Please— please, like me!?

How history shows that bishops have often betrayed the faith, through cowardice, compromise and moral weakness. But— the faith grows stronger regardless.

Compiègne, July 17th, 1794

Paris stank of sweat, fear, and blood. The carts rattled through the cobblestones, carrying the condemned to the Place de la Révolution. Heads fell daily, and the crowds cheered, for bread and vengeance in equal measure. Blood congealed on the walls of taverns, splattered from the previous days work of Madame Guillotine, and drying in the midday sun.

This day, the crowd waited for sixteen women in white.

They were the Carmelites of Compiègne, dragged from their cloister for the crime of “fanaticism” — which meant refusing to renounce their vows, refusing to let Christ be dethroned from France.

The guillotine gleamed, catching some of the eager participants to squint through the blades of the sun. The crowd jeered. But as the cart creaked forward, something unexpected rose above the noise.

Singing.

The nuns were singing the Veni Creator Spiritus. Clear voices, steady as bells, floated through the streets: Come, Creator Spirit, visit the minds of Thy people…

The crowd fell into a strange hush. Some stared. Some mocked more loudly, but the song did not falter.

At their head stood Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, prioress of the convent. She turned to her sisters in the jolting cart:

“Remember, we are about to be martyrs. Let us go as brides to the wedding feast.”

One by one, each nun renewed her vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Not in the safety of chapel, but before the guillotine.

The cart stopped. The steps up to the scaffold loomed. The executioner waited, blade ready.

The singing did not stop. Now it was the Salve Regina: Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

The prioress turned first to the youngest, Sister Constance, only twenty-eight. “Permission to die, my child.”

“Yes, Mother,” Sister Constance answered, her face radiant. She mounted the steps, knelt before the blade, and began singing the Laudate Dominum. The chorus was cut short by the fall of steel.

Next came another sister, then another. Each asked leave of the prioress. Each mounted the steps with calm. Each sang as the blade fell.

The crowd had fallen into silence. There were no more jeers, no more laughter. Only the rhythm of the blade, and the women’s voices, rising like incense.

Finally, only Mother Teresa remained. She kissed the crucifix, mounted the steps, and said clearly for all to hear:

“Love will always be victorious. Love will always have the last word.”

The blade fell. Sixteen heads lay in the basket. Sixteen brides had gone to meet their Bridegroom.

The silence broke only when someone — no one knew who — whispered: “The guillotine has been defeated.”

And indeed, within days, Robespierre himself fell, the Terror collapsing in on itself. The last blood the guillotine had tasted before the Revolution began to die was the blood of sixteen singing nuns.

This was the heroic witness of nuns, young and old, Mother and novice, all who rejected the compromise of the world, as some of the clergy had done— swearing a secular oath to the demon spirit of the age.

I have thought many times about the martyrs of Compiègne. It is so inspiring to some it may come across as fiction, but it isn’t. I can’t help thinking too of the priests during the reformation who were brutally executed.

One of my favourite saints is an Englishman, St. Edmund Campion, a brilliant Oxford scholar, once favoured by Queen Elizabeth herself, he returned secretly to England as a Jesuit missionary. St. Edmund wrote the Decem Rationes (Ten Reasons), a devastating critique of Protestantism. He was arrested while celebrating Mass in Berkshire and was imprisoned in the Tower of London; there he was tortured on the rack, and offered riches and high office if he renounced Rome. He refused.

At Tyburn gallows, he declared:

“In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors—all the ancient bishops, all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.”

He was hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled, and quartered — dying with the name of Jesus on his lips.

Another notable martyr was a convert from Calvinism, St. John Ogilvie who secretly ministered to Catholics in Scotland. As is often the case, he was betrayed, then interrogated and asked to swear allegiance to King James as head of the Church.

The saint replied to his captors,

“If princes claim authority over the Church, they usurp the authority of God Himself.”

