This painting, entitled Madonna del Soccorso, painted by Francesco Melanzio in 1538-40, is said to be the original image of  Mary, Destroyer of All Heresies, originated. (Wikicommons)

With our Church in crisis, her ranks infected with the filth of unchecked homosexual predation, and too many of her shepherds turning a blind eye to the subsequent abuse, it’s time to call upon the Woman whose destiny it is to crush the head of the ancient serpent who has infiltrated her sacred halls. If there was ever a time to call upon Our Lady under the little-known title of Destroyer of All Heresies, it’s now!

Two years ago, Father Paul D. Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote about how Pope Pius X invoked Our Lady under this obscure title in his encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, On the Doctrine of the Modernists, which was written in 1911. In that document, the pope referred to the crisis of modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” which is why he turned to Mary as the Destroyer of All Heresies for help.

“The title still applies, however. Indeed, it describes something that has always been true of our Lady – and is perhaps even more urgent now,” Father Scalia wrote in The Catholic Thing in 2016.

But how does Our Lady, who never preached a single sermon or wrote a theological paper, be the antidote for the evils of our time?

“Well, look first at the zeal she inspires. It’s a mark of the defenders of the faith that they have a devotion – often disarmingly childlike – to our Lady. From Saint Irenaeus writing against the heresies in the 2nd century, to Saint Dominic preaching against the Albigensians in the 12th, to Saint John Paul II teaching against modern errors in our own time, devotion to Mary has always been something of a calling card for the Faith’s defenders. In one of those beautiful Catholic paradoxes, these men became fierce defenders of the faith by first becoming childlike towards her. Devotion to her brings purity to the soul and therefore clarity to the mind,” Father writes.

“But most of all she is the Destroyer of all heresies by virtue of who she is. It is the truth of who she is – or, rather, the truth of what God has done for her – that vanquishes heresies. Her very being guards the truth about God and man.”

He goes on to explain that as Destroyer of all Heresies, Our Lady defends the truth about the human person. For example, her Assumption reveals and destroys the errors about the human body that are at the core of what plagues us now in the sex abuse scandal.

“Today’s heresy (seen most of all in the new Gnosticism of gender ideology) is a recapitulation of an ancient, recurring error. Rather than knowing man to be an embodied soul, we see him as a soul that happens to have (or be trapped in) a body,” Father Scalia explains.

To be human thus means to be a soul – and do with the body as you will. The body becomes a plaything, a tool, a possession, a curse, etc. Indulge it while you are healthy, and discard it when you are not. The body means nothing and tells you nothing about yourself. You can be one thing physically and another spiritually.”

This kind of thinking is a perennial error, Father says, because it does not consider the fact that all of us experience the dis-integration of body and soul to some degree due to the sin of Adam and Eve. Thus, we lost our original integrity, including that perfect union of body and soul that God intended from the beginning.

“Our souls do not always get along so well with ‘brother ass’,” Father writes. “The difference now is that his discomfort has been raised to the level of an ideology, and that ideology is being imposed by cultural and governmental strongmen.”

But Mary, who was assumed body and soul into heaven, “reveals the truth and upends the errors,” he says.

And she can do so again, during this time of great upheaval in our Church.

Two weeks ago, Father Robert Altier of the Church of St. Raphael in Crystal, Minnesota, delivered a hard-hitting homily to his congregation in which he outlined his experience with the homosexual crisis in the Church. And in the midst of that sordid expose, he revealed the sentiments of several prayerful, holy people who all seemed to concur on one single point about today's crisis – Our Lady’s work has finally begun.

“She gave the bishops 16 years to clean up this mess and they did nothing,” Father Altier said. “I’ve been telling people for 20 years that back 2000 years ago Jesus cleaned out the temple, but He did it like a man: He picked up the big stuff in the middle of the room. This time He’s sending His Mom; she’s going to clean like a woman: there won’t be a cobweb left and there will be no dust, not even in the corners. She’s going to clean house and it is going to be beautiful."

But, as all women know, cleaning up a mess this big isn’t going to be a pleasant task.

However, “the resurrection will happen only after the crucifixion,” Father Altier reminds.

This is why we must call upon Mary, Destroyer of All Heresies, and implore her to clean up the Church.

“St. John Paul spoke of a new springtime, Our Lady of Fatima spoke about a triumph of her Immaculate Heart, and after that triumph she said there would be a long period of peace and unprecedented growth for the Church. So that’s what’s coming. It is not a point of despair, it is not something we should run away from,” Father continued.

“We need to remain faithful, we need to continue to pray and we need to fast because our Lord told us with this kind of demon only prayer and fasting is going to be able to get rid of it. So that’s a choice we all have to make, we are going to go through some hard times, but we have that resurrection, the new springtime, that triumph of our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. So, all I can tell you is: no matter what happens remain faithful to Jesus. It is just that simple.”

Now is our chance to fulfill the prophecy of St. Louis de Montfort who told us that in these latter times, God is going to raise up the greatest saints we’ve ever seen, even to the point that they will tower over the saints of the past the way the cedars of Lebanon tower over a shrub.

“Think about some of the great Saints we have, and they are going to look like shrubs compared to what’s coming," Father concluded. "And you can be one of those Saints. There is no reason why you can’t.”

Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, thou alone hast put down all heresies in the whole world. Mary, Destroyer of All Heresies, pray for us!

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