Part I Recap:
Part I of this article (October 1997) explained that Charismatics gained "legitimacy" within the Catholic Church primarily due to the efforts of the late Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens of Belgium. It was demonstrated that since Suenens was one of the most liberal Cardinals of this century, it follows that he would be enthusiastic about Protestant-styled Pentecostalism gaining a foothold within the Church. Suenens was a chief architect of the Vatican II revolution and a zealous promoter of the modernist notion of collegiality. He also challenged and undermined Catholic teaching against birth control, using collegiality as his principle weapon. Part II (the conclusion) will examine Cardinal Suenens’ ecumenism, syncretism, intercommunion, his role in the destruction of women’s religious orders, and his promotion of the Church’s "new openness to the world."

Two Bishops Sound a Warning:
In 1974, in a scathing criticism of the charismatic movement, the staunchly Orthodox Archbishop Dwyer of the United States said, "We regard it bluntly as one of the most dangerous trends in the Church in our time, closely allied in spirit with other disruptive and divisive movements; threatening grave harm to unity and damage to countless souls."¹

Joseph Fitcher, in his 1974 book The Catholic Cult of the Paraclete, mentioned that some Catholic prelates were "worried about the Protestant influence on their people" due to Pentecostalism. Fitcher quoted Bishop Joseph McKinney’s concern about Catholics being "misled and not being firmly grounded in theology."²

Bishops McKinney and Dwyer’s fears were well-founded, since one of the ecumenical consequences of "Catholic Pentecostalism" is the "breaking down of denominational walls" into a sort of pan-Christianity — with the Charismatic experience (rather than revealed truth) as the unifying factor.

This breaking down of denominational walls was most evident at the 1977 Charismatic Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, at which 50,000 people from at least 10 different denominations attended, including: Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Messianic Jews, nondenominational "Christians," Pentecostals, and United Methodists.³ Characteristically, Cardinal Suenens demonstrated his jubilant support by attending and lecturing at this interfaith event.

"The Holy Ghost Breakdown":
Catholic Pentecostal leader Kevin Ranaghan fondly recalled this "ecumenical milestone." In the opening address of the "Catholic" Charismatics’ 30th Anniversary conference in Pittsburgh (June 1997), Ranaghan recounted what he considered to be one of the most dramatic moments in charismatic history:

*"I can still see, in fact, I can still sometimes hear the ‘Holy Ghost breakdown’ at the great ecumenical Kansas City conference attended by about 50,000 people almost 20 years ago. Bob Mumford was preaching in the middle of the stadium, and suddenly it just broke out — it just broke out, exultant, cheering praise that lasted for about seventeen minutes."⁴

It seems that this ecumenical Kansas City conference took place because the Charismatics believed that they were told by Heaven that God wanted this interdenominational event to be staged. In the November 1977 issue of New Covenant, the magazine’s editor, Bert Ghezzi, wrote approvingly:

*"This conference brought together for the first time Christians from the three traditions of the charismatic renewal — the classic Pentecostals, the neo-Pentecostals, and the Catholic Pentecostal. This historic gathering was a first response to a directive word that the Lord spoke at a conference on the Catholic charismatic renewal in 1974. At that time, the Lord expressed His desire to bring the three streams together ... a sign of hope for all Christians ... the Lord called us all to reach beyond our denominational walls to work and pray aggressively for a higher goal — the unification of all Christianity."⁵ [emphasis added]

It is no wonder that Archbishop Dwyer regarded the charismatic movement as "one of the most dangerous trends in the Church in our time." Here we have the blasphemous inference that true Christian union exists outside of the Roman Catholic Church, with Catholicism represented as just one of the many religious bodies whose narrow denominational lines stand in opposition to Christian unity.

The so-called "directive word spoken by our Lord" is nothing more than an individual charismatic claiming to voice a "prophetic announcement" by the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. This is called "prophesying" — a boring, tedious procedure that is part of the Pentecostal routine, whether "Catholic" or Protestant. The "recipient" of the "message" has no means of testing whether this "prophecy" is from God, from his own imagination, or from the devil. Nor does he (nor anyone else in the assembly) think that the "message" should be tested in any way. Usually, the "prophetic announcement" is a banal platitude that anyone with minimal knowledge of religion could make up as he went along. In other words, it is quite easy to fake.

Yet each utterance is believed to be a direct communication from Heaven. Notice in the above quote, New Covenant’s Bert Ghezzi did not write that it was his opinion that the Lord was speaking. No, he emphatically stated that it was "a directive word of the Lord." Such presumption is foreign to the spirit of Catholicism, it defies 2000 years of Catholic teaching on the discernment of spirits, and opens wide the way for demonic deception.

