How the miraculous conversion of a French Jew connects to Our Lady’s plan for peace in the Middle East

(LifeSiteNews) — The on-going genocide in Gaza and the refusal of the Netyanahu government to respect the basic human rights of the Arab population has generated a feeling of hopelessness, not only among the victims but also among Catholics around the world who feel powerless to intervene effectively on their behalf. The life and example of the Jewish convert Fr. Alphonse Marie Ratisbonne provides a key to ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to preventing a widening war in the Middle East.  

In Romans 11, St. Paul predicts the future conversion of the Jewish people to faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Redeemer. There are two parts to the fulfillment of St. Paul’s prediction. First, the “times of the Gentiles must be fulfilled,” and then the mass conversion of the Jewish people will take place, when they will “come in” to the Catholic Church.   In the conversion of Fr. Alphonse Marie Ratisbonne we can see these two elements in a microcosm, as a foreshadowing of the future fulfillment of Romans 11 when the Jewish people as a whole will recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah.  From his conversion we can learn how to intercede and intervene effectively for an end to the genocide in Gaza and to the conflict between Israel and her neighbors in the Middle East. 

Is the Mosaic Covenant eternally valid?

Since Vatican II, there has been a tendency on the part of Church leaders to discourage the evangelization of the Jewish people. From the beginning of the Church, the Fathers, Doctors and Popes in their authoritative teaching maintained that the Mosaic covenant had been superseded by the New Covenant and thus is no longer valid, but today many Church leaders, like Kurt Cardinal Koch, hold that the Mosaic covenant is salvific and that it is no longer appropriate to evangelize Jews. This was certainly the plain and obvious sense of paragraph 839 in the original English version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which read:

… the covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them.

Largely through the work of a Catholic layman who protested against this apparent deviation from the constant teaching of the Church, the United Sates bishops voted to ask the Vatican to approve a small change in the U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults. In the words of The Catholic Review, the official newspaper of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, the purpose of the change was:

… to clarify church teaching on God’s covenant with the Jewish people. The proposed change – which would replace one sentence in the catechism – was discussed by the bishops in executive session at their June meeting in Orlando, Fla., but did not receive the needed two-thirds majority of all members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at that time. After mail balloting, the final vote of 231-14, with one abstention, was announced Aug. 5 in a letter to bishops from Monsignor David Malloy, USCCB general secretary. The change, which must be confirmed by the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, would remove from the catechism a sentence that reads: ‘Thus the covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them.’ Replacing it would be this sentence: ‘To the Jewish people, whom God first chose to hear his word, ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ’ (Rom 9:4-5; cf. CCC, No. 839).

‘Talking points’ distributed to the bishops along with Monsignor Malloy’s letter said the proposed revision ‘is not a change in the church’s teaching.’ ‘Catholics understand that all previous covenants that God made with the Jewish people have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ through the new covenant established through his sacrificial death on the cross,’ the talking points say. ‘The prior version of the text,’ they continue, ‘might be understood to imply that one of the former covenants imparts salvation without the mediation of Christ, whom Christians believe to be the universal savior of all people’ (emphasis added).

From this report we can see that the “ambiguity” in the original, approved text of CCC 839 was not a minor mishap but a matter of spiritual life and death, as it inclined Catholic readers to believe that Cardinal Koch is correct when he instructs Catholics to stop evangelizing Jews, thus depriving them of the opportunity to hear the Good News of salvation.

‘Be transformed by the renewal of your mind’

The tendency on the part of many Church leaders and theologians to discourage evangelization of our Jewish brothers and sisters has not only been disastrous for the Jews. It has also been disastrous for the Catholic faithful. Those who hold that the Mosaic covenant is salvific deny the need for the supernatural grace that comes only through Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. This, in turn, leads to the false belief that natural goods are the highest goods and that the supernatural goods of the Church are non-essential and even superfluous. When even Catholics communicate to Jewish neighbors that they do not need Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church to achieve the purpose of their existence and to gain eternal life, our Jewish brethren naturally try to find happiness through the pursuit of natural goods and Catholics lose their motivation to strive for the supernatural ones. 

