“Peter Lives in Rome Again”

In March, 2010 when Beyond These Stone Walls was a newborn blog, a post about Vatican scandal went viral. Fifteen years later it is still widely read and spread.

May 14, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

We have already published a post this week, though four days earlier than our usual. It has a rather blunt title, but if you missed it, you should at least indulge me. That post was, “Pope Leo XIV Is Certainly No Clone of Pope Francis.”

If you search in any search engine the term “scandal at the Vatican,” using quotes, you will immediately come across a post that technically gave birth to this blog. It was written in March, 2010 when Beyond These Stone Walls was literally nine months along. Its title is “Michelangelo and the Hand of God: Scandal at the Vatican.” I had no idea when I wrote it that “Scandal at the Vatican” would become one of the most common searches on the Internet in regard to Catholic affairs thus making my post top the charts at various points along the way.

Vatican scandal was not at all what I had in mind when I wrote that post. It tells a fascinating story about overlapping layers of art history and we will link to it again at the end of this post.

Just days ago, worldwide attention was focused on the Sistine Chapel, the site at which Pope Leo XIV was recently elected. My post from fifteen years ago was focused upon that very same place but for different reasons. I am always a bit nervous when that post surfaces widely into view again as it did during and after the recent conclave. My post was about art, and Michelangelo, and a little-known event of art history. Rome is home to some of the world's most accomplished artists and art historians. I sometimes worry about whether and how something I wrote might measure up to their scrutiny. But the post in question has been making waves on the Internet for at least the last fifteen years. No one has yet complained or challenged my artistic interpretation. I won’t repeat that entire story here. You may read it for yourself linked again at the end of this post. Despite the fact that I wrote it, it is indeed an amazing story.

Landmarks

Among the vast media sources of published commentary about the results of the recent Vatican papal conclave, some have stood out far above the rest. One of these was published in The Wall Street Journal by Canadian priest and author of some reknown, Father Raymond de Souza entitled “Catholics Welcome an American Pope” (WSJ, May 9, 2025). I found a few of its paragraphs to be especially fascinating and moving. They gave me my title for this post:

“Twenty years ago, at the election of Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, stood on the balcony of St. Peter’s and was caught staring off into the distance. He confessed later that he was marveling that the Church had elected yet another man to succeed Peter, while the great imperial Rome, the caput mundi, which put Peter to death on the Vatican hill, was no longer. Only ruins remained.

“In 1586, Pope Sixtus V had moved one of these ruins, a 350-ton granite obelisk, to the center of St. Peter’s Square, where it stands to this day. That obelisk could have been among the last landmarks St. Peter looked upon as he was crucified. It is the first thing a new pope sees when he lookes out over the assembled masses in the square below.

“On the top of that obelisk is a bronze cross, and place therein is a relic of the true Cross of Christ. There is in the Catholic calendar a feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It falls on September 14 — the new Pope Leo XIV’s birthday.”

“Peter lives in Rome again.”

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post, and our post about Pope Leo XIV for whom we hold high hopes which, if you saw the faces of the immense crowd in St. Peter’s Square last week, seemed to be contagious.

Please also read and share these related posts cited herein:

Michelangelo and the Hand of God: Scandal at the Vatican

Conclave: Amid the Wind and the Waves, a Successor of Peter

Pope Leo XIV is No Clone of Pope Francis

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The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Pope Leo XIV Is Certainly No Clone of Pope Francis

Pope Leo XIV, the first pope with American roots, is profiled by some as being in solidarity with the progressivism of Pope Francis, but a closer look is required.

May 10, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

We are posting this days before our usual Wednesday post day, but we did not want to wait. On Thursday, May 8, 2025 Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost became the 267th Pontiff of the Catholic Church, and the first in Church history to assume the Chair of Peter from America. One priest I called on that day described him as “a clone of Francis.” I gasped at the thought, but it is too much of a knee-jerk reaction. Since then, several voices from the left have spread the notion that he is our latest “woke pope.” That is nonsense, little more than propaganda, and there is lots of information to discredit it.

That was an otherwise interesting day for me. The Conclave began on Wednesday, May 7, 2025. I wrote about our expectations here in “Conclave: Amid the Wind and the Waves, a Successor of Peter.”

You could probably tell by that post that I expected a slightly more prolonged conclave, predicting that it might end with white smoke no sooner than Friday, May 9. I followed it intensely from the first procession into the Sistine Chapel. It was just a coincidence that my work was cancelled on Thursday afternoon. So at 1 PM, I was in my cell staring at the Sistine Chapel stove pipe while busy writing some notes. I looked away for just a minute and when I looked back and there were puffs of white smoke billowing out of the pipe. The silence was deafening, but the bells left no doubt.

I was off by a full day. I had ascertained that the 1978 election of John Paul II took eight votes. The 2005 election of Benedict XVI took three, and the 2013 election of Francis took five. So in my mind I calculated the average of all three votes to take 5.33 voting sessions. I therefore predicted that the conclave would end in the afternoon of Friday. The longest conclave in Church history lasted 1,006 days many centuries ago. None of us has the nerve to survive such a thing. But now, a day early there it was, white smoke at 1 PM (EST). Before the new pope was even introduced to the world, I quickly telephoned our editor, Dilia, in New York. Most of us about to witness monumental events wish not to witness them alone. So while Dilia was tuned in to EWTN, I watched Fox News and we compared notes. We were both stunned to meet Cardinal Robert Prevost, a native of Chicago, who was presented to the world as Pope Leo XIV. I imagine that every reporter on earth scrambled to discover what they could about the relative unknown.