Further, the organizing of the Kansas City conference was in obedience to a supposedly divine "directive" that commanded Catholics to do what a consistent line of Popes have always forbidden — an interfaith extravaganza of heretical sects with each denomination placed on equal footing with the other.⁶ To treat all religions as equal is in direct opposition to the infallible dogma that there is only one true Church outside of which there is no salvation. Pope Leo XIII reiterated this imperative when he taught that "to treat all religions alike" is to "adopt a line of action that will lead to godlessness."⁷

A New "Unity":
The so-called "Holy Ghost Breakdown," mentioned by Kevin Ranaghan, occurred when Protestant Bob Mumford was "preaching" to the 50,000. At one point, the entire football stadium suddenly erupted into an extended cheering, "praise-frenzy" that lasted more than a quarter of an hour. This, the charismatics claim, was the Holy Spirit at work on the assembly.

Such confusion is astonishing and justifies Bishop McKinney’s fears about Catholics being misled if they are not "firmly grounded in doctrine." In truth, a Catholic can only interpret this "breakdown" as springing from either natural (earthly) or preternatural (demonic) causes. The Holy Ghost had nothing to do with this Pentecostal eruption because, in the objective order, non-Catholics cannot be "filled to overflowing with the Holy Ghost." Non-Catholics live in denial of many of the Divine truths revealed by God and, in the objective order, cannot be considered to be in the state of grace. This is why Venerable Pope Pius IX taught in his Syllabus that it is an error to even entertain good hope for the salvation of those who live and die outside the Catholic Church.⁸

Yet, the charismatics interpret this natural pep-rally enthusiasm as "the Holy Ghost moving through the crowd" — a crowd where the vast majority were non-Catholics. Charismatics also choose to forget that Satan could easily instigate such a jubilant "breakdown" in order to deceive "even the elect."

In this case, deception was the name of the game. The result of this interfaith conference was the growing conviction that the unifying factor of Christ’s true faithful is Pentecostalism, and that no single denomination can claim to be His One True Church.

The Protestant Pentecostal, Dr. Vinson Syman from Oklahoma City, rejoiced that "three streams of Pentecostalism have come together tonight because we are one in the spirit." At a press conference later on, Syman said that regarding Church unity, "the place to start is with common spirituality," and that "the number-one thread that holds us together is the baptism of the spirit."⁹

In the book Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture, Charles Nien Kirchen wrote:

*"As the flowering of first-generation charismatic conciliarism, Kansas City was a watershed in the evolution of the movement, which marked the triumph, at least temporarily, of an inclusive ‘renewal from within’ strategy over an exclusive, restorationist ecclesiology."¹⁰

By "exclusivist, restorationist ecclesiology," the author asserts that no single denomination can claim to be the one true religion established by Our Lord.

At the Kansas City conference, Cardinal Suenens behaved in a fashion that would bolster this new brand of unity. In The Pied Piper of the Pentecostal Movement, the anti-Catholic Wilson Ewin wrote in disgust that at this conference, Suenens, Thomas Zimmerman (Assemblies of God), J.O. Patterson (Church of God in Christ), and Archbishop Bill Burner (Anglican) "stood together before the vast multitude in an unprecedented demonstration of unity."¹¹

Yet this interfaith carnival was nothing new to Cardinal Suenens, who had already established himself as an ecumenical globe-trotter. If St. Paul’s motto was "woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel," Cardinal Suenens’ motto could have been, "woe to me if I do not preach ecumenism."

Ecumenism and Dialogue:
As has been noted, Suenens was one of the principal architects of the Vatican II revolution and was a militant propagator of collegiality, ecumenism, and "dialogue with the world." In the 1963 book Twelve Council Fathers, which contains interviews with a dozen prominent Cardinals at Vatican II, Cardinal Suenens clearly outlines that ecumenism was the pivotal principle directing the Church’s new course:

*"By our attention to the fact of the collegiality of the bishops, we will show the Orthodox that we are thinking along a line that means much to them. Moreover, by stressing the role of the laity in the Church, we will assure the Protestants that we hold something very dear to them — the sharing of the people in the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ. Thus, the Second Vatican Council will be an act of charity to our separated brethren — Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant — just as it will be an act of charity to Catholics in its return to the purity of the Gospel message."¹²

Putting aside the fact that the modus operandi of many heretics in Church history has been the alleged desire to "return to the purity of the Gospel message," one can easily see that dialogue and ecumenism was the driving force for Suenens who, as one of the four Cardinal moderators, wielded a tremendous influence at the Council.

