[From The Fatima Crusader, Issue 114 (Spring 2016), recounting the stirring details of the Battle of Lepanto, in which the Christian forces under Don John of Austria, by the power of Our Lady’s Rosary, decisively repelled the Muslim threat of European conquest in the 16th Century. This great victory can give us a vivid idea of how gloriously Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will triumph over the present dire threats facing Christendom, when at last the Pope and Catholic bishops obey Our Lady of Fatima’s request for the Consecration of Russia!]
On October 7, 1571, Pope St. Pius V was at a meeting in Rome with his Cardinals at the Dominican Basilica of Santa Sabina.
The Pope suddenly rose to his feet, gazed intently out the window, turned to his prelates and said, “This is not the moment for business; make haste to thank God, because our fleet at this moment has won a great victory against the Turks.”
Pius at that instant was given a vision by Our Lady of the naval victory at Lepanto, though the news of the triumph would not reach Rome by regular channels for another two weeks.
Pius had prepared well for battle. Along with preparations in the natural order, St. Pius V engaged supernatural means. He exhorted Catholics throughout Europe to pray the Rosary, begging Our Lady’s help and protection. Our Holy Mother responded. The date of the battle – October 7 – is now celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
A few years after the battle, in Venice, a magnificent votive chapel to the Madonna of the Rosary was dedicated in thanksgiving. Located inside the large basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, the chapel stands today as a splendid testament to the power of the Rosary.
Why is the chapel in Venice? Because the Venetian fleet was one of the three principal naval forces that secured victory over the Turks at Lepanto.
The Menace of Islam
Islam has been a religion of conquest from its inception. The conflicts in Spain that lasted 700 years, the sacking of Jerusalem that launched the Crusades as a counter-offensive, the destruction of the Christian Byzantine Empire and capture of Constantinople: all this and much more were manifestations of non-stop Muslim aggression.
In the century leading up to the battle of Lepanto, the Mediterranean was regarded as a “Muslim lake.” The Ottoman Turks were relentless in their exploits of conquest. By the 16th Century, there was no sea power greater than the Islamic Turkish navy.
Muslims pillaged, slaughtered, raped and destroyed everywhere they sought to conquer. They kidnaped young boys and girls unto slavery for the perverse lusts of Muslims in Constantinople and elsewhere. They killed unarmed civilians by the thousands and forced captured Christians as oarsmen on their battle vessels.
In Cypress, not long before the Battle of Lepanto, 500 Venetian garrison soldiers surrendered on terms with the Muslims. Once the city gates were opened, however, the Turks rushed the city, slaughtered the garrison, and brutally attacked and raped civilians. Countless other atrocities, even worse, persistently increased. Such was the Muslim menace that threatened all of Europe.
Christendom knew that Islam planned the conquest of Europe, and of Rome in particular. Catholic author Christopher Check writes the “greatest dream, the dream of all Turks”, the dream that the conqueror Soleiman’s soldiers “toasted before setting off on any campaign was the conquest of Rome.”
St. Pius V
Pope St. Pius V, the learned and holy Dominican who ascended the Papal Chair in 1566, understood the threat. His was not the modern approach of cowardice disguised as dialogue, but of manly confrontation with evil. “I am taking up arms against the Turks,” he pledged, “but the only thing that can help me is the prayer of priests of pure life.”
Venetian historian John Julius Norwich writes that for Pius, “the primary aim of Christendom should be to reestablish control of the central Mediterranean, cutting off the Sultan’s African territories from those of Europe and Asia, thus splitting his empire in two.”
To achieve this aim, in the spring of 1571 Pius formed the Holy League – an armada of fighting ships to confront Islam’s naval fleet. The League consisted of war vessels from Genoa, the Papal States, Spain and Venice. The participation of the island Republic of Venice, which boasted centuries of seafaring expertise, was considered crucial to the League’s success.
Pius’ uniting of these forces was no small feat, as various squabbling factions plagued Europe at the time. Venice almost did not take part because of a dispute with Spain over territories near Milan. France and Poland, both of which could have joined the League, never did. It is said Protestant England was sending support to the Turks, as the newly invented Anglican establishment also had no love for Papal Rome; and nothing unites people like a common enemy.
The Holy League was formed, nonetheless. Most important, Pius engaged supernatural means. He called upon all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory over the Muslims. In this, Europe heeded the call.
In League with Heaven
Don John of Austria, the illegitimate brother of Spain’s King Philip II, was chosen to lead the fleet. Twenty-six years old, a pious Catholic, outstandingly good looking and a natural leader of men, he had distinguished himself the previous year by putting down the Morisco rising in Spain.
Like Pius V, Don John recognized that without the help of Heaven, the fleet was doomed. He engaged every spiritual weapon at his disposal.
Don John forbade women from coming on board the galleys, declared that blasphemy would be punished by execution, and he and his entire fleet made a three-day fast.
St. Pius V granted a Plenary Indulgence to the Holy League’s crews and soldiers. Priests from various Orders and Congregations were on the decks offering Holy Mass and hearing confessions. Don John gave a rosary to every man in the fleet.
(Part 2 – to be continued tomorrow, on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary)