[When the Pope visited the United States a few years ago] …

H is visit, of course, were greeted with genuine enthusiasm and acclaim by the faithful, despite the deprecating remarks of a handful of anti-Christians who find the Ten Commandments “outdated” and [the pope] “behind the times.”

Which brings me to the question of loyalty to our bishops, who are successors of the Apostles, and to the Holy Father in Rome, the Successor of St. Peter, the Apostle, and the one to whom Christ has confided the keys of the Kingdom. “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven, etc. ” (Mt. 16:18, 19)

Being a spiritual son of St. Louis de Montfort, I am committed to follow in his footsteps – if such a thing is possible! Yes, Father de Montfort is definitely a model and guide in our relationship with our own bishops as well as with the Holy Father in Rome.
Anyone who has read a biography of St. Louis de Montfort knows that he was on excellent terms with some bishops, he did have some misunderstandings with others, often due to the fact that he had been falsely accused and misrepresented. We must also remember that he lived in a century when Jansenism and Gallicanism were rampant in France, as well as in all of central Europe. The former spawned a rigoristic and severe type of morality; the latter was a theory regarding the relationship of the French Church and the papacy, creating a mentality of independence from and defiance of the Roman authority.

In one of his hymns (H. 139:55), St. Louis de Montfort wrote: “Away from me, Jansenism” . . . Writing about a then recently canonized Saint Pius V (12 May, 1712), Montfort said that he was “a Bishop of Rome, a Vicar of Christ, a voice of the Holy Spirit . . .”

Father de Montfort could write this way because, in 1706, six years after his ordination, and after some rebuffs by a few bishops, and to resolve a crisis in his own life, he wanted to reassure himself that he was on the right track. He journeyed, on foot, to Rome where he was granted a private audience with the Holy Father, Pope Clement XI who had already (the previous year, in 1705), rejected the theory of the Jansenists in the papal Bull: Vineam Domini (the Vineyard of the Lord).

Believing that the bishops in his native land did not seem to want him, the priest from Montfort requested that the Holy Father assign him to the foreign missions, a desire he had entertained since his early priesthood.

Obviously, the Holy Father questioned the young priest from Montfort concerning the orthodoxy of his preaching Apostolate. Father Louis Marie explained that he was preaching the renewal of Christian Life by having people renew their baptismal vows to Jesus through the hands of Mary; the centrality of the Eucharist and frequent Communion; the Cross; the Rosary, and loyalty and obedience to the hierarchy and to the Vicar of Christ on earth.

The Pope must have been moved by the earnestness and zeal of this fiery, ascetic looking young pilgrim priest as well as by his thread-bare, dust-stained priestly attire, who was battling almost single-handedly the errors that were plaguing his native land. And all he was asking for was direction from the Vicar of Christ on earth, plus a blessing on his ministry and preference for the Poor.

Tile mural depicting a scene of St Louis de Montfort’s Life

This mural appears immediately outside the chapel in Montfort’s Spiritual Center. The scene depicts St. Louis de Montfort’s visit to Rome to seek an audience with the pope and receive clarification and direction for his missionary assignment and for his ministry. His journey and pilgrimage was on foot and took many months.

The mural is one of the six scenes outside the chapel.