Each of us, in the face of an atrocity, can only pray to the Madonna with the Sword-Pierced Heart, seeking the mercy of her Son for sinful humanity and seeking to share in her sorrow for those innocent victims of man’s inhumanity to man.

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross….

G.K. Chesterton (From “Lepanto”)

These lines from Chesterton serve to highlight the controversy surrounding the role of the sword in the history of Christendom, which my recent essay “War, Weddings and Wisdom” seems to have evoked. I quoted from Gertrud von le Fort’s novel, The Wedding of Magdeburg, that “the Blessed Virgin was no longer the Madonna of Victory but the Madonna with the Sword-Pierced Heart”. The novel places these words in the mind of Count Tilly, commander of the imperial forces besieging the Protestant city of Magdeburg during the Thirty Years’ War, as he begins to understand that the Blessed Virgin’s victory was the victory of the Cross. “Did Mary not want a war of religion? Would she rather endure the pain of religious division instead?” As Count Tilly contemplates these questions, “he suddenly felt as though he’d misunderstood the Blessed Virgin his entire life. For Mary did not triumph with sword in hand, Mary triumphed with the sword in her heart; she achieved victory through the suffering love of her Divine Son!”

Count Tilly’s conclusion was countered by someone commenting on my essay: “If one follows this logic, Our Lady of the Rosary would have been wrongfully invoked at Lepanto because of the good intentions of so many of the Turks.”

At first sight, this objection seems reasonable enough. The Battle of Lepanto was fought in 1571 between a Christian fleet defending Christian Europe and a Turkish armada intent on the invasion of the West. Had the Christians not triumphed, the very heart of Christendom would have been conquered by the Islamic Ottoman Empire. No wonder, in Chesterton’s famous lines, the Pope had “cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.” The pope in question was St. Pius V who also called upon Christians to pray the rosary for the Blessed Virgin’s intercession on the eve of the battle. Following the triumph of the Christian fleet, the feast of Our Lady of Victory was instigated on October 7, the date of the battle, which is still celebrated today as the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

It seems, therefore, that the Catholic Church is keen to pray to the Madonna of Victory and does so especially on her annual feast day. Does this throw into question Count Tilly’s conclusion during the Siege of Magdeburg that “the Blessed Virgin was no longer the Madonna of Victory but the Madonna with the Sword-Pierced Heart”? Does the commander of the besieging forces of the Holy Roman Empire know better than the Holy Roman Church?

Let’s consider this carefully by contemplating the moment when Count Tilly is contemplating this question. He does so as his army is preparing to sack the city of Magdeburg. It is 1631, sixty years after the Battle of Lepanto. The enemy is not an invading army of Muslims but his fellow countrymen defending their own homes. He knows the rules of engagement when a city is sacked. He knows that the conquering army enjoys the “spoils of war”. He knows that this means that his own army will become an ungovernable mob, plundering, pillaging and raping. After the sacking of the city, it is estimated that 20,000 citizens of Magdeburg, four-fifths of the city’s population, were killed. The women and no doubt many children were raped. In the wake of such a monstrosity can we doubt Count Tilly’s conclusion that “the Blessed Virgin was no longer the Madonna of Victory but the Madonna with the Sword-Pierced Heart”?

Should Count Tilly have been on the Christian ships at the Battle of Lepanto, he would no doubt have fought courageously for the defence of Christendom, praying to Our Lady of Victory as he wielded the sword. Should he have been at the Siege of Vienna in 1683, he would have fought equally courageously to defend the Christian city from the invading Ottoman Empire, thereby saving Christendom from the Islamic yoke and the citizens of Vienna from rape, pillage, plunder and slaughter. No doubt he would have prayed to the Madonna of Victory as he wielded his sword in defence of “all good things our Christendom brings” (to quote Hilaire Belloc). But could Count Tilly, or anyone with a Christian heart, pray to the Madonna of Victory during the debauchery of Magdeburg? Each of us, in the face of such atrocity, can only pray to the Madonna with the Sword-Pierced Heart, seeking the mercy of her Son for sinful humanity and seeking to share in her sorrow for those innocent victims of man’s inhumanity to man.

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The featured image is “Madonna della Vittoria” (between 1495-1496), by Andrea Mantegna. This file is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.