Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast

A well researched book by Fr. James Valladares casts light on the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae and the state of due process for Catholic priests falsely accused. 

October 8, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

Abraham Lincoln once told a story about a man who traveled along a backwoods road on a dark and stormy night. After several claps of earth-shaking thunder in the blackness, with just the occasional flash of lightning to show him he was still on his path, the man issued a plea: “Lord, if it’s all the same to Thee, a little less noise and a little more light, please.”

I have been making that very same plea for over three decade now. It resonates clearly in my post, “When Priests Are Falsely Accused: The Mirror of Justice Cracked” and other more recent posts such as, “Unjustly in Prison for 30 Years: A Collision of Fury and Faith.” Those two posts are separated by twenty years, and their litany of woe has not evolved so much. When I wrote back in 2010, I felt very much alone on that dark and noisy path hoping that someone might come along with some light amid all the hype.

The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic priesthood has generated so much pointless, noisy emotional rhetoric that light has become a precious and rare commodity. The “zero tolerance” policy of the U.S. Bishops’ panic-driven 2002 Dallas Charter added no light at all, but only turned up the volume on corrupt voices like the ones I described in “David Clohessy Resigned SNAP in Alleged Kickback Scheme.” In these decades of scandal, many Catholics have been duped. The crisis has been used by some very noisy people to silence a Catholic voice in the public square. And there are still no shortage of voices trying to silence Catholic justice in the public square.

In all times of moral panic, however, no amount of noise will dissuade a few courageous voices from the truth, no matter how much that truth is suppressed. One of these voices to emerge with full and reasoned Catholic courage is David F. Pierre, Jr., publisher of TheMediaReport.com and author of several landmark books including Catholic Priests Falsely Accussed: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories.” We profiled this and several other of David Pierre’s work and his exposure of corruption in coverage of the Catholic scandal in “Hidden Evil: The Anti-Catholic Agenda of BishopAccountability.org.”

There is another, and his voice of priestly courage and fidelity rose up on the opposite side of the world in Australia, a land not unfamiliar to scapegoating a falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned priest, this time in the person of the late Cardinal George Pell. Father James Valladares, a priest, psychologist and noted author in Australia, published the compelling book, Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast (iUniverse 2012). Catholics concerned about the downward spiral of justice and public discourse in the Catholic Church would do well to read this book. (Twelve years after its first publication it is available as an e-book for $3.99, less than the price of a BigMac, and much more nourishing.) I recommend it for priests, bishops, and all Catholics who have felt demoralized by the contentious and confrontational tone constantly aimed at the Church and priesthood in the last three decades. I received my copy some years ago, and have recently been re-reading it for the moral and spiritual boost it brings. I was stunned by this courageous book.

Before I describe it further, however, we need some full disclosure. I am in this book. In fact, I am in this book extensively, and so is Beyond These Stone Walls. I find it very difficult to write about a book that I am in. Father James Valladares did his homework, and he did it well. His book exposes aspects of my story that made me tremble. I read it through two consecutive sleepless nights that left me spiritually and emotionally propelled in my priesthood, even in unjust imprisonment. It helped me to understand that I did not become a priest 43 years ago just to start thinking of myself when the world fell under my feet. It was not because the author framed my case as a justice crisis for the courts, but rather as a greater and more crucial justice crisis for the Church.

Father Valladares is the very first writer to accomplish this nebulous task, and he did it with amazing clarity and courage. In the end, I am not certain whether it should encourage me or frighten me. Not even I — after living in this nightmare for three decades — had a full understanding of the implications for the Church and priesthood that Father Valladares laid out so masterfully.

In Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, Father James Valladares has excised these wounds upon the Church and priesthood with impeccable credentials in developmental, educational, and counseling psychology. Having served as a lecturer in psychology at Saint Andrew’s College in Mumbai, India, he has completed extensive post-doctoral research in religion, healing, and parenting. Father Valladares serves in the Archdiocese of Adelaide, Australia.

Channeling Father Neuhaus and Cardinal Dulles

As I have written many times before, I am no strong believer in random coincidence. I picked up for the second time Hope Springs Eternal on May 14, the Feast of Saint Matthias, the man chosen by the Apostles to replace Judas, the Betrayer (Acts 1:26). I also was aware that May 14 was the birthday of my late great good friend Father Richard John Neuhaus, one of the inspirations behind Beyond These Stone Walls and forever remembered as a priest who served the Catholic Church in North America with exceptional light, clarity and fidelity. Another is Cardinal Avery Dulles, to whom I owe the idea of Beyond These Stone Walls’ existence. Both are cited and quoted repeatedly by Father James Valladares in Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast.