In St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, chapter 11, St. Paul predicts the ultimate conversion of “all Israel” when the “fullness” of the Gentiles will enter in to the Kingdom of God. This “fullness” can be interpreted in at least three different ways—as the total number of Gentiles who will be saved; as a representative number of Gentiles from every nation on earth; and as a remnant perfected by the Holy Spirit in whom the fullness of divinity dwells bodily as it did in Christ’s Humanity. It is this last interpretation that makes the most sense in relation to the verses that follow—because St. Paul begins his next section, chapter 12, verses 1-2, by saying to his Gentile audience:

I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Be transformed (metamorpho) by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2).

Here the Holy Spirit, in and through St. Paul, applies the same word for the revelation of the Divinity of Christ in His Humanity to the manifestation of the Divinity of Christ in the humanity of His disciples. And lest this should scandalize anyone, St. Paul uses the word a second time, in the same sense—as if to remove all doubt about its meaning—in his second letter to the Corinthians. He writes:

We beholding the Lord are being changed (metamorpho) from one degree of glory into another, into His perfect image and likeness. This is the work of the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16-18).

In this passage St. Paul affirms that every Christian is called to be transformed into the perfect image and likeness of Christ, from one degree of holiness to another, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  But since there is only one human being who lived in perfect unity with God in every moment of her life—the Blessed Virgin Mary—God in His providence has chosen Her, especially in these times, to teach us how to live one life with Him, by consecrating ourselves to Him through her Immaculate Heart.  

The Miraculous Medal 

The development of consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the means to achieve the conversion of the Jewish people has been an ongoing work of God for centuries, but a number of providential events converged around the conversion of the secular Jew Fr. Alphonse-Marie Ratisbonne in 1842. A first step in the development of the spirituality of consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary was the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Catherine Laboure’ in the Rue du Bac in Paris in 1830. With this apparition, 24 years before the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Blessed Virgin invited the faithful to invoke her powerful intercession as “Mary, conceived without sin.” Moreover, She showed St. Catherine Laboure’ two versions of the front side of a medal, one portraying Herself as Mediatrix of all Graces, the other portraying Herself as the Virgin of the Globe. In God’s Providence, the technology of the day dictated that the Mediatrix of all Graces appeared on the first version of what came to be called the Miraculous Medal because it was easier to produce. But in her explanation of the image of the Virgin of the Globe, Our Lady told St. Catherine that the golden globe in her hands represented “the whole world, France, and each soul in particular,” thus indicating that the first version of the medal and the invocation and interior imitation of Our Lady as the Immaculate Conception would be the means to transform each soul into the perfect image and likeness of Jesus, symbolized by the golden sphere. 

Our Lady of Victories 

A second step toward the establishment of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary took place in the Church of Our Lady of Victories in Paris. In the words of an article on that church: 

In December of 1629 the first stone was placed to build the Convent Church for the Augustinian Priest, called ‘the little Fathers.’ Louis XIII financed all the work for the Church and named it ‘Our Lady of Victories,’ in appreciation to the Virgin for the recent victories won by the French guaranteeing the unity of his kingdom. One of the brothers of the Convent, brother Fiacre, prayed before the image of Our Lady of Victories for the birth of the future heir to the throne long awaited for 15 years: Louis Diedonne, the future Louis XIV.

God’s designs were greater and His victories are much more important and definite for all humanity, obtained through the intercession of His Mother. The Blessed Mother chose this place to bring to God her dispersed children separated because of sin and its consequences, wars and atheism. Brother Fiacre, returning from a pilgrimage to Savona (Italy), started invoking Our Lady of Victories under the title ‘Refuge of Sinners.’

During the French Revolution terror was extended through out France. The Augustinians were expelled from their Convent and the Church was established as a place for money exchange. Many things changed with Napoleon who due to political interests wanted to appear as a friend of the Church. Between 1800 and1809 the Church was re-erected as parish, but because it was located in a business neighborhood and lack of faith was fruit of the revolution, the Church had very little attendance. Human efforts did not help the situation. The Church was open but the hearts of men were away from God.

