for the triumph of the immaculate - michael journal - for

For the Triumph of the Immaculate

A journal of Catholic patriotsfor the kingship of Christ and Maryin the souls, families, and countries

For a Social Credit economyin accordance with the teachings of the Churchthrough the vigilant action of heads of families

and not through political parties

Pilgrims of Saint Michael, 1101 Principale StreetRougemont, QC, Canada J0L 1M0

Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal aera (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601Publications Mail Reg. N° 40063742. (PAP) reg. N° 09929

website: www.michaeljournal.org Printed in Canada

Edition in English. 53rd Year. No. 348 January-February-March 2008 4 years: $20.00

An exceptional misssionary left us for Heaven

Pierre Marchildon, Full-time Pilgrim of St. Michaelpassed away on December 17, 2007, at the age of 59

He traveled throughout the world as was the wish of Louis Even

(continued on page 2)

In his recent encyclical letter Spe Salvi on Christian hope, Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope.”

These words fittingly apply to our beloved and dynamic Full-Time Pilgrim of St. Michael, Pierre Marchildon, who suddenly passed away on Mon-day, December 17, 2007, at the age of 59 years and 8 months. It is really a great loss our Move-ment, for he was truly an exceptional Pilgrim, who achieved a lot in various countries, as you will read a little further. We must pray to the Master of the harvest to send us ten young Full-time Pilgrims to take his place, because the death of Pierre Mar-childon left us with a great emptiness.

The circumstances of his deathAfter passing many medical examinations from

which the results were not very alarming, Pierre Marchildon, accompanied by Jacek Morawa, en-tered in the hospital of Mississauga, Toronto at 7 p.m. on December 17. While they were at the re-ception desk, he passed out, and so right away the medical team worked to revive him and brought him to emergency surgery. They did the necessary operation but the main artery to the heart was com-pletely blocked. It was impossible to revive him; all the small veins around his heart were already dead.

At 10 p.m. the soul of Pierre Marchildon had already left his body as the doctors finally abandoned the fight against death. May God’s will be done.

His birth and social credit beginningPierre Marchildon was born on April 15, 1948

in Lafontaine, Ontario, in the French-speaking area of the Shrine of the Canadian Martyrs, towards whom he had a fervent devotion. His uncle, Fr. Thomas Marchildon, was a Jesuit and pastor of the parish, and also one of the first collaborators of Louis Even, the founder of the Pilgrims of St. Michael. He received the Pilgrims into his rectory and organized meetings in the parish hall which was filled to capacity each month. This is why the mother and father of Pierre, Mr. and Mrs. Clem-ent Marchildon, were both solid Social Crediters. Pierre was the ninth of their ten children.

When his mother, Virginia Hamelin-Marchil-don, became a widow, she did the door-to-door

crusade herself for our Movement. She received the directors and the Full-time Pilgrims at her home when they passed through her area. It is in this climate of charity and justice that Pierre was raised, he never claimed anything for himself and was always ready to help whoever needed his ser-vices; it was in this manner that he was formed.

Full-time Pilgrim of St. Michaelconsecrated to Mary

On March 8, 1974, at 25 years of age, after a youth that was a bit frivolous, Pierre Marchil-don joined the Pilgrims of St. Michael full time. According to his own testimony, he had gone to pray in front of a statue of the Blessed Virgin. This statue of the good Mother conquered him by moving her eyes, and from that moment he was completely transformed and decided to retire

Pierre Marchildon addressing the crowd at our September, 2007 Congress in Rougemont

Lying in state in the House of the Immaculate in Rougemont

Jan.-Feb.-March 2008“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

Contents“Michael”. January-February, 2008

Pages

In memory of Pierre Marchildon 1 to 3Our vocation as Pilgrims of St. Michael 4-5Message of Pope Benedict XVI for Lent 6The Jubilee of the Apparitions of Lourdes 7A superpower dominates governments 8-9Pope: globalization means world disorder 9The subprime crisis. Vic Bridger 10-11Economy on artificial life support. 11Bad fruits from a system of debts. L.E. 12-13North American Union update. M.A.J. 14Masonic influence and secret clubs. M.B. 15Adoration for life. M.A. Jacques 16In vitro fertilization. M. Schooyans 17-18The miracles of the Scapular 18-19Our Lady of Ephesus 20Esotericism or New Age. M.A.J. 21St. Charbel Maklouf of Lebanon 22-23Siege of Jericho and weeks of study 24

Pierre Marchildon, Full-time Pilgrim of St. Michael(continued from page 1)


from the modern world and become an apostle for the Michael Journal.

