French Martyrs at Vendée vs. Socialism

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DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - The producer of a film on the slaughter of French Catholics in the Vendée, and Cdl. Robert Sarah, want Catholics to imitate the martyrs of Vendée in opposing anti-Christian governments.

Before American voters are seduced this year by a presidential candidate steeped in socialist ideals, producer Daniel Rabourdin says they should watch The Hidden Rebellion. He told Church Militant he had them in mind when making the movie.

"I made The Hidden Rebellion because I came from a country, France, that suffered from the French Revolution and from the collectivist super-egalitarianism ideologies that show up in America under the name of socialism," said Rabourdin. "I fled that country."

The Vatican's head liturgist Cdl. Robert Sarah agrees that the roughly 200,000 Catholic martyrs slaughtered at the Vendée by atheist government forces after the French Revolution should inspire modern Catholics. In a 2017 homily given in the Vendée region of France, Sarah urged Christians to take up the "spirit of the inhabitants of the Vendée."

Cdl. Sarah cried:

We are all mentally sons of the martyrs of the Vendée! In this place the spirit of these martyrs surrounds us. What do they tell us? What are they going to give us? First and foremost their courage! When it comes to God, no compromise is possible! The glory of God is not for discussion! This has to start with our personal life, our prayer life and our worship.

Rabourdin's docudrama on the Catholic farmers in West Central France recounts their extermination by atheists, who took control of France's government following the French Revolution in 1789. Some historians estimate that troops of the French Republic slaughtered as many as 250,000 Catholic men, women and children in 1794.

In his book, A French Genocide: The Vendée, historian Reynald Secher labels the government-ordered massacre as the first modern genocide.

Rabourdin says Americans viewing his film do relate to how socialistic forms of government war against Christianity.

"What they tell me when they come out of the theatre is that it connected the dots for them," he said. They see how socialism is "almost the reversal" of Christian values, he added.

They start to understand that on one side in Christianity there is the freedom of the person, free to say yes or no to its creator. And, and on the other side there is a person under a more collectivist society, [who] has to go along with the decision of the state, not in the big things such as war or peace but, in small things.

The cardinal also urges Catholics to turn to these French martyrs for inspiration.

"We Christians need the spirit of the inhabitants of the Vendée," he exclaimed. "We need such an example! As we have to leave our sowing, our harvest, the furrows drawn by our plows, to fight — not for the defense of human interests, but for God!"

The atheistic government responsible for massacring these Catholics, says Rabourdin, has now evolved into the socialist France of today. In France, he noted, the government decides everything for you from the color of your house to the school you will attend. He equated the top-down micromanagement with socialism.

Cdl. Sarah wants Americans to watch the movie and see the parallels between 18th-century French atheists and the socialistic bent of America's Democrats:

The Hidden Rebellion, in America, in this election year is very much of a deep key to understand the challenges of these elections where the Democratic Party has always leaned toward socialism which was almost founded by the French Revolution and then refined by Marxism and Soviet Russia. But when we go to the beginning, you can see the primitive and authentic state of liberal thinking.

Sarah urged Catholics everywhere to imitate the Vendéans in rising up against various forms of anti-Christian governance.

"The inhabitants of the Vendée have taught us to resist all these revolutions," preached Sarah. "They have shown us that there is only one answer to the colonialists, the National Socialist extermination camps, the communist gulag, the Islamic barbarism — the complete self-giving of one's own life."

The symbol of Christ's Sacred Heart was so important to the Vendéan martyrs, noted Rabourdin, that they wore it on their jackets into battle.

"The message of the Sacred Heart was one of marrying our Creator," he said, as explained by Christ to the 17th-century visionary, St. Margaret Mary of Alacoque. He remarked that the Vendéans were so faithful to this devotion that 15 years after the massacre, "Napoleon let the French people have a right to practice their religion again."

Sarah also wants Catholics to take up the spiritual arms of the Vendéans and fight for God against "the modern persecutors of the Church." He asked:

Who will have the courage to rise, unarmed, only with the Rosary and the Sacred Heart, to meet the columns of death of our days, the relativism, the indifference and the contempt of God? Who will tell this world that the only truth worth dying for is freedom to believe?

The Hidden Rebellion is available on Rabourdin's website or can be purchased on Amazon.

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