Article By:

Photo Credit:

Harry Stevens

Beverly De Soto

~ “This is the will of God and of all His saints...You see the sword bloody and the horse sweating: Thus it is that one (El CID) conquers the Moors in the field.”

–Poema del Cid.

Who was Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar?

Depends on who you ask, it seems.

Various depictions of this heroic knight have emerged in the last thousand years -- the legendary, the historic, the Arabic or the Christian.

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The Great Champion of Christian Spain

The Legendary Rodrigo

In the mid-20th century, the legendary Rodrigo Diaz was depicted in the 1961 Oscar-nominated classic movie El Cid, starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. This acclaimed film depicts Rodrigo as a romantic military hero dedicated to his king. The production values were huge in this Hollywood epic; that year Time reported “it runs three hours and 15 minutes (including intermission), cost $6,200,000, employs an extra-wide widescreen, a special color process, 7,000 extras, 10,000 costumes, 35 ships, 50 outsize engines of medieval war, and four of the noblest old castles in Spain: Ampudia, Belmonte, Peñíscola and Torrelobatón.” (Rent the film for the surprise finish!)

The Real Rodrigo

Rodrigo was certainly a very real person, born about 1040 into the Castillian minor noble family of Diego Lainez. Affectionately christened El Campeador (‘the champion) by his countrymen, Rodrigo was called ‘El Cid’ (‘the lord’) by the Moors he conquered.

Rodrigo was raised at the Castile court of Ferdinand I; there he studied the military arts and became a military commander under Ferdinand. After Ferdinand’s death, the kingdom was divided equally between all his children, per his wish.

Royal Family Strife

But his son Sancho sought sole kingship for himself, and Rodrigo rose to become the royal standard-bearer (armiger regis) of Castile upon Sancho's ascension in 1065. Family strife over “who should be king over the lands” led to Sancho’s eventual murder. Alfonso became king, with Rodrigo serving Alfonso but under suspicion. Eventually, Alfonso exiled Rodrigo in 1076.

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Rodrigo was raised at the Castile court of Ferdinand I, where he studied the military arts and became a military commander under Ferdinand. After Ferdinand’s death, the kingdom was divided equally between all his children, per his wish. But Sancho sought sole kingship for himself, and Rodrigo rose to become the royal standard-bearer (armiger regis) of Castile upon Sancho's ascension in 1065.

Family strife over “who should be king over the lands” led to Sancho’s eventual murder. Alfonso became king, with Rodrigo serving Alfonso but under suspicion. Eventually, Alfonso exiled Rodrigo in 1076.

Exiled Soldier of Fortune

Exiled from his home, Rodrigo became a soldier of fortune. He worked for the Muslim leader of Zaragoza, and it is said he warred indifferently against Muslims and Christians, but always with distinguished service. Over time, Rodrigo’s fame, power, and influence grew. His followers were many, and he inspired loyalty among his men.

However, Rodrigo’s last banishment by Alfonso had the effect of sending him away from his beloved Castile forever. He set his sights on Valencia, a rich Muslim stronghold and set out in command of his army of soldiers. They besieged the Muslim stronghold in 1093-1094.

Lord of Valencia

It was during this siege that Rodrigo’s legend developed into one of a Christian war hero, literally riding his white horse to victory. After this, the El Campeador legend further evolved – Rodrigo became famous for his invincibility in war, a legend which was certainly based in fact. Rodrigo became Lord of Valencia until his death in 1099.

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A CLASH OF WILLS: Alfonso sought Rodrigo’s services, but the relationship soured after their continual clashes. With an idea of a political alliance, Alfonso offered Rodrigo his niece in marriage.

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SPAIN DIVIDED: Rodrigo’s Spain was not one kingdom in the 1100s. It was divided into Gascony, Galicia, Leon, Castille, Navarre, Aragon, Zaragoza, Badajoz, Toledo, Albarracin, Cordoba, Heulva, Sevilla, Granada, and Malaga -- each run by various rulers. Several of these were Muslim, ruled by north Africans since the invasion AD 711, more than 300 years before Rodrigo’s birth.

CREDIT: Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH

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CHRISTIAN FOR A THOUSAND YEARS: After El Cid, Valencia remained in Christian hands, though it was not until 1492 that the Iberian Peninsula was unified under the Christian reconquest led by Ferdinand and Isabella.

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CLASSIC HERO Spaniards know Rodrigo Diaz from the Poema del Cid, a classic example of an oral tradition that made a heroic warrior into a legend. Its epic theme revolves around the restoration of honor, which becomes a greater honor then that which was lost.

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OLDEST SPANISH EPIC: The poema, written in the mid-twelfth century, is said to be the oldest Spanish epic poem still preserved. It is still studied today in Spanish schools, with the original kept in the Spanish National Library.

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Falling in love with REGINA is like falling in love with SPAIN. Click HERE to subscribe FREE. 80

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St Do

the Hounds of

By Beverly De Soto ~

Almost 800 years lie between his death and my birth, and yet I claim Dominic de Guzman as my teacher. Such is the influence of this Spaniard, born in rural Calaruega, near the Benedictine abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos in 1169.

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Educated in Palencia, a legend emerges about Dominic in 1191, during a famine. Young Dominic gave away his money and sold his clothes, furniture and precious manuscripts to feed his hungry neighbors; he reportedly told astonished fellow students, “Would you have me study off these dead skins, when men are dying of hunger?�

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St Dominic & the Hounds of God

His parents, Juana and Felix, were “honoured and wealthy”, and some say they came from a minor branch of the great noble family de Guzman. Dominic's mother, Juana of Aza, was beatified by Pope Leo XII in 1828. In any event, the story is told that before his birth, Jane made a pilgrimage to the Abbey and there dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a torch in its mouth, and "seemed to set the earth on fire".

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eeting the Cathars In 1194, around age twenty-five, Dominic joined the Augustinian Canons Regular.

Ten years later he accompanied the Bishop on a diplomatic mission to in Denmark. The envoys traveled via Aragon and the south of France. There, they encountered the Cathars, a heretical religious sect with gnostic and dualistic beliefs that was spreading throughout southern France. This was to prove to be a singularly auspicious meeting for the Church.

The Cathars bore some resemblance to modern cults in that they stressed vegetarianism and ‘pure’ living.

Strongly elitist in nature, their followers aspired to be ‘illuminati’ – that is, considered to have privileged access to higher spiritual truths. They spurned sexuality and family life, purporting to focus on invisible ‘spiritual goods’ alone. They called themselves ‘Pure Ones’ after their Goddess known as the Pure One, the ‘Virgin Great Creator Mother Mari.’

Birth of the Dominicans The Cathars’ baleful influence was especially felt in the emergent cities of the era, and Dominic responded with a new concept for a religious Order which would combine dedication and systematic education, with more organizational flexibility than either the monastic orders or the secular clergy of the time.

He also subjected himself and his companions to the monastic rules of prayer and penance and the local bishop Foulques gave them written authority to preach throughout the territory of Toulouse. In 1215, Dominic established himself, with six followers, in a house there. By January 1217, they had gained papal approval for “The Order of Preachers” (“Ordo Praedicatorum”, or “O.P.,” popularly known as the Dominican Order).

Dominic ‘the Inquisitor’ Despite the fact that Dominic died in 1221, ten years before the office of the Inquisition was established in 1231, ‘Dominic the Inquisitor’ became one of the most famous figures in the infamous ‘Black Legend’ about Spain.

Historians now agree that 16th- and 17th-century Protestant polemicists created and perpetuated the legend of Dominic the Inquisitor. This image gave German Protestant critics of the Catholic Church an argument against the Dominican Order whose preaching had proven to be a formidable opponent in the lands of the Reformation.

According to his biographer Guiraud, the real Dominic lived an austere life, “observed stated fasts and periods of silence”,” selected the worst accommodations and the meanest clothes”, and “never allowed himself the luxury of a bed”. “When travelling, he beguiled the journey with spiritual instruction and prayers” and “as soon as Dominic passed the limits of towns and villages, he took off his shoes, and, however sharp the stones or thorns, he trudged on his way barefooted” and that “rain and other discomforts elicited from his lips nothing but praises to God”.

The Hounds of God in Christianity’s Third Millennium Perhaps it should come as no surprise to anyone that it is the Dominicans – friars, active sisters and nuns – who are leading the way into Christianity’s Third Millennium. In stark contrast to their modernist counterparts, vocations to the orthodox Dominican communities are up all over the world -- led

by North and South America -- as young men and women answer the call to be teachers, preachers and prayers. As someone who studied in the Dominicans’ classrooms decades ago, I can say that the world is very fortunate in this regard.

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FAMOUS DISPUTATION OF SAINT DOMINIC AND THE CATHARS: Books of both were thrown on a fire; Dominic’s books were miraculously preserved from the flames. (Pedro Berruguete)

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SAINT DOMINIC WAS “...thin and of middle height. His face was handsome and somewhat fair.

He had reddish hair and beard and beautiful eyes. ...His hands were long and fine and his voice pleasingly resonant. He never got bald, though he wore the full tonsure, which was mingled with a few grey hairs.� Blessed Cecilia Caesarini, Dominican nun.

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IN 1219, POPE HONORIUS III GAVE THE DOMINICANS THE ANCIENT ROMAN BASILICA OF SANTA SABINA for their studium conventuale, the forerunner of their studium generale at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Three hundred years later, this became the College of Saint Thomas. In the 20th century it was renamed the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the famous ‘Angelicum’. PHOTO CREDIT: Dnalor 01 via Wikimedia Commons 88

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AN INTELLECTUAL HERITAGE: The Order of Preachers is famed for its intellectual tradition, having produced many leading theologians and philosophers, the most famous of which was St. Thomas Aquinas.

(Photo courtesy of the Eastern Province of Dominicans, USA)

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FOUNDED TO PREACH THE GOSPEL AND TO COMBAT HERESY, the Dominicans’ teaching and scholastic organization placed the Preachers in the forefront of the intellectual life of the High Middle Ages.

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BLACK FRIARS: In English-speaking countries the Dominican friars are often referred to as ‘Black Friars’ because of the black cappa or cloak over their white habits.

(Photo courtesy of the Eastern Province of Dominicans, USA)

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THE DOMINICAN ORDER includes friars, nuns, active sisters, and lay or secular Dominicans. (Photo courtesy of the Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ)

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THE FIRST DOMINICAN NUNS were young women who had been disowned by their Cathar families. They were established by St Dominic in the south of France. (Photo courtesy of the Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ)

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THE LEGEND OF THE ROSARY: Given to Dominic by Our Lady, the spread of the Rosary, a Marian devotion, is attributed to the preaching of St. Dominic.

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“THE ROSARY OF MARY IS THE PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others.”

Pope Pius XI (Photo courtesy of the Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ)

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ACCELERATING VOCATIONS: Worldwide, the Order of Preachers has seen a 15% jump in vocations in the last decade, fueled by such orthodox leaders as the USA’s burgeoning Eastern Province.

(Photo Credit: Eastern Province of Dominicans, USA)

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St Dominic & the Hounds of God

DEATH OF ‘GOD’S HOUND’ Dominic died at the age of fifty-one, “exhausted with the austerities and labours of his career” Arriving at Bologna, Italy, “weary and sick with a fever” Dominic “made the monks lay him on some sacking stretched upon the ground” and that “the brief time that remained to him was spent in exhorting his followers to have charity, to guard their humility, and to make their treasure out of poverty”. He died at noon on 6 August 1221.

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Day Th

On the Ca St Ja

Excerpted from ‘Along the By: Losana Boyd

S

lept okay, even after all the midnight maneuvering.

I wake up feeling excited…today is the day! Who cares about being rested? A quick juice and coffee, and I am off. The morning is cool and lovely. I practically want to run to Santiago!

I pass, then am over-taken by, and pass again, a few bands of pilgrims. No language connection seems apparent, so we just smile an “ola” and that’s about it. Oh, and a “buon

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amino of ames

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camino!” of course.

The two hour mark arrives with a familiar burning in my feet. Taking Magda’s advice, I re-apply the Vasoline, put on a pair of fresh socks, and get back on the path. Success!

The painful irritation is distracted down to a dull throb.

After this much effort, naturally things are aching and a bit sore. I’m learning to overlook a lot.

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“Well, if we are all here, and you are asking me, apparently, I don’t,” I replied, which brought on some laughs. It seems the trail markers have stopped.

They are a band of Britons here to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We make a few tries at alternative directions.

Then, a local woman walks by. The map leader speaks fluent Spanish, and after a brief conversation, is able to get us onto the right road.

What amazing grace from the Lord. To stop, without question, the further psycho-self assessment and give me instead this fun. A group of lovely Londoners to pal with for the final effort home.

Joanna is an art/English teacher, now living and working in Paris. Amelie, whose birthday it is, tells me that this is a spiritual pilgrimage for her. She was raised Catholic and has drifted away. I am sorry I can’t recall the others’ names, but their energies all contribute to a joyful final trek. The afternoon heat seems less oppressive as our destination awaits.

“You are a Catholic, right?” The map leader asks.

“Yes.” “You’re a Catholic, aren’t you? Do you think now that you’ve done this pilgrimage you will go to heaven?”

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Then a lovely surprise. With about six kilometers left, and interrupting, blessedly, a prolonged interior monologue on my marital failures, I run right into two English-speaking--as in the Queen’s English--pilgrims, asking me if I know the way we are meant to be going.

She knows enough to know that pilgrims completing the Camino de Santiago may be eligible for a plenary indulgence. The Camino is one of the three pilgrimages in the Church, along with Jerusalem and Rome with that distinction.

