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By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Mar 08, 2022

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org.

 

When I was reading Elizabeth Lev’s delightful art history of St. Joseph (for my review with pictures, see Arriving at St. Joseph), I was reminded that back in 1937 Pope Pius XI placed the campaign of the Church against Communism under the patronage of St. Joseph. He did this in an encyclical which was also released on the Feast of St. Joseph:

To hasten the advent of that “peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ” so ardently desired by all, We place the vast campaign of the Church against world Communism under the standard of St. Joseph, her mighty Protector. He belongs to the working-class, and he bore the burdens of poverty for himself and the Holy Family, whose tender and vigilant head he was. To him was entrusted the Divine Child when Herod loosed his assassins against Him. In a life of faithful performance of everyday duties, he left an example for all those who must gain their bread by the toil of their hands. He won for himself the title of “The Just,” serving thus as a living model of that Christian justice which should reign in social life. [Divini Redemptoris, no. 81]

Communism is not yet entirely dead, but its threat to the world was vastly reduced by the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, sixty-nine years after its founding, and 54 years after the Pope’s proclamation. …

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