Pundits immediately compared him to the late Pope Francis, claiming that they shared the same worldview and progressive mindset. There might even be some truth to that. We will all find out going forward. But what my eyes saw there on that balcony told a very different story. There, standing before the world, was an obviously humble man overwhelmed by the roaring crowds of Saint Peter’s Square. The roaring crowd was evidence of something in its own right. There were thousands of young men and women shouting in triumph in support not only of this man, but of this moment. When did we become, seemingly overnight, a Church filled with young and vibrant true believers?

I was struck by the presentation of Pope Leo XIV. Unlike his predecessor he chose to be bedecked in all the traditional garb of the Roman Pontiff. That is a sign, read with a bullhorn of what we may expect from this pope. These signs and wonders were all of his personal choice. So was the papal name he chose. It was that alone which filled me with hope.

We have a lot yet to learn about Pope Leo XIV. His chosen namesake, Pope Leo XIII who reigned from 1878 to 1903, can tell us volumes about the nature and person of the man who now occupies the Chair of Peter. The pontificate of Pope Leo XIII began the modern age of Roman Catholicism. He was known as “a social justice warrior,” a title that may bring shivers to some. But theologically, and in affairs of the Church and our life of faith, that Leo was certainly no liberal. His letters echoed the emphases of Pius IX Syllabus of Errors, and he endorsed the stance about concience, worship, and separation of Church and State by Pope Gregory XVI. Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical letters, Aeterni Patris (Eternal Father) which urged a revival of the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas as the basis of political and social renewal. Pope Leo was also the author of the encyclical, Rerum Novarum, which advocated for just wages earning him the title of “The Worker’s Pope.”

It seems that Leo XIV sees the Church and the world, at least in part, through the eyes of Leo XIII. And they were eyes never deluded about the true nature of this world and the Church which works for salvation within it.

I was thrilled by this knowledge. Pope Leo XIII and I shared a common vision about this world and the dangers it poses for the Church. After a night of terror, Pope Leo XIII wrote the following prayer, which I can only hope will also be prayed by his successor and namesake. We must also pray that prayer for him:

Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel by Pope Leo XIII

O Glorious Prince of the heavenly host, St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle and in the terrible warfare that we are waging against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the evil spirits. Come to the aid of man, whom Almighty God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of Satan.

Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in Heaven.  That cruel, ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.

These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions.  In the Holy Place itself, where the See of Holy Peter and the Chair of Truth has been set up as the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.

Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly find mercy in the sight of the Lord; and vanquishing the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV has an immense task before him. Let us pave that way with the support of our prayers and good intentions.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading this post. You can help stem the tide of misinformation by sharing it. We can no longer share to Facebook, but you can do so in our stead. You may also follow Beyond These Stone Walls on X and at gloria.tv.

You may also like these related posts:

Saint Michael the Archangel Contends with Satan Still

Conclave: Amid the Wind and the Waves, a Successor of Peter

Cardinal George Pell’s Last Gift to the Church

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Conclave: Amid the Wind and the Waves, a Successor of Peter

In the Sistine Chapel, under the gaze of Christ in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, cardinal-electors discern the successor of Peter the Holy Spirit has already chosen.

May, 7 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.”

— Luke 22:31-32

“Jesus said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, but when he saw the wind and the waves he was afraid and began to sink, calling out, ‘Lord, save me.’”

— Matthew 14:29-30

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It has been written, by me and by others, that 1968 was the year we drank from the poison of this world. I was fifteen years old then. The war in Vietnam was raging. Battles for racial equality engulfed the American South. Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on his way to the presidency. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated on his way to civil rights. Riots broke out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Violent partisan politics spread across the land like a pandemic setting a tone for decades to come.

Nineteen Sixty-Eight was also the year Pope Paul VI published Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical asserting a moral framework for sexual ethics and human reproduction. From Catholics of every stripe, including some bishops and theologians, it subjected Pope Paul to tidal waves of global resentment and dissent. A notable exception, which was published in these pages, was “Padre Pio’s Letter to Pope Paul VI on Humanae Vitae.” The letter was written two weeks before Padre Pio’s death on September 23, 1968.

After witnessing all the above in 1968, I sat mesmerized in a Boston movie theater at age fifteen on a Sunday afternoon for the debut screening of “The Shoes of the Fisherman,” a film about the election of a pope based on a 1963 novel of the same name by Australian writer, Morris West. Like the book, the movie was long and ponderous, short on action, long on dialogue. At least it seemed that way to the mind of a fifteen year old.

But it told an amazing story. Archbishop Kyril Lakota, a courageous Soviet dissident was elevated to the papacy after spending seventeen years in a Soviet prison. Had I been able to see three or four decades into my own future in 1968, I might have cheered the result of that conclave.