I had been reviewing excerpts of Father Neuhaus’ prophetic collection of essays, “Scandal Time,” about the priesthood crisis published in First Things magazine. On May 14, I had been reading an essay by Fr. Neuhaus entitled “In the Aftermath of Scandal,” (First Things, February 2004). When I opened Father Valladares’ book I spotted the excerpt from the same essay:

“The niceties of Canon Law, due process, and elementary decency have in many instances taken a beating. As one cardinal archbishop said after Dallas (2002), it may be necessary for some priests to suffer injustice for the good of the Church. In the course of history, Caiaphas has not been without his defenders.”

— Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, p.25

Some readers might find it odd that I agree, at least in part, with that unnamed cardinal quoted by Father Neuhaus. It has always been necessary for some to suffer for the good of the Church. I hope that was clear in Pornchai Moontri’s prophetic post, “On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized.”

My greatest suffering is not wrongful imprisonment, however, as horrible as that actually is. I hope readers know by now that I have not been languishing in prison beating my own priestly breast in a litany of woe for thirty-one years. My far greater suffering is that the Dallas Charter considers prison, even to be wrongfully imprisoned, to be the end of priesthood forever. Any Church bureaucrat who thinks that prison by its very nature marks the end of my priesthood seriously underestimates both me and priesthood. No consistent reader of Beyond These Stone Walls could ever draw such a flawed conclusion.

Father James Valladares most certainly has not drawn that conclusion. After reading his book, I was in awe of the extent to which he has been listening to me from the far side of the world through his reading of Beyond These Stone Walls. I cannot speak for him, but I think I can safely write that he has not listened to me because I am a priest or because I am a prisoner. He has listened to me because, to date at least, I remain both. I face every day as both. If I was not a priest in these extraordinary circumstances, not much of what I have had to say would have landed in this, or any, book.

So why would I conclude that at the time of my ordination in 1982, if I knew then what I know now, I would still be ordained a priest? We are a Church built upon the blood of the martyrs. To conclude today that their lives should never have been lost to bloodshed, and that their suffering has no meaning, is to discard the meaning of the very foundations of the Church, and even the Cross of Christ.

On the day I offered my First Mass, on June 6, 1982, I remember standing at the altar with great joy and profound peace surrounded by hundreds of my friends and brother priests who came to celebrate that First Mass with me. If elevating the Body of Christ for the very first time would have given me a glimpse of where priesthood would have me more than forty years in the future, would I have ever dared to elevate that Host again? I have to answer not with a resounding “yes,” but with a sacrificial one, and for the very reasons Father Valladares describes:

“In June of 2002, during the height of the media’s focus on Catholic bishops and priests, the Los Angeles Times [no friend of the priesthood] sent surveys to 5,000 priests in the United States . . . The survey found that 91 percent of respondents were satisfied with their life as a priest; 90 percent of respondents would choose to be a priest again if they had the opportunity; and 91 percent of respondents thought it was unlikely that they would ever leave the priesthood.”

— Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, p.97

It was upon reading this that I understood why Father Valladares would dare to name his book about facing and cleansing the darkest wounds of the Church and Priesthood, Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast. It is because it does. In spite of all the noise and name calling, in spite of all the challenges and chastisement, in spite of all the suffering and sacrifice, priesthood in the Catholic Church is like that famous image of a flower forcing its way through cracks in the urban concrete to reach the light of day. Priesthood, if centered on sacrifice, will survive all that is thrown at it.

You will not read about this in The New York Times or the National Catholic Distorter – umm, Reporter. You will not read about this at the toxic landfill websites of SNAP or Bishop Accountability. Writer, Ryan A. MacDonald made this clear in his essay, “Why Did SNAP and VOTF Fear the Case of Father Gordon MacRae?” The toxic sites of SNAP and Bishop Accountability exist to promote agendas that have nothing to do with protecting children or serving the Church. They exist to restore the dissent of 1968, the year we drank from the poison of this world.

The wounds of the priesthood must be healed, but they cannot be healed as long as only one side of the story is told. It is a fact that vulnerable people were once harmed at the hands of a small number of Catholic priests several decades ago. It is a fact that child sexual abuse in our society was and still is a reality of epidemic proportions. It is also a fact that scapegoating the Catholic Church does little to cast light on this topic and does nothing — absolutely nothing — to protect children in our broken and narcissistic culture.

