Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula gave the following homily at the Holy Mass of the Requiem in Rome, September 20th 2007, which he offered for the Papal soldiers who died defending the Pope on September 20th 1870.

Mass in memory of the Pope’s soldiers  

September 20th, 2007

V

            In this one hundred and thirty-seventh anniversary of the heroic defence of Rome, we offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the souls of the Pope’s soldiers and for all those who sacrificed their own life defending Faith and the Christian Civilization in Italy, in Europe and all over the world. As Christians, we also pray for the souls of our opponents, wishing that the veil of error will fall from their heart, before their death.

This one hundred and thirty-seventh anniversary, with these numbers: one, three, seven, reminds us basic truths of the Faith: the uniqueness of God, the Trinity and  the Church. The Faith for which our ancestors fought, is the permanent Doctrine of the Church, and we wish that it will be preserved in all its fullness for our descendants till the second coming of the Lord. When we talk of the defence of the Faith in our days, it is necessary to speak for a while of its contents, because, unfortunately we can not presume, like our ancestors did, that the Faith is known, after the disappointing results of the Catechesis of the last years.    

First of all, let us reflect that God is only one, one for nature, one for substance, one for essence. Only in this God we will find salvation, like God himself says through the Prophet Isaiah: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” (Is. 45:22). Here we also see the universal destiny of Christian salvation. Every man is called to became Christian, not anyone is excluded, because this is the only way to salvation, there is no other. Excluding some people of nations from the evangelization would be the worst form of racism. Christ teaches us that we cannot serve two Lords, and that He is the only Lord that has to be loved with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength.

The number one, also reminds us, against the relativism and the agnosticism of our days, that there is only one truth. It is not possible to have two omnipotent and two infinite, we cannot have two conflicting truths. One will be true and the other will be false. Unfortunately, this relativism which is the dominant sign of our society in our days, has entered into the Church, as the Holy Father denounced it with a deep perspicacity, in his memorable homely that he preached the day before his election. As the Archbishop Bagnasco[1] recently recalled that: “the society in which we live is afflicted by a strange “hatred for itself”  and considering today’s culture that makes “the relativism its own belief” precluding in this way the possibility to discern the truth and to pursue it”.[2] This prevailing relativism in society, creates a serious obstacle to the transmission of the Faith, as the Holy Father underlined recently: “...precisely in our day educating in the faith is no easy undertaking. Today, in fact, every educational task seems more and more arduous and precarious. Consequently, there is talk of a great "educational emergency", of the increasing difficulty encountered in transmitting the basic values of life and correct behaviour to the new generations, a difficulty that involves both schools and families...” Later the Holy Father adds that: “this is an inevitable emergency: in a society, in a culture, which all too often make relativism its creed - relativism has become a sort of dogma - in such a society the light of truth is missing; indeed, it is considered dangerous and "authoritarian" to speak of truth, and the end result is doubt about the goodness of life - is it good to be a person? is it good to be alive? - and in the validity of the relationships and commitments in which it consists.”[3]  

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Faith of the Catholic life. The revealed truth of the Holy Trinity has been, from the origins, the basis of the living faith of the Church, and we see it first in the baptism that is granted through Christ’s mandate in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The affirmation of the Trinitarian dogma, in any way detracts from the magnificent monotheism of the Christian Faith, on the contrary, it enriches it, because we proclaim the existence of one God in three persons. Three divine persons who are really distinct among them. They are not simply names that indicates modalities of the divine Being; they are really distinct among them. This Trinitarian God constantly acts in men’s history in order to share with us his perfections. It is up to us and to our society to accept the existence of the Trinity. This recognition will give to human society the only possible bases to be strongly built. In the paternity of God we have a model, the exemplar cause of all the human paternity, as Saint Paul strongly affirms in the Letter to the Ephesians. In the Son and the Holy Spirit we have the exemplar cause of love grounded in the truth that is the only cause that can give real life to society.

Number seven makes us think to the perfection of the Church. The perfections of the Triumphant Church in the Book of the Apocalypse, are remembered to us by the seven angelical spirits who are in front of God’s throne and the seven golden candlesticks representing in a symbolic way, in the eternal celestial liturgy, the Militant Church that works arduously in this world. In the Militant Church, number seven remembers us first of all the seven sacraments, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the seven Christian virtues: three theological (faith, hope and charity) and four cardinal (justice, fortitude, prudence and temperance). We have to remember that many of these Pope’s volunteers who sacrificed their young lives defending the rights of the Holy See, in some way, fully lived the Christian virtues. If they didn’t have these virtues, they wouldn’t have had the courage to leave their homes and their families to offer their support to the Holy Father. If they didn’t live these virtues they wouldn’t have practiced an extraordinary life as many historical documents show. We have testimonies about the extraordinary prayer life of the Pope’s Zouaves. These soldiers had received from the Church, their reason for living and this why they were ready to sacrifice their own life for her. We are sons of the Church, too, and for her we have to fight the good battle of our time. Many of you, have a political and social vocation, and you are fully aware that in politics you cannot leave out the ethical demand of  the faith, as unfortunately other people do for opportunism, weakness or other reasons. In some way, these soldiers who died for the Pope and the Church are martyrs and we have to remember that the blood of martyrs cannot be betrayed. It would be a betrayal if we, remembering their heroic death, were not willing to live our faith in an integral fashion, in the time in which God called has us to live. We cannot water down the high demands of the Gospel compromising the doctrinal or moral teachings of the Church.

Thinking to the Church of our days, we have to thank the Holy Father, Benedict XVI for his efforts to rebuild the Church. Even if we know, for divine revelation, that the Church will never fail, we suffer when we see the long crisis that has been shaking her since the sixties. In front of this long crisis, in the current pontificate, we have a concrete hope that this long and wearing crisis will be solved. We can see many concrete signs of this so desired restoration that will preserve the identity of the Church. We can talk of many doctrinal reaffirmations like the wonderful affirmation on the need to interpret the twenty-first Council within an hermeneutic of continuity with the tradition of the Church. We can mention the recent answers of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the irrevocable rights of sick people who find themselves in the so-called “vegetative state”. The reaffirmation of this constant teaching of the Church on this contemporary worrying problem, makes me think that it has to be considered part of the ordinary infallible magisterium of the Church on moral matters. We wish that the promulgation of these answers will prevent the recurrence of tragic cases like the death of Terri Schiavo in the United States. In particular, we have to thank the Holy Father for the promulgation of the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum that is most of all meant to “....preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer”, as the Holy Father writes in the covering letter of the Motu proprio. In front of the difficulties of the present time, we don’t have to be afraid, as the Holy Father recently remembered: “if each one of you remains united with Christ, you can accomplish great things... To anyone who places his trust in God, nothing is impossible”.

In order to conclude our prayer, we present ourselves in front of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and the Blessed Pious IX asking their intercession first of all for the souls of the Pope’s soldiers and also for the opponents, so we pray also to live the Faith with the same coherence of these men who sacrificed themselves for God and the Church.

Praised be the Lord.