This was the state of things on August 27^th, 1832, when Father Carlos Eleonor des Genettes was installed Pastor of Our Lady of Victories. The Church was abandoned and poor. The spiritual state of the parish was so decadent that the following Sunday the priest counted on only 4 persons with the choir and during the entire year of 1835 only 720 holy communions were distributed.

For four and half years the Pastor endured the spiritual sufferings of seeing no fruit in all his efforts and work. He started to get depressed because of the sterility of his ministry and the apparent desperate situation. This is how the priest was on December 3^rd, 1836. While celebrating Holy Mass in the main altar of the Church of Our Lady, he pronounced the liturgical prayer of the day. Pronouncing the words ‘Judica me,’ he sensed an interior awakening: ‘Judge me, O Lord!’

If the Lord was going to judge me today, how would he find me? Perhaps as a failure? Has there been a priest so sterile in his ministry like me? The priest asked himself interiorly all these questions.

This interior thought in his mind became a lance that pierced his heart. His mind was only on this to the point of not being able to concentrate on the rest of the Mass prayers. Finally, he concluded that presenting his resignation as Pastor would be best.

When he started praying the Eucharistic prayer, he made great effort to concentrate and recollect himself during this sublime moment of the Consecration. But he felt perturbed more than ever. He pleaded the Lord to deliver him of distractions to offer the Holy Sacrifice in a worthy state. At this moment he heard clearly these words: ‘Consecrate your parish to the Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary.’

These words resounded in his heart, and immediately he had great interior peace. The obsessive thoughts he had moments before disappeared. After concluding Mass and during the time of thanksgiving, he reviewed in his mind all that had happened, saying to himself: ‘perhaps all this is a fantasy produced by my imagination.’ But when he got up from his chair to conclude the Mass celebration, he heard again the same words: ‘Consecrate your parish to the Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ He fell to his knees before these words, but was fearful of accepting them as authentic since he thought it was an illusion. He tried to ignore and forget them, but the words returned to his mind with more intensity. Finally, he decided to respond to the petition more so to acquire interior peace than think it will prove successful for his parish.

He resolved to fully obey the petition. It was evident that the purpose of the consecration of his parish to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was to motivate the parishioners to pray to the Immaculate Heart and frequently seek recourse to the protection and maternal care of the Blessed Virgin. He thought the best way to establish this was to form a religious association with specific prayers, meetings, and norms.

In only eight days Father Genettes had written and approved by the Archbishop of Paris the statues for the association. On Sunday, December 11^th, he announced from the pulpit that beginning with that same afternoon special prayers and devotions will be said asking the Lord, through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the conversion of sinners.

Since only 10 men attended Mass that afternoon and heard the announcement, the priest did not think many people were going to attend. But the Blessed Virgin Mary started to reveal her plan. After Mass two men who had never attended Mass approached Father Genettes and requested the sacrament of confession. At 6:00 pm, the time announced for the prayers and devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 400-500 people made their presence in the Church. Everyone was surprised and could not believe the amount of people present. No more than 10 people had been seen in the parish for many years.

At the beginning of prayer, some were indifferent, but as the prayers and devotions continued, their hearts gradually started to melt under the fire of the Maternal Heart of Mary. At the end, all united their voices singing the Litanies of Our Lady and the Divine Praises before the Blessed Sacrament. Everyone decided to return to the Church and participate in these devotions which animated their faith and brought back peace and joy to their hearts.

A sign from the Virgin

The Pastor, Father Genettes, was very emotional, but was not completely convinced that this way given by the Lord and directed towards the Heart of Mary had all the necessary results. The priests asked the Virgin for a sign, for the conversion of Mr. Joly who was the last minister of Louis XVI. In his youth this man accepted anti-clerical doctrine and was against the Church. He was then 80 years old, blind and very ill and for many years he had refused to practice any religion. Father Genettes had tried many times to get closer to Mr. Joly, but they were unsuccessful.