“I do not presume on God’s judgment, but I trust in his infinite mercy, with or without the Camino,” I said.

We pause for a group shot and continue through the lush, Galician countryside.

Approaching Santiago on a July afternoon, it is oppressively hot. As excited as I am, the effort of the day is beginning to weary me. The hills in the distance are a lovely shade of green... I am trying to imagine that up there must be a cooling breeze. Then, on the horizon, “Look! There they are!” someone in the group calls out.

The Cathedral spires! My heart leaps and my pace quickens. Indeed, there they are! Thank you Lord. Almost home. We have all come so far. Through the still good number of kilometers remaining, we all walk a bit more briskly.

The Londoners are planning a photo shoot on the steps of the Cathedral; friends are waiting for them there. I don’t want to impose on their private celebration, besides, I have my own thoughts on how I want to arrive at the Cathedral. Soon after reaching the city limits, we part company.

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Click Here for video

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“You’re a Catholic, aren’t you? Do you think now that you’ve done this pilgrimage you will go to heaven?”

She knows enough to know that pilgrims completing the Camino de Santiago may be eligible for a plenary indulgence.

The Camino is one of the three pilgrimages in the Church, along with Jerusalem and Rome with that distinction”

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Oh blessed and holy St. James.

Pray for us.

The experience is nearly overwhelming. I am exhausted, probably a bit heat-struck, thirsty and weak... but such physical states are nothing compared to the reality that I am here.

Here at my destination, the place of my longing.

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Day Thirteen Click Here for Losana’s video:

Through the streets and markets of Santiago, I make my way. I don’t stop walking until at last, from the blistering sun on the steps outside, to the cool darkness of the Cathedral interior, I am on my knees before the shrine itself, where St. James’ mortal remains rest within a silver casket in the undercroft of the Cathedral.

Blessed and holy St. James, pray for us. On my knees I offer all of the prayer intentions that family and friends have entrusted to me.

Pilgrims file in, down the stairs, pause briefly, and climb up again. Some of us stay to pray awhile, others keep moving on. We are all part of the great continuum. We form a long line, with those who came before us, who have taken these same paths over many centuries, and those who will arrive tomorrow and day after; all of us have made the journey to be here in this same place.

A Mass for the pilgrims is to begin in about forty minutes. I make my way up from the Shrine into the main aisle to find a seat.

This is a pilgrim town indeed, yet so different in feel from Fatima. Here we multitudes are sweatstained weary hikers with our dusty shoes, grimy clothes and heavy backpacks trudging up and down the narrow lanes. And we are crowding into the cathedral, with backpacks lining up against the inside walls, fronted by hikers who arrive late and can’t find a seat. There is a clumsy out-of-place look to all of us inside this exquisite masterpiece of art and architecture. The staff look non-plussed, which would be expected, I suppose. For me this is a once in a lifetime moment; for them, well, they see the likes of us hikers every day.

After the Pilgrim Mass, the Botafumeiro , the giant thurible, for which Santiago is also famous, is lowered , filled with incense, and swung across the transept of the Cathedral. It requires eight men using a series of ropes and pulleys to get the enormous in-censor moving, and then to get to to stop again, and it is quite a spectacle. I understand that many pilgrims, especially the non-Catholic ones, come to the Pilgrim Mass for the distinct pleasure of catching a glimpse of the Botafumeiro in action.

It’s cool, for sure. I especially love that its original purpose, described as quite liturgical, and which may also be quite applicable today, looking around at the crowd of us, was to provide a pleasant aroma inside the Cathedral where so many road-weary pilgrims were eating and sleeping.

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After Mass, I leave the Cathedral, to find and check into my hotel. The view from my room is amazing. The entire front face of the Cathedral is in perfect full frame, with the lovely hotel garden in the foreground. Nothing else occludes my view. I really need a shower, but I can’t stop staring at the magnificent cathedral.

I longed for this sight. I am here at last. •

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CONTEMPORARY PORTRAIT: Isabella (far right) was ‘a beautiful blonde, of queenly figure, exquisitely chiseled features, and with mild blue eyes.’

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The Drama of Isabella the Catholic Essay By:

Beverly De Soto

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

She is an enigma. Was Isabella of Castile a shining example of queenship in late medieval Europe, a feminist ideal? Was she a Catholic heroine, worthy of sainthood?

Was she a vicious anti-Semite, responsible for the expulsion of hapless Jews and Muslims from Spain? Moreover, why is Isabella such a point of contention, more than five centuries after her death?

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ISABELLA AND FERDINAND HAD A PRECIOUS TWO HOURS ALONE, protected by the Archbishop of Toledo, before their wedding took place in secret in Valladolid in 1469. For the next 23 years, they would fight, side by side, to unite Spain and drive out the Muslims who had invaded in 711.

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She Wore White Into Battle The romance of her life is astonishing. After a courtship that defied her royal family and enlisted the covert aid of a prince of the church, the 19 year old Isabella married the 18 year old Ferdinand II of Aragon.

Contemporary sources describe them -- a young prince, exceedingly handsome, tall, fair, and with an intellectual, expanded brow. He was well educated, temperate in all his habits, of courtly manners, and so devoted to useful activity that business seemed to be his pleasure. “Isabella was,” says a contemporary, “the handsomest lady whom I ever beheld, and the most gracious in her manners.”

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More than thirty generations of Christians fought a bitter, unprecedented 780-year long campaign to expel the Muslim invaders from Spanish soil. It would be Isabella and Ferdinand, however, who would bring the Reconquista to fruition. In 1491, their Christian forces at last succeeded in forcing the Caliph to abandon his ancient palace, the Alhambra in Granada.

The First Santa Fe Granada is perched on a high bluff overlooking the Andalusian plain. The siege forces of the Catholic monarchs were encamped below in a vast white tent city, ‘Santa Fe’ (‘Holy Faith’). It was this overwhelming show of force plus a ‘perpetual guarantee’ of the tax proceeds from several towns by Isabella and

The Drama of Isabella the Catholic

THE CALIPH CONFRONTS THE CATHOLIC MONARCHS: Isabella wore shining white on horseback, often pregnant, as the pair led their soldiers into battle across Spain. The Christian soldiers named her ‘la Catolica’ and contemporary sources attest to their great loyalty to their fearless warrior queen.

“In 1491, their Christian forces at last succeeded in forcing the Caliph to abandon his ancient palace, the Alhambra in Granada.”

Ferdinand that persuaded Boabdil to leave peacefully.

It had been a bad time for Boabdil, as he’d fought a civil war against his father for the caliphate, only to be overtaken by the Catholic Kings. Moreover, the monarchs were to renege on their deal with the hapless Caliph. He died in Fez in 1528, nicknamed ‘the Wretched’ by his fellow Muslims.

Meanwhile, in the tent city of Santa Fe, Christopher Columbus watched as a shining cross was erected over the battlements of Granada. He and his fellow Christians knelt in their thousands below, intoning the great hymn of thanksgiving, the Te Deum of St Ambrose and Augustine. The war of eight centuries was over.

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WRENCHING FAREWELL: In exile in Láujar de Andarax, Almería, at a place now called ‘the Door of the Caliph’s Sighs’ Boabdil reportedly wept.

His mother mocked him, “go ahead and weep like a woman for a land that you failed to defend as a man.”

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The Drama of Isabella the Catholic

Isabella the Monster Once queen of a united Spain, did Isabella become a monster? This is exceedingly difficult to discern.

Classic historical perspectives written in English or German are of little use, tainted by the anti-Catholic bias of the ‘Black Legend’ of Spain invented by the Protestant historians in the 16th and 17th centuries. Even today, almost five centuries later, the portrait of Isabella which emerges depends almost wholly on the biases of the writer.

Recent feminist historians extol her virtues as a ‘strong’ woman and learned queen, betraying their almost complete ignorance of the fact that Isabella’s female contemporaries were often respected and highly educated, such as the accomplished Latinist Dona Beatriz de Galindo, Isabella’s teacher. They also disparage her husband Ferdinand, claiming that Isabella was the actual monarch and painting Ferdinand as a feckless, faithless adulterer.

Jewish historians focus on the sufferings inflicted on the Jews of that time – variously estimated at 60,000 to several hundred thousand emigres – and paint Isabella as a cruel tyrant and religious fanatic. Modern European historians, anxious to show their broadminded view of Islam, are quick to point out the tolerance and cosmopolitanism of the Muslim Spain that Isabella and Ferdinand swept away.

However, the ruling Muslims had ceded control of much of their finances to Jews, who alone of the three religions had no prohibition against the charging of interest. The economic and financial system which underpinned Spain was therefore largely in Jewish hands, and their

support buttressed the Muslim caliphate. Hence, they were seen by the Christians as essential supporters of the enemy occupiers, and Isabella was advised that they should be expelled along with the Muslims.

At the fall of Granada, Jewish representatives sent a deputation to Ferdinand and Isabella at Santa Fé with a present of thirty thousand ducats to aid in paying the expenses of the Moorish war. Strapped for cash after an expensive war, Isabella and Ferdinand nevertheless rejected the offer.

Instead, they gave Jews who would not convert a scant three months to leave Spain and forbade them from bringing their riches with them.

Many of the descendants of conversos became illustrious academics and clerics, such as St Teresa of Avila, who was born just 23 years after the expulsion. Others converted only in appearance and continued to practice their faith in private.

Thus began the saga of the Sephardim, the Jews who left Spain for North Africa, Italy and Portugal. In a great historical irony, many Sephardim settled in Rome, where their descendants live to this day. The first Jews to settle in North America in the English colonies of Newport, Rhode Island and South Carolina, were Sephardim.

In 2014, the Spanish government issued an official apology for this ‘shameful episode in Spanish history,’ offering Spanish citizenship to anyone who can prove that their Jewish ancestors were forced to leave Spain.

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THE TRUTH ABOUT MUSLIM SPAIN: The truth about Muslim Spain is of course far more nuanced. Although the accomplishments of medicine, mathematics and philosophy in Muslim Spain are not in dispute, in point of fact at various times in their nearly 800 years of occupation, Muslims carried out periodic persecutions and mass pogroms against both Christians and Jews. Even when times were more tolerant, both Jews and Christians in Spain were dhimmi (second class citizens) permitted the private practice of their faith on the condition that they remained unarmed and paid onerous taxes to support their Muslim overlords.

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A 19TH CENTURY PROTESTANT VIEW OF COLUMBUS (center) in the Alhambra presenting his case to Isabella and Ferdinand after the fall of Granada. The sinister Catholic Cardinal – in red, bottom left – is depicted as the true force behind a wavering Isabella. Painting by the German American artist Emanuel Leutze.

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ISABELLA’S CROWN & SCEPTRE and Ferdinand’s sword are preserved in the Royal Chapel of Granada, where they are buried.

Isabella’s youngest, Catherine of Aragon, was raised in the Alhambra and later married to the infamous Henry VIII of England. We are told that Isabella accompanied the bridal party to the shore and wept as she said farewell to her beloved daughter, whom she would never again see in this world.

The loss of Prince John to a sudden fever was a blow that his mother never recovered from, however.

When she learned of his death, she said “The Lord gave him to me, the Lord hath taken him from me, glory be His holy name.”

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Isabella died at the age of 51 in Valladolid in 1504 and she is buried in the Royal Chapel at Granada alongside Ferdinand.

Isabella the Saint In 1958, the canonical process for Isabella was begun by the Bishop of Valladolid on the basis of more than 100,000 documents in the archives of Spain and the Vatican. 3,500 of these are included in 27 volumes which in 1972 were officially submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. This process was

approved and Isabel was given the title “Servant of God” in March 1974.

Since then, Isabella’s life has become the object of intense scrutiny, attracting the interest of writers and historians with various current-day political perspectives, as we have seen, particularly those who see her through a feminist or a post-Shoah lens. Perhaps as no other late medieval figure, Isabella continues to fascinate – a commentary on our own times as much as on hers. •

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ISABELLA THE MOTHER What is not in dispute is Isabella’s lasting legacy as an outstanding mother to her five children. Herself a classically-trained linguist with a command of several languages, and a lifetime of experience in politics, strategy and warfare, she ensured that her son and four daughters were superbly educated and married into the leading courts of Europe.

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The

Tragic Daughters of Isabella Article by: Donna Sue Berry Photo Credit: Teresa Limjoco

It is a startlingly modern question. What becomes of the daughters of a warrior queen, a devoted and exemplary mother who ensured they were well-catechized in the Faith and well-educated in the world?

Isabella, John, Joanna, Maria and Catherine were the five children of King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella of Castile and Leon. They were raised to adulthood during a time of turmoil, with scandal and battles revolving around the throne of Castile. Theirs was a life lived in a monarchial world filled with duties and danger. All their lives, the children, each with royal titles and expectations of sitting on a European throne, found the roads to and from those seats of power to be filled with joy, pain and sorrow.

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WEDDING PORTRAIT: Their arranged marriage in 1490 quickly became a happy one as Don Afonso and Isabella were quite attracted to each other.

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The Tragic Daughters of Isabella AT AGE SEVEN, WHILE HER PARENTS WERE OFF FIGHTING THE WAR IN PORTUGAL, Isabella was trapped in the Alcazar in Segovia, while civil unrest raged around her.

ISABELLA OF ARAGON, born October 2nd 1470, was the eldest and heiress to the throne of Castile.

Her life as the crown princess in a royal court was no bed of roses. She spent a considerable part of her youth on campaign with her parents as they conquered the remaining Muslim states in southern Spain.