His brother Mark told us that his mother was sad as she saw her Pierre leave on adventure in the movement of the Pilgrims of St. Michael, but she received her consolation when she saw the radical change that came about in the life of her son. She saw as well his fervent love for God and the Blessed Virgin and his total devotion in a work that she loved and served herself.

Her Pierre was consecrated to Mary accord-ing to the spirituality of St. Louis-Marie Grignion of Montfort on Holy Thursday, April 3, 1980. (See picture above.) He really lived his consecration; he was totally Catholic, without measure. He assisted at daily Mass every morning and took his strength from the Eucharist. Again on the morning of his death, he had assisted at the Holy Sacrifice and received Jesus in his heart.

Total dedicationHe gave himself totally for 33 years. He was

responsible for the city of Toronto for the Pilgrims of St. Michael, and had a group that was as vigi-lant as he was. His monthly meetings were always well attended: by Canadians and other national-ities, there were always an imposing group of Pol-ish people present. It is in this ardent home that was animated by Pierre Marchildon that gave us Jacek Morawa and Janusz Lewicki, editors of the Polish version of the journal and Carlos Reyes from Quito, Ecuador, who is the editor of the Spanish version. So one can truly say that Pierre was the initiator of our editions in Polish and Spanish.

Mr. Marchildon spent a lot of time on the tele-phone to invite the people to his monthly meet-ings and he was always successful. His confer-ences were excellent, but according to those who assisted at his last meeting on December 9, he surpassed himself. He had decided not to speak because he was tired, but without any prepara-tion, as if inspired by the Holy Spirit, he gave a speech that lasted for two hours. His talk was pro-foundly spiritual, according to the testimony of his collaborators in Toronto. Those who heard him

were moved. On Wednesday, December 12, four days before his death, he went to hold a meeting in his native parish in Lafontaine, Ont. His broth-ers Mark and Maurille, two good Social Crediters, and others from his family and friends saw him then for the last time.

4000 subscriptions per yearEach year the name of Pierre Marchildon was

always among the first in the list of subscriptions with an average of 3,000 subscriptions per year; for many years he went over 4,000 subscriptions in a year. On the day of his death we received his report in the mail: 34, 30, 22, 21, 25, and 24 for a total of 156 subscriptions in 6 days. We can say that he died on the battlefield of the apostolate. He never took vacations, his fervor and his dyna-mism encouraged many others and he won the hearts of all those who came in contact with him.

May his example and tenacity rise up a multi-tude of souls who are as zealous as he was. He was a man of the road, of the door to door crusade and the telephone; he was a great missionary in many countries of the world. When he was not going door-to-door or holding a meeting, he was on the telephone inviting people to his meetings. Even in the car when he had a driver, he would bring his cell phone to telephone people as he was traveling. If he had success, it was because of his enthusiasm and his great efforts.

He traveled throughout the worldSince he was bilingual he went to all the prov-

inces of Canada and almost all of the states in the United States, begging a place to stay and meals, changing his resting place every night during his three month tours. He did a tour of 6 months in California and the surrounding area with Patrick Tetrault without going home at all.

He went also to spread the good news in a great number of countries, in Europe; France, Bel-gium, Ireland, Italy and Poland; in Poland on top of his many meetings, he spoke on Radio Maria which gave him the opportunity to give his mes-sage to 10 million Polish people throughout the world; in Africa: Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Congo (ancient Zaire) where accompanied by Jean-Pierre Richard, he met the Cardinal, four archbishops, and 15 bishops; in Oceania: Australia and New Zealand; in Latin America: Ecuador, Co-lombia, Peru and Argentina, etc. And everywhere that he went, apostles came after him. His confer-ences left hope for a better world to the families, a world of justice, peace and prosperity. He ex-plained to them in just a few words the cause of poverty in the world and the people understood him, were enthusiastic, and wanted to help.

The messages of sympathy that we have re-ceived from all over the world gives testimony to his life. We will cite only three here that resume in just a few words the sentiments of many others around the world:

From Most Rev. Benjamin Almoneda, Bishop of the Philippines:

“I am very surprised to hear of the death of Pierre, who was such a zealous Pilgrim of St. Mi-chael. I was hoping to see him here with us in the Philippines to propagate the message of the social doctrine of the Church by the program of peace and justice of Social Credit. But Our Lord had better plans for him. In the arms of the Fath-er, he will do more for us and with us… I will offer my Mass for him today with all of my sem-inarians. I will be close to you, profoundly united in prayer in front of the Christmas manger. Pierre has received the most precious gift of all… eter-nal rest.”