On December 12^th, Father Genettes returned to Mr. Joly’s house. The servants did not want to let him in the house, but the priest insisted again and was able to reach the elderly man. Only a few courteous words were spoken when Mr. Joly asked the priest for his blessing. Profoundly moved, the priest blessed him and at that moment the elderly man exclaimed: ‘Your visit has been so good for me, Father! I cannot see you but I feel your presence. The moment you entered my room I felt peace, interior calm, and a joy I have never experienced before.’ The priest, seeing the good disposition of Mr. Joly, asked if he wanted to confess. The elderly man immediately agreed.

Father Genettes asked for a sign and received it clearly. Now he was convinced that he was doing the will of God and that he had a mission to accomplish. He encountered many obstacles, like all of God’s work, but the Association immediately flourished. In ten days, 214 people became members.

The Association continued growing gradually and extended throughout Paris, later throughout the rest of France and the entire world. By spring of 1838, the extraordinary history of the Association in obtaining great conversions, miracles and innumerable graces, reached the attention of the Holy Father. Impressed by the idea of the Association’s fruits, Pope Gregory XVI issued a report erecting perpetually in the Church of Our Lady of Victories, the Confraternity of the Blessed and Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the conversion of sinners. 

The conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne 

These providential developments prepared the way for the instantaneous conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne, from a secular Jew and a member of the Rothschild banking family, to a zealous Catholic determined to spend his life in the service of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. In the words of a short account of his conversion by Armando Santos:

Alphonse Ratisbonne was a young Jew from a family of well-established bankers in Strasbourg, France. He also was socially prominent due to his wealth and blood-ties to the Rothschild.

In 1827, Alphonse’s older brother, Thèodore, converted to Catholicism and entered the priesthood, thus breaking with his family whose hopes now lay in the young Alphonse, born in 1814.

Alphonse was intelligent and well mannered, had already finished his law degree and was engaged to a young Jewess, his niece. He was twenty-seven years old and, before marrying, he wanted to travel on holiday to Italy and the East. Upon his return, he planned to marry and take on his responsibilities in his family’s banking business.

God, however, had other plans for him in Rome.

Alphonse was not a practicing Jew. He nourished a profound hatred for the Catholic Church, especially because of the resentment his whole family had due to their first-born’s defection. Alphonse said he would never change religion. But if one day he were to change, he would become a Protestant, never a Catholic.

While in Rome, Ratisbonne visited works of art, as well as some Catholic churches, out of cultural curiosity. These visits hardened his anti-Catholic stance.

He also visited an old schoolmate and close friend named Gustave de Bussières. Gustave was a Protestant and several times had tried, in vain, to win Alphonse over to his religious convictions. In Gustave’s house, Alphonse was introduced to Gustave’s brother, Baron Thèodore de Bussières, who had just recently converted to Catholicism. Baron Thèodore, in turn, was a close friend of Father Thèodore Ratisbonne. Because of these two circumstances, Alphonse greatly disliked him.

Thus it was only on the eve of his departure that he reluctantly resolved to fulfill his social obligation to leave his calling card at the Baron’s house as a farewell gesture.

Hoping to avoid a meeting, Alphonse intended to leave his card discreetly and depart straight away. The Baron’s Italian servant, however, did not understand his French and showed him into the parlor while he went to call the Baron. The latter greeted the young Jew and immediately established cordial relations, while trying to attract him to the Catholic Faith.

With much insistence, he was able to persuade Alphonse to delay his departure from Rome in order to attend a ceremony to be held at Saint Peter’s Basilica. He further succeeded in persuading Ratisbonne to accept a Miraculous Medal and to promise to copy down a very beautiful prayer: the Memorare. Had this not been inspired by grace, it would have been utterly indiscreet.

The Jew could hardly contain his anger at the Baron’s boldness of proposing these things to him, but decided to take everything good-heartedly, hoping, as he later declared, to write a book about his travels. In this book, the Baron would appear as nothing more than an eccentric man.