Beyond my baptism, of which I had no recollection, and my first communion at age seven — which I remember mostly for the hot cocoa I spilled on my borrowed white suit in a diner where my mother took me afterward — I had little to no knowledge of the Catholic faith in 1968.

So, largely ignorant of our faith, I devoured The Shoes of the Fisherman — first the movie and then later the book. The film won a Golden Globe Award for Best Musical Score, which rose up to transcend any music I had ever heard up to that point in my life.

Emerging from All Our Prisons

Keeping his original name, Pope Kyril faced the greatest political and moral crisis ever seen in the 2000-year life of the Church. The world was at the brink of nuclear war. The people of China were starving while the Soviet Empire exploited other world powers which became islands unto themselves. Pope Kyril was tasked with mediating an end to hostilities and the looming threat of full-scale nuclear war which could destroy the planet and everyone on it. So after much prayer, Pope Kyril did the unthinkable. He sacrificed the patrimony of the Church. He sought to avert hunger and war by liquidating and surrendering all property and other assets held by the global Catholic Church.

Critics of the communists chafed. Critics of the movie choked, while critics of the Church cheered. They dismissively held that the Church would not have survived a nuclear war anyway. But faith would survive and Pope Kyril was boldly going to put that to the test. I left the theater resolved to take a serious look at the Church the adolescent me had set aside as irrelevant.

I watched this film and read this book fifty-seven years ago. I am amazed today to recall how much of its details became imprinted upon me. At the conclave in The Shoes of the Fisherman, Kyril Lakota was a startling figure. The book describes him:

“For seventeen years he had been in prison or in the labor camps. Only once in all that time had he been able to offer Mass, with a thimbleful of wine and a crust of white bread. All that he could cling to of doctrine and prayer and sacrament formulae was locked in his own mind. All that he had tried to spend of strength and compassion upon his fellow prisoners he had to dredge up out of himself and out of the well of Divine Mercy.”

— The Shoes of the Fisherman, p 20

During his Soviet imprisonment, Kyril had become a cardinal in pectore (in secret). Released just before the death of the pope, he was entirely unknown while facing the conclave ahead. After the opening Mass, the cardinal camerlengo was to choose someone to read a homily in Latin. Expecting to be bored, most of the electorate settled in for a long, boring treatise. Instead, the carmerlengo walked to the far end of the stalls in the Sistine Chapel and led to the pulpit the former prisoner, Kyril, portrayed in the film by the great Anthony Quinn:

“My name is Kyril Lakota, and I am come the latest and the least into this Sacred College. I speak to you today by the invitation of our brother the Cardinal Camerlengo. To most of you I am a stranger because my people are scattered and I have spent the last seventeen years in prison. If I have any rights among you, any credits at all, let this be the foundation of them — that I speak for the lost ones, for those who walked in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death. It is for them and not for ourselves that we are entering into conclave. It is for them and not for our selves that we must elect a pontiff.

“The first man who held this office was one who walked with Christ, and was crucified like the Master. Those who have best served the Church and the faithful are those who have been closest to Christ and to the people who are the image of Christ. We have power in our hands, my brothers, but we shall put even greater power into the hands of the one we elect. We must use that power as servants and not as masters …

“It is not asked of us that we shall agree on what is best for the Church, but only that we shall deliberate in charity and humility and in the end give our obedience to the one who shall be chosen by the majority. We are asked to act swiftly so that the Church may not be left without a head. In all this we must be what, in the end, our Pontiff shall proclaim himself to be — servants of the servants of God.”

— The Shoes of the Fisherman, p 17

The Conclave of 2025

My authority for the following reflections on the current conclave now underway are largely from one whom I have come to respect as a fair and balanced observer unfettered by personal bias. Most of what I here present is summarized from a fine article by George Weigel in The Wall Street Journal (“The High Stakes in Choosing the next Pope,” WSJ, April 26-27, 2025).

Of the 252 current members of the College of Cardinals, 135 are eligible to vote in the Conclave underway in the Sistine Chapel under the stern gaze of Christ in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment. The Conclave’s mystery, pagentry and secrecy have long provided fodder for movies, novels, and conspiracy theories run amok.

Among the conclave myths is one that has recently proliferated in the media with a concern for the direction in which Pope Francis took the Church during his twelve-year reign. There is widespread concern that, because his papacy elevated a high percentage of the current cardinal-electors, some two thirds of them to be exact, Francis may have already determined his own successor, or at least the ideological mindset of his successor.

To the great relief of many, George Weigel points out that history does not support that notion. He cites several examples:

IN 1878, every cardinal-elector had been appointed by either Gregory XVI, an unabashed reactionary, or Pius IX, a fierce critic of modernity. That electorate chose a pope, Leo XIII, who took Catholicism in a different direction for 23 years, seeking to engage cultural, social, and political modernity rather than merely condemning it.

Leo XIII appointed 61 of the 62 electors who then chose his successor in 1903. They chose Pius X who firmly applied the brakes to his predecessor’s reform initiatives.