+ Bishop Benjamin Almoneda, Philippines

From Most Rev. Nestor Ngoy, Bishop of Kol-wezi, Congo:

“I have just learned with consternation of the death of Mr. Pierre Marchildon. To you and to all the Pilgrims of St. Michael, as well as the family, I present my most sincere condolences and prayers so that his soul may enter into the Glory of God.

“I see once again this robust man who spoke with such conviction who held the rapt attention of his audience. I see once again this apostle of Social Credit in our country, (20 years ago in 1987) where the seed finished by growing in me. May the merciful God receive him as a faithful servant.”

+ Bishop Nestor Ngoy Katahwa

From Bill Daly, New Zealand:

“Thank you for letting me know about dear Pierre. I am greatly saddened, but am also left with wonderful memories of his joyful smile and of the shining Hope of which he shared with everyone. He has been a wonderful example of a life lived in the footsteps of Jesus. When he was in New Zealand three years ago he won the hearts of everyone he came in contact with. His generosity, devotion, and love of neighbour eas-ily came through in his voice and manner. He was an excellent public speaker, mainly I think because he spoke from the heart.

Pierre Marchildon traveled throughout the world as was the wish of Louis Even. Over the years, he visited over 15 countries in various continents to spread the light of Social Credit.

Pierre was making friends and SocialCrediters with everyone... even with the

kangaroos in Australia!

Jan.-Feb.-March 2008 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

Here is the text of the homily at the memor-ial Mass for Pierre Marchildon held in Toronto, Ontario on January 19, 2008, at Christ the King Church:

Your Excellency, fellow priests, brothers and sisters in Christ:

There is a tradition which surrounds the cruci-fixion. It says that when Jesus was taken down from the cross, He was placed in the arms of His mother. The same arms that embraced Him at birth embraced Him for a final time at death. It must have been hard for Her to let Him go. He was not supposed to die. He was too young. Mary had not prepared Herself for His crucifixion, yet She had no choice. She had to let others take His body away and put it in a borrowed tomb.

There is a legend that says that when the stone was rolled over the entrance to the tomb, all the family and friends that were there cried out together the last words that Jesus spoke: “It is finished! It is finished!”

Mary and the few of His dis-ciples who stood by Jesus in His suffering, watched Him being stripped of everything He had: clothes, family, friends, dignity, consolation, and finally life itself. Everything was taken from Him little by little, hour after hour, until nothing was left.

I do not think that any of us are ever truly ready to say good-bye to someone we love. No matter how it happens — slowly from a long illness, or suddenly, as it was for Pierre — we wish we could have held onto our loved one just a little bit longer. Even when we see death as a friend who brings an end to pain and suffering, there is still something in us that wishes it had all been a bad dream — that our loved one had never taken ill, and that life could go back to normal.

I know that Pierre’s relatives and friends must feel the same as Mary and the disciples felt on that day long ago.

But then, suddenly, without warning and with-out any preparation, He was taken from them, and they had to face what Mary had to face. They had to let go of this man who was so important in their lives. They had to let other hands take Him away. Pierre had finally let go of this life, like they had to let go. And so today, in this funeral liturgy, this community, this community of relatives and friends who also loved Pierre and prayed for him, must also let him go. But we will not cry that it is finished, because it is not !

This is not the end of Pierre’s life with us. Even though we are caught up in grief and mourning,

maybe anger, even though we feel empty and alone, there is a part of us that knows this is not the end of the story, because Calvary was not the end of Jesus` story. It was not over when He died. He was raised up to a new life.

The love of God for His Son was too strong, and death could not hold Him in its grasp. God raised His Son to a new life, and the good news is that all who believed in Jesus will share in that Resurrection. Death is not the last word. There is still life. Our love for Pierre is also stronger than death because it is tied to our love of Jesus who has promised to give new life to all those, who like Pierre, have faith in Him.

Dear friends! I know that his death was not expected to happen so soon. You were not really

prepared for it. I know it is hard to suddenly lose so great a friend. But you have not lost everything. You still have your memories of Pierre, how his energy and his determina-tion showed in everything that he did. I know that Pierre passed on that same energy and determina-tion to his friends of the “Michael” Journal.

