The Catholic Thing—
On October 7, AD 1571, the fleet of the Holy League under the command of one Don Juan de Austria defeated the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto. That was how they would put it; that was how they would teach it to their children. And it was wrong. For what really happened was that God made use of a number of his servants to stop the progress of the Crescent in the holy name of the Cross.
– Louis de Wohl, The Last Crusader: A Novel about Don Juan of Austria
Louis de Wohl’s biographical masterpiece, written from the perspective of Don Juan of Austria, names the titular hero “the last crusader.” The novel opens with his childhood, playing a game of “Moors against Christians,” and closes on the evening of October 7, 1571, when he had achieved the miraculous victory at the Battle of Lepanto. His men invite him to leave the ship for dinner, reminding him that he fought all day eating only “a few biscuits and a goblet of wine.”
Today we celebrate that victory, which is impossible to remember without God. Four hundred years ago, Christian Europe was embroiled in the… read more>>
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