Let us take a moment to reflect on Baron de Bussiere’s attempt to evangelize Alphonse Ratisbonne. No sooner had he been introduced to Alphonse than he began to speak to him about the beauty of the Catholic Faith, invited him to church, gave him a Miraculous Medal, and asked him to repeat a prayer to Our Lady every day! Within the theological framework of Cardinal Koch, the baron’s actions would have been totally unwarranted; the Cardinal would no doubt have urged him rather to focus on collaboration with Alphonse in the material improvement of his people. But “the tree is judged by its fruits,” and the glorious fruits of Baron de Bussiere’s evangelistic zeal will continue to multiply until the end of the world.  Santos continues:

On January 18, a close friend of the Baron de Bussières died. He was Count de La Ferronays, the former French ambassador to the Holy See and a man of great virtue and piety. On the eve of his sudden death, La Ferronays was talking to Bussières about Ratisbonne and, at the request of Bussières, prayed the Memorare one hundred times for his conversion . . .  

Around midday on January 20, the Baron de Bussières went to the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte to arrange for his deceased friend’s funeral to be held the following day. Ratisbonne reluctantly went along making violent criticisms of the Church and mocking Catholic practices. When they arrived at the church, the Baron left him alone for a few minutes and entered the sacristy to see about the funeral arrangements. Alphonse decided to look around and went up one of the side aisles since he could not cross over due to the preparations for the Count’s funeral in the central nave.

When the Baron returned just a few minutes later, he did not find Alphonse where he had left him. After much searching, he found him on the other side of the Church kneeling close to an altar, weeping. He no longer found a Jew, but a convert who ardently desired baptism.

Ratisbonne himself tells us what happened in those few minutes:

“I had only been in the church a short while when, all of a sudden, I felt totally uneasy for no apparent reason. I raised my eyes and saw that the whole building had disappeared. Only one side chapel had, so to say, gathered all the light. In the midst of this splendor, the Virgin Mary appeared standing on the altar. She was grandiose, brilliant, full of majesty and sweetness, just as she is in the Miraculous Medal.  An irresistible force attracted me to her. The Virgin made a gesture with her hand indicating I was to kneel and as if saying ‘very good!’ Although she did not say anything, I understood everything.”

Ratisbonne never could explain how, being in one of the lateral naves before the apparition, he was found in the other, since the central nave was obstructed. However, in face of the magnitude of the miracle of his conversion, this was but a detail.

‘Will you not lift up your eyes to the Savior?’

By his own account, Alphonse’s first words after the miracle were “thanksgiving to M. Laferronays and to the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of the Victory.” In God, Alphonse knew that the prayers of Laferronays had been the most effective on his behalf but that the prayers of the members of the Archconfraternity headquartered in Paris had also played a definite part in obtaining for him the grace of true repentance and conversion. As he thought of his family members, he immediately began to pray for them, that they might be enlightened and seek to be cleansed of Original Sin:

Will you not lift up your eyes to the Savior of the world whose blood has cancelled the original sin? Oh, how terrible is the imprint of that stain!  It renders the creature made in the image of God unrecognizable.  

He wondered how he came to know this truth about Original Sin:

Since it is sure that I had not opened a religious book. I had not read a single page of the Bible, and the doctrine on Original Sin, that is totally forgotten and denied by modern Jews, had not occupied my mind for even an instant; I doubt if I have ever heard the term.  

It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of Alphonse Ratisbonne’s insight into the reality of Original Sin, obtained through the prayers of the only human being who ever lived her entire life completely free from its effects. Through the prayers of Our Lady, Alphonse saw with the eyes of his soul the natural state of every human being who has not received the grace of Holy Baptism and been cleansed of the stain of Original Sin. Through the prayers of the Immaculate Conception, Alphonse saw in an instant the moral and spiritual deformity of all un-baptized souls, and the impossibility of establishing true peace on earth apart from the social reign of Christ the King and His Church throughout the world.  