Dear friends of Pierre! I hope you will use your energy and de-termination to keep his memory alive and to share those memories with each other. Remember how he smiled, the sound of his laugh-ter, the way his eyes lit up when-ever he had finished his mission.

Remember all the small ways he showed his love for you. If you keep those memories alive and share them with each other, Pierre will always be with you, sharing your life and strengthening your love. Remember that the love he shared with you came from God; it is a part of God`s love for His people, and God’s love is stronger than death.

We must be strong and continue to have Faith. God is watching over us. He has us in His care. Have hope, for God is always near to hear our every prayer and to see us through this dark-ness so that we who believe in the Resurrection may see Pierre again and enjoy eternal life with him. The long hard journey that Pierre had to make is over, his suffering has ended, but his life is not finished. By the grace of God, it has really just begun.

I pray that God`s healing presence and peace may carry you through the difficult days to come, and may He keep you in Faith so that when you reach the end of your days, you may feel Pierre’s hand slip into yours and lead you to his new home with God.

Father Joseph Wasik

“May he rest in Peace. I have notified those in New Zealand who met Pierre, at least those of whom I can presently think of. I know that every-one he met here will be joining with me in send-ing their deepest condolences. God bless.”

Bill Daly

Fr. Boguslaw Jaworowski from Poland will celebrate thirty Masses for the repose of the soul of his good friend Pierre. Fr. Tadeusz Bienasz from Austria, Fr. Joao Pedro Cornado, S.J. from Brazil and many other priests from different countries who collaborated with Mr. Marchildon will also celebrate a Mass for him.

Thirty Masses are to be celebrated at the Cis-tercians Monastery in Rougemont, starting on January 5th.

The funeral was celebrated at the parish church of St. Michael in Rougemont, on Saturday December 22, by the Pastor, Fr. Jacques Chaput, who was accompanied by Fr. Edmond Brouil-lard, Oblate of Mary Immaculate and Fr. Pamphile Akplogan and Fr. Albert. (See picture below.)

We ask Pierre Marchildon to raise up among the youth of all the countries where he visited, convinced, valiant and enthusiastic apostles as he was, so that our world can live in peace, justice, and prosperity under the reign of Christ the King and Mary Immaculate.

Therese Tardif, Directress Pilgrims of St. Michael

Homily at the memorial Mass for Pierre Marchildon

Three priests and a Bishop concelebrated the memorial Mass in Toronto;from left to right: Fr. Andrew Chilmon, Fr. Joseph Wasik, Fr. Andrew Glaba,

and Most Rev. Roman Danylak, retired Ukrainian Bishop of Toronto.

(continued from page 4)


Here is the translation of the speech that Mr. Pierre Marchil-don gave at our International Congress in Rougemont in Sep-tember, 2007:

Dear Bishops, priests and all Pilgrims of St. Michael,

Speaking for both houses, the St. Michael House and the Immaculate House, I would like to tell you that we love you all ! We thank you for coming here for the Congress and the week of study to encourage us in the battle so that we may spread the great light of So-cial Credit, for social justice and the application of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

We have a great vocation, we the Pilgrims of St. Michael. We are lay people; we have an important apostolate and a great role to play in the times in which we are living. Our Holy Father John Paul II said “the time has come for the laity to evangelize”, and he says also “we must recog-nize the signs of the times.”

What is our role, as Pilgrims of St. Michael, as lay people in the Church and society? We have a great role to play, we the laity. In 1987, there was a Synod in Rome on the role and mission of the laity. But the Pope warned the lay faithful to be careful because there are great temptations, and he says that the first temptation is to pre-occupy ourselves so much in the affairs of the Church that by doing so, we neglect our primary role. In other words, we want to take the place of the priests or to perform functions in the Church that are none of our business.

And he says the second temptation is to sep-arate faith from action: we can say that we believe in Our Lord but we do nothing, we do not act. And prayer without action is nothing, so we have to add action to our prayers.

The Pope says that our first role and mission as lay people is to engage ourselves in temporal things and to direct them according to God’s will. This means to put God in the temporal order, in the laws of the countries, in the financial system so that all the institutions are at the service of the people, all of the institutions.

As Pope Benedict XV said, “It is on the eco-nomic ground that the salvation of souls is at stake.” We must then put order into the financial system, in the economic system, so that all is at the service of souls so that they may someday reach their eternal destiny. This is our objective here.

