The Pope’s Blessing

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 25, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 33.

The Pope’s Blessing.

—“Three times and out” is an expression of the boys in connection with a popular game. Applied to the papal blessing on military enterprises, it would have been deemed “out” before this, but the “faithful” will probably rely upon it still. Perhaps no one knows just how often it has failed, but a very ordinary reader can easily recall five times, four of which have been within forty years. The great Spanish armada which started out to conquer England in 1588 had the papal blessing, in addition to 180 priests on the 130 vessels composing the armada. Such, however, was the disastrous nature of the defeat that only 54 vessels returned, with their men in a starving condition. When the rebellion of 1861 was inaugurated in the United States, the pope’s blessing was bestowed upon the cause of the Southern Confederacy. When Maximilian undertook to establish a monarchy in Mexico, the papal blessing was given to the enterprise. A few months later the “empire” was overthrown and the “emperor” was shot. In the war between Germany and France in 1870, the French army had the blessing from Rome, and the terrible defeat is fresh in the minds of all. In the short war just closed, the Spanish army was stimulated by the same ineffectual blessing, which again proved the precursor of disastrous defeat. We might add that the pope’s anathema was equally futile when hurled against Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel.