A weekly column by Father George Rutler.
The month of October is a special time for the Rosary. On the 7th of October in 1571, in the course of the Ottoman-Habsburg Wars, a fleet of the Catholic maritime states organized by Pope St. Pius V defeated the Islamic opposition in the gulfs of Patras and Corinth. Even compared with the 1500 ships in the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. and the 200,000 personnel in the Battle of Lake Poyang in 1363, Lepanto may have been the largest naval action before Jutland in the First World War. Had the Pope not invoked the help of Our Lady of Victory by praying the Rosary, we might not be here today. The continents would not have moved, but all that we know of science, human rights, the arts and the meaning of life would be incoherent. 