And just over a decade ago, cardinals chosen by John Paul II and Benedict XVI elected as a successor Pope Francis whose pontificate has included senior figures determined to dismantle the legacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Shocking events have also played a role in the selection of a pope. In October, 1978, cardinal-electors were stunned to be recalled to Rome for a conclave after the 33-day pontificate of Pope John Paul I, whom they had just elected in a swift conclave. That shock created the conditions for doing what previously seemed unthinkable. The electors broke the succession of Italian popes electing the first non-Italian in 455 years, Poland’s Karol Wojtyla, who became John Paul II.

Another shocker soon followed after the 25-year papacy of John Paul II. The succession of Josef Ratzinger who became Benedict XVI and faithfully continued the legacy of John Paul II ended in another unexpected shock. In 2013 Benedict XVI became the first pope to step down since the year 1415. Like in the fictional story of The Shoes of the Fisherman, a consensus formed among the electors that they had to resolve the election quickly to demonstrate the Church’s unity. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, who like Kyril Lakota in The Shoes of the Fisherman had given a moving reflection on the person of Christ during the pre-conclave session, was quickly chosen becoming Pope Francis.

The conditions under which the current conclave is taking place have no precedent in Church history. No one can predict the outcome. The electorate in this conclave will be the largest and most diverse in history. When Pius XII was elected in 1939 there were 62 cardinal-electors of whom 37, or 60 percent, were Italian. The current electorate is over twice that size with 135 cardinal-electors and only 28, or 21 percent, are Italian. Today 13 percent of the electors are from sub-Saharan Africa, which George Weigel points out is the Church’s greatest area of growth. In other regions, 17 percent are from Asia, another 17 percent are from Latin America and the Caribbean, 10 percent are from North America, and 39 percent are from across Europe excluding Italy. Some of the more powerful European electors, such as those from Germany, represent a nation of Catholics for whom participation in the Mass and the Eucharist hovers around two percent, compared to over 70 percent in Africa. For the first time there are cardinal-electors from Singapore, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Myanmar, South Sudan, Mongolia, Sweden, Serbia, Ruwanda, Burkina Faso, Paraguay, Laos, Morocco, Cape Verde and Haiti. Traditional Catholic centers such as Dublin, Paris, Milan, Venice and Los Angeles will have no one in the conclave.

I must give the last word in this post to His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who has composed a beautiful and timely Novena Prayer for Catholics to participate in the Conclave by seeking the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who has been known to be in the company of the Holy Spirit:

Cardinal Burke’s Novena for the Election of the Next Pope

I kneel before you, O Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the compassionate mother of all who love you, cry to you, seek you, and trust in you. I plead for the Church at a time of great trial and danger for her. As you came to the rescue of the Church at Tepeyac in 1531, please intercede for the Sacred College of Cardinals gathered in Rome to elect the Successor of Saint Peter, Vicar of Christ, Shepherd of the Universal Church.

At this tumultuous time for the Church and for the world, plead with your Divine Son that the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, His Mystical Body, will humbly obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Through your intercession, may they choose the most worthy man to be Christ’s Vicar on earth. With you, I place all my trust in Him Who alone is our help and salvation. Amen.

Heart of Jesus, salvation of those who trust in Thee, have mercy upon us!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Virgin Mother of God and Mother of Divine Grace, pray for us!

Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
April 24, 2025

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post with others during this most critical time for the life of the Church. I also invite you to visit these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Once and Future Catholic Church

A Vision on Mount Tabor: The Transfiguration of Christ

The Vatican Today: Cardinal George Pell’s Last Gift to the Church

Synodality Blues: Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy

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Follow Beyond These Stone Walls on X.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

South Park’s Bill Donohue Disgrace Was This Convert’s Amazing Grace

If ever there is an award for a Catholic who heroically goes above and beyond for others, Pornchai Moontri’s Nominee would be Catholic League President Bill Donohue.

April 30, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae and Pornchai Maximilian Moontri

Earlier in April 2025, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in New York City sent out the following Media Alert to all Catholic League members:

“April 10, 2025
South Park's "Fantastic Easter Special," featuring the animated character of Bill Donohue, will air Friday morning, April 11, on Comedy Central at 4:00 a.m. ET. It can also be streamed on HBO's streaming service for those who have a subscription.”

I had the Alert sent by email to our friend Max Moontri in Pak Chong, Thailand. For those who are newer readers to this blog, Pornchai Max Moontri was my roommate for almost 16 years. His story, amazing in its own righ, was told in these pages just a week ago on Relevant Radio in an interview with The Drew Mariani Show.

Upon receipt of Bill Donohue’s Media Alert about South Park, Max wrote to me immediately to tell me that the date of the Catholic League Media Alert was also the anniversary of Max being received into the Catholic Church on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2010. It is difficult to hear this entire story and still cling to any doubt about the truth and power of Divine Mercy. Pornchai Max filled in a lot of blanks so I will now turn this story over to him.

“I was a teenager when I went to prison [in 1992]. Over the next 13 years, I was sent to solitary confinement over and over, for up to three-and-a-half years at a time, because I was so hostile. The longer I was there each time, the more inhuman I felt and became. Living for years on end in solitary confinement joined with the guilt I felt for the life I took during a struggle when I was 18 years old.

