He is risen !

N° 213 – September 2020

Director : Frère Bruno Bonnet-Eymard


Pope Francis, the Universal Brother

POPE Francis was due to visit Indonesia, East Timor, Papua, New Guinea in September. Because of the Covid epidemic, everything has been cancelled. He nonetheless perseveres with his project of “human fraternity,” the object of the “Declaration,” which he signed in February 2019 in Abu Dhabi, with the Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb of Al-Azhar University. Pope Francis will travel to Assisi, in the province of Perugia, Umbria, on October 3, the vigil of the feast of Saint Francis, to “deliver a message of brotherhood to the world.” There he will sign his third encyclical, dedicated to this theme, entitled “Fratelli tutti” (All brothers).

God willing, and we pray to Him to this effect with all our heart, through the mediation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to repent of his denial of Abu Dhabi. It would suffice for him to reread the Letter “Our Apostolic Mandate,” of August 25, 1910, which Pope Saint Pius X addressed to his “Venerable Brethren,” the Bishops of France. After having shown that the Sillonists “form for themselves an idea of justice and equality which is not Catholic,” the holy Pope added:

The same applies to the notion of Fraternity which they found on the love of common interest or, beyond all philosophies and religions, on the mere notion of humanity, thus embracing with an equal love and tolerance all human beings and their miseries, whether these are intellectual, moral, or physical and temporal. Catholic doctrine, however, tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged, but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being.

Catholic doctrine further tells us that love for our neighbour flows from our love for God, Who is Father to all, and goal of the whole human family; and in Jesus Christ Whose members we are, to the point that in doing good to others we are doing good to Jesus Christ Himself. Any other kind of love is sheer illusion, sterile and fleeting. Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart.

No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same Faith and same heavenly happiness. By separating fraternity from Christian charity thus understood, Democracy, far from being a progress, would mean a disastrous step backwards for civilisation. If, as we desire with all our heart, the highest possible peak of well-being for society and its members is to be attained through fraternity or, as it is also called, universal solidarity, all minds must be united in the knowledge of Truth, all wills united in morality, and all hearts in the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ. This union, however, is attainable only by Catholic charity, and that is why Catholic charity alone can lead the people in the march of progress towards the ideal civilisation.” (no. 24)

Most Holy Father, the ardent seat of Catholic charity” is the Immaculate Heart of Mary to Whom numerous bishops in communion with you have consecrated their diocese. If you ordered them to consecrate with you Russia to this Immaculate Heart, Our Lady of Fatima promised that the world would experience a certain period of peace. While dedicating to you the following pages (of the French edition of the CRC, which contain the script of this year’s oratorio “Saint Térèse of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face, Victim of Merciful Love”), we implore Louis and Zélie Martin (Saint Thérèse’s parents), who already prayed for the conversion of Russia, to inspire this resolution to you. A century later, in February, 1999, Russia gave a triumphal welcome to the relics of their holy little Thérèse, the miniature of the Immaculate!

Brother Bruno of Jesus-Mary