Dear Friends, these are hours of darkness and confusion, hours in which the mercenaries who infest the Lord’s Fold are unleashed against the good Shepherds – bishops, priests and religious – against the sheep and against the lambs. The mystery of iniquity is showing itself in all its arrogance, and it no longer tries to hide or conceal its infernal plans. As in the times of the Passion of Our Savior, a new Sanhedrin of renegades prefers to serve the potentates of this world rather than recognize the Divine Kingship of Jesus Christ. We are witnessing in disbelief the vilest betrayal, made by an authority corrupt in Faith and perverted in Morals that usurps ecclesiastical power in order to demolish the Holy Church, ut percusso pastore, et gregem disperdere valeant, as Leo XIII wrote in the text of the Exorcism. The Shepherds have been struck so that the flock is dispersed, so that many souls are lost in eternal damnation, so that the Sacrifice of the Redeemer is at least partially nullified.

Saint Pius X, the heroic defender of the Church against the assaults of the modernist heresy – which he called the sewer of all heresies – wrote these lines when he had not yet risen to the Supreme Pontificate:

[The modernists] want to be treated with oil, soap, and caresses. Instead we need to fight them with our fists. In a duel you don’t count or measure your blows: you hit as best you can! War is not fought with charity: it is a fight, a duel. As if Our Lord had not been terrible, as if He had not set us an example in this too. How He treated them, the Pharisees, the sowers of error, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the merchants: He chased them away with whips!

We too must fight with our fists, because in war charity is exercised by defending the honor of the Holy Church and the salvation of souls. Spiritual fists: prayer, fasting, penance, good works, reparative sacrifices. Fists that strike against an enemy who feeds on hatred, division, desperation, and lies. We fight to remain in the one Fold of Christ, from which a sect of heretics would like to expel us and you. But to continue this battle effectively we need priests and religious, friars, monks, nuns, and – God willing! – some bishop. And if the tyrant who occupies the See of Peter ostracizes those who remain faithful to the immutable Magisterium of the Church, we must move “outside the box,” making up for the absence or vacancy of authority as best we can. This is not about building a “parallel church” following the example of the Protestants – God forbid! – but rather to make up for the apostasy of the Hierarchy as best we can in order to safeguard the Catholic Faith, the Mass which is its expression, and the souls of the faithful redeemed by the Blood of Christ. This is why the Exsurge Domine association was born, with the aim of giving spiritual and material assistance to priests and religious being persecuted by the Bergoglian fury, because without them the faithful would be deprived of the spiritual weapons that are indispensable in this epochal battle. This is why your material help, nourished and enlightened by spiritual assistance, is indispensable. Your donations can help many persecuted priests, seminarians, men and women religious, whose vocation and mission are threatened and hindered by the ecclesiastical authority. And if it is true that almsgiving covers a multitude of sins, how much more will this be true when almsgiving is used to help persecuted priests and religious!

May God bless you for your help and generosity. And may God bless the members of Caritas in Veritate who do their utmost to organize the charitable action of the Exsurge Domine association.

Finally, allow me to thank Divine Providence, which in these moments of tribulation and trial offers all of us the great consolation of seeing so many good souls, in love with Christ and the Virgin Mary, eager to contribute to the work of resistance and fidelity that unworthily, but trusting in the Lord, I have undertaken in founding Exsurge Domine.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop