Vera Crux
Vera Crux is Latin for “True Cross,” and is the source of
the name of the Mexican city Veracruz, which was founded
by the conquistador Hernán Cortés on Good Friday in 1519.
Veracruz became one of the richest cities in colonial Mexico
because of its substantial export of gold and silver.
Named for the day our Savior offered up
His flesh and blood upon the holy cross
(The blood from His flank caught in an angel’s cup,
The flesh consigned to Joseph). All seemed loss,
Defeat, the end, and hopeless desolation.
And yet He was triumphant over death,
And here in a new-born and new Christian nation
Our city Veracruz took her first breath.
We grew as rich as Croesus—ingots stacked
As high as mounted lancers filled the docks.
And golden nuggets in great chests were packed
As ballast in fat galleons that rocked
Like heavy cradles on their crescent frames.
Pirates swarmed, like locusts in the waves,
But cannons from our warships spouted flames—
We watched their corpses sink in briny graves.
That was where we scorned all pious tears—
We did not mill like sheep before The Lord
Waiting in humble patience for the shears,
But struck with halberd, culverin, and sword.
Our priests and friars, prating about pity,
Kept their mouths shut when we saved their skins.
They did not mind when guns preserved the city,
And did not preach to us about our sins.
That is the tale of Veracruz. The facts
Were these: that mercy didn’t save our gold;
That Spanish steel beat off those vile attacks
And gave us all new chances to grow old.
That is the Vera Crux—a bloody saber,
A ball of grapeshot in a pirate’s face;
A twenty-pounder and a guncrew’s labor
Focusing on the foemen in a chase.
Humility, forbearance, and the like
Are nice when you’re a hermit in a cell.
But if you don’t know how to wield a pike,
Right here on earth you’ll get a taste of hell.
So skip the preachy homily and sermon,
The lesson about turning other cheeks.
We saved the city from those loathsome vermin.
In war the cannon—not the Bible—speaks.
Poet’s Note
I composed this piece a few years ago, and published it under a pseudonym. It was intended as a simple fictive narration that could be taken at face value, or else as an allegorical-argumentative poem about the fatal schism in Western thought that frequently paralyzes necessary action in the face of danger.
There is an intentional contrast of the Latin phrase Vera Crux (“true cross’) with the Spanish reflex Veracruz (the name of a city) as a verbal hint of what is being argued in the text. The Latin phrase represents religious orthodoxy and all the rules and moral strictures associated with religion. The name Veracruz represents a real-world Spanish city, with a culture informed by religious orthodoxy, but faced with actual enemies and the prospect of robbery, ruin, and ravishment.
What does a rich and prosperous city do in the face of barbarians, savages, pirates, and predatory foreigners? Listen to the orthodox preachings of love, forbearance, and brotherhood from its clergy, or blast the enemy with culverin cannon and grapeshot? Will Veracruz be saved by weak, scripture-quoting effeminacy, or by warlike masculinity?
The choice of the poem’s speaker is clear. But the choice of the Western world right now is not. Are we going to continue worshipping “the Others,” and debasing and degrading ourselves before them, or are we going to blast them with broadside volleys, and tell our milksop clergy to screw off?
Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide. He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.
Dr. Salemi, I would ride into battle with you! Your brilliant poem reflects my own religious convictions. Several years ago, SCP published one of my poems, “On Hate,” which concluded with the phrase, “I never hated anyone who did not hate me first,” particularly referring to Old Testament biblical warfare encouraged by God. Your use of Vera Crux and Veracruz in your poem was inspired and inspiring in separating responsible defense of territory and people from the city from which it was named and the protection of the priests along with the cathedrals from predators. One must recognize in advance pirates, brigands, robbers, and enemy soldiers in advance by their teachings, actions, and depredations, and then be prepared to go to war or destroying the vermin knowing one has the blessings of God to do just that. There is a point when we run out of cheeks to turn.
I’m glad, Roy, that you referred to “Old Testament biblical warfare encouraged by God.” (In fact, He not only encouraged it; often He commanded it.) I can’t help thinking that, if orthodox Christians had always been placing as much emphasis on the Old Testament as is needed, the “fatal schism in Western thought” referred to above by Dr. Salemi, need not have happened, or at least may not have deepened as much as it has. We must indeed be prepared to go to war with our enemies. They are God’s enemies, too. But the religious leaders who are “milksops” apparently don’t take this into account. Biblically, love and forbearance don’t contradict with engaging in war with our enemies; both are necessary in different circumstances.
