Dear Alexander,

and all those who have gathered to recite the Holy Rosary outside St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna,

Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary be with you!

We have seen idolatry penetrate into the Temple of God and claim for itself the adoration that is due exclusively to the one, living and true God.

We have seen small wooden statues, identified as Pachamama idols, carried in procession through the streets and into churches.

Our dear Alexander has remembered the warning that our God is a jealous God – jealous because He is the “friend of man”, of his eternal truth and his destiny of glory.

That warning, echoing throughout the pages of Scripture, should fill every one of us with reverence and awe: “Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, and burn their idols in the fire!” (Deuteronomy 7, 5). You will drown them in the waters of the Tiber, “for it is detestable to the Lord your God. Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction (Deut 7, 25-26).

Saint Paul teaches us that man is led astray and into idolatry when, having lost his faith and become an apostate, he starts to despise the knowledge of God and to insist on his refusal to glorify Him – “the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth … He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else … in Him we live and move and have our being … we are His offspring (Acts 17, 22, 28)

Idolatry stifles truth in injustice, darkens the mind and perverts judgment. Then man, at the mercy of the tyranny of his animal passions and of his unregulated desires, abandons himself to every form of perversion and impurity, “to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!“ (Rom 1:25).

Once again, Vienna, the glorious capital that twice managed to resist the advance of the Ottoman hordes with the weapons of light and faith, is being asked to tolerate the umpteenth homo-heretic and blasphemous provocation. Once again, in front of the altar of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, gay, transvestite and transsexual activists will be allowed to exhibit themselves – persons to whom the Catholic Church should rather be announcing the liberating truth of Christ and the gift of our Saviour’s redeeming love, freely offered to all those who, from the depths of their wounded souls and their own repentance, dare to acknowledge themselves as beings in need of salvation.

I wholeheartedly join in the prayer of the little flock that may have remained without a shepherd, but every member of which has heeded the call from the Heart of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, to pray the Holy Rosary to obtain God’s forgiveness for the crimes and insults committed against Him.

The enormity of the scandals will never diminish the power of the Lord: we have no reason, therefore, to lose courage or faith. Faced with the sinister vision of a Church that seems to want to rebuild itself in a way that opposes the true faith and contradicts the truth of the human person, that supports and promotes what degrades life and leads to the loss of souls, we want to double the faith and pray incessantly to the Immaculate Mother of God and our own true Mother: Vitam praesta puram, iter para tutum, ut videntes Iesum semper colletemur. By teaching us to look at Jesus, the Virgin Mary enables us to persevere in the faith as “Acies ordinata, an array of militant, suffering and triumphant souls, united to affirm the honour of the Church, the glory of God and the good of souls. Recruitment is ongoing.” (Roberto de Mattei)

As we prepare to cross the threshold of a new liturgical year, Saint Bernard puts the words of our unshakable hope, of our certain faith into our hearts and on our lips, while our hearts open up to the ardour of the charity of Christ. These are the supreme and only remedies against the advance of iniquity.

From now on, let us celebrate with all our hearts the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ … He came not only to us, but for us … the greatness of the grace he has given us allows us to see to what extent we needed him. We judge the gravity of our illness by how much it costs to heal it … the coming of the Saviour is therefore necessary. The state in which men now find themselves makes His presence indispensable. May the Saviour come soon!