The Victory of Lepanto and the Most Holy Rosary

( by Rev. J.A. Rooney, O.P., 1892)

For about a century before the battle of Lepanto the Turks/ pagan muslims/islamists - exactly like today - they had been spreading dismay all over Christendom, and the year 1571 seemed to them to be the most opportune time to deal out death to Christianity. At that time most of the Christian nations were divided by conflicting interests and weakened by protestantism, whose motto was "the Turks in preference to the Papists." Yes, protestantism, the greatest curse of modern times, the drag-chain on the wheels of Christian progress, did much to embolden the Turks to menace Christendom with indescribable woes.

Pope Saint Pius V, a worthy son of the Order of the Rosary, made a public appeal to Heaven and to earth in behalf of the Church and Society.
He called upon all the faithful, but especially upon the members of the various Rosary Confraternities of the world to invoke unceasingly with him the aid of the Virgin of the Rosary.
For two years previous to the battle of Lepanto all the faithful, but especially Rosarians, earnestly pleaded in behalf of the Church with Mary the Mother of Jesus through the prayer which is so dear to her.
In the meantime, the Holy Father succeeded in arousing Spain, Genoa, Venice and the Pontifical States to enter into a holy League against the sworn enemy of Christianity. Humanly speaking, from such an insignificant league there could be but little hope of success for the Christians opposed by such fearful odds. But the Pope, whose prayers the Sultan Soliman II. feared, as he himself declared, far more than the arms of the Christian forces, trusted entirely in the assistance of the Mother of Mercy.

On the 7th of October, 1571, on the Gulf of Lepanto was raised aloft by the Christian fleet the standard of hope--it was the image of the Blessed Virgin, surmounted by a Cross and a Rosary. The soldiers knelt before it for the purpose of venerating the emblem of our salvation and the Image of Mary, and pledged themselves to fight to death for the cause in which they were engaged, God and holy Church. Then the signal for attack was given by the Christian admiral.

Victory was violently disputed and long remained undecided. But the death of Ali-Pasha, the admiral of the Mussulman fleet, spread terror among his soldiers and became the signal of their defeat. The Turkish losses were immense; two hundred vessels were captured by the Christians or sunk beneath the angry waves of Lepanto; twenty-five thousand soldiers were killed; eighteen thousand prisoners were taken and fifteen thousand Christian slaves were liberated from their ignominious bondage; three hundred and seventy-five pieces of cannon and a great number of Standards and other spoils "became the property of the victors.

The triumph of the Cross over the Crescent through the power of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary drove Islamism into Asia, saved forever Christendom from any successful invasion on the part of the Turks, left the seas that had hitherto been infested by Mussulman pirates free, and caused the Christian name to be dreaded by hordes who had until then considered themselves invincible. Michael Cervantes thus writes of the victory: "Ages gone by have seen nothing like unto the battle of Lepanto, nor has our age witnessed anything to compare with it, and in all probability ages to come will never record a more beautiful or glorious triumph for the Church."

But what share had the Rosary in this magnificent triumph? For two years before the battle, we have said, all the Rosary Confraternities of the world and the rest of the faithful were at the feet of Mary asking her assistance through the prayer so dear to her and her Son, the Rosary. The battle took place on the 7th of October, which in 1571 was the first Sunday of the month, the very day on which all the Rosary Confraternities of the Church were making their solemn processions and addressing solemn supplications to Heaven in behalf of the Christian cause.

Whilst the battle was raging, Saint Pope Pius V was treating with the Cardinals assembled at the Vatican on some grave business matters. All of a sudden he withdraws from the meeting, moves towards a window, remains there for some time, his eyes fixed in the direction of Lepanto, and then exclaimed with the accent and look of inspiration: "Let us kneel; let us cease speaking of business matters and think only of rendering thanks to God for the victory He has just given us." The happy news was in due time confirmed, and was received everywhere among Christians with transports of delight, and with a conviction the most intense that the victory was due to the all-powerful intevention of our Lady of the Rosary.
From Rome this conviction passed to Venice. The Senate of the City, in letters addressed to the States that had taken part in the Crusade, did not hesitate to express itself in these terms filled with faith and piety: "It was not Generals, nor battalions, nor arms that brought us victory; but it was our Lady of the Rosary." Yes, says a modern historian, the defeat of the Turks was so complete and decisive that the whole Christian world spontaneously attributed it to the Blessed Mother of God, whose Rosary all the faithful were reciting whilst the battle was in progress.

The Holy Pope Pius V in order to perpetuate the memory of so great an event, instituted under the title of Our Lady of Victory a feast which received later on the appellation which is at present so popular and far more significative, that of Our Lady of the Rosary; and, for the purpose of encouraging the faithful to celebrate it with piety and fruit, he opened in their behalf the treasury of the Church, and drew from it the celebrated indulgence which is at one time called the Toties quoties (a plenary indulgence each time the conditions are complied with), at another time the "Great Pardon of the Rosary" and often the "Dominican Portiuncula." It was then, too, that he added to the Litany of Loretto the invocation "Help of Christians, pray for us."

Notwithstanding the complete discomfiture of the Turks, they, still profiting by the divisions created by that monster of modern times, protestantism, endeavored again and again to crush out the Christian Religion, but the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary showed on every occasion her determination not to allow the infidels to gain the least advantage over the Church. The victories at Corfu, Vienna, Temeswar and Belgrade under the captaincy of Mary were only a prolonged echo of the glorious triumph of the Christians at Lepanto.

But if the Church has nothing now to fear from the Turks, it has other enemies still more powerful, formidable and tyrannical to contend against. Just now the Catholic Religion is much more free along the shores of the Bosphorus than it is on the banks of Seine, Spree or Tiber, where it groans under the oppression of children who have disowned their Mother and have sworn to bring about her destruction. A gigantic anti-Christian conspiracy--its name is Freemasonry--has been formed in the very bosom of the baptized nations. In most of the European countries it has complete control of things, and employs all manner of means to carry out its diabolical ends, sophisms, lies, corruption and violence. Its chief object is to cripple and humiliate the teaching Church, and to eradicate faith and virtue from the souls and hearts of the young. It labors with all its might to have complete control of the schools, so that infidelity and atheism may possess the minds and corrupt the hearts of the rising generation. In countries where Freemasonry has not supreme control, its secret and nefarious influence paralyzes the good will and efforts of those who are in power.

With this view of the present condition of affairs before his mind, the Sentinel of the Vatican utters a cry of alarm to the Virgin of the Rosary. As Saint Pope Pius V three hundred years ago, looked for help to Mary through her Rosary and obtained it, so to-day Pope Leo XIII. expects from the same source of mercy remedies for the evils of our times, efficacious helps to save the Church and with it the world. It is for us to second by our prayers, zeal and virtues the efforts of the Father of the great Catholic family, and to do violence to Heaven by our fervent and frequent supplications to Mary, and thus deliver our Father at the Vatican, the Church and society from the galling yoke of the most malevolent and implacable enemies.