ROCKFORD—Seventy-five years ago on Dec. 7, Japanese war planes attacked the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor  in Hawaii.

Catholics in the Rockford Diocese, as well as across the nation, immediately geared up for service and prayer.

Back then, The Observer was published on Sunday, and the Dec. 7, 1941, front page was full of pretty normal fare, although war in Europe had already been a staple of the news. The Dec. 14, 1941, issue, though, was about the shock of the attack.

In the lead story, “Blessed Mother Is Besought in Capital As War Hits Nation.”

The story begins: “This morning we may well implore her powerful intercession to obtain for our land and for all who dwell therein the blessings of peace.”

The statement was from the Very Rev. Charles J. Costello, OMI, who spoke at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, 1941.

A sidebar declares, “Peace Cannot Come Without Religion, Says Father Gillis.” Father James M. Gillis, CSP, was editor of The Catholic World  and spoke Dec. 7 on the “Catholic Hour” an NBC radio show which later featured Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

Father Gillis said, in part, “The greatest boon to the human race, at any time and especially in the present crisis, would be the cooperation of pure politics and right religions.”

A smaller headline at the bottom of the page reads, “President Asks God’s Help In War Declaration.” It quotes President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his Dec. 8 address to a joint session of Congress.

“With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God,” he said, as he announced “a state of war” between the U.S. and Japan.

And on the back page, an ad from the John P. Daleiden Co. of Chicago urges, “Don’t forget the boys in service,” and promotes a Soldiers Devotional Kit containing a prayer book,  a “genuine cocoa bead rosary” and a religious identity card.