This clear, traditional understanding of the reality of Original Sin clashes violently with the novel understanding, so common today, that “original sin” was merely the inevitable result of “hominization” when God infused human souls into two or more evolved sub-human primates to “create” the first humans. At a recent gathering of theologians, one speaker expressed the dominant view among his peers in regard to the Fall into Original Sin by saying that when God infused human souls into evolved sub-human primates, these first humans fell “UP” into consciousness—to which a friend of mine responded that he was old-fashioned enough to believe that when we fall, we fall DOWN, and not UP!  

For his part, Alphonse had no doubt about the truth.  He saw, in God, what the Council of Trent had solemnly defined about Original Sin, without having read a word of Catholic doctrine.  

Pope Gregory XVI certifies the miracle of Alphonse Ratisbonne’s conversion 

From the moment of his conversion, Alphonse longed to retire from the world and to worship God in obscurity.  As Santos explains in his account, Ratisbonne’s confessor counseled him to take up his cross and embrace a mission on behalf of his people:

Pope Gregory XVI wished to meet the young convert and received him paternally. He ordered a detailed investigation with all the rigor required by canon law. The conclusion was that it was truly an authentic miracle.

Having taken the name Maria Alphonse at baptism, Ratisbonne wished to become a Jesuit and was ordained in 1847. After a while and at the suggestion of Blessed Pope Pius IX, he left the Jesuits and joined his brother Thèodore in founding the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion, dedicated to the conversion of the Jews.

Father Theodore spread his congregation throughout France and England, while Father Maria Alphonse went to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem he bought a plot of land where the praetorium of Pilate had formerly stood. Here he established a house of the congregation. 

In 1856, the first sisters of Fr. Alphonse Marie’s congregation arrived in the Holy Land and work began on a convent called the Ecce Homo, in the Old City of Jerusalem.  From the Ecce Homo convent the congregation launched a school that by 1881 enrolled almost 200 students. In 1861 the congregation purchased a house in St. John in Montana (Ein Kerem), and Fr. Théodore selected seven sisters from six different countries to form a new community. It began as a boarding school for orphans, and by 1881 accommodated 100 children. As Alphonse labored tirelessly for the conversion of the Jews, Muslims, and other unbelievers, he and his co-workers in the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion engaged in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, but without ever losing sight of the primary importance of conversion to the Catholic Faith.  

Sadly, in the century after Fr. Alphonse Maria’s death in 1884, the members of his congregation seem to have gradually embraced the spirit of Cardinal Koch and to have abandoned almost all efforts to work and pray for the conversion of the Muslims, Jews, and other unbelievers in the Holy Land. And if the situation in the Middle East has now reached a nadir never seen before, and the warring parties have brought the world to the brink of a Third World War, the example of Fr. Alphonse-Marie Ratisbonne calls all Catholics back to our primary mission—through the prayers of Our Lady to cooperate with the grace of God in our own sanctification and, so, to become her instruments in the conversion and sanctification of all souls and of every nation. 

Lessons from the life of Fr. Alphonse-Marie Ratisbonne

In conclusion, several lessons can be drawn from the miraculous conversion and holy life of Fr. Alphonse-Marie Ratisbonne:

In the first place, all Catholics should consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and dedicate themselves to evangelizing the whole world.  Our Lady of Fatima invites every Catholic to begin to live this consecration by making the Five First Saturdays, as explained in her apparition to Sister Lucia of Fatima on December 10, 1925.  

In addition, Catholics should pray and work in a special way for the conversion of the Jewish people, using sacramentals, like the Miraculous Medal, and approved Marian prayers, like the Rosary and the Memorare, to obtain the grace of true repentance and conversion for everyone we meet. 

Finally, and most importantly, Catholics should strive, in a special way, to live one life with Jesus in every moment, so that by our every thought, word and deed we can hasten the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the social reign of Christ Our King throughout the world. 

Feast of St. Francis Xavier 

December 3, 2024

Hugh Owen is the founder and director of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation which provides a forum for Catholic theologians, philosophers, and natural scientists who defend the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation as the foundation of our Faith and as the only firm foundation for a culture of life. The Kolbe Center has two main websites, www.kolbecenter.org and www.foundationsrestored.com Instructions for making the Five First Saturdays can be found at the website of the Fatima Center https://fatima.org/