In the book Vatican II Revisited, Bishop Aloysius Wycislo writes approvingly that Cardinal Suenens’ thinking was deeply influenced by the liberal Dutch theologian Edward Schillebeeckx.¹³ It was Suenens who also provided the name Lumen Gentium (The Light of the Nations) for the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.¹⁴ It was also given to Suenens to deliver a special opening address at the 2nd Session of Vatican II¹⁵ after his old friend and close ally, Cardinal Montini, had been elected as Pope Paul VI.

The Church’s "commitment to dialogue" is largely the result of Cardinal Suenens’ influence. Bishop Wycislo writes that this theme of a "new openness to the world" seems to have sprung from a pastoral letter written by Suenens in early 1962 that fell into the hands of John XXIII. Pope John was quite enamored with the pastoral letter and asked Suenens to develop it as a theme for the upcoming Council.¹⁶ This suggests that the Rhine had already begun to flow into the Tiber even before the Council began.¹⁷

The theme of Cardinal Suenens’ pastoral letter became fully developed in one of the most radical and controversial of all Council documents, Gaudium et Spes, "The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World." This lengthy document breathes the "spirit of Vatican II" like none other.

Michael Davies, the current president of Una Voce International, remarked that Gaudium et Spes is so un-Catholic in its ethos that it is difficult to understand how any self-respecting bishop could have signed it.¹⁸

Davies succinctly summarized that the novel spirit of this document not only conflicts with past Church teaching but that it is also utopian and unrealistic:

"Gaudium et Spes is pervaded by the notion that all men are basically men of good will, seeking the truth and anxious to do good. Far from the notion of conflict between the City of God and the City of Man (as set forth, for example, in the writings of St. Augustine and reiterated in Pope Leo XIII’s condemnation of Freemasonry, Humani Generis — Ed.), this constitution envisages a future where the two cities work together for the common good of mankind."¹⁹

Though Gaudium et Spes deserves an essay all by itself, it suffices to mention that the liberals themselves admit that this "Suenens-inspired" document is in direct contradiction to a consistent line of Papal teaching. The progressives celebrate Gaudium et Spes as a "counter syllabus"²⁰ — referring to the Syllabus of Pius IX.

Cardinal Suenens himself, in an indiscreet cockle-doodle of triumph, proclaimed:

*"Vatican II is the French Revolution in the Church ... One cannot understand the French or Russian Revolutions unless one knows something of the old regimes which they brought to an end ... It is the same in Church affairs: a reaction can only be judged in relation to the state of things that preceded it."²¹

What preceded it, of course, was that magnificent hierarchical constitution culminating in the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth. Suenens continued:

*"The Second Vatican Council marked the end of an epoch; and if we stand back from it a little more, we see it marked the end of a series of epochs, the end of an age."²¹

One of the many signs of this "end of the age" was the false idea that the Catholic Church was no longer to be the teacher of mankind but simply one of the many wise contributors to the building of a better earth — a new universal brotherhood. Gaudium et Spes and the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) were the primary documents that succeeded in eclipsing the Church’s God-given commission to "Go forth and teach" with "go forth and dialogue."

Inter-Communion and Communion in the Hand:
Whether Suenens was in Belgium or on one of his many trips abroad, he was always the ambassador of dialogue, ecumenism, and Pentecostalism. His autobiography, Memories and Hopes, contains a colorful collection of various ecumenical meetings with false religions all around the world. Yet Suenens did more than simply meet and pray with adherents to various man-made creeds. It seems that the Cardinal was not beyond giving some sort of "Communion" to Protestants. This most shocking display of interdenominational, Pentecostal sacrilege was related by a well-known British Protestant minister who joyfully attended the event:

*"In June of this year (1976), eighty Charismatic Leaders met at Malines in Belgium. A report says, ‘There was Holy Communion each day.’ On Wednesday afternoon, I had the privilege of being present at the Sacrament in the Cardinal’s private chapel in his residence. He preached from St. John Ch. 15, greeted and hugged us all, and each of us received from him bread and wine. On the Friday in the Cathedral, we gathered together for Holy Communion. A Protestant from Northern Ireland read the Epistle; a Jesuit priest read from St. John’s Gospel; Tom Smail, a Presbyterian, preached a mighty word. The Cardinal broke bread and again served us all with bread and wine. In that service, there was prophecy, tongues and interpretation, open and free prayer, singing in and with the Spirit, and we concluded by singing and dancing up and down the aisle — Professors, priests, pastors, and the Cardinal, hands united and hearts united in the spirit of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, pouring into us such joy and love. I never thought I would see or participate in such a miracle. The Cardinal was Cardinal Suenens."²²