With the birth of her brother, John, Isabella lost her place in the royal line to become queen, and with the end of the war with Portugal, Isabella found that she was part of the terms of the Treaty of Alcacovas. The treaty required her to marry Don Afonso, grandson of Afonso V. Not only would her parents pay a large dowry for their daughter, but the princess would have to live in Portugal, guaranteeing that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella would abide by the terms of the treaty.

had become a sanctuary for the Jews her parents had expelled from Spain. She resorted to fasting and harsh penances, vowing to never marry again.

She eventually returned to Spain, but in 1497 the King and Queen offered her hand to Manuel I, who had succeeded the throne in Portugal. Isabella refused, however, as the question of the Jews in Portugal was still on the table. She would only marry Manuel if he would expel all Jews who would not convert to Christianity; he did this and they married.

That same year, her brother John died, leaving Isabella heir to the throne of Castile and Aragon. Within a year, however, Isabella died within an hour of giving birth to a son; the constant fasting and penances had taken their toll. Her child, too, would die just two years later, and this death would leave Isabella’s younger sister, Joanna, as the next heir to the throne of Spain.

However, their marriage would end abruptly as a year later Afonso was killed in a riding accident. A distraught Isabella was convinced that her husband’s death was a sign of God’s displeasure that Portugal

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IN HER GRIEF, JOANNA REFUSED TO BE SEPARATED FROM HER HUSBAND’S CORPSE, often opening his coffin to kiss and caress him. She even had his embalmed body travel close to her on his way to his final resting place in Granada.

JOANNA OF CASTILE WAS WELL EDUCATED, as were her siblings, in canon and civil law; she excelled in the fine arts and spoke a few languages. Formally prepared for a significant marriage as a royal alliance, Joanna married Archduke Philip the Handsome, son of the German King Maximilian I, and in 1500 she gave birth to the future emperor, Charles V. In all, Joanna would give birth to six children and each would ascend thrones as emperor or queens.

But Joanna’s marriage was destined to be unhappy one. Philip was often unfaithful; he abused her physically and psychologically. Her jealous reactions and neurotic behavior in no small part strengthened the rumors of her insanity; at one point she attacked one of his mistresses with a pair of scissors, hacking off some of the woman’s hair.

As the family deaths left Joanna in line to inherit the throne in Spain, she became Queen regnant of Castile when her mother, Queen Isabella I died in 1504. This caused her father King Ferdinand II to lose his status as a monarch, and her husband Philip to fight with all he had to gain that status. For a while the duties of government were undertaken by her father and for a short while by her husband.

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In 1506, Philip died suddenly, reportedly of typhoid fever or poisoning. Joanna believed the latter. Pregnant with their 6th child, she was reportedly completely unhinged by Philip’s death Afterwards, an unstable Joanna was unable to resist the encroachment of her father, Ferdinand, on her power as Queen. He eventually had her confined to the convent Santa Clara in Tordesillas. After several years and the death of Ferdinand, Joanna’s son, Charles V, would become emperor, and Joanna would continue to remain as queen in name only. She would never leave the convent again but would die there after being confined for fifty years.

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SPAIN’S THIRD PRINCESS WAS MARIA OF ARAGON.

B

orn in 1482, it was thought that her hand would be given in marriage to King James IV of Scotland, but with the death of her oldest sister, Isabella, Queen of Portugal, it became necessary for her marry her sister’s widower, Manuel I of Portugal. They were married in October 1500. Of their ten children, eight reached adulthood, including King John III of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress Isabella of Portugal, and Beatrice, Duchess of Savoy.

Tragically, Maria died in March 1517 at the age of 35; she is buried at the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon.

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CATHERINE OF ARAGON

C

atherine and Prince Arthur were duly wed at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1501. The 16 year old bride then moved to Ludlow Castle on the Welsh border.

CATHERINE OF ARAGON WAS BY FAR THE MOST WELL-KNOWN OF KING FERDINAND AND QUEEN ISABELLA’S CHILDREN. This future Queen of England was born in 1485; she was betrothed to Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII and heir apparent to the English throne, at three years of age.

Less than six months after their wedding, however, Arthur died from a disease known as the ‘sweating sickness’. Catherine, now a young widow, would become the object of King Henry VII’s determination to keep the alliance with Spain -- as well as the very large dowry she had brought with her.

Initially, Henry VII wanted her betrothed to his younger son, Henry VIII, though he was too young to marry. Regardless, a little over

The Tragic Daughters of Isabella

a year after Arthur’s death, Catherine and Henry VIII were betrothed.

Curiously, at this point several years passed and King Henry VII lost interest in Spain as an alliance. He then forced young Henry to repudiate his betrothal to Catherine. Catherine would live the next four years in uncertainty until the King died; it was then that the new young King Henry VIII married her, and on June 24th, 1509 Henry and Catherine were both crowned in a double ceremony.

Not long after they were married, Catherine found herself pregnant, but their first child, a daughter, was stillborn. After this tragedy, the next twenty years brought a succession of miscarriages, stillborn births, and two sons who lived only a few days. Their only child to survive was a daughter, Mary.

Regardless, Henry wanted a male heir, and considered himself childless. Despite his former devotion to Catherine, he began to pull away from her. He cavorted with two mistresses and ended up falling in love with the sister of one them, a lady-in-waiting to Catherine. Anne Boleyn had captured the King’s attention, and he began to formulate a plan for gaining an annulment of his marriage to Catherine from the Church.

With the declaration from Pope Clement VII refusing to annul the marriage, Henry rose up to defy the Pope and declared himself ‘Supreme Head’ over religious matters, and his marriage to Catherine was deemed invalid. He was therefore free to marry Anne who had become pregnant. Henry was now both King and Supreme Head of the Church of England; Catherine was no longer acknowledged as Queen, but simply Dowager Princess of Wales.

Though physically and emotionally ill as a consequence of this extreme mistreatment, Catherine was known to seldom complain.

She resorted to prayer and died at age fifty at Kimbolton Castle, in the cold January of 1536. She was buried, with the ceremonies of a Princess Dowager and not a Queen, at Peterborough Cathedral, where her body lies today.

(Editor’s Note: In a case of possible mass inherited guilt, Catherine’s ghost is said to haunt Kimbolton Castle today a school.)

Most cruelly, Henry sent Catherine to live the remainder of her life separated from her daughter.

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THE MAN SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS MARRYING: When 16 year old Catherine left Spain forever to marry Arthur, the Crown Prince of Wales, she had no idea he would be dead within six months.

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THE MAN SHE WAS LEFT WITH: At the behest of her father-inlaw, Catherine remained in England for several years until Henry was of age to marry her. Their 20-year marriage would founder when he abandoned her and the Catholic Faith for her lady-in-waiting, Ann Boleyn. (Henry famously ordered Boleyn’s beheading just three years later, accusing her of committing adultery with five men, including her own brother, George.)

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Spain’s Catholic Chess Queen Interview By:

Meghan Ferrara

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

T

hough chess is an ancient game, its popularity continues to this day. The strategy and finesse required to succeed are an integral part of the fascination the game holds for players.

What is less well known, though equally intriguing, is the story of how chess developed into its modern form. An essential aspect of this story is the evolution of the queen piece and the role that Renaissance Spain and its greatest queen played.

Chess arrived on the Iberian Peninsula with the Arab invasion of the eighth century. In lieu of a ‘queen’ chess piece, however, early chess players used a ‘king’s adviser’ piece, which was able to move only one square at a time on a diagonal. As the game flourished in Catholic medieval Europe, this piece became known as the queen, due particularly to its proximity to the king. Nonetheless, it would not be until the late fifteenth century that the queen would acquire the power that is a hallmark of the modern pastime.

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“Chess arrived on the Iberian Peninsula with the Arab invasion of the eighth century.�

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THE CORONATION OF ISABELLA OF CASTILE in 1474 brought significant changes to Spain. It marked the beginning of the Renaissance there and solidified Spain’s status as a world power in that tumultuous age.

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Spain’s Catholic Chess Queen

SIGNED DOCUMENTS OF THE ‘CONCORDAT’ AT SEGOVIA, wherein Isabella is guaranteed her future as queen in her own right. Isabella was heavily involved in all aspects of governance, including military campaigns.

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Spain’s Catholic Chess Queen

THE SIEGE OF BAZA was a quintessential example of Isabella’ s prowess; it also provided the catalyst for the alteration of her chess counterpart. On November 7, 1489, King Ferdinand and his troops received a visit from Queen Isabella after having laid siege to the town for six months. The king’s troops were losing the fight and on the brink of capitulation. Ferdinand sent a message to Isabella in Jaen to share this decision with her.

THE QUEEN’S RESPONSE was an adamant refusal to accept defeat. She urged Ferdinand and his soldiers to persevere and promised that she, herself, would ride to their aid. Isabella’s arrival revitalized the Spanish and led to their victory three weeks later, thus ensuring her status as a warrior queen and absolute monarch.

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THE CELEBRATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN VICTORY at Baza resounded throughout Spain and directly correlate to the critical transformation of the queen chess piece at this juncture. Inspired by the military ability of Queen Isabella, new chess rules came into effect, reflecting the prowess and Catholic faith of the young queen.

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WHILE THE KING REMAINED THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE IN THE GAME, the queen was the most powerful. No longer a weak, restricted piece, the queen now moved boldly across the board in any direction for an unlimited number of spaces. Eventually, Luis Ram铆rez de Lucena set forth the new rules in Repetici贸n de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez, the oldest printed book on chess, ushering in the modern form of chess.

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Spain’s Catholic Chess Queen

LAST RESTING PLACE OF THE CATHOLIC MONARCHS IN GRANADA: Queen Isabella’s devotion to her troops, loyalty to her husband and strong Catholic faith not only made her a remarkable queen, but also changed one of the world’s most popular pastimes.

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Serious

SPANISH SWEETS Article By: Beverly De Soto

Photo Credit: Teresa Limjoco

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n the heart of the historic Madrid today, you can still buy pastries directly from El Convento de Corpus Christi. Founded in the 17th century, 'El Convento de Las Carboneras' is popularly named because of a painting representing the Virgen de la Immaculada found by children in a pile of charcoal, presented to the church.

Here, the Hieronimus nuns make delicious traditional sweets such as almond biscuits, tocinillos de cielo (creamy egg yolk and sugar dessert, topped with caramel), Sherry mantecados (soft lard biscuits) or naranjines (orange sweets).

â–ş If you arrive at the old wooden door to the left of the front entrance, you must ring their bell first. The sisters sell their pastries from 09:30 to 13:00 and from 16:00 to 18:30.

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LIKE MOST DELIGHTS OF A CATHOLIC CIVILIZATION, the artisanal making of amazing pastries in Spain actually has a religious history.

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IN COUNTRIES WITH A TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC CULTURE, baking specialty pastries was an occupation of convents – a way for cloistered sisters to earn money to sustain themselves.

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FAMILY-OWNED BAKERIES like this one in Madrid ( ‘The Woman from Mallorca’ founded in 1894) also offer their own selection of hand-crafted sweets along with specialty liquors and coffee.

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SPANIARDS ENJOY ‘CHURROS’ dipped in a thick, warm chocolate sauce for breakfast.

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SPANISH ‘ROSQUILLAS’ ARE THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN ‘DOUGHNUT’ – hand-crafted in local versions throughout Spain’s provinces.

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FOR ALMOST 800 YEARS, THEY LIVED UNDER THE YOKE OF ISLAM. Between 711 and 1492 AD, Spain was occupied by North African Muslims. Yet somehow, against seemingly impossible odds, the Faith did not die.

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The

Truth about

Muslim Spain How did Christianity Survive?

Article By: Peter De Trolio III

Photo Credit: Teresa Limjoco

In fact, one could argue that Christianity was immeasurably strengthened by the Spanish experience – almost immediately after they regained their ancient land, the Spanish fanned out over the world to spread their ancient Faith.

How did this happen? Peter De Trolio is an American who has been living in Spain for more than two decades. A lawyer and a teacher, he has taken a great interest in this from his unique perspective of an ex patriate living deep in the heart of Andalucia.

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Before the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, the Ibero/Romanos were a wholly Catholic population that had only a just over a century before overcome Arianism in their country.

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fter the fall of the Roman Empire, Germanic tribes -- Swabians, Goths and Visigoths -- ran roughshod over the Peninsula and established themselves as the sovereigns. These coarse barbarians were followers of the Arian heresy. Over time and with the help of luminaries such as Saint Isidore of Seville they were won over and brought to the true Faith.

What the Moors found when they invaded was a unified Christian people actively practicing their Faith.

In 711 a Muslim Army of mostly Berbers led by Tariq ibn Ziyad “El Tuerto” crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from North Africa and landed at Gibraltar at the head of an invading army proportedly to place the heirs of Witiza the deposed Visogothic King of Hispania back on the throne.

They defeated, and probably killed, the King, Roderic, at the battle of Guadalete and they began an unstoppable run North, due mostly to the fact that there was no way for the remaining

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nobles to enthrone a new King and get organized.

They were not stopped until a stand was made in extreme northern Spain in a place called Covadonga by a man named Pelayo.

Betrayal Overnight the population that had had to convert their Kings from Arianism to Catholicism were subjected to the yoke of Islam. Some theorize that Witiza’s heirs went to the Islamic Caliphate for help because of the theological connection between Arianism and Islam. The real reason will never be known. Certainly they never imagined that they were about to enslave their own people.

