Who are these champions? They are the ones who stand out in the 800-year history of the rosary as the main promoters and heroes of the Church's preeminent form of devotion to Our Lady, the rosary.
The first champion was St. Dominic. He is the founder of the rosary, the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), and the Confraternity of the Rosary. He was a very holy priest and Our Lady first entrusted the powerful spiritual sword of the rosary to him. After him, there have been numerous others who have championed this devotion and help spread it to the ends of the earth.
one champion that not too many people know about is Saint Anthony Mary Claret, the founder of the Claretians. During his life, he received several visions of the Virgin Mary in which she instructed him that he was to be the "new St. Dominic" of his time in his promotion of the rosary. As the archbishop of Santiago, Cuba, St. Anthony mandated that all his priests pray the rosary with the people on Sundays and Solemnities. To make sure this practice was being done, St. Anthony would make surprise visits to the parishes of his diocese and watch from the back pew!
Then there is Pope Leo XIII. He is the pope who promoted the rosary more than any other pope in Church history. During his pontificate, he wrote eleven encyclicals on the rosary, as well as numerous apostolic letters and exhortations. He gave us the famous Prayer to St. Michael and added the title "Our Lady of the Rosary" to the Litany of Loreto.
Another one of champions is Blessed Bartolo Longo. He was a layman who was once an ordained Satanic priest! As a college student he had abandoned the Catholicism of his youth and started attending séances. This eventually led him to being ordained in an evil cult. After having suffered from nightmares, hallucinations, depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts, he talked to a Dominican priest and had a profound conversion. The Dominican priest told him about the power of the rosary, which led Bartolo to renounce the occult, become a Third Order Dominican, and initiate the construction of the world's most famous Shrine dedicated to the rosary: The Pontifical Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii, Italy. He was beatified in 1980 by St. John Paul II.
Then there's Blessed James Alberione. He was the founder of ten religious institutes, including the Daughters of St. Paul, and rarely gave a talk without having first prayed a rosary beforehand. Whenever he traveled anywhere, he would always invite those around him to pray the rosary and he would pray it continuously until he reached his destination!
This is but a snippet of the many interesting facts about some of the greatest champions of the rosary in the church.
The holy men and women mentioned above are only a sampling of the great champions of the rosary. By praying the rosary and promoting it, you can be a champion of the rosary of Our Lady!
One hundred years ago, Our Lady came to Fatima, Portugal, and asked the three little children to pray the rosary daily for conversion and peace in the world. During the last apparition on October 13, 1917, Mary specifically referred to herself as "The Lady of the Rosary." The rosary is at the heart of the Fatima message and we need the rosary in our lives more than ever today.
Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.