“So I just gave up on myself as a human being. I sank to the very bottom of the prison I was in, and stayed there. Then, in the spring of 2005, after almost fourteen years in and out of solitary confinement in Maine’s Supermax Prison, I was told that I was to be shipped to another prison in another state. I sat for months alone in my cell wondering about whatever hell was coming next. Then one day, guards in riot gear came and chained me up….”

[Editor: You can see the solitary confinement unit that held Pornchai in PBS FRONTLINE “Solitary Nation.” If you have not seen this, you cannot begin to know what Pornchai has been through.]

While I was writing the above, I had already lived in a prison cell with Father Gordon MacRae (“Father G”) for almost five years. I shudder when I think of my life before then. It is hard to put together this series of events that seem to be disconnected from each other. It only seems that way. Going from years in brutal solitary confinement to life in a cell with a Catholic priest is something I never imagined.

When I look back, and see all the small steps in which our Blessed Mother inserted herself into my life leading me to Jesus, it seems miraculous to me. If someone else told me this story twenty years ago, I would not believe it. But there is a lot more to my story.

Most people I knew in my earlier prison were afraid of me. Most expected me to erupt in violence any minute. I liked having that reputation then. I could not see it at the time, but it protected me from ever again feeling the terror I felt from the time I was taken from Thailand at age 11 to the time I ended up a homeless teenager living alone on the streets of Bangor, Maine at age 14.

A Black Hole from Which No Light Could Escape

What happened in those three years upon my arrival in America was like a black hole from which no light could escape without Divine assistance. I kept it bottled up within me for many years in a seething rage of trauma and hurt. It became my prison within a prison. But it served a purpose. It kept everyone else away, everyone except Father G.

I have read a little about exorcism since I became a Catholic on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. I understand it to be the spiritual casting out of evil. My exorcism at the hands of Jesus through His priest took a long time. It had to begin with my long, slow awakening to the fact that the evil within me was not planted there by me and it was not mine to keep. It was placed in my heart and soul by someone else.

On September 12, 2018, the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, Richard Alan Bailey, the man who violently raped and tortured me more than forty times when I was taken to America, was brought to justice. It was Father G and Beyond These Stone Walls that ultimately accomplished this. Father G wrote some articles about what happened to me. They circled the globe and eventually they found the right persons who would be instrumental in my redemption. One of those persons was Dr. Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights of which I am now a member.

Backing up a little, in Fall, 2005, I was shackled, chained, thrown into a prison van, and driven from solitary confinement in Maine to Concord, New Hampshire. I was handled like a dangerous animal, and thrown into a familiar place: another stint in solitary confinement. But it was brief. It was also in 2005 that The Wall Street Journal wrote its first articles about the injustices that happened to Father G. Not long after I first met him by “chance” one day, I read those articles.

Later in 2006, Father G and I landed in the same place. Our cells were two doors apart. I remember the first time I walked into his cell. I saw a photo on a card attached to a battered mirror on the cell wall, and the man on the card looked sort of like Father G. So I said, “Is this you?” This turned out to be the most important question of my life. Father G then told me about St. Maximilian Kolbe, about what he did in prison at Auschwitz, and about how this card came to be on his mirror. Father G wrote this story in “The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner.”

Then one day came dreaded news. A U.S. Immigration Court ruled that I would be deported to Thailand at the end of my sentence. I never wanted to leave Thailand as a child. I was forcibly brought to America, and all I really knew in America was its prisons. In the meantime, my Mother — my only connection to Thailand — was murdered on the Island of Guam after she was brought there by Richard Alan Bailey. Her death remains classified there as a “cold case unsolved homicide.” It is not “unsolved” in the minds of either me or Father G.

When news of my eventual deportation came, I sank into deep depression. I knew that I had no future in Thailand. I had no future anywhere. Father G helped me appeal the deportation order, but like most such appeals, it was denied. So I just gave up again, and settled in my mind on my own “Plan B,” my eventual self-destruction. Father G confronted this setback with his own optimism that provided no hope or comfort at all. He said, “We are just going to have to build a bridge from here to Thailand.”

Who could take him seriously? I sure didn’t. We were in a prison cell thousands of miles away! All the things Father G tried to instill in me about hope and trust and surrender just felt empty again. But I had nothing else to hang onto. No hope at all. So I hung onto his.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue [l] and Pornchai Moontri at age 12 [r] just as he arrived in America and before the troubling events in this story took place.

Pornchai’s Story

Soon after this rejection from the Immigration Court, Father G came into our cell one day and told me that we have to get a summary of my life story on paper… So we talked for a long time. He asked me lots of questions and took notes. Then he helped me put it together in a four-page document. I could not see the point of it. I tried to type it on his typewriter, but my heart was not in it at all. Father G became impatient with my one-word-per-minute typing speed. So Father G took over and he typed it while I waited. He was not patient with my typing speed, but he was patient with me and my attitude of hopelessness and defeat.

After the story was typed, Father G said that he wanted my permission to send the short life story we typed to a few contacts in the outside world. He said that these were all people who had connections, and that he believed one of them would find connections for me in Thailand.

I thought this was hopeless, of course. No one is going to be interested in me. But I hate arguing so I just told him to go ahead. I believed it would come to nothing.