The imposition of Islamic law meant that not only the majority Catholic population but as well the minority Jewish population could no longer practice their religion freely and were subject to harsh restrictions and heavy taxes. Curiously,

Tariq never had any intention of placing Witiza’s heirs on the throne. He soon took control over the Kingdom and imposed Islam on the population.

many Christians and Jews had helped the advance of Tariq, believing he would liberate them from the heavy taxation imposed by the Visigoths; nothing could have been farther than the truth.

Strangers In Their Own Land Most of the people remained true to the Faith and therefore were required to pay extraordinary taxes and were not allowed to hold any government posts. Some who were afraid to lose their places of importance apostatized. As part of the imposed restrictions no new churches were allowed to be built and those extant were not allowed to be repaired. These Christians became known as “Mozarabe,” or the “Arabized.”

For some time during the early occupation, the Church survived mostly intact with dioceses remaining and Bishops allowed to attend Councils. This situation was not to last for very

long. There were many pogroms, including the famous “dia de la Hoya,” where five thousand Christians received the crown of martyrdom.

There also began a movement in the Muslim world to purify and reform. These Muslims believed that their co-religionists on the Peninsula were too lax, much like the radical Islamic movements of today.

In 1086 the Almoravid dynasty, North African Berbers, came across the Strait to aid their co-religionists against the constant attacks of the re-conquering Christian kingdoms. Once they arrived they overthrew the ruling class with the permission of their religious superiors in Baghdad and began a religious reform of the type we are seeing the radical Islamic terrorists use today in the Middle East. There were immediate consequences for the surviving Christians.

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NOW THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA were foreigners in their own homeland. Their new overlords did not take kindly to the people’s resistance to conversion to Islam.

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The Truth About Muslim Spain

DURING THE FIRST 300 YEARS after the Muslim conquest, slowly but surely the Christians began to drift away from the Faith.

Apostasy or Flight

The Long, Grim Fight Back

Some had converted to Islam to gain personal advantage, others emigrated to North Africa where they could practice their religion more freely, oddly enough. Still others escaped over the border to the Christian Kingdoms.

By 1086, the Kingdoms of Castilla-Leon, Aragon and Navarra had taken back a large portion of Spain.

Toledo had been re-taken and was safely within the Kingdom of Castilla-Leon. As the re-conquest made its slow progression south the re-conquered territories would be repopulated by Christians from the North and suspended dioceses would cease to be Inpartibus Infidelium, although some would take centuries to restore.

Those Christians who were left after the arrival of the Almoravid were forced to either flee, be deported to North Africa, convert or be put to the sword. Their Churches were destroyed and all signs of Christianity were erased.

Christianity survived in Spain, not because the Christians in Muslim-held territories were able to Not a Christian remained in the Muslim-controlled practice their religion, but because the Christian territories. Much like we see today in areas controlled kingdoms began to move south and re-conquer lost by the Islamic State, Christians were slaughtered and territory. the land became void of the light of Christ.

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OUR LADY OF WAR: Spain’s Christians carried this image of Our Lady into the battle for Jerez de la Frontera fought in 1231 between the forces of Ferdinand III, king of Castile and León, and the Moors.

The Moors were led by Ibn Hud, successor of the Almohads. The Christians were victorious and after 500 years, the city was finally freed.

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The Mystery of the Ancient

Mozarabic Mass Article By:

Peter De Trolio III

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

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DISTINCTIVE RITES OF THE MASS GREW UP IN THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF HISPANIA, later the Visigothic Kingdom. Of these rites, one in particular, the Mozarabic Rite, has remained preserved down to the present day.

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n this era of controversy surrounding the rites of the Mass, it is fascinating to look back through the centuries to yet another time when the question of diverse rites arose.

Before the unification of the rites in the Western Church, there were many different local rites. Distance and lack of communication caused and allowed for variations that naturally developed --that is, in terms of ceremony, though never in the essential Consecration.

Thanks to the Moorish Invasion In some ways it was thanks to the Moorish invasion of 711 that the use of this rite has continued, uninterrupted since the days of St. Isadore of Seville.

Oddly enough, ‘Mozaribic’ Rite is a misnomer, as this rite was in use long before the term ‘Mozarabe’ was 186 Regina Magazine | Spain

ever coined. But it is specifically because it was in use within the Moorish occupied parts of Spain and continued there after the Roman Rite was institutionalized that it was given the sobriquet “Mozaribic,” after the name of the Christian population living under the yoke of the Muslims.

Pope John X introduced the Roman Rite for use in all the Western Church and in 1064 Pope Alexander II sent an emissary to Spain to institute the use of the Roman Rite there. At that time, the largest part of Spain was under Muslim rule and the edict was impossible to fully carry out.

Christian Spain at the time was divided into, more or less three Kingdoms; Castilla-Leon, Aragon and Navarre. The new unified rite was accepted by some of the Kingdoms, but not all.

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THE CHRISTIANS IN TOLEDO demanded the right to continue to use the old rite as an important sign of their resistance to the Muslim occupation.

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Toledo’s Special Role Today, it is clear to see that this rite was the Mass that gave strength to those living in captivity and to those struggling to free those captives during the crusade that was the re-conquest of Spain.

A bargain was struck and the parish Churches extant in Toledo were granted permission to continue to use the old rite under the supervision of the Archbishop of Toledo. However, the new rite would be installed in any new parishes in Toledo and any new territory conquered.

The Rite received probably its most important assistance to its survival from Cardinal Jimemez de Cisneros, the Archbishop of Toledo during the reign of the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella. Cardinal Cisneros understood the importance to keeping the rite alive. In an age where copying texts was prohibitively expensive, this act probably saved the Rite from extinction.

The Mozarabic is a Mass celebrated in Latin and said Ad Orientum although there are scholars who debate whether or not it was originally done this way; in any case, it is now optional to say it facing the people.

No one knows which vestments were used during the Mass; today, the Roman or fiddle-back vestments are employed.

As well, the Mozarabic Mass has its own hymnal, although the original tones are lost in time and they are now sung in Gregorian Chant. The Mass itself has the same basic three parts as the Roman Rite yet it is celebrated in a completely distinct form, almost as an antiphonal conversation. It also has a complex offertory with an offertory “room� on one side of the sanctuary. As well, at the fraction the Eucharist is divided into nine pieces.

The Mozarabic Rite is one of only a few rites which have survived down the ages from remote antiquity, completely intact. It faced extinction more than once and through grace today continues to enrich the Church.

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THE RITE ITSELF IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE ROMAN RITE, as it developed completely independently. It has its own Breviary, its own rites for the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Extreme Unction, Marriage and Ordination.

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The Mozarabic Mass

THE FAR-SEEING CARDINAL caused the Mozarabe sacramental books which had become almost illegible with age and use to be printed on the newly-invented printing press so that the Rite could continue to survive.

Sources: Catholic Encyclopedia on line, “The Mozarabic Rite.�

Online, www.hispanomozarabe.es, The Liturgia Hispano-Mozarabe. www.architoledo.org, El Rito Hispano-Mozarabe.

Interview with Rev. Msgr. Jose Luis Repeto Betis, former Dean of the Cathedral of the Archdioces de Asidonia-Jerez, Diocesian Historian and celebrant of the Misa Mozarabe.

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Today, of these old Toledo Parishes only six continue to exist canonically: Santa Eulalia, Santas Justa y Rufina, San Marcos, San Torcuato, San Lucas and San Sebastian. The rite may also be celebrated in the Chapel of the Mozarabe in the Cathedral and on certain feasts in the Old Cathedral of Salamanca. The Mass can also be celebrated, in an extraordinary way, by any Priest, sufficiently prepared, who receives permission from his ordinary. •

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THE GUADALQUIVIR RIVER AND THE MILLENIA-OLD ROMAN BRIDGE: Cordoba is an ancient dwelling place, settled long before the Romans built their monumental city.

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The Strange Story of Cordoba’s Disputed Cathedral

By Peter De Trollio II Photos by Teresa Limjoco

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MASSIVE GATEWAY TO HONOR THE ROMAN GOD JANUS: The Romans built their temple to Janus, the god of beginnings and endings and doorways, near this ancient doorway opposite the bridge on the mighty Guadalquivir.

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SAME PLACE, SAME USE: Earlier generations repeatedly utilized spaces/locations for government, commercial and religious use. In Cordoba, the current City Hall sits on the ruins of the Roman Forum. The position of this prominent building within the ancient city center remains precisely the same as in antiquity.

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The Strange Story of Cordoba’s Disputed Cathedral

CORDOBA IN THE TIME OF CHRIST: One of the few Roman cities which the invading Muslim hordes did not demolish and re-locate, today’s Cordoba is Mozarabe Cordoba, which was previously Visigothic Cordoba and before that Roman Cordoba.

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FROM TEMPLE TO CHURCH TO MOSQUE The Early Years of Cordoba's Massive Cathedral​

600 AD: When Hispania became Catholic, the major Roman temples were converted into Churches, and so it was with Cordoba’s temple to Janus, which made way for the Church of Saint Vincent, Martyr.

711 AD: When the Muslim Berbers overran Spain, the Christians were forced to cede half for use by the conquerors for their prayer. The Christians were guaranteed the continued use of the rest.

784 AD: As the Muslim population grew through apostasy and repopulation, the space grew too small.

Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Rahman I purchased the Christian half, in return allowing them to re-construct the decayed and demolished Churches of St. Faustus, St. Januarius and St. Marcellus.

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A MOSQUE TO RIVAL ANY IN THE WORLD: The Caliph demolished the Church of St. Vincent, Martyr and on its foundation began the construction of the massive edifice that his descendants would finish.

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In 987 AD the Great Mosque of Cordoba was finished, including the famous patio of the orange trees, with its intricate system of irrigation.

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AN ARCHITECTURAL WONDER: Supported by 110 extraordinary columns -- many from Roman ruins – the Cordoba Mosque’s red and white horseshoe arches have become legendary.

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A PLACE OF WORSHIP FOR THE MUSLIM OCCUPIERS OF CORDOBA until the Crusading army of the Kingdom of Castile freed the city from the oppressive yoke of Islam. In 1236, Saint Fernando III, King of Castile re-conquered the city.

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SAINT FERNANDO GAVE THE MOSQUE to the Archdiocese of Cordoba, re-established, to use as its Cathedral. The most magnificent place of worship in the city, Our Lady of the Assumption has remained Cordoba’s Cathedral ever since.

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MADONNA OF THE MOSQUE: Part of modifications made in order to accommodate Christian worship, always respecting the building’s essential architectonical magnificence.

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OVER THE LAST DECADE AND A HALF, immigrant Muslims have agitated to have the Cathedral returned to use by them for prayer.

Both the Archdiocese and the Vatican have disapproved these requests.

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The Strange Story of Cordoba’s Disputed Cathedral

THERE HAS BEEN A MOVE BY EXTREME ANTI-CATHOLIC LEFTISTS in the “Junta de Andalucia” -- the governing body of the autonomous community of Andalucia -- to secularize the Cathedral and its priceless art and force the Archdiocese to turn it over to the government.

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SUCH CYNICAL POLITICAL MANEUVERING is, of course, a ruse of the Left. Observers say that the plan is to bestow the building on the Muslims as a slap in the face to the Church.

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AN ENORMOUS GRASS ROOTS CAMPAIGN HAS SPRUNG UP TO DEFEND THE CATHEDRAL, as Christians fear that if the Junta wishes to force the issue, there could be major political disturbances.

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LET US PRAY that the Cathedral remains in the hands of the Archdiocese of Cordoba and the Holy Mass continues to be sung there daily as it has been for the last 779 years. “Asi sea.”

Sources: Wikipedia “Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba” “Santa Iglesia Catedral de Cordoba,” www.catedraldecordoba.es

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Beautiful Mant

Stylist: Regina Fashion & Style Editor: Sequoia Sierra Photo Credit: Thomas Meister Veils: www.veilsbylily.com Location: Sts. Peter & Paul, Wilmington, CA

THE LIGHTWEIGHT MANTILLA CAM ER REGIONS OF SPAIN in the 16th ce popular in the 17th and 18th centur

by Spanish artists Diego Velรกzquez an Queen Isabella II actively en 226 Regina Magazine | Spain

l Spanish tillas

ME INTO USE IN THE WARMentury; lace mantillas became ries, as depicted in portraits nd Goya. In the 19th century, ncouraged its use.

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SOME SAY THAT THE SPANISH CUSTOM DATES BACK TO THE RECONQUISTA, when Christian women were once again free to wear the veil openly in Church as a sign of their acknowledgement of the Real Presence in the Tabernacle.

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ORIGINALLY WORN BY WOMEN OF THE ANDALUSIA REGION OF SPAIN, as Spaniards settled in Mexico and South and Central America, they brought their traditional cultural custom of wearing the lace mantilla to Latin America.

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HOLY WEEK IN SEVILLE: Today, Spanish women wear mantillas during Santa Semana (the week before Easter), at bullfights and to weddings.

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CONVENTIONAL WISDOM HAS IT that the Spanish tradition is based on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. Though for nineteen centuries this passage from St. Paul was uncontroversial, in the late 20th century it became a feminist complaint in both Catholic and Protestant circles. Today, many young women have once again taken to wearing the veil in church.

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PAPAL PROTOCOL CALLS FOR MANTILLAS TO BE WORN BY WOMEN, especially Catholics, when received in formal audience by the Pope. In accordance with what is known as the privilège du blanc, Catholic female monarchs and the consorts of Catholic monarchs wear white when formally meeting the Pope. Queen Sofia of Spain wore a white mantilla at the requiem Mass for John Paul II and at the inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

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THE WHITE MANTILLA AS A SIGN OF CATHOLIC ROYALTY: Elena of Montenegro and Marie José of Belgium, queen and crown princess of Italy respectively, wearing white in the presence of Pope Pius XII at the Quirinale Palace on 28 December 1939.

