I have been reading Fr John Horgan’s His Angels at our Side (EWTN/Gracewing) which I will blog about shortly. Meanwhile, one of his many reflections has caught my attention. Writing on the need for spiritual humility – probably the hardest of all the virtues to attain – he mentions the celebrated Secretary of State to Pope St Pius X: Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val.
Every so often, his name comes up in reading, always as the expression goes – very apt in this instance – “on the side of the angels.” The latest reference I read mentioned that Merry del Val was one of a small minority in the hierarchy to champion the integrity of Padre Pio, the Capuchin friar and stigmatic, when his many enemies in the Church wanted him silenced as a fraud.