Spread the social doctrine of the ChurchJohn Paul II also, in his apostolic exhortation of

January 1999 on the Church in America, wrote:

“Faced with the grave social problems which, with different characteristics, are pres-ent throughout America, Catholics know that they can find in the Church’s social doctrine an answer which serves as a starting-point in the search for practical solutions.” There is a solution in the Social Doctrine, a solution of principles.

The Pope continues “Spreading this doctrine is an authentic pastoral priority.” A priority to-day because there is an urgency! It is therefore important “that in America the agents of evan-gelization (Bishops, priests, teachers, pastoral workers, etc.) make their own this treasure which is the Church’s social teaching.” The teaching of the Church, the social doctrine of the Church, is a treasure that was given us because the Church is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Father adds: “And those who are in-spired by it (the Social Doctrine) become capable of interpreting the present situation and deter-mine the actions to take.”

And so, it is very important to know the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Social Doctrine is the principle of justice that give us the right to life. God created me, He gave me life. I then have the right to live this life up until death. These are rights. Also, in the beautiful prin-ciples of justice, there is one who says that we have the rights over all the natural riches of the coun-try. We have rights also over all the fruits of today’s modern machin-ery, of automation. I should have a part of the fruits of automation.

And so, if everyone knows of these rights, we can ask for our national dividend. Everyone should re-ceive nice dividend of 700, 800, 900 dollars every month! At least !

As a Catholic, I have a right to know what the Social Doctrine of the Church is. The role of the clergy, pastoral organizations and the schools is to teach it to us, and the role of the laity is to put it into application. We cannot mix up the cards. The clergy cannot meddle in politics or econom-ics, this is not their role. As the Pope says, the role of the clergy is to teach the Social Doctrine and the role of the lay people is to apply it. We are lay people, we have families, we live in society, and we have needs so we must organize ourselves so that the economic order is at the service of the family and the individual.

Pope John Paul II said that the Social Doctrine of the Church is a part of the new evangelization. This is because there is a world problem. Three billion people… but, excuse me, now there are four billion people who live on two dollars per day. I went to Guayaquil, in Ecuador, and I mentioned this to the Archbishop of Guayaquil — by the way, he gave us a nice letter to do the apostolate in Ecuador — and he told me that the number was four billion, that my “statistics were old.” So, in-stead of three billion, it is four billion people who live on two dollars a day.

The United Nations came out with a docu-ment that really surprised me because the UN has always worked to control the population of the world through abortion, contraception, euthanasia and other means. So, they admitted, they had to admit, that because of technology today, even if the population has grown four times since 1900, going from 1.5 billion to 6.2 billion, they said “in spite of the fact that the population has increased four times, because of technology, the population has increased the production 20 or 40 times.”

So we can feed the entire world 4 or 5 times if we want too because of the goods that we have. So, what is the problem? We can feed the popu-lation 5 times and there are 4 billion people who are living under the poverty level. It is a problem of distribution. And the problem of distribution is caused by the lack of money, because without money the goods cannot meet the needs and so we have poverty in front of the abundance.

Pope John Paul II also said: “Can works of charity take care of all the poverty in the world?” We have to do something, because there are many people in the world who are starting to say things like: “How come the Catholic Church does not sell all of its properties? All of its beautiful paintings? How come does it not feed the world?”

I met a man one time in Toronto who was very angry, because he was losing his house. He was very angry against the Church! He said to me: “I have stopped practicing.” (He was paying 22% in-terest on his house, this was in 1981-82.) I said to him: “Sir, who will get your house when you lose it? Will it be the Pope or the banker?”

He thought a bit about it and replied, “Well, it’s the bank!”

“So, why accuse the Church?” It was because

he did not know how the banking system works. And so we blame the good people or the Church. This is why we must apply the Social Doctrine of the Church, if not the Church will be the one ac-cused.

We have mountains of products and we can give a dividend to the whole world and feed the world four times. It is not necessary to sell the properties of the Church. But we have to teach the people a bit because they always blame those who do well because the media makes propa-ganda to support these ideas.

Pope John Paul II says that “our Christian vocation is not only to bring our support to the works of charity, but we are also called to get directly involved in changing the laws and unjust structures that keep people poor and insult and attack God-given human dignity.”

We have the dignity of a being that is created in the image of God. It is not only the little works of charity that can take care of all the poverty in the world. The Pope continues “Love is over and above justice, but at the same time, it presup-poses justice.” (Nov. 8, 1978)

Love pushes justice. Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, calls for support to “eliminate the structural causes attached to a system that governs the world economy, that gives into the hands of a minority all of the recourses of the planet.” All of the resources of the planet are now in the hands of, as he says, “a few people.”

