Today is the Feast of St. Gaspar del Bufalo (+1837), “Hammer of Freemasons”.
I have interest in St. Gaspar as one of my Roman patrons because I exercised ministry as a seminarian and then deacon at the basilica in Rome where he helped to found devotion to and the Confraternity of the Most Precious Blood at San Nicola in Carcere. He had a tense relationship with the state (Napolean’s police were after him) and Masons tried mulitple times to assassinate him.
His answer to the French commissar asking him to sign his submission to emperor should be the motto of every pope and bishop requested to yield to the world:
“I can’t, I musn’t, I don’t want to.”
That’s how a Roman priest says ‘No’ when he wants to be talkative.”
It’s better in Italian.
‘Non posso, non debbo, non voglio!’
I wonder if Pius VII’s “Non debemus, non possumus, non volumus” didn’t come from St. Gaspar.
These days it’s more like, “Volumus! Possumus! Debetote etiam vos!”
His tomb is in the little S. Maria in Trivio, tucked away behind where the more flashy Trevi Fountain is collocated. His bronzen tomb is not set off by glass and the hand of the image of the saint is extended outward so that you can graps it. It is quite moving.
It seems that St. Gaspar had ways that really could irritate, as many saints. For example, he could sense satanic objects and would charge into peoples homes to sieze and destroy them no matter how well hidden.
When he was young, he grew up across the mighty Church of the Gesù where his father was a cook for the Jesuit college there. When Gaspar was very young he had a malady of the eyes that threatened blindness. He was cured through the intercession of St. Francis Xavier, whose tomb is in the Gesù. As a priest of Rome he was critical of the Papal States which got him into hot water.
St. Gaspar, Hammer of Freemasons, pray for us.
My 1st class relic of St. Gaspar.
many (looking at you, Soupy!) these days would unfortunately instead parrot the 101 year old “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato”
Thank you, Fr Z, for introducing me to this great saint! I contacted the Provincial of the Precious Blood Missionaries, asking for a relic and he kindly sent me a third class relic of St. Gaspar, for which I am very grateful.
I’m open to making a trade with you….
Amen! Amen! AMEN!!!
Hope your happy and well, Father Z.
We have masons in our parish who serve as extraordinary Eucharistic mmmm…….ministers. 😳
The female branch. Married to a mason. Nice people, but just…..don’t know it’s wrong and there is strong social pressure within the small isolated community to join.
There is no anonymity. You’re either with’em or again’em…and we are with Jesus Christ and therefore cannot be with them…..
I mentioned it to the pastor…and he is a wonderful priest. We are blessed to have him. But he is infirmed and near retirement…and our bishop, who I love, was subject to liberal formation as such. So…..It’s understandable.
I think I’ll put some of John Salzman’s books in the entry….
We are not distant from when a priest, celebrated with an arm side, because of flagrant anti Catholic clan activity and overlapping membership would not necessitate Venn’s diagram.
Nearly everyone in town is a mason and they hate Catholics, well some do. Others pushed hard for us to join when we arrived, arguing that it is permissible citing clergy and prelates who are and have been. The hard nosed ones however have actively worked to destroy the livelihoods of local Catholics…
I have dreamed of the bishop allowing a stable Latin community (nothing is impossible for God!) and Catholic families moving here and buying up the inexpensive land and houses, bringing their businesses …getting elected to the town council and county administration. 🤣
A girl can dream!
And here I always thought Archbishop Bugnini was “Hammer of Freemasons”.
Oh, he was “Hammer FOR Freemasons”.