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IT’S OF SOME INT A VEIL at a formal Robinson, former S former Philippine P Chancellor Angela

Beautiful Spanish Mantillas

TEREST TO NOTE WHO HAS NOT WORN papal reception: former Irish President Mary Soviet Union First Lady Raisa Gorbachev, President Gloria Arroyo and current German a Merkel.

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BLACK MANTILLAS HAVE BEEN WORN by the Grand Duchesses of Luxembourg at the papal inauguration of 2005, Laura Bush in 2006, Michelle Obama in 2009, the Ukrainian Yulia Tymoshenko, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, as well as first ladies from Malaysia, Jordan, Iran, and Lebanon and ambassadors accredited to the Holy See. 240 Regina Magazine | Spain

Beautiful Spanish Mantillas

THERE IS A SPANISH SAYING, “BUENO...ESO ES ENCAJE DE BOLILLOS” (‘THIS IS LIKE LACE MAKING’) – a metaphor for attempting something that is really complex

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Teresa of Jesus

By Bridget Green Photos by Teresa Limjoco

We hear these famous wry words of St. Teresa of Avila, uttered after an awful accident in the pouring rain overturned her cart and left her, in her heavy Carmelite robes and bare feet (she was ‘discalced’ after all), soaking wet, covered in mud, Article By: and late for a very important meeting.

Bridget Green

It should be pointed out that Teresa was addressing God, the Father, Creator of our world and everything in, on, above, below, and around it. Teresa spoke to God the way she would to any of her dearest friends, and He [usually] responded in kind.

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"If this is how You treat Your friends, it's no wonder You have so few of them."

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TERESA WAS BORN IN AVILA in 1515, to a wealthy Jewish family. Her grandparents had converted to the Faith after the Fall of Granada in 1492. Her parents became devout Catholics.

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TERESA’S CONVENT: After her mother’s death when Teresa was just 12 years old, her father sent her to be educated at a nearby Augustinian convent. It was here that she first truly “fell in love” with the Lord.

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HOW THE CARMELITES LIVED: When Teresa entered the convent at Avila, each nun had a private apartment, complete with kitchen, entertainment area and personal servants. The Carmelites had lost their way and were no longer adhering to their former strict rule and simple lifestyle.

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Upon her return home, Teresa expressed an intense desire to enter immediately into religious life, and so, at the age of 17, she professed her final vows and joined the nuns at the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation. This was to be her first step on a long road of reforming this vast Order, a task she continued until her death almost 50 years later.

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THE STORY OF HOW TERESA CAME TO COUNT THE LORD AMONG HER CIRCLE OF LOVED ONES is one of a true adventure. It’s also one of the great love stories of her day or any day for that matter.

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MYSTICAL STAIRCASE ENCOUNTER It was here, in her Avila convent, where Teresa reported her encounter with a mysterious little boy. “Who are you?” the boy asked the Carmelite nun. “I am Sister Teresa of Jesus,” she replied kindly, using her formal religious name. “And who might you be?”

“I am,” he said, fixing his eyes calmly on hers, “Jesus of Teresa.”

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THE CHAPEL WHERE SHE FLOATED: It was not uncommon for her fellow nuns to find Teresa levitating in the kitchen or the garden of the convent and most often at Mass, lost in prayer, meditating on the glory of God and the love of Christ. It is said that she floated several feet above the ground during her flights of prayerful fancy, gently returning to the ground when each was over.

Mystic visions Throughout her adult life, Teresa was the receiver of many Beatific visions. She would daily be taken up in ecstasy, quite literally.

Teresa was a Catholic mystic. Her spiritual life was fed directly by daily communication with God and contemplation of His plan for creation and salvation, and more specifically His love for mankind. It was during these “communions� with God that Teresa was told to reform her Order.

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Teresa of Jesus

TERESA’S WIMPLE: In her efforts at reform, Teresa had the help of several learned men, including her confessor and fellow mystic St. John of the Cross. She set about traveling the country, going from convent to convent, reinvigorating the nuns’ zeal for Christ and calling them back to holiness.

This did not make her popular. Undeterred, Teresa followed God as she would have followed her lover, going wherever He went, without question.

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CONFESSOR’S CHAIR: This is the chair of St. John of the Cross, confessor to the Carmelite nuns of the Avila convent. Here, in the mid-1500s, John heard the confessions of all, including St Teresa. John – a mystic in his own right -- would become a close advisor of Teresa as she set about the Herculean task of reforming the Carmelite Order in Spain.

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ON AUG. 24, 1562, Teresa’s first convent under the Carmelite’s ‘primitive rule’ was inaugurated, with the small monastery of St. Joseph and the clothing of the first four novices. Before her death at age 67, she had aided in the founding of 32 monasteries under her Reformed Rule.

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TERESA’S INSIGHTS on attaining true friendship with God are almost entirely based on her personal experience of Him, and focus extensively on the meaning and nature of Love.

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DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH It wasn’t until 1970, however, that an even greater title was bestowed upon Teresa, as one of the first female ‘Doctors’ of the Church. The title is usually given to men and women whose writings have been so voluminous and have had a great impact on the world at large, not just in his or her own time or place. This is certainly true of St. Teresa of Avila.

In Love With God St. Teresa of Avila remains one of the most beloved saints of all time. She was in love with God and strove to share that love with others through her writings and her reformation.

Throughout her life, she used her gifts, her ability to communicate God’s love with word and deed, to draw herself and everyone around her into a closer communion with the Lord, and indeed, today, 500 years later, her writings and intercession are still working to do the same. As she said herself, “It is love alone that gives worth to all things,” and it was her love for God that gave her life purpose and has given us a great saint of the Church.

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TERESA WAS CANONIZED in 1614 by Pope Paul V, relatively soon after her death. This was due to the large cult that almost immediately arose around her memory at the time of her passing.

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“LORD, A TRUE DAUGHTER OF THE CHURCH,” in the words of St Pope John Paul II, who visited Teresa’s convent in October 1982.

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Teresa of Jesus

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Tomas Luis de Victoria ~

The Glorious Music of a Holy Priest Article By:

Losana Boyd

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

I

t is the Mass at Midnight celebrating the Nativity of Our Lord in New York City. From the choir loft and the semi-darkness of St. Patrick’s Cathedral a hauntingly beautiful line of music begins to sound.

The glorious motet “O Magnum Mysterium” written by the 16th Century Spanish priest and composer Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), soon engulfs the enormous interior, creating a stunning, complex and interwoven harmony, and capturing in sound something of the miraculous and incomprehensible mystery that surrounds Our Lord’s Incarnation.

Hearing Victoria’s music creates an unforgettable experience of longing. Piercing the darkness of a broken, fallen world, sight and sound seem restored one to another, as a beam of inexpressible light emerges in the form of a harmonic intensity.

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TOMAS LUIS DE VICTORIA WAS BORN INTO AN ERA OF HIGH CHURCH ART, as evidenced by this Papal Bull issued on 4 March 1538 by Pope Paul III. This ‘Altitudo Divinae Providentiae’ was received by the convent at Avila ten years before De Victoria’s birth, and is still preserved there.

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THE WALLS THAT TOMAS LUIS DE VICTORIA KNEW: St. Teresa of Avila herself mentored the young prodigy.

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“Music is not man’s invention, but his heritage from the blessed spirits.”

• Tomas Luis De Victoria

Tomas Luis de Victoria’s genius flourished in the environment of great holiness that was the Spanish Golden Age. Answering God’s call to the priesthood, Victoria traveled to Rome in 1565 where he completed his theological studies at the German college, founded

by St. Ignatius Loyola. Ordained a priest on August 28, 1574, Victoria lived in community with St. Philip Neri for seven years, for whom he served as chaplain of San Girolamo della Carità. During this profound and intensely religious period several collections of Masses, motets as well as two anthologies of his work were published.

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“At a time when Palestrina was composing works of a delicately balanced nature and with a continuous, gracefully undulating rhythmic flow, Tomas Luis de Victoria’s bold melodic contours and strong harmonic statements daringly reflected the emotion of the texts he was setting,” “The Kyrie of Victoria’s Missa Dominicalis is a stellar example of his innovations in juxtaposing the old with the new. Its form is based on a cantus firmus, which is introduced in long rhythmic values in two of the four voices, each entering at different times so as to create a canon. What Victoria did instead was to compose another canon for two of the voices, using completely different linear material as their tonal base. In contrast to the more traditional canons of the day, Victoria’s second canon interrupts the expectation of the listener with rhythmic variety and harmonic tension to more effectively probe the content of the pleading text.”

-- Deborah Gordillo, Composer-in-Residence at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, NYC, 2007-2011

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TODAY, VICTORIA’S MUSIC IS ENJOYING A RENAISSANCE OF ITS OWN. From cathedrals throughout the new world and old, his music calls the faithful to profound devotion.

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Rich in musical depth and harmonic complexity, every note of Victoria’s music was written for the glory of God. From the sublime “O Magnum Mysterium,” to the impassioned “O Vos Omnes” Victoria’s is a sound like no other. Heaven itself seems to weep in “The Reproaches of Good Friday,” and rejoice with his transcendent “Gloria in Excelsis Deo.” His Officium Defunctorum, a Requiem Mass written for Spanish Empress Maria, is widely regarded as his masterpiece and crowning musical achievement.

In a notebook he kept alongside his scores, the deep humility of this servant of God is revealed, as he asks future generations not to judge harshly his efforts to compose sacred music.

Links: O Magnum Mysterium Reproaches of Good Friday O Vos Omnes Officium Defunctorum

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AVILA CATHEDRAL, where the young Tomas Luis De Victoria began his musical training as a choir boy in the 1550s. •

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Conquista ~

By Teresa Limjoco

M

adrid’s new exhibition, “The Route of Hernán Cortés” attempts to address the controversy of Cortés, his character and what actually happened in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. There are over 400 astonishing artifacts on display, many never shown before in Spain, brought together by a team of more than 40 national and international museums mainly from the Spanish-speaking world. Happily, this excellent exhibit promotes no particular agenda, focusing instead on a straightforward, well-documented account of Cortés and his bold ventures in the New World.

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ador

Conquistador your stallion stands in need of company And like some angel's haloed brow You reek of purity I see your armor plated breast Has long since lost its sheen And in your death mask face There are no signs which can be seen And though I hoped for something to find I could see no maze to unwind Conquistador a vulture sits, upon your silver sheath And in your rusty scabbard now, the sand has taken seed And though your jewel-encrusted blade Has not been plundered still The sea has washed across your face And taken of its fill And though I hoped for something to find I could see no maze to unwind Conquistador there is no time, I must pay my respects And though I came to jeer at you I leave now with regret And as the gloom begins to fall I see there is no aureole Though you came with sword held high You did not conquer, only die

Procol Harum

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H

ernán Cortés was a man whose very bones were controversial. Three centuries after his death, in the aftermath of the independence of México in 1823, there were fears that his body would be desecrated. The conquistador’s bones were quickly hidden; it was generally believed they had been sent out of México.

It was not until 1946 that they were rediscovered, thanks to the unearthing of a secret document.

Cortés’ remains were restored by supporters of the Hispanic tradition in Mexico, this time with a bronze inscription and his coat of arms.However, the controversy raged on. One supporter of an indigenist vision of Mexico “proposed that the remains be publicly burned in front of the statue of (the Indian) Cuauhtemoc, and the ashes flung into the air.”

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Step into the Age of Discovery It is nearly impossible for those of us born in an age of comfort to imagine these early voyages, but today’s museum visitor can get a sense of the experience of traveling inside a 16th century caravel crossing the Atlantic.

Spanish caravels held several hundred men, sixteen horses, a few cannon, crossbows, and matchlock rifles. A mock-up of a caravel interior in the exhibit depicts the rough ocean waters with animated waves projected against a pitch-dark night sky, and the sounds of creaking wood, thunder and splashing water complete the illusion.

▲ Cortés the Complex

“The conquistador’s bones were quickly hidden; it was generally believed they had been sent out of México.”

I marveled especially at the actual letters written by Cortés to the Spanish Crown, and an early printed copy of Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s “Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España”, the first historical account of Cortés’ exploits. A 1555 “Vocabulario en la lengua castellana y mexicana” (Castilian-Mexican Dictionary), compiled by Friar Alonso de Molina is available.

Finally, there is the “Leyes de Indias” (“Laws of the Indies”) published in 1596. In this authorized publication of the Spanish Crown, the rights of Indians were defined and codified, fully a quarter century before the Pilgrims made landfall in North America.

Human sacrifice and bloody religion In the New World today – though not in Spain -- academics hold Cortés responsible for bringing peonage and disease to the Aztecs, whose culture is by contrast extolled for its purported advanced organization and technical knowledge.

However, as the exhibit makes clear, life in that milieu was not exactly blissful. The blunt truth is that the Aztec belief system required human sacrifice to appease their gods; their religion was a ravenous beast that required feeding. As many as several thousand lives -- tens of thousands by some accounts -- could be offered up in just one feast day.

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The negative aspects of Cortés’ actions would spawn what would become known as the Black Legend (“La leyenda negra”). This was a campaign by European colonial powers -- France, Holland, Germany and England -- to malign Spanish expansionism.

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Today observers point out that Spain’s empire-building was akin to that of the Roman Empire. Not primarily utilitarian -- as was the mercantile colonialism practiced by other European countries -- but more about politics and culture.

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Conquistador

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The exploration of unknown lands was first conceived by the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, through their support of Christopher Columbus’ voyages in the previous century. Their descendants remained earnest in their desire to spread the faith and felt it part of their mission to seek the salvation of souls.

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Among the artifacts at the Madrid exhibit are those used in bloody Aztec religious rites. A copy of the headdress of Moctezuma stands out with its brilliant green feathers. A striking example of a knife used in the Aztec ritual of human sacrifice, wherein victims would be painted and placed on a slab where their heart would be cut out and held up to the sun. Their bodies would be discarded down the stairs of the temple pyramid and later fed to zoo animals.

Amid a wooden frame structure that replicates such a pyramid, there is the reconstructed tzompantli (altar) of Tecoaque that is especially chilling: four wooden poles set in a vertical array, impaled with two to four human skulls each. Of the female skulls, five have been identified to be of European origin, one is Mayan, and one is a mulatta (a female born to one white and one black parent). All were ritually murdered.

As this exhibit makes clear, it was from this ghastly, diabolical system of belief and practice that the Aztec 288 Regina Magazine | Spain

people were delivered by Cortés and his combined army of Spanish conquistadors and natives.

Because of the controversial undertakings of Cortés, the scarcity of contemporaneous reliable sources of information and the subsequent politicization of his legacy, it has become problematic to assert anything definitive about his personality and motivations. But the facts speak for themselves.

Politically, Cortés was a rough and proud man, a risk-taker who disobeyed his superiors in Spain when it suited him. There is a story about which has him chiding a negligent Holy Roman Emperor Charles V who pretended not to know him, saying “I am the man who brought you more lands than your ancestors left you cities.”

Cortés also initiated the construction of what is now Mexico City, destroying Aztec temples and buildings and then rebuilding on the Aztec ruins, especially the great Cathedral of Mexico (first erected in the early 16th century and made grander during the reign

Conquistador

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CORTÉS & DOÑA MARINDA NEGOTIATE WITH THE AZTECS: Cortés was a serial womanizer who fathered children with a variety of indigenous women, including a ‘ Doña Marinda’ who acted as interpreter in his dealings with the Aztecs.

Accused though never prosecuted for the death of his first wife, a Spaniard, he married again and fathered more children. However, he left every one of his children provided for, and even petitioned the Church to remove their ‘natural’ (illegitimate) status.

King Philip II). His expeditions brought agriculture and livestock breeding, as well as shipbuilding to New Spain.

Cortés and the Black Legend The negative aspects of Cortés’ actions would spawn what would become known as the Black Legend (“La leyenda negra”). This was a campaign by European colonial powers -- France, Holland, Germany and England -- to malign Spanish expansionism.

Today observers point out that Spain’s empire-building was akin to that of the Roman Empire. Not primarily utilitarian -- as was the mercantile colonialism practiced by other European countries -- but more about politics and culture.

The exploration of unknown lands, after all, was first conceived by the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, through their support of Christopher Columbus’ voyages in the previous century. Their de-

scendants remained earnest in their desire to spread the faith and felt it part of their mission to seek the salvation of souls. Such may seem an impossibly quaint notion in our more cynical world, but this was demonstrably a most serious matter to them.

The exhibition runs through May 3, 2015.

Address: Paseo de la Castellana, 214, Madrid.

Metro stop: Plaza de Castilla.

Visit the official website: http://www.canalgestion. es/en/compromiso/exposiciones/arte/2015.html Video: https://youtu.be/Lk_Oe3vCilw References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Cortés http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/the-magnificence-of-hernan-cortes ‘Itinerario de Hernán Cortés’. Guia de la Exposición.

Centro de Exposiciones Arte Canal, 2014.

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The Real Thanks Although it is commonly believed that the first Thanksgiving occurred in 1621 when the English Puritans gave thanks and shared a meal with Native Americans who had helped them survive the harsh New England winter, this is not the historical reality. (The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, oil on canvas by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe 1914)

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sgiving Story Article By:

Meghan Ferrara

E

ver wonder how Squanto was able to communicate with the Pilgrim Fathers?

Therein lies a tale with a surprisingly Catholic angle, as told by REGINA Magazine writer Meghan Ferrara.

The Pilgrim Fathers’ famous celebration was not the first time a thanksgiving dinner had taken place on American soil. That distinction belongs to the Catholic Spanish who developed a tradition of giving thanks beginning in 1541.

That year, Father Juan Padilla, who later became the first Christian martyr in North America, offered a Mass of Thanksgiving for the newly Catholic Indians of northern Texas and members of Francisco Coronado’s expedition, uniting the two groups in prayer followed by a festive repast. Twenty four years later, after landing in St. Augustine, Florida, Captain Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his crew joined the Native Indians for a celebration of Holy Mass followed by a great banquet.

Yet, these two occasions were one-time events.

It would not be until 1598 that Thanksgiving would become an annual tradition when the explorer and first territorial governor Juan de Oñate laid claim to the land that now encompasses the border of Texas and New Mexico, near where the flourishing mission post of San Juan would be established a few years later.

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THE REAL FIRST THANKSGIVING Spanish explorer and first territorial governor Juan de Oñate instituted an annual American Thanksgiving more than 20 years before the Pilgrims set foot in Massachusetts.

PHOTO CREDIT: Advanced Source Productions via Wikimedia Commons/ Onate Monument Center, Alcalde, NM

Raising a huge cross along with the Franciscan friars who accompanied the expedition, Oñate dedicated the territory to Christ the King, “I want to take possession of this land today, April 30, 1598, in honor of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on this day of the Ascension of Our Lord.” Holy Mass followed this ceremony and the native Indians readily embraced the Catholic faith. Every year since, even to this day, residents of the area hold a grand feast to celebrate that first Thanksgiving four hundred years ago.

The Catholic Who Saved the Pilgrim Fathers Though the pilgrims who partook of the Thanksgiving observance in 1621 were not Catholic, 292 Regina Magazine | Spain

their experience held a profoundly Catholic influence. Squanto -- the man who saved the settlers from starvation by teaching them how to work the land -- was Catholic.

Tisquantum (‘Squanto’) was born about 1580 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He was a Patuxet Indian, part of the Wampanoag tribal confederation. In 1614, a lieutenant of Captain John Smith, Captain Thomas Hunt, double-crossed Smith and betrayed the Indians. He kidnapped a group of tribesmen, including Squanto, and traveled to Spain to sell them into slavery.

Fortunately, once in Spain a group of Franciscan friars thwarted his scheme by obtaining custody

of and liberating the captive group. The friars also educated, catechized and baptized Squanto and his companions.

Afterwards, Squanto sailed to London, where he worked as a laborer in the shipyards. He became fluent in English and made the acquaintance of wealthy British traders and transporters. The Newfoundland Company retained Squanto as an interpreter and expert on American natural resources. Finally, he was able to return to his homeland in 1619, five years after he was kidnapped.

The first encounter between the pilgrims and Squanto, accompanied by natives Massasoit and Quadequina, occurred on March 22, 1621. Due to his fluency in English, Squanto became invaluable to the new Plymouth settlers. He was able to impart his knowledge of the land and to instruct the colonists how to fertilize the ground, grow corn and other crops, in addition to showing them the best fishing places. Squanto also proved a skilled diplomat, negotiating peace and commercial links with the English. In addition, he coordinated truces and trade agreements between the Plymouth Colony and regional indigenous leaders, which lasted for fifty years.

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Queens, Writers, Religious & Servants Nine Catholic Women of Spain Article By:

Barbara Monzon-Puleo

If the history of Catholic civilization is today reported in a negative, highly-biased light, it is true that the footprints of Catholic women in our history are often downright erased.

A few highly-visible female rulers aside, the stories of real women in the home, the field, the convent, the theater and myriad other places are often relegated to the secret drawers of the historical record. There they lie, neglected by historians due to their prejudices or simple indifference.

This is a tragedy. In the deeply Catholic society of the Iberian peninsula, the history of the hidden lives of women shows an incredible richness and vibrancy -- from crucial leadership roles to cultural heroines to martyrs for the Faith.

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1.

Queen Gaudiosa of Asturias (1033-1101)

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he famous Battle of Covadonga around the year 722 is where we meet Gaudiosa. Her husband Pelayo and his Christian army were positioned readily in the mountains of Covadonga while the Muslim armies maintained their northerly assault in their attempt to reach France.

The army of Al-Andalus was thoroughly defeated by Don Pelayo and his men in a geographical encirclement, a barrage of stones and amidst a vision of the Virgin Mary and the Cross. However, Pelayo had left his wife Gaudiosa in the town of Liébana. Not one to sit back and wait for her husband’s return from war, she organized the population for resistance against the Muslims. As

the Muslim army was defeated in Covadonga, the fleeing Muslims headed in their direction. The townspeople routed them and they fell victim to a landslide, probably provoked by Gaudiosa and her band.

The skirmish gave rise to the name of the area as Campos de La Reina, ‘the fields of the Queen.’ It is in this act that Gaudiosa joined her husband as one of the figures responsible for the beginning of the Reconquista on the peninsula. Pelayo died in 737. Gaudiosa then became a nun at the Church of Santa Cruz founded by her son in Cangas de Onís, and succumbed to the plague shortly thereafter. Both are buried in the sanctuary in Covadonga.

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2.

Queen Urraca of Zamora (1033-1101)

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rraca inherited her rule of the city of Zamora in 1065 from her father, King Ferdinand, who divided his ruling lands among his five children. The story of her rule against the encroachments of her brother Sancho are told in a few chapters of El Cid. Some romances of later centuries suggested that Queen Urraca had been in love with El Cid. She has recently been remembered for the chalice she donated to the Basilica of St Isidore in the city of Leon. This chalice, sent to her father from the Holy Land, and decorated in gold and in Urraca’s own jewels, is believed to be the Holy Grail.

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3.

Blessed Juana of Aza (1135-c.1205)

J

uana Garcés-García was born into a noble Castilian family. One of her uncles was the Blessed Pedro from the monastery of Uclés and founder of the Military Order of St. James of the Sword.

Juana’s family founded and supported many religious houses. She was married to a local nobleman, Felix Nuñez de Guzmán, who was warden of the town of Caleruega named. All three sons entered the religious life: Antonio (a priest later declared Venerable), the future Blessed Manés, and the youngest, Dominic, who would become the founder of the Order of Preachers,

known as Dominicans. Juana’s religious devotion was as well known as her charity and miracles. Immediately upon her death, a religious cult arose around her person.

The towns of Peñafiel and Caleruega often invoked her assistance during droughts and during the anti-clerical attacks following the 1868 revolution. Shortly after her death, chapels and novenas were dedicated to her veneration. King Ferdinand VII was particularly devoted to her. She was beatified in 1828 by Pope Leo XII but, at her tomb, she has been described as saint by popular usage since the XV century.

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4.

St Mary of the Head (Santa Maria de la Cabeza) (c.1095-1175)

S

t Mary of the Head (Santa Maria de la Cabeza) was the wife of St Isidore the Worker and the mother of St Illan. The young Mary Torribia was born probably to a converso or Mozarabic family near Uceda, not far from Madrid, which was under Muslim occupation and in the throes of advancing Christian armies. She was for a time in domestic service in the town of Torrelaguna.

Mary would eventually inherit a small farm there, begin to work in the sacristy of the local church, and wed a devout farm laborer fleeing the reconquest upheavals of Madrid.

After her marriage to St Isidore, they worked side by side in the fields. The couple developed a reputation for their their charity. They shared their income with the town, even establishing a benefit for the yearly distribution of wine, cheese and bread on the feast of the Assumption. After they finished raising their son Illan, the couple lived separately.

Mary retired as a hermit and lived at a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The inhabitants of Uceda would help her maintain the

shrine. She would beg the town for the oil to keep the lamps burning at the hermitage. By then, her holy reputation had already been established. It is said that the Virgin Mary frequently appeared to her. Despite her holy reputation, she was accused of adultery, an accusation that forced her husband Isidore to return home. He witnessed the miracle of her walking on the mantle of the Blessed Virgin as she crossed the river. Her visions were not limited to the Virgin Mary. In 1171, an angel appeared to her to inform her that Isidore was dying in Madrid. Following her death, a cult of veneration quickly spread throughout Madrid, its environs and the peninsula. She was beatified in 1697 and canonized in 1752

by Benedict XIV. Her remains are buried with the incorrupt St Isidore under the main altar of the Real Colegiata de San Isidro church in Madrid. She was chosen as one of the patron saints for World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011.

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5.

Sister Marcela de San Feli (1605-1687)

A

s the child of the playwright Lope de Vega, Marcela was exposed to her father’s brilliant writings, to his circle of friends, both literary and aristocratic, his chaotic love life, and to his struggles to support 15 children at various points of his life.

Marcela herself was illegitimate, the result of a liaison with an actress. She and her younger brother would join their father’s household upon the death of his wife.

Once in his household, Marcela witnessed her father’s struggles with his addiction to women and his tormented Catholic faith, especially after taking Holy Orders. This atmosphere engendered in Marcela a profound religious vocation and writing talent.

In 1620, Marcela entered the Convent of the Discalced Trinitarians in Madrid, a convent

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with a profound literary tradition, which housed the bones of Miguel De Cervantes.

Her father composed special verses for her Profession day and invited numerous dignitaries. With a strong Faith and conviction, Marcela performed her religious duties well, rising to become Mother Superior several times. She wrote numerous poems, romances, devotional works- influenced by her father’s style and the spirituality of St. Augustine and St Theresa of Avila. Unfortunately, most of her works were lost. A common practice during this period led to their destruction: in obedience to her confessor, Marcela burned them. Her surviving works include 22 romances, devotionals, and poems exploring topics such as loneliness and obedience.

6.

Venerable Maria de Ágreda (1602-1665)

M

aria de Agreda’s historical and religious importance rests principally on three important achievements: her mystical-prophetic writings, her extensive correspondence with King Philip IV, and her ability to bilocate in dreams to Christianize the Apache Indians of the American Southwest.

Maria wrote, among others, two important works: the 4 volume Mystical City of God and the Divine History of the Virgin Mother of God. The works are believed to be direct revelations to Maria from the Virgin Mary.

The subjects cover the lives of Christ and the

Virgin Mary in addition to the creation of the world and battles against the Devil. Ultimately, these works of revelation and prophecy, written twice by Sor Maria, called the attention of the Inquisition as they included heated theological topics, among them the controversial dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (not declared until 1854) and papal infallibility. Sor Maria influenced King Philip IV to write to the Pope regarding the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, leading to Pope Alexander VII’s decree of 1661 which paved the way for the 1854 Bull

by Pope Pius IX.

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7.

Blessed Maria de los Ă ngeles Ginard, martyr (1894-1936)

B

orn in Mallorca, Angela Ginard Marti joined the Sisters Adorers of the Eucharist at the age of 28. By all accounts, she was devoted to the Blessed Sacrament and the daily Recitation of the Rosary from an early age. Upon entering the convent, she worked in Mallorca, Barcelona and lastly, Madrid. She witnessed the increasingly anti-clerical persecutions of the period of the Second Republic. When the Civil War broke out in July 1936, Sister Maria de los Angeles was in the convent in Madrid. Warned of the approaching republican forces, the Sisters were forced to flee in street clothes. Sister Maria de los Angeles took refuge with a nearby family 302 Regina Magazine | Spain

and witnessed the sacking of the convent.

Unfortunately, the doorman of the building was a Republican sympathizer and quickly denounced her. When the republican forces arrived at the dwelling, they arrested her and one of the women who had sheltered her. She quickly confessed to be the only nun there. She was able to give this woman her apron, where she hid the convent’s money . Sister Maria was shot in the head, execution-style, on 26 August 1936, one of the earliest martyrs of the Spanish Civil War. There were hundreds of such Catholic religious women and also priests who were executed between 1936 and 1939. She was beatified in 2005.

8.

Lola Fisac Serna

L

(c.1095-1175)

ola Fisac is known as the first female numerary (celibate member) of Opus Dei. Since the Civil War, she worked with St Josemaría Escriva’s mother and sister in helping organize and take care of the domestic needs of the residences and centers of Opus Dei, established in 1928. She was particularly instrumental in the establishment of the first female residence in 1941. (Photo credit: OpusDei.es)

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9.

Dora del Hoyo (1914-2004)

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orn into an agricultural family, Dora arrived in Madrid at age 26 and entered the domestic service. In 1946, a Madrid domestic service agency run by the Church sent her to JosemarĂ­a Escriva to work in the newly opened student residence of Opus Dei. Deeply impressed by the spirituality, she immediately asked for admission as a numerary into Opus Dei. Her work at the Madrid residence was exemplary and she developed a reputation for her piety and strength. Devoted to her vocation in Opus Dei, she insisted her work served as a way of sanctification, an important example to all who came in contact with Opus Dei through her. This sanctification through work was the center of the spirituality of St JosemarĂ­a and Opus Dei. St JosemarĂ­a transferred her to supervise the center of Opus Dei in Rome. There, her reputation for sanctity grew. She died there and is buried near him and Blessed Alvaro del Portillo. Numerous intercessions are attributed to her and the cause for her canonization was opened in 2012.

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Theology of the Body Beginning of Life Ethics Challenges and Strategies in Religious Education Educating in Sexuality and Relationships

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05

St. Leocadia of Toledo: Martyr of Ancient Spain Article by:

Ed Masters

D

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

uring the persecutions the Church endured for the first three centuries, many thousands of Catholics from all walks of life lost their lives in every way imaginable. This was often simply because these brave souls refused to burn a pinch of incense and utter the words, “Caesar is Lord.�

From Hispania and Britain to Asia Minor, Palestine and Egypt, the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church during four major and many minor persecutions. The final and fiercest of these persecutions was conducted by the Roman Emperor Diocletian under the instigation of his co-Emperor Gale-

rius. For eight long years, from A.D. 303-311, Catholics were hunted, tormented and killed at the behest of a government determined to wipe out the Faith, once and for all.

One of the celebrated martyrs of that tumultuous era was St. Leocadia of Toledo.

Born to a well-respected family in Toledo, Spain, she was arrested by Dacian, the brutish governor of the province, who was only too eager to do the bidding of Diocletian. He was described in the Martyrology as the most furious persecutor of Christians in Spain and had nothing but absolute contempt for the Faith.

SUMMONED BEFORE HIS DREADED TRIBUNAL, Leocadia told Dacian of her love for our Lord Jesus Christ and that nothing would ever make her renounce Him or apostatize from the Faith. In response, Dacian had her whipped until she was lacerated and bloodied and threatened her with more torture after he sent her to prison. On the way to her imprisonment, she consoled the Christians who were appalled at the treatment she received, telling them she was joyful to suffer for Him.

St Leocadia of Toledo THE GRAVE OF THE ANCIENT ROMAN MARTYR, St Leocadia of Spain, in the crypt of the Cathedral at Oviedo.

While imprisoned, Leocadia heard of the cruelties and martyrdom inflicted on St. Eulalia, one of her contemporary Spanish Catholics. Extremely saddened at the stories of the treatment meted out to St. Eulalia and her fellow martyrs, Leocadia asked God to be taken out of this world.

The Lord heard her prayer and she died in prison on December 9, A.D. 303.

Before she commended her soul to the Lord, Leocadia kissed a cross she imprinted on the prison wall by her touch.

Immediately after her death miracles occurred due to her intercession; later, a church was built over her grave. In artwork she is represented with a tower to show that she died in prison.

Leocadia’s following was especially widespread in the 7th century in Spain. Her

relics were moved after the Islamic invasions of the 8th century, first to Oviedo, then to the Benedictine abbey of St. Guislain near Mons, France where centuries later they were venerated by Philip the Handsome and his wife, Joanna of Castile, the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Joanna brought back a tibia of the Saint to Toledo, and during the wars which devastated Europe in the 16th century the rest of Leocadia’s relics were brought back to Spain by a Jesuit, Miguel Hernandez.

In Spanish folk memory, Leocadia’s name is preserved. Traditionally a dinner made in honor of St. Leocadia especially on cold winter nights is named Cocido (boiled beef) as well as a dessert Toledo is famous for, Mazapan (marzipan).

LIKE ST. PHILOMENA WHO WAS MARTYRED IN ITALY DURING THE SAME ERA, Leocadia’s name means “light.” The name derives from the Latin Leucius, from the Greek elements leukós (λευκὸς) léukios (λεύκιος)”, meaning “white”, which in turn derives from the Ancient Greek “lýke (λύκη)”, meaning “light”. The name means “white, pure, pure as white, pure as the light”.

St Leocadia of Toledo

THREE CHURCHES IN TOLEDO are named after Leocadia and she is the Patroness of this ancient Spanish city.

TOLEDO REMEMBERS HER BISHOPS AND SAINTS: Leocadia’s precious relics went first to Rome, then to Valencia, then finally back to Toledo, where King Philip II of Spain presided over the ceremony of the final translation of her relics in April, 1589.

Faith

Under Fire

How Roy Campbell Saved the Writings of St John of the Cross From the Bonfires of the Spanish Civil War Article By:

Meghan Ferrara

Photo Credit:

Teresa Limjoco

I

t may seem improbable to consider that St. John of the Cross, the Spanish Civil War, and JRR Tolkien have anything in common.

However, all three share one important connection: the South African poet Roy Campbell, and therein lies a tale of intrigue, bravery and faith.

This remarkable narrative is set against the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s. There was much unrest in Spain leading up to the elections of February 1936, as ordinary Spaniards from various factions sought to oust the Republican junta. This tension evolved into full-blown riots that swept through the entire country. Demonstrations soon turned virulently anticlerical and resulted in the destruction of churches and persecution of priests, monks, and others in the consecrated life.

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EL GRECO’S FAMOUS PAINTING OF TOLEDO, where more than 300 years later a hapless Oxford-educated poet, Roy Campbell, and his terrified family would face the ultimate test of their faith only a few short months after their conversion to Catholicism.

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Faith Under Fire

POET ROY CAMPBELL (LEFT) WAS KNOWN FOR HIS CATHOLIC FAITH. The path to his conversion began with his marriage to his wife, Mary (pictured here with writer Jacob Kramer and famous artist’s model ‘Dolores’). Mary’s passionate, lifelong devotion to St. Teresa of Avila spurred an avid interest in Spain, both of which she eventually shared with her husband.

It was no longer safe to publically express one’s religious vows. By the end of the War, twelve bishops, 4,184 priests, 2,365 monks and approximately 300 nuns made the ultimate sacrifice for the Church.

It was amid this peril that Roy Campbell and his family converted to the Catholic faith, though this journey had been years in the making.

Early Years in South Africa and Oxford

Born in 1901, Campbell spent much of his youth in South Africa. He arrived at Oxford in 1919 to begin his collegiate studies. The poet enjoyed a meteoric rise to success in the English literary world and by the age of 22 his works were compared to those of T.S. Elliot of whom he was a contemporary along with Dylan Thomas, Edith Sitwell, and Percy Wyndham Lewis.

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Campbell also counted George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, T S Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, J.R.R Tolkien and C S Lewis among his friends. These friendships were a defining characteristic of his professional career as well as his personal life. J.R.R. Tolkien’s first impression of Campbell proved to be particularly memorable. One night in 1944, he observed the poet secluded in the dark corner of a pub peering intently at C.S. Lewis and listening to his lively conversation. This encounter vividly reminded Tolkien, in the midst of writing The Lord of the Rings, of the enigmatic Aragorn whom the hobbits meet in a similar fashion at the beginning of the trilogy. Campbell’s previous experiences and adventures heavily influenced the further development of this pivotal character.

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A Dangerous Time To Be Catholic The Campbell family, which grew to include daughters Anna and Teresa, moved to Barcelona in the autumn of 1933 after living in Provence for several years. It was during this time that the family began to convert to the Catholic faith. They moved to Altea, near Alicante, in May 1934.

It was here that the whole family was formally baptized into the Catholic Church in June 1935.

By 1936 the Campbells had moved to Toledo. Little did they imagine that their newfound faith would be severely tested in the months ahead.

By this point, Spain was embroiled in a full-blown civil war and it was a dangerous time to be Catholic. Nonetheless, Campbell and his family befriended the Carmelite monastery in Toledo and in March of 1936, the monks briefly took refuge in his home. Then, on July 21st, Republican forces marched on the city. The Carmelites again sought assistance from the Campbells.

This time, however, it was not for their own safety, but to protect the Carmelite archives, including the personal papers of St. John of the Cross. Campbell agreed and that night a trunk with the precious legacy was delivered to him.

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TOLEDO’S HOUSES AND CHURCHES WERE LOOTED AND ENORMOUS BONFIRES WERE BUILT ON THE MAIN SQUARE, fueled by crucifixes, vestments, missals and any other religious items that the pillaged buildings yielded.

(PHOTO CREDIT: Teresa Limjoco)

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THE 1936 ATTACK ON TOLEDO: Over the next few days the poet and his family watched in horror as the violence committed by the Republican forces overtook the city. Many Catholic religious, including their friends the 17 monks from a nearby Carmelite monastery, were martyred.

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Faith Under Fire

THROUGH HIS PERSEVERANCE AND FAITH, ROY CAMPBELL SAVED ONE OF SPAIN’S AND THE CHURCH’S GREATEST TREASURES. Today, both St John’s poetry and his studies on the growth of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and one of the peaks of all Spanish literature.

Begging the intercession of St. John of the Cross

Several days later, on July 31st, the militia arrived to search the Campbell home. Anticipating such a visit, Roy and Mary had already taken the precaution of concealing all their crucifixes and religious images.

The Campbells’ greatest concern, however, was the discovery of the Carmelite trunk. During the soldiers’ presence in his house, Roy implored the intercession of St. John of the Cross, promising to translate the saint’s works into English if the lives of his wife and daughters were spared.

Campbell’s prayers were answered. The search was not especially meticulous, the militia even leaning their rifles on the trunk at one point without seeking to examine its contents. The significance of the rescue of these documents became evident as the Campbells observed the republican forces burn the rest of the 30,000 works of the Carmelite library.

Campbell honored his promise to St. John and his translations were received to great popular and critical acclaim. As a reward for their courage, Cardinal Gomá, the Catholic Primate of Spain, confirmed the Campbells, though even this held great risk and had to be undertaken in the secrecy of night.

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With no one to defend them, the priests, monks, and nuns fell prey to the hatred of their adversaries.

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“In March 1936 the anti-clerical contagion spreading across Spain reached the streets of Toledo, the ancient city in which the Campbells had made their home. Churches were burned in a series of violent riots in which priests and nuns were attacked.

During these bloody disturbances, Roy and Mary Campbell sheltered in their house several of the Carmelite monks from the neighboring monastery.

