Militant Catholicism on Display in New York

I must confess to a growing irritation with the unending postconciliar stream of antiwar (and anti-death penalty)utterances emanating from the Catholic hierarchy (including the Vatican itself). In earlier ages (most recently that of Cardinal Spellman) Catholics held quite different views. I looked around the city for some tangible signs of militant Catholicism – in secular and protestant surroundings, of course…

In the courtyard of the sadly neglected group of museums at West 155th street and Broadway we find this striking statue of El Cid, who reenergized the liberation of Spain from the Moors in the 11th century. It stands between the two exhibition halls of the Hispanic Society, one of the great hidden treasures of New York.
http://www.hispanicsociety.org/

Inside, the Hispanic Society presents this image of Saint James as the heroic defender of Spain against the infidel. Marvelous!

It seems that St John the Divine has much more interesting things to offer than crystals and “Christa.” Consider this extraordinary set of “Windows of the Warriors” dating, it seems, to around 1920:

Where else in a city that has suffered so much from Mohammedan terrorism do you have such a striking reminder of the heroic defense of Christendom at Lepanto in 1571?

The vision of Constantine – the blessed foundation of the so-called “Constantinian ” church so detested by Catholic conciliar and post-conciliar reformers.

The battle of Tours is here as well. Of course, these images are embedded in windows that epitomize the American/Calvinist confusion of the divine mandate with very secular political and economic objectives of America – and before us those of England. So, further panels of these windows equate the above historic victories of Christendom with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the War of 1812, the Civil War the Spanish American War and of course the contemporary “Great War”. We of course must take exception to such delusions – we have seen their poisonous fruit once again in Iraq. We are nevertheless happy to see our armed forces of the past and present properly honored in a splendid setting so free of the pacifistic cant so universal among Christians today.