History of the Angelic Warfare Confraternity

The Dominican friar St. Thomas Aquinas is a powerful patron for chastity and purity because in his own life he received a special grace of chastity and purity and is ready now in heaven to share it with others. St. Thomas Aquinas was born in 1226 and was the son of a noble family in Italy. His parents wanted him to become a Benedictine monk in the hopes that he might one day become the abbot, or leader, of a monastery. However, God had other plans. In his teenage years, the monks sent St. Thomas to study theology in Naples, Italy and there he came across members of the Dominican Order. At the time, the Dominican Order was relatively young and had little social prestige. St. Thomas became very interested in Dominican life and joined the order against the wishes of his parents. His parents so opposed his decision to become a Dominican friar that they had him arrested and jailed in one of the family castles. They would not release him until he relented. The family attempted many times to persuade him to change his mind. For a full year, he refused to change his mind. St. Thomas quietly studied the Bible and grew in wisdom and knowledge. Finally, after becoming tired of waiting, the brothers of St. Thomas conceived one last plan. They were certain that physical temptation would drive him to break his vow of chastity, after which he would surely abandon his religious vocation.

So one night, his brothers brought a prostitute into the room where St. Thomas was being held. The plan did not work as intended. Immediately, St. Thomas snatched a burning branch from the fireplace, drove the woman out of the room, slammed the door behind her, and emblazoned the sign of the cross on the door with the red-hot branch. He then fell to his knees with tears of thanksgiving and prayed to be preserved in his chastity, purity, and intention to live the religious life.

According to the records of his canonization, St. Thomas fell at once into a mystical sleep and had a vision. Two angels came to him from heaven and bound a cord around his waist, saying, "On God’s behalf, we gird you with the cord of chastity, a girdle which no attack will ever destroy." In the records of his canonization, many different witnesses who knew St. Thomas at different points in his life remarked about his evidently high degree of purity and chastity. The angels’ gift preserved St. Thomas from sexual temptation and bestowed upon him an enduring purity that elevated all his thoughts and actions. Pope Pius XI wrote, "If St. Thomas had not been victorious when his chastity was in peril, it is very probable that the Church would never have had her Angelic Doctor."

Over his lifetime, St. Thomas’ conduct revealed that he had indeed received a special grace of chastity and purity – a grace that he is now ready to share with others through the communion of saints.

When was the Angelic Warfare Confraternity founded?

After the death of St. Thomas Aquinas the cord of purity which he had worn was preserved by the friars and made available for public veneration in the Italian city of Vercelli (today the cord resides in the Dominican Church in the town of Chieri, outside of Turin, Italy). Long before the confraternity was officially established, people began to visit the cord of St. Thomas and to pray for purity. Many would have cords touched to the relic and would wear them, hoping that the prayers of this pure saint would help them in the struggle for chastity.

Most people consider Fr. Francis Duerwerders, OP, to be the first one to organize the devotion as it comes to us today. He established it as a confraternity at the Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium, in the middle of the 17^th century.

The Confraternity began to grow in different parts of Europe and was officially founded for the whole Church in 1727 by Pope Benedict XIII. It is one of the three ancient Confraternities of the Dominican Order.

Have any Saints or Blesseds belonged to the Confraternity?

Various Saints and Blesseds, such as St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, Blessed Columba Rieti, and Blessed Stephana Quinzan (who actively promoted the Confraternity among women) have belonged to the Confraternity.