Imagine you are a contestant on Jeopardy, and the category is “Sea Battles of the Late 16th Century.” Two choices remain: 1588 or 1571. Recent graduates of our public schools may not recognize either, but if you went to high school decades ago, you would know that 1588 was the year of the Spanish Armada.
In fact, the victory of Francis Drake and the rest of Queen Elizabeth’s pirates on that tragic day in August 1588 is the reason 1571 is unknown to most Americans. The defeat of the Armada heralded a new era during which Britannia, not Hispania, ruled the waves. As result, America ended up an English Protestant country, and in school we all learned English Protestant history.
Nonetheless, on October 7, 1571 a far more important battle raged at the mouth of the Gulf of Patras, which divided mainland Greece from Corinth. It was the battle of Lepanto. Lepanto decided not whether America would be Protestant or Catholic, but whether Europe would be Christian at all. It was a very close call.
On one side, the great Ottoman empire at the peak of its glory mustered nearly 300 war galleys rowed by tens of thousands of Christian slaves, victims of years and years of Turkish raids on the coastal villages of the Mediterranean Sea.
On the other side, an uneasy confederation of Venice, Spain, Genoa, and the papal states suppressed their petty jealousies and political rivalries long enough to put to sea a fleet capable of engaging the Turk in a pitched battle. Had the Holy League lost, the Turks would have brought Venice to heel and converted Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica (even then under construction) into a mosque, just as they had done to the Hagia Sophia three centuries before.
But Christians believe God intervened and sent two heroes: Pope Stt Pius V and Don John of Austria. The aged Dominican friar took the 24-year-old bastard son of the late Holy Roman Emperor Charles V , looked him in the eye, and said:

,“The Turks, swollen by their victories, will wish to take on our fleet, and God—I have the pious presentiment—will give us a victory. Charles V gave you life; I will give you honor and greatness. Go and seek them out.”

As captain general of the Holy League, Don Jon assembled his galleys in the straits of Messina, and they sailed across the Adriatic. He required all his men to make a three-day fast. Aboard the Christian ships, Theatines, Jesuits, Capuchins, and Dominicans offered Mass and heard confessions. The men who rowed the galleys of the Holy League were thieves and debtors, but Don John issued each of them a weapon and promised them freedom if they fought bravely. He then gave each of them a weapon he believed far more powerful than anything the Turks could muster: a rosary.

The men of the Holy League prepared themselves for battle by falling on their knees and praying the rosary.

As the fleets closed, the wind favored the Turks who bore down upon the Christians under full sail. When less than a mile of sea separated the fleets, however, the wind shifted 180 degrees. The Christian sails filled with the divine breath, and Don John ordered unfurled the Holy League’s battles standard: an image of Christ crucified on a field of blue.

After five hours of fighting, the Holy League had sunk or captured all but 13 of the Ottoman galleys. The casualties of the day exceeded 30,000. Not until World War I would a single day’s fighting witness so much carnage. The price was high, but the outcome was priceless. The Ottoman wave was stopped at last. The long slow decline of Islam’s greatest empire began. Europe was saved. Pius honored Mary’s intercession and instituted the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7, one of five feasts on the Liturgical Calendar that celebrate military victories.

As devout Catholics tell their beads this Sunday, and read aloud G.K. Chesterton’s magnificent ballad celebrating the victory, they should bear in mind that the West faces a renewed threat from Islam. We do not know all the forms that our conflict with Islam is going to take, but what is certain is that there is no way for the West meaningfully to engage such an enemy unless it is the Christian West.

Today, many descendents of the heroes of Lepanto, Spaniards and Italians, are, compared to the Christians of those days, mired in unbelief. America, which is the Christian West brought to the new world, is following the same perilous path. Christendom is in greater danger today than she was in 1571, and the reason is that we refuse to acknowledge the threat and our own unworthiness to face it.

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Christopher Check is vice president of The Rockford Institute. A former Marine Corps artillery officer, he writes and lectures on military and Church history.