Dr Bill Donohue on South Park

I wrote that story with Father G’s help in 2007. When Father G said he wanted to send it out to others, I answered with a sarcastic “Whatever!” It was that word for which every parent of every adolescent wants to smack him for saying it. Father G sent my story to several people and he told me that it will come to good. Then I said it again, “Whatever!”

In coming weeks — to my shock and awe — I started receiving letters of support and encouragement. One was from Cardinal Kitbunchu, Archbishop Emeritus of Bangkok, Thailand. I nearly fell over when I saw the envelope with his return address and Thai stamps. Another came from Honorable Mary Ann Glendon, U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. Another was from Father Richard John Neuhaus, Editor of First Things magazine. They encouraged me to cling to hope even when I saw none. And then finally one came from Dr. Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Dr. Donohue shocked me. He asked my permission for the Catholic League to publish my story.

At first, I was excited. Then the inevitable gloom within me crept back in. I did not dare to hope. Hope is not for the beaten down. It is just too painful. I told Father G I did not want others to know that I was victimized in America. I also was consumed with shame. I told Father G that I did not want to publish the story. But this gets really strange from here on.

I used to sometimes come across a horrible cartoon called South Park on the Comedy Central TV channel. South Park spared no one. They would often take famous people and create a cartoon satire to ridicule them. On April 5, 2007, I was watching an episode of South Park. It was their Easter Special. Suddenly, there on my screen was a cartoon version of Dr. Bill Donohue.

I stuck my head down from my top bunk and told Father G to turn it on. The cartoon was very disrespectful, but my first reaction was to shout, “WOW! DR DONOHUE IS REALLY FAMOUS!”

I thought he must be really good because only good people are ridiculed on South Park. Dr. Donohue was ridiculed along with Jesus and Pope Benedict in the same episode. At one point, Jesus punched Dr. Donohue. I was horrified! But this is also what changed my mind. I thought that if Dr. Donohue is brave enough to endure this ridicule, I can be too. So I asked Father G to help me write to Dr. Donohue with permission for the Catholic League to publish my story. It was because of South Park!

Two years later, in 2009, Beyond These Stone Walls began our long adventure in what Father G calls “The Great Tapestry of God.” He told me that in this life, we live only in the back of the tapestry, unable to see what all our tangled threads are producing.

Over the next decade, we together confronted evil. It was not all at once. It was in slow steps because at points along the way whenever I felt overwhelmed, I would retreat and then give up and quit. But Father G never quit. He stayed the course, patiently waiting for a better day to pull me back onto what he called “our road to Emmaus.” And staying the course meant writing about me. What he wrote started to become noticed.

Strange things began to happen. Just weeks after I was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010, I read that South Park editors cancelled an episode that ridiculed Mohammed after freely ridiculing Jesus, Pope Benedict and Dr. Bill Donohue. I never watched South Park again.

But there are stranger things still. Because of what was being written about me, Clare and Malcolm Farr — husband and wife attorneys in Southwest Australia — offered to assist me pro bono. They are today among my dearest friends, but we have never actually even met in person. They performed miracles with contacts in Thailand, with an attempt to reopen the case of the murder of my Mother in Guam, and with helping Father G to bring my abuser to justice.

Then Father G received a letter from a group called Divine Mercy Thailand. The letter revealed that Marian Father Seraphim Michalenko had been in Thailand and he carried with him a copy of “Pornchai’s Story,” which he read from the Catholic League’s site to the Divine Mercy Thailand group. I learned only later from Father G that Father Seraphim Michalenko was the Vatican’s vicepostulator for the cause of sainthood of Maria Faustina Kowalska. It was Father Seraphim who smuggled Saint Faustina’s diary out of Communist Poland and assisted in its English translation. Father G wrote about this when Father Seraphim came to this prison to interview both of us. Father G’s post was “Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare.”

Father Seraphim’s interest, triggered by Dr. Bill Donohue, then inspired Felix Carroll, who was then Editor of Marian Helper magazine, to contact Father G. Felix Carroll said that he posted my story from the Catholic League’s site and “it lit up our website like never before.” Felix asked that we allow him to include a chapter about me in his book, Loved, Lost, Found: 17 Divine Mercy Conversions.

The miracles continued. I was visited in prison by a representative of the Royal Thai Consulate in New York who offered help in restoring my Thai citizenship and preparing me for repatriation. Then one day I was called to the prison library. The library had received a donated set of Thai language CDs which were set up on a computer for me to study. Then Divine Mercy Thailand wrote again and offered me a home. The bridge to Thailand Father G had once promised was built and I was utterly amazed. Then, in 2020, just before the pandemic took hold, Father G filed a petition on my behalf revealing all that had happened that never made its way into my trial in 1992. I was to be set free within the coming months.

I will never say “Whatever!” to Father G again. He and Bill Donohue, and even the disgraceful South Park, became the keys to the locks that held me bound. If there is ever a book called Divine Mercy Miracles, I expect to find this story in it. I am free!

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Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: If you are not a member of the Catholic League, please consider lending your voice to this nation’s largest endeavor in protection of Religious Liberty: Catholic League Membership Subscription. Your membership fee also includes a one-year subscription to the Catholic League Journal Catalyst.