“And gave us all new chances to grow old” is my favorite line. That is what heroes do.
1. Cynthia, the following is the FOREWORD to my book, “Demolishing the Demons: Theology and Poetry Preparing for the New Crusades.””
FOREWORD
My theology is a return and resurrection of the old-time religion fire and brimstone sermons in poetic form. Social gospel of the past five decades has focused on a “feel good” religion in America and Europe that assuages the conscience with feelings of peace and contentment with prayer and kindness. While that is one of the ways Christ wanted us to feel, it overlooks the Old Testament teachings that Jesus said he came to fulfill without changing “one jot or tittle.” The Old Testament catalogs the wars of the Israelites in successful campaigns to exterminate kings and all humans who rejected God’s plan. Yes, David wrote the placid 23rd Psalm, but many of the Psalms of David ask God to help in destroying the enemies of the Israelites. Not just destroy—annihilate everyone including the women and children.
Forsaking the preaching of Satan’s roaming like a ravenous lion on earth and using his demon minions to wreak havoc has left the world believing Christians have become weak, reticent, subservient and to put it simply, ”too nice to counterattack anything they do.”
I hear it from my friends and even relatives that God will take care of things. Why should they be involved in physical warfare on earth? They wring their hands at current events with no motivation other than to pray and make supplication to God, when they are his representatives and instruments for Holy Warfare on earth. Yes, there it is, a Crusade to destroy evil and those who perpetrate it.
Cynthia, my book was written in prose and poetry because of the following as I placed in the Acknowledgments:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first acknowledgment is to someone who perhaps would not want her name published. She challenged me with kind quotes from the New Testament as I was posting on social media telling me of the goodness of God. She gave me scripture in Ephesians as reference about being longsuffering, patient and kind. I, in turn, told her to read Joshua in the Old Testament. Her challenge is the reason for this entire book.
CHAPTER 1
Relevance of Martin Niemöller
After World War II, Reverend Martin Niemöller made various statements regarding the silent complicity of Christians in the murder of the Jews and the events in Germany. From those statements, the most frequently quoted is this one:
“When Hitler came for the Jews… I was not a Jew; therefore,
I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church – and there was nobody left to be concerned.”
~Attributed to Reverend Martin Niemöller, Protestant Minister in Nazi Germany (most favored translation from
the Congressional Record, 14 October 1968.)
Seriously, do I need to point out the relevance from either a theological or political perspective? Apply that to what is happening in America with the acceleration of leftist political agendas and pressure from those who have no understanding of American history, government, or the American Revolution and Constitution, let alone the Christian teachings and perspective on the American culture and life. I am pointing specifically to generation Z, as I call it, because we had generations X and Y, and this may be the last true American generation.
I think, Joseph, you old warrior, that you have identified the crux of the matter. Practicing the tenets of your religion is not possible if you are dead. It’s like what has been said in other contexts: Kill them all and let God sort them out. Don’t do unto others as you would have them do unto you, give them what they deserve.
Thank you all for your comments, which I appreciate. I normally would have left this poem in the obscurity of anonymity, with a nom de plume rather than my real name. What changed my mind was the reactions that I heard and read from a spate of various clergymen, of all denominations, attacking President Trump for authorizing the destruction of drug-smuggling boats by our naval forces.
I was infuriated and dumbfounded. These creeps were blathering on about love and peace and human rights, and condemning our President in the strongest terms of evangelical fervor for simply protecting American citizens from the poison of drugs. And these creeps in clerical collars and Geneva bands were thumping on a Bible that gives clear orders for the genocide of entire peoples, and that has passages in the Psalms that sound like Gestapo directives.
That’s when I pulled this poem from my files and put my real name on it. I no longer really give a damn what clergymen say.
Dear Joseph,
thank you very much for this thoughtful, eloquent poem
“Are we going to continue worshipping “the Others,” and debasing and degrading ourselves before them, or are we going to blast them with broadside volleys?
This is a key question..What an age we live in.
