Lay Catholics call for Crusade, but need to focus on their families and parishes
Turkey reconverting Cathedral of the Sancta Sophia into a mosque (Al Jazeera)
As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the abdication of the Ottoman sultanate and caliphate, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been a staunch advocate for the return of a united middle east under the crescent, signed a decree on Friday for the reconversion of the Cathedral of the Sancta Sophia (Hagia Sophia) in Constantinople/Istanbul, transforming it from a museum to a mosque.
First, a brief history lesson.
The Sancta Sophia was originally converted into the Al-Aqsa mosque in 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, and transformed into a museum in 1934 only twelve years after the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire.
Commissioned by Roman Emperor Justinian I in 532 AD, after the reconquest of much of the Western Empire from the Vandals and Ostrogoths, the basilica was consecrated to the Wisdom of God, the Sophia, the Eternal Logos, the second person of the Holy Trinity.
The cathedral, held within the bosom of Holy Mother Church for nearly five centuries, was lost during the Great Schism of 1054 and reclaimed during the Fourth Crusade's liberation of Constantinople in 1204. The Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, who led the crusade, is buried in the Sancta Sophia. Over the centuries, many mosaics and relics, like the True Cross, the shroud of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the tombstone of Jesus Christ, and wood from Noah's Ark were kept in the cathedral.
Does the loss of the Sancta Sophia require a crusade?
No, the cathedral has been lost since 1453; and since, there as been several failed campaigns to reclaim it and the city of Constantinople.
There is no doubt that future saints will liberate the city and restore the Sancta Sophia to her former glory for God. Until that time, which God only knows, the laity should be more concerned with the battle that is taking place at their doorsteps, as society desecrates Catholic statues and churches and the Vatican continues to embrace the world and spread material heresy.
The Sacred Military Order of Knights of the Republic and the Most Victorious Heart of Jesus, in support of their mission to defeat modernism, the synthesis of all heresies, identify that there are three primary battlefields that laymen can and must engage themselves in; the domestic church (the family), the parish, and society at large.
As a layman, a husband and a father, the most important battlefield is safeguarding the spiritual and temporal wellbeing of the family, i.e. the domestic church.
Our families and parishes are attacked daily by the sins of the world and the material heresies coming from bad priests, bishops, and the Vatican. The souls of our children, and future posterity, are in danger and they desperately require the masculine defenders that they most deserve to protect them from the world that wants to throw them into the fires of Gehenna.
All Catholic men must make it their utmost priority and mission to rid their homes of all heresies and indecencies, and remodel the residence in the likeness of the Church and Heaven. A Christian home, with all the beauty and splendor of the Divine, will bring many graces to inspire a healthy prayer life, a more reverent worship of God (Latria), a spiritual example for guests, and defend against all things contrary to the Eternal Good.
The nuclear family, as a representation of the Holy Family, and the domestic church, as a representation of Holy Mother Church, must be the foundation for all Christian society. It is why the family has been attacked over the past century, ranging from civil marriages, mothers in the workforce, adultery and divorce, homosexuality and pornography, abortion and contraception, feminism and emasculating men, propaganda to promote population control and conceiving less children, and advocating for men and women to enjoy their twenties (fun and work) and make a family later in life.
If the foundation is solid, the domestic church can help lead a supernatural revival within the Catholic Church. In Christus Vincit, Bishop Athanasius Schneider perfectly illustrates how his Catholic family, along with many others, successfully maintained the Faith through the persecutions of the Soviet Union.
A group of good Catholic families can change a parish...many good Catholic families can change a diocese...a nation...the Church...the world.
Catholic men, and their wives, have an opportunity and the support from Almighty God, including all of His angels and His saints, to reconquer the family and the parish. Focus on those two battlefields, and all heresies will be vanquished and future saints will return the Sancta Sophia into the bosom of Holy Mother Church.
In Christ Crucified and the Most Victorious Heart of Jesus.
