Editor’s Note: Another historic gaff; another flabby denial and retraction. The Catholics in Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic States are outraged, that Pope Francis has praised an Empire which from its existence has persecuted the Catholic Faith. — But as I often remark, you cannot excise the love of Russia from the heart of anyone who admires Marxism, even if he be a Jesuit.

The Franciscan Pope, Clement XVI, in his brief Dominus ac Redemptor of July 21, 1773 A. D. suppressed the Society of Jesus permanently. The renegades then fled to Russia and chose the Russian Orthodox Schismatic Emperor to be their protector. Pope Pius VII, on account of his alliance with the Tsar against Napoleon, approved the Jesuits in Russia in 1801 and fully restored them in 1814.

I, like many others, believe that was a tragic mistake, for obvious reasons.