It is also a fact that many Catholic priests have been falsely accused despite the unfounded and poorly informed rhetoric of commentators such as Monsignor Stephen Rossetti. The former Director of Saint Luke Institute spoke at a symposium for Vatican officials tasked with exploring the truth. They were not well served by his uncorroborated claim that in his experience, false accusations against priests are very rare. From my experience, and that of David F. Pierre, Jr. at TheMediaReport.com, false allegations thrive and proliferate in direct proportion to the unquestioned money thrown at them by Church insurers and scandal-weary bishops. To date, the extorted settlements have exceeded $5 Billion nationwide.

Msgr. Rossetti’s baseless assertion may have been true in 1980. It is not true today. He would do well to spend some time at the Innocence Project website to examine the stories of hundreds of men exonerated after being wrongfully imprisoned for decades falsely accused of sexual assault. I can only respond to Monsignor Rossetti with something quoted in Father James Valladares’ book:

“Justice has turned on its head when men who stand to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars for making a false claim are automatically called ‘victims’ by Church leaders now, while priests accused without evidence from decades ago are just as quickly called ‘priest-offenders’ and ‘slayers of souls.’”

— Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, p. 207

At the Turning of the Tide

Over recent years, some prophetic and courageous voices have emerged in the Catholic public square to stem the tide of unjust vilification of the priesthood. Let’s hope these voices reverberate throughout this time of crisis and conflicting agendas to inspire others.  Father Michael P. Orsi, while Research Director of Ave Maria University School of Law, wrote “Bogus Charges Against Priests Abound.” So has David F. Pierre, host of The Media Report, with his “Bombshell Report” about false accusations and his “Alarming New Exclusive Report” about new evidence in my own case.

These writers of just and merciful Catholic conscience have made me proud to be a priest, and have given meaning to the suffering inherent in 31 years of wrongful imprisonment. Our reluctant Catholic press would do well to put aside its “Father Maciel Syndrome,” and follow their lead to cover this story.

In “The Prisoner-Priest Behind These Stone Walls,” Ryan A. MacDonald described Beyond These Stone Walls as “the finest example of priestly witness the last decades of scandal have produced.” If you are reading these pages you have lent to your Church and faith a courageous ear, and the tools for spreading the rest of the story. If you have been reading this story then you have demonstrated for me and the whole Body of Christ something that has been sorely lacking in this decades of scandal: hearts of courage and justice open to the whole truth, and not just the one-sided scarlet letter with which our scandal-driven news media and special interest groups have labeled your Church. Fr. James Valladares and David F. Pierre, Jr. have told the rest of the story.

I believe it is told here as well, but spreading the truth relies not just on their courage, but on yours. I have no doubt that you have such courage for I have seen it. Help us tell the rest of the story by sharing this post in the Catholic online world, among your social networking, and by sharing a link.

In his Foreword to Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, Father Michael P. Orsi wrote:

“The present scenario reported by Fr. Valladares is dark. Yet, he has surprisingly chosen a title for his book that speaks of hope. For sure, it is a hope based on Jesus’ words to his disciples, ‘I will be with you always.’ Therefore, far from being pessimistic, Fr. Valladares presents the facts with confidence that ‘the truth will set us free.’ For his hard work, born out of a love for the priesthood and his brother priests, Fr. [James] Valladares is to be commended.”

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AI Overview of “Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast”

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Don’t stop here. You might also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

Fr Gordon MacRae in the Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell

Unjustly in Prison for 30 Years: A Collision of Fury and Faith

Hidden Evil: The Anti-Catholic Agenda of BishopAccountability.org

On the Day of Padre Pio My Best Friend Was Stigmatized

About Beyond These Stone Walls

This fine book by Father Valladares is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble as an e-book for $3.99, and at Amazon as softcover for $21.34.

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.”

Hidden Evil: The Anti-Catholic Agenda of Bishop Accountability

David F Pierre, Jr exposes anti-Catholic hostility and bias masked as support for victims. The goal of Bishop Accountability is to bankrupt and empty the Church.

October 1, 2025 by David F. Pierre, Jr., Editor of The Media Report

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Late last week Beyond These Stone Walls published at our Voices from Beyond feature an essay by Father Michael P. Orsi, former Research Director at Ave Maria University School of Law. The title of Father Orsi’s brief but brilliant essay, previously published in the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst, is “Bogus Charges Against Priests Abound.”

It is a stunning review of one of the revelatory books by David F. Pierre, Jr. entitled, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories. Among its content is a bold chapter about the case against me.