It should come as no surprise, then, that it was Cardinal Suenens who was primarily responsible for establishing the sacrilege of communion in the hand within the Church. In the December 1995 issue of Christian Order, Dr. Alice von Hildebrand wrote:

*"Communion in the hand is another case in point. This practice was first introduced in Belgium by Cardinal Suenens in flagrant disobedience to the rubrics given by the Holy See. Not wishing to publicly reprove a brother bishop, Paul VI decided to lift the ban prohibiting Communion in the hand and left the decision to individual bishops. Overnight, the practice was universalized ..."²³

Yet Suenens was not only notorious for collegializing the hierarchy, desecrating the sacraments, and ecumenizing the Church; he also had a hand in tampering with religious life.

Coming soon in the January paper (Already Available to Locals Subscribers!)

It’s 2024, one might say the importance of girls receiving an education is clear enough in today's age, but that was not always the case. Women were not given the opportunity to pursue a proper education until the nineteenth century in America. This history of education for girls differs all over the world, yet this article will focus on American and European educational practices. The education of girls began in the early nineteenth century at dame schools, focusing on basic literacy. “The Common School Movement of the 1840s and 1850s proposed girls' education to be taken further, and they were then permitted to attend town schools, though usually at a time when boys were not in attendance.” Most women at this point could read, but could not write efficiently.

To begin, defining the essence of a true education is necessary. Yet even before that, what is our purpose in this life? Man is created to know, love, and serve God. That is our fundamental purpose, so everything around us should be aimed to this end; Union with God, by means of loving God and our neighbor so we may, in hope, be saints in Heaven.

This truth is clearly set forth by Pius X of saintly memory:

Whatever a Christian does even in the order of things of earth, he may not overlook the supernatural; indeed he must, according to the teaching of Christian wisdom, direct all things towards the supreme good as to his last end; all his actions, besides, in so far as good or evil in the order of morality, that is, in keeping or not with natural and divine law, fall under the judgment and jurisdiction of the Church.¹

If Union with God and Sanctity is what each individual is called to pursue and fulfill by God’s grace, the Catholic faith must be at the center of our lives and education, placing God first.

Pope Pius XI said in his famous encyclical on education (Divini Illius Magistri):

“It is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth’s entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well.”

Unfortunately, not everyone can afford Catholic education or be blessed with a Catholic upbringing, yet education primarily begins in the home, with the family. Pope Pius XI writes, “In the first place the Church's mission of education is in wonderful agreement with that of the family, for both proceed from God, and in a remarkably similar manner.[1]

If education ultimately begins in the home with parents fulfilling their duty to guide their children, it generally begins from the mother to the child, therefore mothers should be educated to keep good character and virtue. We see it does not rely solely on teachers in schools to provide education, it takes a community of good examples to bestow on children to learn how to live a life of virtue.

Character

In “The Education of Catholic Girls” by Sr. Janet Stuart (1857-1914), “a person’s character must be formed well in upbringing, as it becomes more difficult to break habits as one is older and vices are instilled…”

“If habits are not acquired by training, and instead of them temperament alone has been allowed to have its way in the years of growth, the seal bears no arms engraved on it, and the result is want of character, or a weak character, without distinctive mark, showing itself in the various situations of life inconsistent, variable, unequal to strain, acting on the impulse, good or bad, of the moment; its fitful strength in moods of obstinacy or self-will showing that it lacks the higher qualities of rational discernment and self-control” [2]

One major fault of most educational systems today is the “neglect of the training of the will and character.[3] Government funds and grants are given to schools to improve educational subjects taught in classrooms, but there is a lack of discipline in forming the human person; which is “education” in the true sense of the term.

Stuart provides several examples as a means to training character; training girls to become virtuous women:

One, “contact with those who have themselves attained to higher levels [of character], either parent, or teacher, or friend.”[4]  Being surrounded by a faithful family, mature friends, disciplined school and teachers in a well-rounded Catholic community is beneficial in learning after others. As “Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,” Proverbs 27:17.

Two, “vigilance which, open and confident itself, gives confidence, nurtures fearlessness, and brings a steady pressure to be at one's best.” By being watchful of our surroundings and acting with prudence, students learn to take strides to live a life according to Christ and His Church.