In the following weeks, the situation worsened. Portraits of Marx and Lenin were posted on every street corner, and horrific tales began to filter in from surrounding villages of priests being shot and wealthy men being butchered in front of their families.

Toledo’s beleaguered Christians braced themselves for the next wave of persecution, and the Campbells, in an atmosphere that must have seemed eerily reminiscent of early Christians in the Catacombs of Rome, were confirmed in a secret ceremony, before dawn, by Cardinal Goma, the elderly Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain.

In July 1936, the civil war erupted onto the streets of Toledo, heralded by the arrival in the city of Communist militiamen from Madrid. With no one to defend them, the priests, monks, and nuns fell prey to the hatred of their adversaries. The seventeen monks from the Carmelite monastery were rounded up, herded on to the street and shot. Campbell discovered their murdered bodies, left lying where they fell. He also discovered the bodies of other priests lying in the narrow street where the priests had been murdered. Swarms of flies surrounded their bodies, and scrawled in their blood on the wall was written, ‘Thus strikes the CHEKA.’” • -- Joseph Pearce, Literary Giants, Literary Catholics, 2001

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Spain’s history is one of glory, conquest and decadence, juxtaposed with the asceticism of intense spirituality such as found in the beautiful processions of Spain’s Santa Semana (‘Holy Week’).

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Spanish Fashionista Styling

By Sequoia Sierra REGINA Fashion & Style Editor

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TRADITION OF SPAIN: From the beauty of Flamenco, and the crazed excitement of the bull fights and bull runs, to the extreme penance and austerity found in the Carmelite order, Spain has it all.

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CULTURE SHAPES STYLE, and Spain is no exception. Spaniards are a very welldressed people -- as is much of Europe -- but Spain’s inimitable style is quickly asserting itself internationally.

The country’s designers are in the limelight of fashion more than ever before.

THE SPANISH COMPANY ZARA is a super-successful retailer with both an online and street presence in virtually all of the world’s major retail locations.

INTERESTINGLY, ZARA’S CLOTHES demonstrate a great deal of that beautiful juxtaposition found in Spain’s history: decadence vs. austerity. With their rich textiles and prints yet simple designs, Zara is nearly every fashionista’s major obsession.

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“We Need To Be Our True Catholic Selves” Interview with a Spanish Priest Interview By:

Teresa Limjoco

Photo Credit:

David Campos

I

n this candid interview, Don Jose Miguel Marques Campo talks with REGINA Magazine’s Teresa Limjoco about his experience as a parish priest and the difficulties he’s encountered implementing Summorum Pontificum in his diocese in the northern coastal city of Gijon, Spain.

REGINA: How did you become a diocesan priest of Oviedo, where you are today?

DON JOSE: I entered the diocesan seminary of Oviedo, in Asturias, Spain, in September of 1989, just one month after the Apostolic Visit of St. John Paul II. My years there were mixed.

I certainly got off to a great start, thanks to the Pope’s visit. But the seminary was at that time still reeling with remnants of the typical, liberal-progressive seminary after Vatican II. While there were, thankfully, orthodox professors, not all were so, to be sure.

In fact, I unknowingly developed a certain reputation for staunch orthodoxy, which wasn’t exactly well-received by everyone. This in addition to my unhidden love for the Church’s authentic sacred liturgy, ended up getting me in some sort of trouble with the seminary rector.

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“I WAS ORDAINED A PRIEST ON 26 MAY 1996, PENTECOST SUNDAY. My first appointment was in the western rural area of the diocese where I had to tend to six and then ten parishes. My second appointment was more to the northwestern coast of Asturias, tending three parishes in addition to being chaplain at an elderly residence run by the Hijas de la Caridad (Daughters of Charity, founded by St. Vincent de Paul).�

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“MY THIRD AND CURRENT APPOINTMENT is the Basilica-Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, coastal city of Gijón. This is not a parish; it is a Minor Pontifical Basilica where we take special care of the liturgy, confessions, diffusion of the Church’s Magisterium, host conferences and other cultural events.”

REGINA: Did you celebrate the extraordinary form of the Mass then?

DON JOSE: Since I was ordained before the rightful liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass that Benedict XVI would undertake in 2007 with his Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum and later Instruction, Universæ Ecclesiæ, I had up until late 2008 celebrated only the Novus Ordo Missæ.

Since at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, I included some parts in Latin in the Novus Ordo— something perfectly licit and even recommended, especially in a Pontifical Basilica, but which some people liked while others completely abhorred—I was in fact chosen by some faithful in Gijón to be the candidate for a regular celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

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REGINA: Where and how did you learn to say the TLM? DON JOSE: My name was suggested to the then Archbishop of Oviedo, who asked me about my willingness to be appointed diocesan chaplain... I was of course absolutely delighted since my one of my deepest desires was to be able to celebrate the ancient Mass of the Roman Rite before leaving this world. So I accepted immediately and was trained by a priest of the Pontifical Institute of Christ the King, who kindly flew up from Madrid. It was a beautiful experience that took me practically no time at all to learn how to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, I seem to have been born with it, in my blood, so to speak.

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“I distinctly have a very deep appreciation for Roman Catholic liturgical music. In fact, I truly believe that this heightened sensibility—obviously one of God’s finer gifts—has permeated my entire life so much so, that it has given me a sort of a universal criteria for music in general, as well as an outlook on all aspects of life.”

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‘We Need To Be Our True Catholic Selves’

REGINA: Did you encounter any resistance in your desire to say the TLM? DON JOSE: On the First Sunday of Advent 2008, we started celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass on the last Sunday of each month, at the main Chapel of the Augustine Sisters in Gijón. This had been arranged with the Archbishop. It was of course only one Mass a month, and we were not too keen about that. But since attendance was much larger than what anyone expected—always between 80 to 70 of all ages—it seems that this was just “too much” for the ‘ever-open and tolerant’ progressive liberal clerical establishment.

When we attempted to celebrate every Sunday, +Mother Superior simply would not have it! Obviously, she had been misdirected with bad influences, specifically of a clerical nature. This I know to be true. So before Holy Week of 2009, she simply expelled us from the premises.

REGINA: Wow, what did you do?

DON JOSE: I pleaded with the Archbishop, who called her. But it turns out that she believed that we had faked his call! Unbelievable! But by then he was being transferred to Valencia, so we couldn’t expect a favorable resolution to this.

And so, since there was nothing to be done about it, I called the Carmelite Sisters in Gijón, since they already knew who I was, having been welcomed several times to their monastery.

Mother Superior told me she had to consult my inquiry... and of course I knew that that was a bad omen. Sure enough, she told me no, it would be better to celebrate the Mass... in parishes! It was ironically true in another way, but it was a lame excuse. Needless to say, I was very upset and sometime later, made that clearly known to the Sisters.

REGINA: What was your next move?

DON JOSE: Well as the saying goes, ‘where God closes a door, He opens a window’ -- though true enough, this time it wasn’t God who was closing doors to the Traditional Latin Mass. A priest friend of mine kindly offered one of his rural parishes, just outside the city limits of Gijón.

So we accepted his offer, but the parish was too far to go walking from the city, needing to go by car or bus line. But though it was a “solution” of sorts, we obviously lost a good portion of the faithful—we now average between 20-30 faithful—and I made it quite clear that despite this welcome, this was not in any way a satisfactory solution and we were to consider ourselves “in exile,” as a sort of “pestilential” group, because that’s exactly how we were being treated.

And so, we celebrated each Sunday and feast day of precept at the rural parish from 2009 to 2013.

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“And so, our bishop determined for us to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass in Gijón, in a Marian chapel near the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which belongs to the nearby city parish of St. Peter’s, whose parish priest is hardly sympathetic.”

REGINA: So how did you come to your current location in the city of Gijon?

DON JOSE: With the new Archbishop of Oviedo since 2010, I have had several opportunities to relate our traditional community’s vicissitudes and mistreatment. He took the initiative to renew the former archbishop’s appointment for my being the diocesan chaplain of the Traditional Latin Mass. I did respectfully mention that according to Benedict XVI’s dispositions, no priest needs permission nor appointment from his bishop nor from the Holy See. And he acknowledged that but wanted to give my appointment a sort of official recognition.

REGINA: Hmmm, so what do you think about that?

DON JOSE: Obviously, the ideal place to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass in the city of Gijón is where I’m already appointed: the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, but the Archbishop did not see it as viable for the present. Grateful as I am to the Archbishop to get the Mass celebrated back in the city, this is of course a political decision which tenably can be viewed as a sort of “ghetto” for our “pestilent” group, which of course I regret, but it does go to prove that the two Forms of the Roman Rite— Ordinary and Extraordinary—really cannot peacefully co-exist, and it is not due to priests like myself who are bi-ritual... for the time-being.

Notwithstanding the trials and tribulations of our insignificant little traditional community, quite honestly, the apparent incompatibility of the two Forms of liturgy should be very serious food for thought for the Church. And more so if liturgical abuses are still rampant, such as the gravely illicit and invalid general absolutions which continue to plague certain parishes of the archdiocese, despite efforts of the local bishops to end that lamentable sacramental practice.

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“During the summer seasons, it was a great pleasure to welcome the faithful, including young, large families, from León, Santander, Madrid, England, France, and Switzerland.”

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YET OUR LITTLE TRADITIONAL COMMUNITY IS A "PROBLEM" FOR SOME. And so, that is our situation since October 2013 until the present. We resist, we persevere, and with God's grace, will steadfastly continue to do so...

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“GENUINE ROMAN CATHOLIC LITURGICAL MUSIC - specifically Gregorian chant and renaissance polyphony, which the church considers her own—is of critically decisive importance in the sacred liturgy, make no mistake! Music and singing are not secondary in the liturgy, they are an intrinsic part of the liturgy. They are not a mere adornment in order to entertain us, so that we are not overwhelmed from liturgical moments of silence, God forbid! They should accompany those indispensable liturgical moments of silence, by echoing the heavenly liturgy that is forever sung in the celestial Jerusalem.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium #116)

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“I can honestly bear witness to this fact: in my nearly 19 years of priestly ministry, never in a Novus Ordo Mass, have I seen children and young adults receive Holy Communion—obviously kneeling and on the tongue in the Traditional Latin Mass— with such piety, reverence, and delicacy, as well as adults of all ages.”

REGINA: How do you see the Spanish Catholic Church in its present state?

DON JOSE: Well, Spain has a Catholic soul, with good and very deep roots, going back as far as the apostolic era, graced by the presence of our patron saint, St. James the Greater, brother of St. John the Evangelist, quite possibly St. Paul as well, and the sublime presence of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

This makes Spain "tierra de María" / "land of Mary" as St. John Paul II referred in what was his last Apostolic Visit in 2003.

But as part of Western civilization, where the evils of secularization wreak havoc, the Church in Spain runs the same risks as the rest of Western Europe. It is true that Catholic charity and social activities are generally respected by all but the most radically opposed, but Catholics should understand that while temporal affairs form an essential part of evangelization, the essential mission of the Church is a supernatural one: eternal salvation.

There is a fascinating book published here whose author is a Jewish convert, and whose very suggestive thesis is that the Devil does not need to specifically deny the existence of God; much more efficacious is to secularize the Church so much as to establish a "Christian civilization" without Christ, that is, without God, a Church of solidarity, only. That is a practical atheism which blends in perfectly with the Western liberal sociopolitical mindset, thus is far more dangerous and suits Evil One's purpose quite well indeed, so we must be very wary about secularizing the Church even more, avidly looking for the applause of the world.

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“EXQUISITE COMPOSERS SUCH AS MY PERSONAL FAVORITE, THE SPANIARD TOMÁS LUIS DE VICTORIA—a very pious priest, referred rather aptly as “God’s Composer” for the sublime polyphonic arrangements of his heavenly music—Giovanni da Palestrina, Francisco Guerrero, Thomas Tallis, and so many other polyphonic composers, provide an absolutely incomparable musical accompaniment to the venerable Latin liturgical texts of the Church. At the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Gijón, we have a children’s choir, whose members are trained for some polyphonic music, in addition to an adult choir who specializes in polyphonic music, and provides for a sublime ambience during the beautiful Offices of Holy Week.”

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“What we simply cannot do anymore, particularly regarding vocations to the priesthood and seminary formation, is what I call a “schizophrenic mentality,” whereby we claim to want seminarians and priests, but then put on the brakes, so to say, so that seminarians really don’t think that they are seminarians, but rather young lay university students who must of course dress like laymen who simply happen to study philosophy and theology. And that priests should not dress like such, nor behave like such for that matter, and so on.

Admittedly though, things in this regard were much more prominent in my seminary years, and before, than they are today, so thankfully, things have certainly improved somewhat but we still have a long way to go in order to finally let go of a paralyzing “traditionalminded complex.”

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“FURTHERMORE, the Church in Spain is called to play a decisive role with being genuinely Catholic also in the political sphere, with a more generous application of her traditional social doctrine.

Some regions suffer from a historical independence obsession and sadly, the presence of the Church in these areas has not been up to par for fomenting national union-in-diversity.�

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“ONE FINAL THOUGHT: unless we shake off that “traditionalism complex” and bravely be Catholics in the best of our Spanish tradition, the revival of Catholicism will continue to limp on the way, in an increasingly secularized Western society. This includes a non-politically correct re-reading of our true history and cultural heritage and Catholic civilization, that was exported to our overseas provinces: in both North and South America, northern Africa, and the Far East (Philippines). We would do very well to heed St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation during his visit to Santiago de Compostela in 1989, the year I entered the seminary: that Spain and the rest of Europe re-discover our Catholic roots... and be our true selves.”

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