formidable geographical landscape and France’s intimate diplomatic friendship and military protection, the people of Monaco owe a great debt of gratitude to God for the many blessings He has bestowed on their country. Without a doubt, in this year marking the 800th anniversary of the founding of the order of Franciscan Friars in 1209, by St. Francis of Assisi, the “saint of peace” one of the first initiatives Prince Albert II must absolutely prayerfully contemplate undertaking, in order to repay Monaco’s debt of gratitude to God for the peace and prosperity it has enjoyed, is to take out those deadly and violent swords wielded by the Franciscan Friars in Monaco’s royal coat of arms, and substitute the symbol of an olive branch and a crucifix.

It is a high moral crime, a religious sacrilege and an act of ecclesiastical malfeasance against the Franciscan Order and the life and legacy of St. Francis of Assisi—the saint associated with peacemakers—for Monaco to memorialize in its heraldry the political and moral deceit orchestrated in 1297 by Francesco Grimaldi, (called “Il Malizia”, the Cunning) and his small army who deceptively disguised themselves as Franciscan Friars to violently seize the fortressed citadel-like castle of Monaco. Monaco must recall the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ to St. Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, in Sacred Scripture, when St. Peter drew his sword and stroke the servant of the high priest when Christ was violently taken by the Roman guards. Our Lord Jesus Christ said to St. Peter, “Put again thy sword into its place; for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”

Ironically, 2009 also marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Francesco Grimaldi in 1309. Prince Albert II would do well to take the lead in letting Francesco Grimaldi’s deception and deceit die with him by charting a new course in Monaco’s national religious, political and moral reconciliation history that is both penitent and redemptive. One of the first acts Prince Albert II must execute in recommitting the souls of his Catholic subjects—and indeed the whole Catholic Monegasque nation to God is to end the historic spiritual curse that prevails over the people of Monaco by removing the raised swords of violence from over his subjects’ heads, literally.

By removing the swords from Monaco’s royal coat of arms and substituting them with an olive branch and a crucifix, respectively, Prince Albert II would be proactively reviving the precious Catholic legacy bequeathed to him by his parents, Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace, from three critical perspectives; 1) from a national sovereign perspective, by taking out the sword symbols as a sovereign act of historical and political penance, he would be ending the history of the nation’s old royal coat of arms that shamefully recapitulated the dastardly act of ecclesial deceit perpetrated under the cloak of night by his ancestor, Francesco Grimaldi, 2) from a Catholic ecclesiastical perspective, by substituting the new symbols of an olive branch and a crucifix, he would be making public spiritual reparation for Francesco Grimaldi’s using the habit of the Franciscan Friars—a Catholic religious order dedicated to peace and peacemaking--to wield a terrorist act of barbary and violence upon a Catholic state; and 3) from a diplomatic irenological perspective, by officially inaugurating a whole new coat of arms that incorporates an olive branch and a crucifix, Prince Albert would be redeeming the future of the Roman Catholic Monegasque nation by reconsecrating the royal soul of Monaco and all its subjects and inhabitants to the mercy of God, through an act of true and holy peace diplomacy, which would put Monaco under the prayerful protection and grace of the Sacred Passion, Precious Blood and Holy Cross of Christ for the cause of the moral excellence of peace. For Prince Albert II to keep those swords of violence incorporated into the heraldry of Monaco’s royal coat of arms and raised up over the heads of the people of Monaco is to continue to formally condemn and curse his Catholic nation to spiritual demise by royal decree, and to sanction and impose upon his people, (who are also more importantly God’s people), the recompense of the capital sins, i.e., covetousness, anger and envy; three of the seven deadly sins, that first provoked this historical legacy, and that incurs the wrath of God upon himself, his Monegasque subjects and all other inhabitants of Monaco.

My prayer for Monaco is that Prince Albert II will have the moral courage to inaugurate an era of True Catholic Faith, Justice and Reconciliation in the Principality that becomes as infamous as the faces of Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace, and the glamour, luxury, beauty, opulence and aristocratic elegance of the Principality of Monaco. Maybe one day Prince Albert will have the overwhelming popular support of a truly loyal Catholic nation to even close the Monte Carlo casino—for no truly holy, devout Catholic country could or would have a casino as the moral and monetary heart of its economy. Does not the Catholic community in the Principality of Monaco realize how ethically incongruent it is to have a gambling casino funding a Catholic state? Maybe in time with the global financial crisis this too will change.

Indeed, as the legacies of Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace reflect, the sacred spiritual vocation of a monarch, most especially a Catholic monarch is to love his/her subjects more then they love themselves with a selfless and divine love that is for the Highest Good of the Nation and for the Greater Glory of God, to whom the monarch, in the end, must render an account. For all the reasons that money has the biblical reputation of being the root of all evil, a moral conversion will be an especially challenging and controversial endeavor for the Principality of Monaco and its monied inhabitants. Nonetheless, we are reminded of the scriptural admonition found in the Gospel of St. Luke that “nothing is impossible for God.”

Thus, for this precious remnant Catholic petit-nation and its Sovereign, Prince Albert II, we solemnly pray to God and to his Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Monaco, pray for us.

Contact

Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe
http://www.catholic.org  OH, US
Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe - Vatican/Monaco Scholar, 202 679-1438

Email

jpiivaticanworldscholar@email.com

Keywords

Monaco Catholicism