The Faith of Christopher Columbus: The Cross and the Compass

Fr. Scott Haynes

Few figures in history are as misunderstood as Christopher Columbus. To some, he is only an ambitious explorer; to others, a symbol of conquest. Yet behind the daring navigator who crossed the ocean stood a man of prayer—one whose sails were filled not only by the wind but by faith in divine Providence.

Columbus lived in a world where faith and discovery were intertwined. In fifteenth-century Spain, the Catholic imagination was vibrant. The Reconquista had just ended; the Cross once more crowned the towers of Granada. Europe was stirring with the desire to bring the Gospel to every land. In that atmosphere, Columbus dreamed—not of glory alone, but of a new path by which the name of Christ might be carried to peoples yet unknown.

A Christian Vision of the Sea

From his own writings, we know that Columbus regarded his vocation as divinely inspired. In his Libro de las profecías (“Book of Prophecies”), compiled near the end of his life, he gathered Scripture and reflections to show that his discoveries fulfilled part of God’s providential plan. He believed that the Lord had chosen him to open the way for the Gospel to reach the ends of the earth.

His journals reveal a man who prayed constantly. When he set out from Palos in August 1492, his first act upon leaving port was to commend the voyage to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Morning and evening, his crew sang the Salve Regina. When land was sighted at dawn on October 12, 1492, his first gesture upon setting foot on the shore of San Salvador was to plant a wooden cross and kneel in thanksgiving.

Columbus’s devotion was deeply Marian. His flagship was named Santa María; his confidence in Our Lady’s intercession was as steady as the North Star. The faith that animated him was not abstract but sacramental—expressed in prayer, fasting, confession, and public acts of worship. He often referred to himself as “Christoferens,” a bearer of Christ. In his mind, the explorer’s compass pointed not merely toward new continents but toward the salvation of souls.

The Cross on the Shore

Everywhere Columbus landed, he raised the Cross. These were not mere symbols of possession but acts of consecration. He saw each new shore as a place to be offered to the Creator. One such cross, still venerated today, stands in Baracoa, Cuba. Known as the Cruz de la Parra, it was erected during his first voyage in 1492. For more than five centuries, it has been preserved as a visible sign of the faith that guided the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Tradition also tells of another cross, raised in Hispaniola. Around it gathered both Spaniards and the island’s native inhabitants to pray. When sickness spread through the settlement, some claimed to have been healed after touching the sacred wood. Even when storms battered the region, the cross stood unmoved. Whether or not all these accounts can be verified, they express the deep impression the Christian symbol made in those first days of contact between Europe and the New World. It was a sign of hope, an anchor amid the uncertainty of discovery.

Such stories remind us that the beginnings of evangelization were not purely political ventures. They were, in the mind of Columbus and his contemporaries, part of a divine narrative: the Cross extending its shadow from Jerusalem to the farthest islands of the sea.

Faith and Imperfection

Columbus was no canonized saint, and he never pretended to be. He was a man of his time—ambitious, passionate, sometimes severe in judgment, often caught between his ideals and the harsh realities of exploration and colonization. His ventures, like all human endeavors, were marked by both faith and frailty.

He envisioned his discoveries as serving the greater glory of God, but he also sought royal favor, wealth, and recognition. The same heart that prayed for the conversion of souls could be driven by the pressures of empire and economics. Yet even within that tension, his conviction remained firm: all success came from the hand of God.

In moments of hardship, when storms raged or provisions ran low, he turned to prayer. His letters are filled with references to divine mercy and providence. “Our Lord,” he wrote, “opened my understanding… He gave me abundant faith in Him.” His confidence was not the optimism of a reckless adventurer but the perseverance of one who trusted that his path—however uncertain—lay within God’s design.

The Legacy of Faith

History judges men by their deeds; faith looks deeper, into motives and hopes. In Columbus we find both: the explorer whose voyage changed the world and the believer whose vision stretched beyond the horizon. The world remembers his compass; the Church remembers his cross.

The fruits of his journeys were complex. They brought both the light of the Gospel and the shadows of human sin. Yet the seed of faith he carried—imperfect though his hands were—took root in the Americas. From the Caribbean to the Andes, the Cross became the central sign of a new Christian civilization. Cathedrals rose where once he prayed on the sand. Missionaries, martyrs, and saints would follow the route he opened, preaching Christ crucified.

When Columbus died in 1506, he still signed his letters with the words Christus ferens—“the one who bears Christ.” That phrase, perhaps more than any other, captures his heart. He was a mariner of mystery, sailing between heaven and earth, guided by faith through uncharted seas.

The Cross and the Compass

The story of Christopher Columbus is not a tale of perfection but of providence. His courage, vision, and perseverance were illuminated by faith, however humanly mixed with ambition. In his sails fluttered the banners of Spain; in his soul burned the Cross of Christ.

When we look back on that moment in history, we see more than maps and ships. We see a man who believed that God governed the winds and the stars. His voyages remind us that discovery can be a form of devotion—that even amid ambition, faith can give meaning to human endeavor. And for all his flaws, Columbus invites us to navigate by a higher compass: the one that points, unerringly, toward Heaven.

Bibliography

Columbus, Christopher. The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492–1493. Translated by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

———. Libro de las profecías. Edited by Roberto Rusconi. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1984.

De las Casas, Bartolomé. Historia de las Indias. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1951.

Delaney, Carol. Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem: How Religion Drove the Voyages That Led to America. New York: Free Press, 2011.

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Columbus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942.

“Cruz de la Parra.” Encyclopedia of Cuba. Havana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 2000.