We also recommend these related posts:

Pornchai’s Story: The Catholic League Conversion Story for 2008

Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare

A Catholic League White House Plea Set Pornchai Moontri Free

The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner

Thailand’s Once-Lost Son Was Flag Bearer for the Asian Apostolic Congress

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Divine Mercy for Doubting Thomas and Other Spiritually Wounded

The Gospel on Divine Mercy Sunday is St John’s account of the spiritually wounded Thomas who would not know peace until surrendering his wounds to the Risen Christ.

April 23, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae

There is a scene in the great World War II prisoner of war film, Stalag 17, in which an American Air Force officer (played by actor William Holden) negotiates with the German Commandant over the treatment of a fellow prisoner. I was dragged into a similar role here several years ago when I protested an injustice aimed at a friend.

For a long time I had managed to avoid efforts to recruit me for an Inmate Communications Committee (ICC), a group of eight chosen from 1,500 prisoners here. The ICC advocated for better prison conditions and due process. After protesting over another prisoner, I no longer had a valid excuse, so I reluctantly accepted.

From the start, I was saddled with doing all the writing, which included detailed minutes of every meeting for distribution to prison officials, a monthly summary of progress, and a quarterly newsletter.

The job — which payed nothing — was in addition to my Law Library job which payed next to nothing. It also meant writing endless memos, proposals, clarifications, and requests that I fielded each week. We succeeded in only about ten percent of the concessions we set out to obtain, and that is more or less on par with William Holden’s success rate in Stalag 17.

About the only high point is that I was also required to be present at a Jobs and Education Fair in the prison gymnasium twice a year. It was an effort to get the other 1,500 prisoners here into jobs, educational classes and programs, and typically about 500 showed up. Among the dozens of display tables set up, the Law Library and ICC were side by side, so I manned both.

The Veterans Affairs table was set up next to the ICC table. It was a nice display with information on veteran groups here, an annual POW/MIA Remembrance, and other programs. The table was staffed by my friend, John, whom I did not get to see as often as I would like. John was a Navy veteran in his mid to later thirties. He lost his leg during active duty in the Middle East before coming to prison. John told me that when he arrived here, his prosthetic leg was taken from him because of an infection at the amputation site with the result of consigning him to a wheelchair. John was very anxious to get the prosthetic leg back and get back on his feet again, but because of the fear of infection, the prison medical officials were withholding it. It was John, by the way, who told me of the release of my friend Martin, the U.S. Marine veteran I wrote about in “A U.S. Marine Who Showed Me What to Give Up for Lent.”

I told John that I would do some research to see if there was a precedent here that John might use to restore his prosthetic leg. Then, without thinking, I thanked him for “stepping up” to take charge of the Veteran’s table. I quickly apologized for my faux pas, but John had a good laugh.

Then he told me that he spent half his day thanking people for all sorts of small things: an assist out of the chair, a push up a steep ramp, picking up a dropped item. He said that my thanks was the first time in a long time anyone had thanked him for his service to others. That small, awkward gesture had a profound effect on John. As I left, he was beaming. I made a decision that I would find a way to help restore what he lost and get him out of that dreaded wheelchair.

I can sometimes become so aware of the spiritual warfare that engulfs me here that it diminishes my awareness of the wounds of others. We are all, in one way or another, wounded by life physically, emotionally, spiritually, and it dulls our senses.

It drives us onto self-centered islands of emotional distance and spiritual isolation. The wounds we carry foster pessimism and doubt, erode faith, and turn the joy of living into a crucible of mere existence. Peace evades wounded warriors, even in spiritual warfare.

Doubting Thomas

This is the great plague of our age. I receive lots of mail from readers asking me to pray for a husband or wife, a son or daughter, who has lost their faith in response to the wounds of life and the sheer weight of living. In a war with one’s self, faith is often the first to go and the last to come back. If this describes you or someone in your life, then pay special attention to the Apostle Thomas in the Gospel from Saint John on Divine Mercy Sunday.

There are some remarkable elements in Saint John’s account of the death of Jesus and all that came after the Cross. The first witness to the “Seventh Sign,” the Resurrection of Jesus, was a woman whose own demons Jesus had once cast out. I wrote of her and the evidence for her first-hand witness in “Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb.” I would like to reproduce a scene from that post that never took place, but it is one that I have long imagined.

“Mary came to the disciples, Peter and the others, hidden by fear behind locked doors, and said, ‘I have good news and not-so-good news.’ Peter asked, ‘What’s the good news?’ Mary replied, ‘The Lord has risen and I have seen him.’ Peter then asked, ‘What’s the not-so-good news?’ Mary said, ‘He’s on his way here, and He wants a word with you about last Friday.”

The focus is so intensely on Jesus in the Resurrection accounts that it is easy to forget the wounds of everyone else in this story. They are all living with the deeply felt trauma of loss, and not only loss, but with an overwhelming sense of utter discouragement. They are devastated and stripped of hope.

John, the Beloved Disciple, stood with the mother of Jesus at the foot of the Cross and watched Him die a most gruesome death at the hands of the Roman Empire, but at the behest of his own people, the Chief Priests who answered Pilate, “We have no king but Caesar.”

