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Hidden connections: the mystical side of Christopher Columbus

As the secular press tries to slander him as cruel to the Indians or to take away his credit, the truth is that Christopher Columbus was not only the true discoverer of America, but also a deeply devout Christian with mystical connections.

Indeed, few know that Columbus prayed at a shrine in Spain called Guadalupe before setting off on his great journey. This was a spot where an ancient image of the Virgin had been hidden in the first centuries after the death of Christ and where she later appeared to a herdsman, telling him in 1326 to have the bishop dig up the image and build a chapel. It is believed that Columbus took a replica of the image with him on his first trip across the Atlantic, and when he arrived in the New World he named an island after Guadalupe (it is now spelled "Guadeloupe"), and soon after, the Virgin appeared to an Aztec Indian near Mexico City at a spot that was also named Guadalupe!

The devotion of Columbus was tangible. He named his ship after Christ's mother (the Santa Maria) and every night he and his crew sang the Hail Mary. According to his diary, Columbus, looking for the correct course, was guided at one critical point by a "marvelous branch of fire" that fell from the sky.

That was on September 15, 1492. Once across the Atlantic, this faithful son named the first island he came to "San Salvador" for the Savior and the second "Santa Maria de la Concepcion" for Mary, in addition to Guadeloupe and another island, Montserrat, named for another ancient apparition site near Barcelona.

Upon landfall Columbus and his men prayed the Salve Regina.

Thus, the first Christian prayer recited in the New World was an entreaty calling Mary the great advocate and Mother of God.

While in an attempt to take away his credit many point out the Vikings arrived in North America long before Columbus and that he was brutal with the Indians, the fact is that the Vikings never established their discovery (for all practical purposes, they simply skirted the northern regions and then left), and it was the Indians who were brutal. The first Caribbean natives Columbus encountered were cannibals!

Thus, despite the yearning for secular scholars to erase the mystical foundation of America, its very discovery was rooted in Christianity. Other explorers were equally devout. The Mississippi was originally called the "River of the Immaculate Conception" and the Chesapeake the "Bay of Saint Mary." Quebec was known as the "Village of Mary," and Lake George was originally called the "Lake of the Blessed Sacrament." Indians reported apparitions of the Virgin from South America to Montana, and New York State was consecrated to her before it was even known as New York.

I'm glad Christopher Columbus did what he did. I'd not be alive since he discovered the island my mother is from Trinidad, named it as such for the Holy Trinity. That's what I was taught about him. Thankfully the Spanish abandoned Trinidad when they didn't find gold though and left it to the British! The whole phenomena of Christopher Columbus opening the new world to European colonialism has its good and bad. One has to overlook the bad in light of the fact that christianity went around the world with colonialism (most of the time).

Thus, despite the yearning for secular scholars to erase the mystical foundation of America, its very discovery was rooted in Christianity.

The French Catholicism you mention - before France lost its way in one Revolution, Terror and Fraternity after another (until it's where it is today). For the founders, it was mostly Protestantism, but not necessarily Anglicanism (but rather sects persecuted by the Anglicans, via the police arm of the state). THAT is clearly the - why - for such political correctness. They have weakened the structural churches, particularly the Catholic Church. At the top, there is waste and ruin. But believers are still believers. And what's worse, centuries of those assumptions are still the fabric of America, and still what makes the nation great. They need to attack those Christian underpinnings. That's the - why.

Thus, despite the yearning for secular scholars to erase the mystical foundation of America, its very discovery was rooted in Christianity. Other explorers were equally devout. The Mississippi was originally called the "River of the Immaculate Conception" and the Chesapeake the "Bay of Saint Mary." Quebec was known as the "Village of Mary," and Lake George was originally called the "Lake of the Blessed Sacrament." Indians reported apparitions of the Virgin from South America to Montana, and New York State was consecrated to her before it was even known as New York.

And then the British arrived any renamed anything too "Romish."

The human rights tradition was, ironically, founded by the supposedly vicious Spaniards. In a way, the discrediting of Columbus is just a new version of the Black Legend, originated by English pirates subsidized by the Government of Queen Elizabeth, as an excuse for breaking the generations long commercial treaty between England and Spain, sealed by the marriage between Arthur, Prince of Wales and Princess Mary, who after the death of Arthur was to become the bride of his younger brother, Henry. Now all the European powers have been tarred by the charge of a special avarice, based on another myth, that of the noble savage. But it is Rousseau’s version of that myth, a vile man but brilliant writer, who persuaded so many of his readers of the essential evil of Christendom.