There, on the scaffold he threw his rosary into the crowd, shouting:

“If there be any hidden Papist here, let him take courage from this symbol of our redemption!”

He was then hanged and his body left to rot in chains.

The saint we honour as our patron for our Telegram channel is St Oliver PIunkett. He is the last Catholic martyr executed at Tyburn. Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, he was falsely accused of treason during the hysteria of the so-called “Popish Plot.” Famously at his trial in London, he calmly forgave his accusers saying,

“I am accused of a plot never thought of, and of a treason never intended.”

Whilst on the scaffold he prayed aloud for King Charles II and for the people of England. He was then hanged, drawn, and quartered —much like the French mob a century later who were stunned into respectful silence upon the execution of the nuns, the English crowd were deeply moved by his final dignity. His head still rests in Drogheda today.

The Douai Priests (1580s–1600s) were clergymen from the English College in Douai (in exile on the Continent). These were hundreds of young English seminarians who returned to England to minister in secret. Many were captured and executed. St. Alexander Briant (1581), for example, was tortured savagely in the Tower —he wrote from his cell:

“Whether it be pain or pleasure, life or death, heaven or hell—my will is ever with God.”

There is also the account of St. Henry Walpole (1595), who, inspired by Campion’s death, joined the Jesuits but was arrested on landing in Yorkshire. He was tortured 14 times and then executed at York.

Or who should forget the Carthusian Priors (London Charterhouse, 1535) who, under despotic Henry VIII and his sacking of the monasteries for personal gain, refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy. Their prior, Blessed John Houghton, declared before his death,

“I confess the king to be my sovereign in all that lawful is; but a subject may not be compelled to deny his sovereign Lord in heaven.”

Each was hanged, drawn, and quartered — the first priests to die for the old faith in England.

I will finish this brief compendium with an Irishman, St. Dermot O’Hurley (Dublin, 1584). St. Dermot was the Archbishop of Cashel in Ireland and was arrested for saying Mass. Upon this charge he was brutally tortured, where his legs were placed in boots filled with oil and roasted over a fire. The archbishop was offered pardon if he renounced the Pope, and so he replied:

“If I were to deny my faith, I could not look my Saviour in the face on the last day.”

St. Dermot was hanged on Stephen’s Green, Dublin. The people whispered of his holiness for generations, at least until now, where his martyrdom is largely forgotten.

In every case, the priests were not executed for ordinary “treason,” though that was the legal pretext. They were killed for the Mass — for refusing to deny the Pope, for daring to bring the sacraments back into lands where Christ’s Church had been outlawed. And their deaths bore fruit, and so vocations multiplied, the underground Church endured, and their blood became the seed of faith for future Catholics.

Now compare these acts of resonating heroism with the well fed, well comforted and well-educated hierarchs today in Ireland and the rest of Europe. These men, in comparison to the martyred, recant on the very mention of a scolding word written in a newspaper. It is truly embarrassing to see men who are meant to be witnesses to the faith, hide behind public relations and fawning sycophancy.

I have it on good record that when Leo Varadakar, then Taoiseach of Ireland, a man who brought death and degradation to the land, was feted by those who instruct the secular priests in training at Maynooth. “You are doing a great job”, he was, by all accounts told, by those who educate the missionaries today (and missionaries they are, even in their own lands given the mass apostasy in Ireland).

You see, strip away all the noise, parse the distractions and the major crisis of our times is not only demographic or cultural; it is ecclesial. The rot in ecclesiastical circles today is mediated through two prongs of emotionalising modernism: sentimentalisation and effeminacy. For example, the Catholic hierarchy, faced with the remaking of Europe through mass immigration and the advance of hostile ideologies, has too often responded not with manly fortitude but with effeminacy.

The term “effeminacy” is misunderstood —it is not meant in the shallow sense of outward softness, but in the classical and theological sense: the inability to endure hardship, the preference for comfort and approval over truth and sacrifice.

Aristotle defined effeminacy (malakia) as the weakness of spirit that cannot bear difficulty. St. Thomas Aquinas took this up, saying effeminacy is when a man “abandons a good on account of difficulties attending its pursuit” (ST II-II, q. 138). It is, in short, the refusal of the Cross. Bishops show this when they speak of “accompaniment” but refuse correction, when they flatter worldly powers but neglect their flock, when they prize their own reputation above the truth of Christ.

Christ Himself warned against this temptation: “Woe to you when all men speak well of you” (Luke 6:26). The episcopal office was never meant to be safe; it was meant to be a form of martyrdom.

This effeminacy is not unique to our age. History records multiple moments when clergy, fearing loss or persecution, capitulated to worldly powers and abandoned their flocks.

Under imperial pressure, the majority of bishops compromised with Arianism, denying the full divinity of Christ. St. Jerome wrote bitterly: “The whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.” Only a handful, like St. Athanasius, endured exile, scorn, and danger to preserve the true faith.

As Islam swept across Christian lands, many bishops quickly accommodated, accepting second-class dhimmi status under Muslim rule to preserve their own safety. Their flocks, over generations, melted into Islam. A false prudence — submission dressed up as survival — cost whole regions of the Church.

On the eve of the city of Constantinople’s fall, elites and clerics alike hoped compromise or negotiation with the Ottomans would save them. Instead, Hagia Sophia became a mosque and Christians were enslaved. Capitulation brought not peace but destruction.

Many priests too swore allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French revolution, becoming jurist priests. They, imagining collaboration would protect the Church, It did not. Instead, the Revolution turned on them, while faithful priests and laity who resisted — often at the cost of their lives — preserved the Church’s integrity. Even in death, the martyrs restored the faith. In death, the compromisers merely fell like other accomplices.

Of all England’s bishops during the reign of evil Henry VIII, only John Fisher resisted the bloated King’s seizure of the Church. The rest, preferring comfort and position, capitulated. Fisher died a martyr; the others became tools of tyranny.

The pattern repeats, of course, when clergy confuse cowardice for prudence, or sentimentalism for charity. hey expose their flock to wolves. When they stand firm, even at the cost of their lives, they preserve the faith for future generations.

Today, effeminacy in the hierarchy manifests as sentimental pacifism. Faced with mass migration, collapsing birthrates, and the explicit designs of Muslim leaders to conquer Europe “through the womb,” ( Gaddafi, Erdogan and Arafat) many bishops call only for “welcome” and “dialogue.” They mistake surrender for mercy. They have absorbed the language of secular globalism — openness, inclusion, diversity — while neglecting the harder truths of Catholic teaching: the duties of sovereignty, the right of nations to preserve their identity, and the obligation of shepherds to guard their flock.

Instead of the spirit of St. Pius V at Lepanto or King John III Sobieski at Vienna, the spirit of today’s episcopate is closer to the courtier-bishops of Arianism or the oath-swearers of the French Revolution. They seek applause from the world rather than fidelity to Christ. They see submission as virtue, and genuflection to the media as a form of piety. Their effeminacy is not harmless; it is destructive, because it leaves the Church undefended while hostile ideologies advance.

The answer is not aggression or hatred, but the restoration of true spiritual virility — bishops who act as fathers, not courtiers. A father protects, even at cost; he rebukes, even if it wounds; he defends his household against wolves. This is what the Church desperately needs: shepherds who will risk exile, ridicule, or even death rather than surrender Christ’s flock to destruction.

Probably one of the most exacting comparisons today is another shameful wound in Catholic history. The Cristero War (1926–1929) in Mexico is one of the starkest examples of how ordinary faithful Catholics and priests rose heroically, while much of the hierarchy capitulated to political pressure.