Three, Criticism and correction. “To be used with infinite care, but never to be neglected without grave injustice.” Learning how to take criticism is necessary in a world that is overly sensitive in almost all areas of life, and is largely associated with not instilling good habits early on. For example, in American culture, speaking about “hot topics” such as racism or transgenderism can cause people to get “canceled” in the liberal sphere. Even disagreeing upon smaller topics, while against a bigger party may cause isolation and exclusivity. Traits of being disagreeable and forming one’s own opinion and ideas can go a long way to shape one’s character and increase the chances of not being taken advantage of. It is a good habit to instill early on, as well as knowing when and how to graciously correct others under our care or friends-alike.

Four, Discipline and obedience. “If these are to be means of training they must be living and not dead powers, and they must lead up to gradual self-government, not to sudden emancipation.”[5] To see if an individual had a successful upbringing and education, we can look at their character to see if they strive to keep discipline after schooling; whether that means working, becoming a mother, or entering religious life, a habit of discipline is necessary to be instilled to fulfill duties in life. Some, if not most, luke-warm modern Catholics have a horrible idea about the sacrament of Confirmation. Whether it is conscious or not, it seems people think it is a type of “graduation” from Catechism classes, when in reality, the fight for keeping vigilance more deeply has just begun in the newly named soldier of Christ. The lack of discipline against vice and strife for virtue is missing, and therefore I’d argue was missing to establish a true faith in that individual.

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Part II - Conclusion

Note: Last article we covered Columbus' first two travels to the New World, noting that Columbus was "a character of nearly superhuman proportions, one blessed with extraordinary vision and talent and yet dogged like a similar grand Oedipus or Lear with a tragic flaw."

Part 1: Christopher Columbus, True Son of St. Christopher | Part 1 - Catholic Family News

Punishment and Suffering

To be sure, a Spain ruled by a Queen Isabella would not long allow Columbus to be shackled. As soon as she learned of Columbus's plight, the Queen "ordered Columbus's chains removed immediately."[1] However, neither the Queen nor King Ferdinand was prepared to maintain Columbus in his combined viceroy status and ten percent take on all precious object discoveries: the sovereigns were fully persuaded they would not send "back an administrative failure to misgovern Hispaniola". When they authorized his Fourth (and last) Voyage, the King and Queen restricted his prerogatives to exploring the waters west of Cuba to find a "western passage to India." Government on Spain's behalf was explicitly taken out of Columbus family hands on September 3, 1501, when governorship of the West Indies was explicitly granted to Don Nicolas de Ovando.

Columbus at the head of a four-ship fleet well­ equipped for direct exploration set sail from Cadiz on May 11, 1502. Fifty-one years of age and in greatly weakened health, Columbus entered a crucible of fear and suffering that readily shaded into the penitential. What lingering attachments he had to colonizing and gold acquisition were steadily ground down. Nor was his crew spared; of the 135 men who departed, a quarter did not return. Torrential rain sounded a first expiatory note. When Columbus raised the coast of present-day Honduras, he immediately met terrible weather. For twenty-eight consecutive days, Columbus and his men endured torrential downpours so bad that "all distinction between sea and sky seems lost." Everything got soaked; the cooking fire would not start so each sailor consumed "a wormy biscuit and a hunk of salt horse" and, when the rain moderated, each man had to fend off blood-engorged mosquitoes.

The weather nightmare abated on September 14, 1502. Conditions on neither the land (essentially, to­ day's Mosquito Coast off Nicaragua through Pan­ama) nor sea improved appreciably during the ensuing months. So much rain fell on the land itself "as to make agriculture on any large scale unprofitable." Boats could make little progress up the creeks and streams because the water usually occurred in freshets. Animal life was comparably daunting. Columbus's son Ferdinand, who accompanied the expedition and would later become an important biographer of his father, took note of "the vast great lizards or crocodiles" which "if they find a man asleep ashore they will drag him into the water to devour him". Nor did the weather offshore relent. In December, 1502, the thunder and lightning were so terrifying, Columbus recorded in his journal, that nearly all his men eventually "were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful sufferings." Only Columbus's devout Faith, iron will and first-rate seamanship enabled his men to avoid utter disaster during those terrible days.

Moral progress is usually by fits and starts. If Columbus started to understand that his talents resided primarily in sailing and exploration, he continued to hold on to unrealistic dreams of colonizing. His Fourth Voyage settlement attempt, started in January, 1503, at Belen (of today's Panama) makes the point quite well. Columbus rarely had full control of his (largely) Spanish crew; almost as soon as he had landed at Belen, "Spaniards in twos and threes had been stealing off to the bush, and by arms extorting gold from the natives." Nor had Columbus learned from earlier colonization disasters such as Navidad from the First Voyage earlier related. He began construction of a permanent fort for better exploration of gold just as he had before. Not surprisingly, the local natives began to arm for resistance to which Columbus responded by seizing a local chief, his family and several villagers. The natives retaliated. A Spanish party that had gone up a stream to cask fresh water was killed. Their bodies were discovered "floating downstream, covered with hideous wounds and at­ tended by carrion crows." At roughly the same time, wretched native hostages who had been confined in the dank interior of one of Columbus's ships, "had collected ropes in the hold and hanged themselves to the deck beams". Columbus knew he had to leave but, of his three remaining ships, none were truly seaworthy: while "the fleet had been lying idle ... the teredos or shipworms had been getting in their deadly work." While Columbus could have been fulfilling a primary responsibility of caulking his vessels, he was too busy with ultimately secondary activities.

By the time he was afloat, Columbus had lost the trust of his men, ironically in the area of navigation which he truly knew because of his colonizing which he did not. Columbus and his men paid for the erosion of morale he had himself triggered. Colum­ bus understood upon sailing from Belen that the best course to Hispaniola, the one location where Spanish towns and provisioning existed, was the one he plotted. His less knowledgeable pilots successfully insisted on a worse course. The expedition landed, as Columbus expected, in an isolated portion of Cuba. Worse, the worm-eaten vessels increasingly leaked; "pumping a hopelessly leaking vessel is the worst; the labor is back breaking ... and you know it can never improve." Just as bad, the prevailing winds and currents meant Columbus and his men could not go directly to Hispaniola; rather, they had to head for the much less Europeanized Jamaica.

Survival itself was in question at that juncture. Columbus did what he could to provide beach quarters at the Jamaica landing for his men. He used the rotting ships themselves for shelter and arranged his meager artillery and small arms so that his men "could beat off attack either from the shore or from a flotilla of canoes." Notwithstanding he had to keep to his bed with arthritis, Columbus had to secure food for his famished men. Knowing that too many of his men would seize food if left to their own devices, Columbus became even less popular by ordering everyone to keep within the camp. For a while the nearby Jamaican natives were willing to exchange food for trading truck but hawk's bells and glass beads, essentially all the Spanish could offer, would only go so far. In increasing desperation for himself and his men, Columbus was inspired to use his knowledge of astronomy. Using a copy of Regiomontanus's Ephemerides, which contained predictions of "eclipses for thirty years ahead", Columbus warned local chiefs that "God observed with deep disapproval how negligent they were in bringing provisions" and "would presently send them a clear token from Heaven of the punishment they were about to receive." When the eclipse occurred, "the Indians took heed, and were so frightened that with great howling and lamentation" they came from "every direction to the ships laden with provisions". The stratagem had worked to allay famine, if only temporarily.

Columbus ultimately had to get word to Hispaniola, which could only be done by volunteers manning canoes. The loyal Diego Mendez and those who accompanied him had to paddle 105 miles "against wind and current" just to arrive at Hispaniola, whereupon they had 350 additional miles of canoeing to reach the capital, Santo Domingo. Just the voyage to Hispaniola was so terrible that no one, other than the intrepid Bartolomeo Fieschi, was willing to return to Jamaica to let Columbus know Hispaniola had been reached. Mendez, the group leader, had his own difficulties with the new governor, Ovando, Ferdinand and Isabella's replacement for the Columbus brothers. Perhaps viewing the Columbus family as a political rival, Ovando took his time about granting Mendez' petition for help: Mendez reached Ovando deep within Hispaniola in August, 1503, but only got Ovando's permission to proceed to the port of Santo Domingo in March, 1504. At that, Mendez had to equip a rescue vessel at his own expense.

During the time Mendez was away, Columbus and his brother Bartholomew had to deal with a rebellion led by the Porras brothers. Francisco and Diego de Porras, increasingly anxious about their marooned condition and fully rejecting Columbus's leadership, gathered a mutiny of roughly half the remaining men. Rather than resist, the bed-ridden Columbus, who "would probably have been murdered if three or four of his devoted servants" had not restrained him, counseled his brother Bartholomew to let the rebels go. The Porras brothers seized ten canoes and departed, "robbing the Indians wherever they could, and telling them to collect their pay from the Admiral". Because of their lack of navigating skills, the Porras brothers had to abort their voyage to Hispaniola. When they returned to Jamaica, the mutineers had the nerve to attack Columbus and the sickly minority who remained; for Columbus had stores of food which they lacked. When the bloody fight concluded, Columbus and his loyalists had won. With great magnanimity - doubtless related to the nobility of soul issuing from accepting the abundant suffering his own sins had at least partially generated - Columbus issued a full pardon to all save the  ringleader,  Francisco de Porras,  who was shackled. Not too long afterward, the rescue ship Diego Mendez had chartered arrived.