John Paul II said the same thing, “Globaliza-tion means the loss of sovereignty of national States and leads up to a global system governed by a few centers in the hands of private individ-uals.” (May 17, 2001)

This is where we are going at a hundred miles an hour. The Pope says to “devote ourselves total-ly to vanquish the plague of hunger, to promote justice and solidarity”.

Also Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his first encyclical God is Love that we have to love our neighbor enough “to guarantee to him the neces-sities of life today, tomorrow, after tomorrow and always.”

Guarantee! That is a nice word. The beautiful dividend of Social Credit would guarantee the ne-cessities of life to everyone, and it would really be true love of neighbor. It is more and more urgent because we are getting closer and closer to a world system that wants to control the entire world.

The North American UnionWe made a new leaflet on the North Amer-

ican Union. They really want to control all of North America and South America, in making one coun-try with Canada, the United States, Mexico, Cen-tral America and South America. They are trying to sell us this under the false pretence that it will create jobs for everyone.

This is not true. Just in the United States, since this has started, about 10 years ago (with NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement), they have already lost 1 million jobs. So, it is not to create jobs but to put all of production and the means of production in the hands of a few big multinationals. It is they who will control every-thing, everything in the entire world, and here in North America, they are in the process of merging all the countries together.

The United Nations are behind all of this, they want to control all the countries of the world. They have a world constitution and they have taken God out of the constitution, and all of the other institu-tions of other countries must follow the constitu-tion of the United Nations that is without God, and pushes abortion, contraception, euthanasia, and all the ways to control the population.

At the same time, they want to introduce here

Our vocation as Pilgrims of St. MichaelSpeech of Pierre Marchildon at our 2007 Congress




in the Americas a new money called the “Amero.” In Europe it is the Euro, in America it will be the Amero. When they changed the money in Europe for the Euro, the people who had savings were penalized because it cost a certain amount to have one Euro.

I read an article that said that it could cost us, in Canadian dollars, 8 to 10 dollars per Amero. So, instead of having 100 Ameros, you would only have 10. This devalues our savings, and every-body loses.

Maybe a big part of this money will go to pay the debts due to the Financiers. You know the numbers that they have written in red? We must pay them, we cannot erase them! If we had listened to our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II in 2000, the year of the Jubilee, when he asked to erase the debts of the whole world… instead we have paid them 50 times with compounded interest!

At the same time, the United Nations would very much like that all the world accept the world government, and so they will introduce a “beauti-ful little world religion.” Without God. This will be mostly about the environment and to protect the planet earth because there is a big part who be-lieve that they will come back (reincarnation), we will come back, maybe…like a snake… So (in that case) we need a good environment! We need oxygen!

The environment, the holy environment! The bankers destroy all the countries, all the riches and we do not say a word about it! The big multi-nationals construct beautiful roads to find the riches in the deep jungles and other places.

Here they want to do the same thing; they want to make a super-highway from the city of Mexico all the way to Canada to transport the products that will come from China and India. We are not capable of producing anything; we left it all to China. It is a way to control, to con-trol everything.

In the last Michael Journal (July-August, 2007), we have published a beautiful article “the False Peace of the Antichrist with a world government”. This is what we are heading for. They want to make three groups of countries: Europe, America and Asia. They want to bring with this, maybe, three types of money, the Euro, the Amero, and the ECU for Asia.

In a few years, everything will probably be electronic and in a global system, we will be iden-tified on a global scale, so we would need a small gadget such as a chip so we will be completely controlled. We need Social Credit soon, right away because we are heading straight towards this world plan!

Consecrate yourself to MaryI mentioned today in the intentions of the Ros-

ary, that it is the 68th anniversary of World War I. The Blessed Virgin at Fatima asked us to pray, to say the Rosary, and She asked us to make sacri-fices, to repent, but we did not listen to Her be-cause we had a second World War, She said that in 1917.

And now, it is possible that we will have an-other war, because we are not converting, we pass laws like the same-sex marriages and so we bring ourselves closer to Sodom and Gomorrah. It is the fire of Heaven that will come to purify us.

Also, in 1917, Major Clifford Hugh Douglas in-vented the wonderful philosophy of Social Credit. We didn’t really listen to him either, because we did not put Social Credit into application.

It was the same thing with the messages of the Blessed Virgin, so we are going down more and more. We must ask the help of Heaven. We must consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that we have the strength to continue to fight against the forces of evil.

The Blessed Virgin gave us a little message; she gives us messages everywhere throughout the world. Heaven is concerned because the hu-man family is living in sin. The Blessed Virgin said that sin is becoming a way of life, we no longer see the difference between good and evil ! This is

why there is no one who goes to Confession; we are all “saints”. No more sin.

But the Blessed Virgin has a plan. Oh, it’s a good thing that we have Heaven to help us, to wake us up! The Blessed Virgin has a plan; she says that she has her work of mercy for the final battle. There is a plan in Heaven. The devil has a plan, but it is only a little black cloud that is passing. The Blessed Virgin has a plan. She said “at Fatima, I will show my Immaculate Heart as the means of salvation for all of humanity. I have traced the road to return to God. Prayers, penance, and con-version. No-one has listened to me.” The Blessed Virgin said it herself.

“Now, I want to offer you my Immaculate Heart as your only refuge in the sorrowful mo-ments that are waiting for you.” She showed us her Heart at Fatima, but now she tells us: “I of-fer you my Heart. So, it is the total consecration to Jesus by Mary, one hundred percent. We must consecrate ourselves 100% if we really want her Immaculate Heart to triumph.

We have to do like Saint Maximilian Kolbe, consecrate ourselves totally. He would ask the Blessed Virgin every day; “let me know you more, good Blessed Virgin, so that I may give myself to you more each day.” John Paul II was totally consecrated to the Blessed Virgin. He ac-complished a lot. It is the Blessed Virgin who brought him all over the world. He was shot at, he was sick, with all kinds of problems, but he went forward anyway! He went everywhere. He was totally consecrated.

I know another who was totally consecrated, it was our founder, Louis Even. Totally consecrat-ed to the Blessed Mother. Major Douglas said that his greatest apostle for Social Credit was Louis Even. It was he who went on the road to teach the beautiful light of Social Credit every-where.

Here is a message that maybe will help us: the Blessed Virgin said that “The time has come and I hope to live in you, and to manifest myself in you. I want to love with your heart”. The Blessed Virgin says that if we consecrate ourselves to her one hundred percent, she will live in our heart and she will make our hearts like the heart of a mother.

Because the Blessed Virgin is the mother of humanity, so she will make our hearts like her own and she wants to save all souls, because they are all her children. So she wants to live in our hearts, she says: “I want to see with your eyes, I want to console and encourage with your lips…”

We must speak with our brothers and sisters who are going on the road to perdition. We must say, “Hey, come back, there is a beautiful Heaven after life.” We do not believe in Heaven, we no longer believe in Hell to begin with and after we doubt that there is a heaven, so we live like cats and dogs. We are simply buried and it finishes there.

The Blessed Virgin says “I want to walk with your feet.” This means that we must be apostles, missionaries. “And suffer with your crucified body.” She keeps going, the Blessed Virgin, she is not afraid to tell us to our face.

We must go. We must give ourselves to the Blessed Virgin and she will ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten us, to inspire us and make us into apos-tles of fire. We must then really live our vocation

every day. It is the Immaculate Heart of Mary that will triumph and she says, “You the consecrated, you are the apostles of the last days.”

But, what is it that we can do as Pilgrims of St. Michael in the times in which we are living? Well, our apostolate is the visit of the families. We visit the families to bring the Rosary back into the fam-ilies, we pray with them a decade of the Rosary, we ask them to return to Church. We can do much good when we visit the families.

We can also spread many leaflets, we are ask-ing you to cover Canada, the United States and Mexico with the beautiful leaflet on the North American Union. We can also do meetings in prayer groups, and also with our friends. In the meetings, we can explain our work and we can give more explanations.

On top of that, we must solicit subscriptions to the journal, to do all that is possible to see to it that the journal gets into the families, so that there is some follow-up, because we cannot go to the prayer groups every week or every month. The journal can go in every family, in all the regions of the world.

I want to give you a small example of what one leaflet can do, only one leaflet: twenty years ago, I was in Africa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Lubumbashi. In one village where Bishop Nestor Ngoy was in those days, in 1987. He was teaching in the seminary, I didn’t know him then. My companion and I did the apostol-ate where we could and we spread the leaflets, and after that we came home. But twenty years

later, in 2007, Bishop Ngoy is here among us. He told me that in 1987 he received a leaflet in Congo, and after he was subscribed to the journal, because we send it to all the bishops. We sow the seeds and God makes them grow, with the Holy Spirit. But we must sow them. Our role, like that of all Catholics, is to bear witness to truth and justice, every one; we are called to be witnesses.