Also at Voices from Beyond this week, we feature another very prominent figure in the American Catholic Church who published an equally stunning review of David F. Pierre, Jr.’s latest book, The Greatest Fraud Never Told. The reviewer is Father Peter M.J. Stravinskas, an accomplished theologian and Editor of The Catholic Response. His excellent review was previously published at The Catholic Thing : “At the Mercy of One False Brother.”

Mr. Pierre has graciously acceded to write about the online continuation of a fraud perpetrated against the Church by BishopAccountability.org.

Now here is David F. Pierre, Jr.

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The web site BishopAccountability.org likes to fashion itself as merely a “public library of information” that curates a vast “database of accused Roman Catholic priests” as it relates to sexual abuse. The site catalogs literally thousands of priests who have been only accused of sexual abuse whether they are alive or long-dead. For this, Bishop Accountability has naturally become a darling of the legacy media which continues to revel in keeping the embers of the “Catholic Church sex abuse story” alive while browbeating the Church for the sins of a small minority of priests from many decades ago.

But there is an evil that consumes the site. And this evil has absolutely nothing to do with the abuse of children.

For starters, there is little semblance of fairness or due process at Bishop Accountability. A visitor could easily conclude that the thousands of priests profiled on the site must be “guilty of something” for them to even be listed there. Indeed, that is really the whole purpose of the site: to suggest guilt by association. Only after a series of clicks can a visitor find the site’s “posting policy,” which could be paraphrased as such: “If a priest has been publicly accused of abuse at any time, we will plaster his name, photo, and history here for all of the world to see.”

Bishop Accountability’s False Promise

What about the priests who are clearly innocent, you ask? Well, by its very own admission, guilt or innocence plays no role whatsoever on whether or not a priest is profiled on its site. Here is one exception that Bishop Accountability has made: 

“If a survivor publicly withdraws an allegation, recants, or states that the alleged perpetrator has been misidentified, and if there are no other allegations of abuse against the accused cleric, that cleric is removed from the database.”

Interesting that Bishop Accountability still identifies a fraudster who has recanted his allegation as a “survivor.” This makes no sense at all, of course. Indeed, if there is any “survivor” in a false accusation, it would be the falsely accused priest himself who has “survived” the ordeal and had his life ruined. But Bishop Accountability does not see it that way. In short, Bishop Accountability will post the identity and photo of any priest accused of anything sex abuse related, no matter how old, wacky, or implausible the accusations are. 

Take the case of Diocese of Charleston Bishop Robert Guglielmone from a few years back. In 2019, a man openly admitted to a family member that he made up an abuse claim against Guglielmone in order to extract money from the Church. The man even blithely stated, “It’s worth a try.” The entire accusation was completely bogus and ridiculous, yet Bishop Guglielmone, who swiftly returned to ministry after the truth surfaced, is still listed on Bishop Accountability — along with his photo, of course — as if he were a convicted child molester.

And although Bishop Accountability claims that it will not post the profiles of priests whose accusers have recanted, this itself is not even true. Rev. John M. Costello, a Jesuit priest in the Diocese of Rochester, had his entire life upended in 2003 after a former student claimed that he had abused him some two decades earlier. However, after investigators began to scrutinize the chap’s claim, the accuser recanted and told investigators that “another priest,” not Costello, had abused him. But, defying its very own policy, Bishop Accountability continues to profile Costello on its site for the entire world to see.

Even the Dead Are Fair Game

There is also the legion of cases involving single accusations against long-dead priests. Some readers are old enough to remember a time when one would not dare say anything unproven about a dead person to abide by the truth that “dead people cannot defend themselves.” But when it comes to Catholic priests and Bishop Accountability, they proudly attack the dead and defenseless.

Just a couple of years ago, in 2023, a man contacted the Diocese of Albany to claim that Fr. J. Gregory Mulhall “physically assaulted” him as a “vulnerable adult" many decades earlier. What did Fr. Mulhall have to say about this? Well, not much, as he had died at age 90 over two decades earlier, in 2001. (Mulhall was ordained in 1937, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President.) Fr. Mulhall’s surviving friends and family members are naturally none too happy about him being publicly profiled as if he were a convicted child predator.

Another dead priest who would probably want to respond to an accusation against him if he were alive is Fr. Gregory Flohr, who died in 2004. Flohr did not have a single blemish against him in over four decades in ministry. It was not until many years after Flohr died that an anonymous male accuser saw the possibility of a large cash windfall and came forward to lodge a bizarre claim against Flohr that no reasonable person would ever believe. Yet Fr. Flohr is still included in Bishop Accountability’s “database” even though he is obviously unable to defend himself.