Columbus got little enough compensation for all his efforts and suffering at the end of his searing Fourth Voyage. At Hispaniola where he first stopped, Columbus suffered the hypocrisy of Governor Ovando "making great pretense of joy at seeing the Admiral" but subsequently "showed his real sentiments by setting the Porrases at liberty". Columbus's later treatment in Spain was only marginally better. His greatest supporter, Queen Isabella, had died in November, 1504. King Ferdinand dawdled before granting the ailing Columbus an audience in May, 1505. The royal audience ended with Columbus securing practically nothing of the compensation he believed he deserved. He had declined from being a celebrated explorer to yesterday's stale news.

Not many noticed in the spring of 1506 when the "Admiral's malady was increasing rapidly, and his attendants knew that the end was near". Columbus executed a last will and testament on May 19, 1506, naturally providing for his immediate family but also "leaving small legacies to pay debts of conscience at Genoa and Lisbon", as well as a sinking fund for "the long-hoped-for crusade to Jerusalem". The searing reparation of the Fourth Voyage had melted his remaining pride and greed. Only Columbus's two sons - Diego and Ferdinand - two closest friends, Diego Mendez and Bartolomeo Fieschi, "and a few faithful domestics" were at the bedside of the dying Columbus the next day, May 20, 1506, the Vigil of the Ascension. The Admiral received Last Rites, recited "in manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum" and died.

The Glory of Columbus

To all intents and purposes, Columbus died in obscurity: court "chroniclers" neglected "to record his death" and the bulk of "courtiers" did not bother "to attend his modest funeral at Valladolid." Cumulatively, however, the stupendous nature of his achievement gradually dawned on even the least observant. Nothing could be further from the truth than the idea, commonly found in the classroom, that Columbus simply sailed back and forth between Spain and the first island, San Salvador, he discovered. If he had done only that, his accomplishment would have been no more than the unknown explorer(s) who discovered the Canary Islands and the Azores. European explorers would hardly rush to capitalize on such a limited discovery. Columbus in contrast truly had genius-level aptitude for exploration and discovery that sparked the immediate interest of other European explorers. A list of what he himself discovered and mapped is cumulatively staggering. To summarize, during the First Voyage (1492-1493), he charted most of the Baham.as, Cuba and Hispaniola; during his Second Voyage (1493-1496), Columbus discovered both Puerto Rico and Jamaica, not to mention many of the Lesser Antilles;[2] during the Third Voyage (1498), Columbus confirmed the existence of a continent, if not his hoped for Asia; and, by the end of the Fourth Voyage (1502-1503), he accumulated plausible native testimony about a strait that would be the basis for Balboa's famous first European encounter with the vast Pacific Ocean.

Columbus not only added to Europe's - and thereby the world's - geographic knowledge, but also established the way to safely navigate many trans­ Atlantic and intra-Caribbean routes. Many a time, always with the rudest of navigation instruments, Columbus braved - and charted - waters no European had ever experienced before. In the process he demonstrated a genius for instinctive choice of routes and intuitive means to sail them. that Samuel Eliot Morison, a sailor himself, citing the French seam.an Jean Charcot called:

'1e sens marin, that intangible and unteachable God-given gift of knowing how to direct and plot 'the way of a ship in the midst of the sea'."

Here, too, samples of just a few of the seemingly insurmountable sailing obstacles Columbus m.et and conquered are in order. We have already seen how Columbus's sailing skills saved himself and his entire crew on their return from the famous First Voyage. During the Second Voyage, while sailing along the southern coast of Cuba, Columbus proved "his competence at coastal piloting, under the exceedingly difficult conditions of a labyrinth of uncharted cays and shoals" which fully complemented "his ability as a deep-water navigator." On that Voyage's return to Europe, Columbus's pilots guessed their projected landfall at locations that ranged "all the way from England to Galicia." Columbus, initially to their laughter, declared instead for one of the Azores Islands. He was correct, the "neatest bit of navigation that Columbus ever did." Moreover, without benefit of maps Columbus mastered the internal sailing of the Caribbean; most memorably during the Third Voyage, when he navigated roughly five-hundred miles of water between Margarita (off the coast of Venezuela) and Hispaniola.