I just think “turning the other cheek” is massively understood..as Bishop Barron explains;
“When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.” I realize that this sounds like mere passivity, fleeing before evil, but the truth is anything but. In Jesus’ time, you would not have used your left hand for any type of social interaction, since it was considered unclean. Therefore, to strike someone on the right cheek is to strike him with the back of your hand, the way a master might treat a slave. By turning the other cheek, one neither fights back directly nor flees, but rather stands his ground and declares, “You will not treat me that way again.” It thereby effectively mirrors back to the aggressor his aggression. It is the declaration that the aggressed person refuses to cooperate with the world of the aggressor. ” Bishop Robert Barron
And there is no real love without truth (and of course the truth is love itself, however hard)
It is not loving to refuse to set boundaries to a child.. quite the reverse.. neither is it loving
to allow others to trample all over what is holy.. as Our Lord demonstrates in the Temple.
We fight not because we want to harm and kill but because we want to defend…
rather like the difference between abortion on the one hand and the removal of the child frm the fallopian tube in an ectopic pregnancy on the other..the intent is everything.
As Bobby Fredericksen exhorts us we need to ;
“Live your faith with the same courage as those who lived before us”
Film “Knights of the Cross”
Video under 30 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjsi-A2lY5E
https://www.christianchannel.com/
Take heart! The Lord has a plan:)
warmest regards,
Karen
I am sure that Bishop Barron is a good man and a devout Catholic, but if so he is an exception to the great bulk of gutless and secularized clergy who now dominate most of mainline Protestantism, and a very large percentage of the clergy in the fake Conciliar Catholic Church.
As for his complicated defense of the “turn the other cheek” text, I’m afraid it strikes me as just another implausible Rube-Goldberg argument to somehow evade the clear meaning and implication of what was said. If someone strikes you, you don’t wait to think about which hand he did it with, or whether it was on the right side or the left side. You just hit him back harder, and kick him in the groin to boot. You do it immediately and violently, without hesitation.
In fact, Barron’s argument has all the appearance of special pleading — that is, coming up with an intricate escape route when you are faced with an insoluble forensic dilemma. It’s a typical clergyman’s out when having to explain a scriptural text that is uncongenial to the audience. In a real fight BOTH hands are clean, and nobody is going to be thinking about the social niceties of left and right in the heat of the moment. Special pleading is almost always done when you don’t have a leg to stand on, argumentatively.
I don’t listen to religious podcasts or taped sermons, so I hope you will excuse me from going to your links.
Also, it would be well to remember that the SCP is not a sectarian website, and is not meant to be a place of evangelization.
A worthwhile lesson taught in a picturesque period piece (kind of). Veracruz is symbolic not only as the landing-site of Cortez, but also (as you indicate) in its name: the burden that is necessary for salvation.
To be fair, the clergy of Veracruz’s heyday were not like ours. I’m sure they would have agreed with your message – especially against heretical English pirates.
Well, I agree — the clergy back then had more guts than the clergy of today. In the contemporary world, they are just whiners for the rights and privileges of our enemy, and preachers of all the duties and obligations that we owe them as they dispossess us. Walk into any church, and listen to the propaganda for “The Other.”
But the fact is that I wrote this poem as a kind of allegory — that is, a narrative of the past with parallel meaning for those of us in the contemporary world. Would our priests and ministers today have any sympathy at all for the city of Veracruz, or would they be screaming that it was a horrible colonialist enterprise aimed at despoiling and oppressing the precious “indigenous populations”?
Very powerful poem, Joseph – the imagery, the diction, and the technical accomplishment: I love the deliberate rhyming of sermon with vermin – that is so powerful in its paradoxical juxtapositioning. And in any case, one senses the fury of the poetic rage in this. We are told to turn the other cheek, which has largely now become a methodology for virtue-signalling; and we are told to resist evil, which is now largely otiose since the majority now can barely understand what evil actually is. What enervation of spirit! Thanks – great work.
For me, “Vera Crux” is a fearless, powerful, and multi-layered poem that exposes the hypocrisy that often underpins moral narratives about war. With a militant and ironic tone, it challenges selectively moral stances – those that hold up one cause and condemn another. The reaction to Israel’s stance compared to the Ukraine springs to mind. The speaker’s rejection of Christian “morality” in favor of brute defense appears to mirror the modern double standard in global politics, where war is excused or condemned by propaganda, not principle. The closing line says it all, perfectly. It highlights the cynical truth that moral rhetoric is displaced by the need to survive, just as the manipulative modern media justify some wars as defensive or liberating while denouncing others as barbaric and unnecessary.
The beauty of this poem is that it urges readers to question who decides which wars are righteous – and whether faith or force governs the world – a subject that is at the forefront of daily news and impacts our lives today.
