The ideas of the French Revolution were inspired and spread by men who denied the existence of God and exalted human reason alone. This revolution took place in the eighteenth century; that century was called the age of enlightenment or illuminism. Its followers in the French Revolution killed, murdered, and martyred countless priests and nuns, looted and profaned churches, burned sacred images, and, in mockery, even placed, on November 10, 1793, on a throne on the altar of the Cathedral of Our Lady in France, Sophie Momoro, an artist who represented the goddess Reason.

Now, the origin of all communist, anarchist, and socialist concepts and ideas was found in the ideas of the French Revolution; in a word, the evils and errors of the philosophical or doctrinal thought of our days come from the evils and errors of the so-called age of the French Enlightenment. This is why the Most Blessed Virgin set her feet in France and surrounded it with her apparitions and messages: first in 1846 at La Salette, in southwestern France, where she appears weeping because people paid no heed to the divine commandments and profaned Sunday and the Name of her Son; then, in 1848, Karl Marx writes the manifesto of the Communist Party and Pope Pius IX had to flee Rome disguised as a monk, while his secretary was stabbed to death. Thus we see that the Virgin’s tears served little purpose; then she appears again in Lourdes to Saint Bernadette Soubirous, a girl of barely 11 years, and revealed to her two things that were needed to save France: penance and the Rosary; later she appears in Pontmain on January 17, 1871, to four children, and gives France 43 years to return to the way of God; the years pass and, seeing that the request of the Most Blessed Virgin at Pontmain is not heeded, on July 28, 1914, exactly 43 years later, the First World War breaks out.

In the midst of this war, in 1917 the Virgin leaves France and appears in Fatima, Portugal, where she gives humanity the antidote to save the world from the poison of atheistic communism; this antidote is the Holy Rosary: “Pray the Rosary daily” was her request, but again few heed her call, and then the Second World War came in 1939. For the Most Blessed Virgin does not ask us for a revolution (which is only a change of structures); changing a structure changes nothing. She wants the change of our hearts. The French Revolution changed nothing, nor did the Russian Revolution; communism did not improve Russia; the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s regime by Fidel Castro did not save Cuba but, on the contrary, sank it into the misery, disgrace, poverty, unhappiness, and misfortune in which we all know it finds itself. Atheistic communism infiltrated it, thus fulfilling what Pope Leo XIII points out in his encyclical Quod Apostolici numeris, where he defined communism as a “deadly disease which insinuates itself into the very innermost joints of human society, bringing it to the verge of destruction”. This is what Fidel Castro and his revolution have done to Cuba and its inhabitants; this is what communism or Marxist-Leninist socialism does in every society where it seeks to be implanted.

Our Lady, the Church, and the Gospel seek, on the contrary, the change of our hearts; that is why she asks for the recitation of the Rosary, since it renews hearts, changes people, and when people change, society changes. Examples of this are the following:

• Austria is saved from falling into the hands of the Russians through the recitation of the Holy Rosary: after the Second World War, the Allies handed Austria over to the Russians. Then a Catholic priest, Father Petrus Pavlícek, recalled Don John of Austria, who led the Pope’s ships in the Battle of Lepanto against the Turks on October 7, 1571, obtaining an overwhelming victory even though the Turks considerably outnumbered them. Father Petrus asked people to pray the rosary, and 700,000 Austrians promised to pray it daily so that the Russians would leave the country. Thus, on May 13, 1955, the anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin of Fatima, the Russians left Austria, and no one knows how or why.

• Brazil was saved from communism through the recitation of the Holy Rosary: one night in 1962, Dona Amelia Bastos heard her husband discussing the threat of communism in Brazil and decided to form CAMDE (Women’s Campaign for Democracy). In this way, 20,000 women praying the rosary broke up the Marxist-Leninist meeting that was being held there; a total of 600,000 women sounded the death knell for the communist revolution. These women issued a proclamation with their rosaries in their hands and around their necks, which said: “This Nation that God has given us, as immense and wonderful as it is, is in grave danger. We have allowed men of boundless ambition, without Christian faith and without scruples, to bring misery to our people, thus destroying our economy, transgressing our social peace; in order to create hatred and despair, they have infiltrated our nation, our government, our armed forces, and even our Churches. Mother of God, save us from the fatal destiny and suffering of the martyred women of Cuba, Poland, Hungary, and other enslaved nations!”.

What do you think? It sounds as if it were about us, doesn’t it? The Most Blessed Virgin has said that if her requests were not heard, the errors of Russia would spread throughout the world. May the women of Venezuela also take the reins to rescue Venezuela from the forces that can destroy it. As has already been said, the weapon recommended by Our Lady is the Holy Rosary prayed privately, personally, and in the family, since it is the family that is threatened.

The Virgin said to Saint Anthony Mary Claret in his time: “The salvation of your homeland depends on the recitation of the Holy Rosary”. Likewise, Pope Paul VI said on September 24, 1969: “We must all pray the rosary with the simplicity and fervor of the humble, of the little ones, of the devout, of the afflicted, and of trusting souls; pray it for the Church and for the peace of the world”. The enemy can do nothing against those who are faithful in praying the Holy Rosary. That is why Our Lady says at San Damiano: “Gather together as a family and pray the Rosary, and I will come to save you, I promise you”. Likewise, Pope Adrian VI said in 1522: “The Rosary is a scourge against the devil”. And in Fatima, for her part, the Virgin tells us: “Pray the Holy Rosary frequently, for with this chain you will bind the red dragon of communism; its radius of action will become ever more reduced and, in the end, it will become powerless and harmless”. Finally she says to Father Gobbi on October 7, 1983: “Everyone will see the triumph of my Immaculate Heart”.

Let us therefore believe in God; let us trust in Jesus Christ Our Savior, who gave us his own Mother as our Mother; let us also trust in her maternal protection. If we invoke her, she will not abandon us. Let us listen to her counsel; let us pray the Holy Rosary for the salvation of Venezuela and of the whole world.

Join the crusade of the Rosary.

Author: Monsignor Diego Aurelio Alvarado Angulo, Pastor of Our Lady of Coromoto