Many a European explorer - the Verrazzanos, Cabots and Hudsons of the coming decades - followed confidently in Columbus's wake, including the captains and pilots Columbus himself had trained "who were to display the banners of Spain off every American cape and island between Fifty North and Fifty South." Additionally, Columbus's efforts sparked new patterns of living on purely the material level between Old World and New that has come to be called the "Columbian Exchange" in his honor. Columbus was one of the first Europeans to eat pineapple, sample tobacco and sleep in a hammock, the latter becoming standard sleeping quarters for U.S. sailors until about 1900. Columbus, a careful note-taker of everything he saw, taught his fellow Europeans about the flamingo and the manatee. Other material transformations came after his era: the pork-packing plants of Cincinnati and the Chicago stockyards could not have come about without Columbus's epochal discoveries, because the New World peoples had neither pigs nor cattle. In the opposite geographic direction, the tomato of Italian cuisine and potato of Irish diet only existed after 1492, because those foods were not known in the Old World.[3]

Even Columbus's great failings in government that we have abundantly rehearsed diminish when placed in a fuller context. The historian Jacques Barzun is very helpful in this regard: he notes that the ravages of greed and exploitation are worst "when the scene is vast and sparsely populated, when communication is slow and policing is haphazard."[4] Such aptly describes colonization during Columbus's era, that much worse when one adds that he and his brothers "belonged to an anti-Spanish faction in Genoa,"[5] hardly good preparation for controlling largely Spanish crews and colonizers. Besides, to control the likes of brutal Spaniards like Hojeda and Margarit, an administrator would have needed to be '"Angelic indeed and superhuman"': can we be too critical if Columbus did not reach that high level? He himself drew a contrast between his being "'a governor sent to Sicily or to a city or two under settled government'" and Hispaniola where he actually served as governor, among "a people, warlike and numerous, and with customs and beliefs very different from ours."[6] Professor Barzun, who acknowledges that the Spanish colonists "committed atrocities from. greed and racist contempt that nothing can palliate",[7] at the same time draws attention to a pattern throughout world history of the stronger conquering the weaker; of one tribe displacing another in ancient Greece, of the Anglos and Saxons overcoming the Romans in Britain, of the same sequence occurring in the Caribbean before Columbus arrived and elsewhere after he departed. The myth of native peoples living in harmony with each other and nature is just that - a myth.

Granted these palliations, Columbus held himself to considerably higher standards than the modern politician. He was a Catholic man-of-action, who personally wanted to acknowledge his sins, confess and atone for them. We have seen him do just that during his Third and Fourth Voyages: when adversity struck him, Columbus was no modern man wondering why "bad things happen to good people." Ultimately his Catholic religious motivation was primary in his makeup, deftly captured by Morison when he, conceding Columbus was "far from indifferent" about gold and glory, concludes that "spreading the Faith was far more potent than the desire to win glory, wealth and worldly honors". Columbus's very daily conduct was steeped in a Catholic sensibility.

Columbus would not curse, substituting "By San Fernando!" instead. Whenever possible, he observed the canonical hours of terce, vespers and compline. Between his famous voyages, Columbus "stopped at monasteries rather than the homes of caballeros or grandees."[8] These daily personal practices colored his larger religious vision. To open a second front against the Ottoman Turks, Columbus hoped that his voyages to Asia would establish contact "with the mysterious Christian prince Prester John, which might open a second front against Ottoman Islam."[9] Columbus's Faith even displayed both a mystical and apocalyptic side. When he confirmed the existence of a continent in his Third Voyage, Columbus, continuing his mistaken belief he had located the Asian mainland, thought he had reached the Garden of Eden, for was he not at the "the Terrestial Paradise at the first point of the Far East, where the sun rose on the day of creation"? Columbus was also persuaded he lived in the end times, perhaps extending to the conviction "that in 1492 there were just 155 days left to mankind before the Apocalypse.”[10]

Obviously Columbus was mistaken in that belief, but what good he accomplished on behalf of an ultimately transcendent vision! Las Casas, the contemporary of Columbus who penned so many of the criticisms of the Admiral that are routinely employed by liberal scoffers to this day, offered perhaps the most just overall estimate of the great explorer, simultaneously a sinner and great Catholic. Notwithstanding his own strictures against Colum­ bus's considerable wrongs of gold exaction and slavery, Las Casas wished he "had the eloquence of Cicero to extol the indescribable service to God and to the world which Christopher Columbus rendered", pre-eminently to "all the sons of Adam they are now prepared to be brought to the knowledge of their Creator.”[11]