Joe, thank you for this gutsy, gritty, beautifully written poem. Even though it’s an older piece, it brings up timeless questions and gets to the heart of the hypocrisy surrounding war, unflinchingly.
To James Sale and Susan Bryant — my deepest thanks for your kind and supportive words. And I always know my work is successful if it pleases the sharp and intuitively perceptive judgment that both of you have always shown.
Dr. Salemi, your hard-hitting, clear-eyed poem gets right to the crux of survival and self-defense… they aren’t just moral—they’re necessary. You pull no punches, calling out anyone who thinks turning the other cheek will keep a city safe against real threats. You draw a sharp line between soft, often politically paid-for, religious talk and the harsh reality of protecting what’s yours with force when you have to.
But things get messy and ugly when wars aren’t about real defense but are stirred up, pitting brothers against brothers for money. That’s when the clear moral ground disappears, and what should be survival turns into something darker, tearing communities apart for reasons that often have nothing to do with protection. Your poem isn’t just about fighting—I take it as a warning about how easy it is to lose sight of what’s right when conflict gets twisted by greed and ideology.
In a world where truth gets bent and lies pass as peace, “Vera Crux” challenges us to remember that fighting for survival is tough but real—but manufactured conflicts are something else entirely. Too often, political conflicts pitch Christian against Christian, Protestant against Protestant, Catholic against Catholic, Muslim against Muslim and Buddhist against Buddhist.
There are no easy answers when we reckon with the hard, violent truths about faith, defense, and what it really means to protect what matters.
Mike, you are right on the mark. All wars are cruel, some are necessary, and others are totally contrived and cynically arranged to happen by political puppeteers. We can all have our disagreements about the Ukraine conflict, but it is very clear now that it was consciously fomented by ideologues for purposes of their own. And World War I was a bloodbath caused essentially by the poisonous mix of extreme nationalism, overweening pride, paranoid distrust, and delusional, militaristic power-lust. Totally unnecessary. Not a single European nation needed to shoulder a single rifle in 1914. All those men killed for nothing!
Joe, I read this excellent and evocative poem not only with great interest but with a perversely intense if sardonic pleasure. Civilized people don’t generally seek out violence. But sometimes it is the necessary solution to dealing with horrible conduct. Thank God for Spain, which stamped out Aztec human sacrifice — a disgusting practice which involved victims by the thousands each year. Thank God for Spain, which brought a civilizing force for good. Yes, they caused some death and destruction and how could it have been any different? I’ve never met a person from Mexico yet who didn’t revere Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Wars are awful in every possible sense of the word. And they are inevitable when you are dealing with human beings who are flawed, violent and ideologically illogical but forceful. Crime is also inevitable, though it can be contained if you have the guts to actually punish wrongdoers — or expel them. Yes, the Bible offers important spiritual advice about turning the other cheek, and forgiving seventy times seventy, and love your neighbor as yourself, etc. The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, of course, comes from Leviticus. The rest of the homily lessons come from the New Testament. Now I know that we’re supposed to abjure the legalistic formula of “an eye for an eye” but the reality is that in order to transcend this formula you need extraordinary spiritual fortitude, you need brotherhood that is acknowledged by all parties and, when it comes to wrongs and sin, you need repentance. How many liberal churches have ignored the fact that Jesus says “repent and sin no more.” He doesn’t just forgive anything and everything. He doesn’t just tolerate everything. Who ever said he was tolerant hasn’t actually read the New Testament in good faith. They have projected their own weird ideas of what “love” actually is into Christ’s mouth. It says more about their narcissism than Christ’s theology. Christ’s whole mission on Earth was “repent, repent, repent.” Repent from what? Doing wrong things. Doing bad things. Sinning. Reality demands that we look at bad behavior and do what we can to neutralize it, not simply become doormats and tolerate it or forgive it without forgiveness being EARNED.
But I digress. Your poem speaks to the point that real world conflict requires real world solutions. And sometimes – often – those solutions must be military. And they require fortitude and boundaries rather than the nonsensical kumbaya form of love which is an invitation to civil and cultural suicide. An example from real world current events: I consider the people who think a communist antisemite like Mamdani may actually be good for New York – many of these being leftist Jews – and I can only feel sorry for their ideological delusion that their narcissistic “feel good” choice is going to lead to their destruction, whether literal, economic or both. They will choose their own destruction rather than acknowledge the nonsensical silliness of their fantasy world derived from hippie love-ins and Star Trek’s ideal of a world without conflict and perfect racial/ethnic harmony.