When the Mexican government under Plutarco Elías Calles unleashed brutal anti-Catholic laws — outlawing public worship, seizing Church property, banning religious orders, closing seminaries, and executing priests — ordinary Catholics took up arms in defence of their faith.

The cry resounding was “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” (Long live Christ the King!). Tens of thousands of campesinos, fathers, sons, and even young boys fought, convinced they were defending Christ’s Church itself. During this struggle against evil, hundreds of priests were executed, many martyred publicly for refusing to renounce the Mass.

The role of the bishops at the time was a betrayal, a blackness that continues to raise itself, reminding the world that Judas sat at the Last Supper and treason comes close to the table of piety. Many Mexican bishops, rather than bless the uprising of their flock, distanced themselves. This sounds very familiar. They feared being accused of “inciting rebellion” and so often adopted a stance of official neutrality. Some even discouraged armed resistance, preferring negotiation with Calles, even while thousands of the faithful were being slaughtered.

When the Vatican brokered a compromise in 1929, many bishops supported it — but the compromise was hollow. The government made empty promises, and Catholics who had laid down their arms were left exposed to persecution, reprisals, and executions. This left many Cristeros feeling utterly betrayed. They had fought and bled for Christ the King, but the hierarchy seemed more concerned with institutional survival than with solidarity with their martyred children.

Yet, despite the bishops’ weakness, the Cristero martyrs themselves shone with extraordinary courage. Another favourite saint of mine, the teenage, St. José Sánchez del Río, a mere 14 years of age, captured by federal troops, had the soles of his feet flayed, was forced to walk on salt and stones, and shot to death — crying out: “Viva Cristo Rey!”.

Or Bl. Miguel Pro, S.J. another priest falsely accused, this time of terrorism, was executed by firing squad in 1927, but before the bullets struck stretched out his arms like Christ on the Cross and shouted “Viva Cristo Rey!” at the moment of his death. During this treachery hundreds of noble parish priests chose to remain with their flocks, celebrating secret Masses until caught and killed.

The bishops’ failure during the Cristero War mirrors earlier moments of clerical capitulation whether it was like bishops siding with the Arians and with emperors in the 4th century, or oath swearing priests of the French Revolution or Like the English bishops, save John Fisher, under Henry VIII.

Again and again, when the faith is persecuted, many bishops act more as managers of an institution than fathers of souls. They seek compromise, peace with governments, or “prudence” — but in practice, their caution becomes betrayal. Meanwhile, it is the laity and lower clergy who most often show heroic fortitude, preserving the faith at terrible cost.

The Cristero War revealed the tragic paradox: the cry “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” came not from the mitres, but from barefoot peasants and village priests. Well educated and pampered bishops, meant to be shepherds, often abandoned the flock to the wolves, preferring political deals. And yet, and yet — out of the blood of the betrayed came martyrs, saints, and a testimony that no compromise could silence: Christ the King reigns, even when His bishops do not act like it.

The effeminacy of the hierarchy is not inevitable. History shows that God raises up Athanasiuses, Fishers, Ambroses, and Pius Vs when the majority capitulate. But it also shows the cost: whole generations may be lost when bishops choose comfort over the Cross.

Let me speak frankly, effeminacy in the hierarchy is nothing less than betrayal of their vocation. The bishop is meant to be a man of the Cross, a martyr in spirit, a father who defends his flock. When he becomes effeminate — seeking safety, praise, or ease — he ceases to be a shepherd and becomes instead a hireling, of whom Christ said: “The hireling sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees” (John 10:12).

Europe today faces wolves — demographic, ideological, spiritual. It does not need sentimental shepherds but men of fortitude. History will judge whether today’s hierarchy followed Athanasius and Fisher, or whether they chose the path of effeminacy and left Christ’s flock to be devoured. We might say that history will not look kindly on those who betray Christ, and the gift of nation, but far worse, is the explanations these privileged men will have to give at their time of judgment before Christ, that will include attending an Eid festival that openly denies his divinity.