The Surprising Truth About Falsely Accused Priests

It is now an undeniable fact that false accusations against Catholic priests are rampant. In recent years as little as 6% of historical abuse claims against priests have even been deemed “substantiated” by the very lenient standards of diocesan review boards, with the majority of accusations deemed either “unsubstantiated” (indeed false), “unable to be proven,” or still under review. 

In 2021, in a church of 70 million people in the United States, 44 current minors came forward alleging that a current priest had recently abused them. However, only four of these 44 were ever found to even be “substantiated,” while the remaining 40 (or 91% (!)) were found to be completely bogus. 

Why is there a rampancy of false accusations? That answer is easy. Easy money. For the past two-and-a-half decades, the Church has been shoveling out cash to accusers and their tort lawyers like an ATM on tilt, and grifters have long taken notice. As Fr. Gordon MacRae himself chronicled two decades ago, an East-coast attorney confirmed as far back as 2001 that accusing a Catholic priest of sex abuse was a “current and popular scam” among criminals in prison looking for an easy cash payout. And, yes, this hustle still continues to this day.

Meanwhile, states like California and New York have made it easy for flimflammers to get in on the action by repeatedly enacting “window legislation” that temporarily suspends the statute of limitations and allows any fraudster or con artist to sue the Catholic Church for big bucks, no matter how long ago or crazy the abuse claim. Statutes of limitation, due process, and fairness have been discarded in order to line the pockets of tort lawyers and fleece the Catholic Church.

A couple of years ago, Thomas R. Hampson of Illinois, a 40-year veteran investigator with thousands of sex abuse investigations, wrote of what he witnessed in the Archdiocese of Chicago:

“There were priests who were falsely accused of abuse but the archdiocese settled anyway. I know they were false accusations because the stories were outrageous. No details. Implausible circumstances. And a reaction that wasn’t believable. Even in a civil trial these cases could not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that anything actually happened, much less that the accused was the one who did it. In most of those cases the priest was already dead.”

Hampson also added that in the current-day fever swamp in which people must “believe the accusers,” the principle of innocent until proven guilty has been abandoned such that the investigators are looking merely for confirmation of the accused’s guilt.

And what has been the end result of all this? The coffers of the Catholic Church have been drained by literally billions of dollars, robbing it of resources to build the faith and serve the poor.

The Sheer Evil of It All

Bishop Accountability claims that its site is dedicated to “the victims and their families and loved ones.” The reality could not be further from the truth.

There is a kind of underlying spiritual aura to Bishop Accountability that cannot be ignored. And that spirit is evil. Satan, along with his demon partners, hate the Catholic Church and everything it stands for, which is truth. Satan’s rage against Christ and the Catholic Church is eternal and continues today. Writer Thomas J. Nash has recently written about this reality:

“Satan and his demonic minions are irredeemably opposed to the truth. They hate the truth. More to the point, they hate him who is ‘the way, and the truth, and the life,’ our Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6) … Consequently, Satan and his demonic minions really hate the sacrifice of the Mass and Eucharistic Adoration in general because they are daily reminders of Christ overcoming them and their infernal kingdom through the Cross.”

One of Satan’s great successes in recent years is perpetuating the lie that the priesthood of the Catholic Church is an irredeemable den of sexual immorality and corruption. Much of the recent breakdown in the fabric of Western civilization over the last 25 or 30 years can be directly tied to the nonstop media campaign against the Catholic Church tied to the sex abuse issue and the resulting silence of the hierarchy in opposing the many social initiatives that have brought so much harm to our societies. It has also torn God’s people away from the Eucharist, the Mass, and the Catholic Church itself.

In trampling on the rights of innocent priests, defaming the dead, and trafficking in innuendo, there is little doubt that Bishop Accountability has been a great asset to Satan in his battle against the Catholic Church.

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David F. Pierre, Jr. is the country’s leading observer of the media’s coverage of the Catholic Church abuse narrative and is the author of four acclaimed books, the most recent of which is The Greatest Fraud Never Told: False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church (Amazon.com). 

David is also the creator and author of TheMediaReport.com, an educational cooperative to chronicle and monitor the mainstream media’s coverage of the Catholic Church sex abuse narrative. 

Please also check out TheMediaReport.com’s important posts on the case of Fr. MacRae: *EXCLUSIVE REPORT* Alarming New Evidence May Exonerate Imprisoned Priest 

Journalism Outside the Box: Wall St. Journal Bravely Profiles Stunning Case of Wrongfully Convicted Priest Fr. Gordon MacRae

The Wall Street Journal Again Profiles Case of Fr Gordon MacRae

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.”