Your poem very much addresses the difference between idealists and ideologues – something I recently wrote a short opinion piece about but which may be worth revisiting here. Vera Crux concerns the ideal. Veracruz concerns the reality. Idealists who try to impose the ideal but do so without reference to true conditions on the ground quickly devolve into ideologues. Idealists are essential. What would the world be without people with a vision – people who want to make things better? Idealists are awesome. But ideologues are a different story. Ideologues are people who are so invested in their ideals and so devoted to their narrative that they lose the ability to gauge evidence objectively. They will even put their fingers on the scale to support their preferred narrative. Idealists are essential. Ideologues are a grave danger. They have the zeal of the idealist but are derelict in their ability to accept facts as they are. They will even manufacture facts to suit their narrative. Idealists are to be encouraged. But avoid ideologues as if they were the plague. Because they are.
In short, pirates need to be contained and destroyed. And so it is with terrorists. This doesn’t negate the Bible, but it forces us to recognize that biblical injunctions regarding “love thy neighbor” cannot be taken literally in a world where devils are in charge and where Caesar is owed his due. Imagine a Jesus who did not send Legion and his demons into the sea to drown. Turn the other cheek? I think not.
Amen!
Many thanks for this extended commentary, Brian — which is packed with intelligence, common sense, and a clear understanding of the real world and its requirements. Your definitional divide between idealists and ideologues is a crucial differentiation. It is one thing to dream and imagine; it is quite another to allow dreams and imagination to enslave one’s thinking and shackle a recalcitrant world to your sociopolitical fantasies.
The specter of Mamdani looms larger and larger. More and more facts are being unearthed about him, his ferociously ideologue father who teaches at Columbia University, his past political statements, his pro-Hamas commitments, and about his bald-faced lies. Only a few days ago he made the most disgusting comment about the 9/11 attack, basically saying that for him the most memorable thing was that his Muslim aunt felt afraid to wear a hijab in the subways after it happened. Not a bloody word about the thousands of innocent persons killed in the attack! And then investigators discovered that he had no aunt, so he immediately claimed that the relative was in fact a distant cousin. Investigators then uncovered the fact that this cousin was in Yemen at the time of the 9/11 attack. The man is a lying piece of shit.
A film clip was discovered showing Mamdani at a leftist conference, where he argued that the left needed to somehow “connect” the New York City police force with the Israeli IDF, so that both bodies could be accused of genocide in Gaza.
The man is a liar, an antisemite, a pro-terror apologist, an anticapitalist, a viscerally anti-police fanatic, and a confessed hater of the middle classes. There is some hope that the rabbis in the Orthodox Jewish communities of New York will forcefully urge their congregations to go out en masse to vote against him. But since the vote against him will be split by Cuomo and Sliwa, what good will that do?
So it is very likely that the next mayor of New York will be a pro-Hamas, antisemitic socialist who hates the police force and who loves illegal immigrants.
I have one question. How many Christian clergymen will be out there campaigning for Mamdani and cheering him on, and celebrating his victory? How many will be offering up prayers of thanksgiving when he takes office, and starts to destroy New York? I hope my poem “Vera Crux” prompts some people to think about what a French author has called “the treason of the clerisy.”
I don’t know about Christian clergymen, but I know that the largest Jewish reform congregation, Central Synagogue, has refused to get involved. But this now seems to be the exception. Over 850 rabbis have signed onto a letter urging Jewish voters to oppose Mamdani. The news that comes out daily about Mamdani makes him look worse as a politician and more evil as a human being. He hijacked the 9/11 conversation to discuss his Muslim aunt feeling unsafe on the subway after 9/11 because of perceived Islamaphobia. The only thing — it never happened. She was in Tanzania at the time and he made it up. The way he makes most of his shit up. He promoted globalizing the intifada. He wants to ban any Jewish organization from sending charity money to Israel. The good news: if he’s elected, Republicans will own New York next election and Republicans will keep the presidency and majorities in the Senate and the House. People will ge a real taste of what vicious communism is like along with authentic racism. Che Guevera was never a romantic hero and Fidel Castro was an asshole. People need to know that there’s a difference between their romantic projectsion and cold hard reality. Since isn’t even a question of idealism versus ideology. This is about people with their heads up their behinds.