Operation True Cross
A Striking Sign from God
By Bud Macfarlane, our founder, excerpted from his December 2, 2022 Email Message.
In my email photo-diary recounting the second Washington DC "beam" of Operation True Cross, I told you that just a hundred yards before we completed the 650-mile journey, an extraordinary sign was given to our motley team (we nicknamed ourselves the Cyrenes, after Simon the Cyrene).
Yet even as this message from heaven occurred, it was impossible to understand until days later. (I'm still not sure I understand all of it.)
You'll recall that my friend Steve Thomas, his adult son David (a completely innocent and holy soul due to a disability), Randall Terry (the legendary prolife activist), and his friend Joseph walked the final mile with me. David had arrived at the last minute to drive his father back to Chicago.
Running LateBecause Randall walked in the wrong direction for a couple miles that day, we were running two hours late by the time we reached the outskirts of the University of Notre Dame campus.
This unexpected delay was actually part of a perfectly-timed divine plan for God to have us physically "cross" paths with a particular man.
A Beautiful SoulBefore we walked on campus, struck by the beauty of David's soul, we placed the Relic of the True Cross over the young man's shoulders. We all laid hands on him for a moving few minutes of prayer.
Then we began walking onto the campus of Notre Dame, my alma mater. The weather was perfect. After weeks of difficulties, we were all eager to "join the beam" and return home to our families (much later than expected).
A Pectoral CrossAs we crossed the main quad, heading toward the famous Golden Dome with Immaculate Mary atop, up ahead we saw a man in Roman collar wearing a pectoral cross. He was obviously a bishop and had a small entourage. His group was quite literally "crossing" our path.
Frankly, I wanted to keep going right past them, but Steve and his son David were already happily beelining toward the bishop—a short, pudgy man with an Italian accent. One of the men in his entourage, clearly miffed by the interruption, gave me the side-eye.
Steve briefly and beautifully explained Operation True Cross (by name), our spiritual mission, and showed the bishop the reliquary containing the True Cross hanging on David's chest, then asked for a blessing.
After an awkward moment of hesitation, the bishop blessed us and our spiritual warfare mission.
After the blessing, everyone waved good-bye, and a few minutes later we completed pilgrimage at the Grotto. Randall and Steve led us, with great fervor and emotion, in Father Ripperger's exorcism prayers, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and the Mantle of Mary Prayer. Mission accomplished.
As the radio legend, Paul Harvey, used to say: and now, for the rest of the story...
Four ScandalsMy longtime readers know, I rarely focus on specifics of corruption in the Church because our unique Marian mission is to engage in the overarching battle of "powers and principalities" while reaching millions of luke-warm and fallen away souls.
Besides, other Catholic media outlets amply report on these issues, and you already live through it every day.
However, at Notre Dame, we witnessed a striking overlap of Operation True Cross and the worldwide corruption which could not be ignored...
A few days after the encounter, Steve discovered the identity of the bishop. He was none other than Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the current president of the Pontifical Academy for Life in Rome (founded by Pope Saint John Paul II as a kind of Catholic "think tank").
Paglia is notorious in devout Catholic circles for four highly public scandals, all involving abortion and sexual perversion:
First, he has championed pro-abortion legislation in Italy.
Second, he has been purging orthodox professors from the Academy for Life since his appointment in 2016.
Third, just days before we encountered him, he made worldwide headlines by appointing openly and unapologetically pro-abortion "experts" to the explicitly prolife Academy, causing tremendous scandal and thereby sending a clear public relations message to the entire world that the Catholic Church might be willing to compromise on child-killing.
I cannot recall anything remotely similar in all of Church history.
Lastly, the archbishop commissioned and publicly championed a scandalously homoerotic mural at his home cathedral in 2007. The massive, full-wall "artwork" is so utterly repulsive that I will not link to it.
Paglia himself is depicted on this enormous mural, among many other naked figures, wearing a bishop's zucchetto cap, obviously nude and only partially covered by a flowing cloth, in an embrace with another naked man. The centerpiece of the mural is a horrific rendering of Our Lord Jesus' anatomy which is so repulsive that I will not even describe it. You should not see it; do not look it up. I wish I could unsee it.