Mary Magdalene stood there as well, and watched. The others fled. Peter, their leader, denied three times that he even knew Jesus. All that had been promised and hoped for had been misunderstood, and now gone forever. The Chief Priests — emboldened when Pilate caved to their “We Have No King but Caesar” — sought only to round up the rest.

It was in this state of fear that Mary Magdalene showed up in the Upper Room where the Apostles were in hiding for fear of the mobs. She had news that defied belief. And when Jesus first appeared to them behind that locked door, His demeanor was the opposite of what I imagined above to be a human response to their abandonment of Him. “Peace be with you,” He said. It is not a reference to a state of peace between disputing parties or someone subject to Earthly powers. The word the Gospel used in Greek – Eiréné – has more to do with spiritual welfare than spiritual warfare.

It refers to a state of mind, heart and soul, the equivalent of the Hebrew “Shalom”, and its usage means harmony with God within one’s self. It is the same sense that the Prophet Isaiah used in his Messianic expectation of the Prince of Peace:

“For us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder and his name will be called ‘Wonder Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’”

— Isaiah 9:6

It is what Saint Paul refers to in his letter to the Colossians, “Let the peace of Christ reign in your hearts” (Col. 3:15). Once you have it, it is far more contagious than any pandemic. This peace is the foundation and gift of Divine Mercy.

But Thomas missed the whole thing. When he arrived and found them stunned and exuberant, he retreated into his own deep wounds. Thomas did not stay to see Jesus crucified. Like the others, he could not bear it. He and they fled when Jesus appeared before Pilate mocked, beaten, broken, as the accusing mob grew beyond control to threaten even Pilate himself, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” But Thomas saw enough to know that it was over, that all was lost, and all hope had gone out of the world. So when faced with the great risk of trusting and hoping again, he said,

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger into the nail marks, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

— John 20:25

Trusting Divine Mercy

For this, the Apostle is forever called, “Doubting Thomas,” but I see something more painful than his doubt. I see him also as hurting, defeated, robbed of hope. He had to touch the wounds of the Risen Christ because the wounds of the Crucified Christ had already touched him, had broken his heart, and devastated his faith, and destroyed all hope. As so many of you know only all too well, coming to trust again after such hurt is a very risky business.

I find it fascinating that the story of Thomas and his struggle with trust and hope after the events of Holy Week is the Gospel for Divine Mercy Sunday. When Jesus presented Himself to Thomas, and invited him to probe the wounds in his living hands and side, Thomas did not oblige. Instead, he surrendered his own wounds, and responded in a leap of faith, “My Lord and my God.” Pope Benedict XVI wrote of this in his magisterial book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week:

“In His two appearances to the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room, Jesus repeats several times the greeting, ‘Peace be with you’… It becomes the gift of peace that Jesus alone can give because it is the fruit of his radical victory over evil… For this reason Saint John Paul II chose to call this Sunday after Easter ‘Divine Mercy,’ with a very specific image: that of Jesus’ pierced side from which blood and water flowed.”

This image, revealed to Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska as the image of Divine Mercy, is that of the same wounds transfigured:

“I saw the Lord Jesus dying on the Cross amidst great suffering, and out of the Heart of Jesus came the two rays as are in the image.”

— Diary of Saint Faustina, 414

“The two rays denote blood and water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls… Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter…”

— Diary of Saint Faustina, 299

I recently wrote a post entitled “Thailand’s Once-Lost Son Was Flag Bearer for the Asian Apostolic Congress.” Most of our readers know the story of what led to Pornchai Maximilian Moontri’s Divine Mercy conversion. Starting at the age of two in rural Thailand, he knew only abandonment by the very people who should have taught him trust. Forced to forage in the streets for food, he was hospitalized for malnutrition. Then at age eleven he was taken from Thailand and forced into a life marked by violence, exploitation and abuse. At age 18, after several years of adolescent homelessness, he killed a man after being pinned to the ground in a struggle. Pornchai was sent to prison for life. While there, his mother, his only contact in the free world was murdered by the man who exploited him. After many years of solitary confinement, Pornchai was moved to another prison and spent the next 15 years as my roommate.

How does anyone emerge from such wounds? How does anyone ever trust again when all prior trust was broken? On Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010, Pornchai took on a new name, “Maximilian,” after Saint Maximilian Kolbe who walked this path with him and led him to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In the course of this remarkable journey, Pornchai’s wounds never healed. They are with him for life, but they have been transformed. He is a powerful figure today in the realm of Divine Mercy because he has placed his wounds in the service of the Risen Lord. Back in October of 2024, Pornchai was invited to carry the flag of the Kingdom of Thailand in procession at the Fifth Asian Apostolic Congress on Divine Mercy held in the Philippines. In the scene atop this section, Pornchai Max proudly carries the flag of Thailand before a crowd of 5,000 pilgrims in honor of Divine Mercy.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, this one below speaks volumes. This is the Face of Divine Mercy.

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Father MacRae and Pornchai Moontri: An Interview on the Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio (15 minutes)

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And to honor our late Holy Father: “Pope Francis Had a Challenge for the Prodigal Son’s Older Brother.”

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”