Buenos Aires, Argentina, Oct 12, 2003 / 22:00 pm
The Bishop of the Diocese of the Military in Argentina, Antonio Baseotto, celebrated Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, the principal Marian devotion in the country, in which he said that in order to overcome the “profound crisis” that the country and the Military and the Security Forces face, we should “go to our Mother with total confidence” and in this struggle utilize “the weapon which our ancestors used, the Holy Rosary.”
As Military personnel made their pilgrimage to the Marian shrine and closed out the Year of the Rosary, Bishop Baseotto, reminded them that “history bears witness” to the vale of the Rosary.
“In the fifteenth century when the destruction of Christendom seemed imminent because of the holy war being carried out by the Ottoman Empire, the Battle of Lepanto changed the course of history. All of Christendom implored the Blessed Mother through the recitation of the Rosary,” he said.
The Bishop also recalled that “at the end of World War II, when everything indicated that all of Eastern Europe would fall under the grasp of Communism, a humble Austrian Franciscan called for a Rosary Crusade, and although surrounded on all sides, Austria did not fall to red flag of Communist Russia.