Impossible OddsNote, my friends, that the archbishop spends virtually all of his time in Rome or in Europe, so the chances of him crossing our path at that particular spot in Indiana and at that exact moment approach zero.
In fact, if Randall's GPS app hadn't gone crazy, causing him to walk for an hour in the wrong direction, we would have missed Paglia.
If we had decided to pray over David for even a minute longer, we would have missed this member and representative of the Vatican hierarchy.
That morning, I had walked almost ten miles before transferring the True Cross to Randall, and if I had walked a bit faster, or a bit slower, we would have missed the archbishop.
In short, after 650 miles and a few million steps, this encounter at a precise moment, to that precise spot, could only have been preordained by God the Father. He alone is sovereign over time and space, and even, over human free will.
The Meaning of the SignRemember, we were in the consummating act of joining the second beam of the living spiritual warfare crucifix over America. What did this encounter mean?
I can only speak for myself. Guided by Our Lady, I undertook Operation True Cross to inspire others to join us to help God save our country through divine intervention.
The end of abortion and sexual perversion will be result of this intervention. But only if God shows our nation mercy we do not deserve, because these sins cry out to heaven for His wrath and punishment.
As most readers know, compelled while praying during the Wisconsin beam, I rescheduled the DC beam forward by months to finish it before the elections. This task did not seem possible. I was going on faith. A lot of other people, such as Steve Thomas, pitched in to overcome the daunting challenges.
For me, the blessing given by Archbishop Paglia indicates God's sovereign anointing of Operation True Cross and its goals.
Without regard to his personal actions, Paglia is an ordained priest of Jesus Christ, and will remain one into eternity (in heaven or in hell). Jesus blessed our mission through his consecrated hands. It was real.
A valid, explicit blessing of Operation True Cross was freely given by a member of the Church hierarchy. Now consider to whom the blessing was given: a history-changing pro-life activist, a sinless man named after King David, a man named after Saint Joseph, a suffering soul named after the first martyr, Stephen, and the founder of the movement (yours truly).
God could have arranged for any bishop to bless Operation True Cross. He chose a blatant representative of everything that has gone wrong in the Church over the past three generations. A man who abuses his divine authority for evil was compelled by circumstances to use that same power to confirm a spiritual warfare movement which directly opposes the diabolical causes of evil.
I do not and cannot know if this little man knowingly serves the evil one, but if he does, then it must have seared and wounded Satan to be effectively forced by God the Father to endure the blessing of a movement explicitly designed by Immaculate Mary to decimate Satan and his minions.
As an official member of the divine authority of the one holy Catholic Church founded by Christ, it may also have signified that our hidden mission of reparation is going to succeed and has ramifications for the entire world, not just America. The office the archbishop occupies represents Rome and the Vatican, and therefore the entire Church, and therefore, the entire world.
Which is actually kinda cool.
Let us pray and offer self-denials for Archbishop Paglia and for his boss.
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The Daily Prayers to Save America is part of the Mantle of Mary Project and its daring, ongoing spiritual warfare campaign, Operation True Cross.
The project was founded in 2020 by Father John Anthony Boughton, Servant General of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and Bud Macfarlane, the bestselling novelist and founder of the Mary Foundation.To become a member of the Association of the Auxilium Christianorum, visit AuxiliumChristianorum.org.
THE MANTLE OF MARY PROJECT
Operation True Cross is an initiative of the Mary Foundation's Mantle of Mary project, which began in 2020 when Father John Anthony Boughton and Bud Macfarlane "pinned" Our Lady's mantle onto the four corners of the United States as a prophetic act to call upon God's divine intervention to save America.
Father John Anthony Boughton, CFRFather John Anthony Boughton, Servant General of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, is a grizzled Texan, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and served in the U.S. Navy. He is the first Catholic in his family line in over five hundred years.
Bud Macfarlane, Troublemaker
Father John Anthony enlisted his friend, Bud Macfarlane, a Notre Dame graduate, bestselling novelist, and the tireless leader of the Mary Foundation, to bring the Mantle of Mary Project into reality through the foundation's tens of thousands of worldwide supporters. He is the father of four adult sons.
Learn more here:
Photo-Diary: Mantle Over America
Read: Bud's 9-State Living Novena
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