Now, we are going to pass around a paper that you can sign to take a certain amount of subscriptions for the year. We can solicit them among our friends, those we know, we can do door-to-door, go to meetings. There are all kinds of ways to solicit subscriptions to the journal. Sometimes, instead of talking about the weather, we can talk about the jour-

nal, about the beautiful things that are written in it. The leaflets, we can pass them and when you pass them, there are those who send in their sub-scription.

We are asking you now to sign your pledge. We should have 100,000 subscribers next year, with a journal like we have! And after we’ve at-tained the 100,000 subscribers, we only have to take 10 subscriptions each and we can bring the total up to one million!

With all the means that we have, with elec-tronic mail and everything you can send us your small reports, telling us of your distribution, what you have done. It encourages us when we see that the battle is going on, it is encouraging to see that the movement is spreading all over the world.

More and more we have decided apostles who are continuing the battle with us. We need you because alone we cannot do the battle. We do not do a battle alone; we need a group, an army. We congratulate you for being here and I ask God to bless you in the new year (that goes from one Congress to another). Next year, bring new people to the Congress and the week of study. Do not give up the battle, we must leave more than ever decided to make the year 2007-2008 one of the most beautiful years.

The Holy Spirit will make us into apostles of fire, pushing us to the apostolate everywhere, in all the corners of the world. If there are young people who would like to give themselves for one or two years, there are things to do. Put it in your program to give some time, it is very pleasant; there are people everywhere who are waiting for you. I could go in 15 countries if I wanted tomor-row with all of the invitations that I have received! Do not give up! May God bless you! Thank you.

Pierre Marchildon

Jacek Morawa and Pierre Marchildon


Here is the full 2008 Lenten Message of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. The theme of this year’s Message is: “Christ made Himself poor for you”. (2 Cor 8,9):

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Each year, Lent offers us a providential op-portunity to deepen the meaning and value of our Christian lives, and it stimulates us to re-discover the mercy of God so that we, in turn, become more merciful toward our brothers and sisters. In the Lenten period, the Church makes it her duty to propose some specific tasks that accompany the faithful concretely in this process of interior renewal: these are prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to spend some time reflecting on the practice of almsgiving, which represents a specific way to assist those in need and, at the same time, an exercise in self-denial to free us from attach-ment to worldly goods. The force of attraction to material riches and just how categorical our decision must be not to make of them an idol, Jesus confirms in a resolute way: “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Lk 16,13).

Almsgiving helps us to overcome this con-stant temptation, teaching us to respond to our neighbor’s needs and to share with others what-ever we possess through divine goodness. This is the aim of the special collections in favor of the poor, which are promoted during Lent in many parts of the world. In this way, inward cleansing is accompanied by a gesture of ecclesial com-munion, mirroring what already took place in the early Church. In his Letters, Saint Paul speaks of this in regard to the collection for the Jerusalem community (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27).

According to the teaching of the Gospel, we are not owners but rather administrators of the goods we possess: these, then, are not to be considered as our exclusive possession, but means through which the Lord calls each one of us to act as a steward of His providence for our neighbor. As the Catechism of the Cath-olic Church reminds us, material goods bear a social value, according to the principle of their universal destination (cf. n. 2404)

In the Gospel, Jesus explicitly admonishes the one who possesses and uses earthly riches only for self. In the face of the multitudes, who, lacking everything, suffer hunger, the words of Saint John acquire the tone of a ringing rebuke: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?” (1 Jn 3,17). In those countries whose population is majority Christian, the call to share is even more urgent, since their responsibility toward the many who suffer poverty and abandonment is even greater. To come to their aid is a duty of justice even prior to being an act of charity.

The Gospel highlights a typical feature of Christian almsgiving: it must be hidden: “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is

doing,” Jesus asserts, “so that your alms may be done in secret” (Mt 6,3-4). Just a short while be-fore, He said not to boast of one’s own good works so as not to risk being deprived of the heavenly reward (cf. Mt 6,1-2). The disciple is to be con-cerned with God’s greater glory. Jesus warns: “In this way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Mt 5,16).

Everything, then, must be done for God’s glory and not our own. This understanding, dear brothers and sisters, must accompany every gesture of help to our neighbor, avoiding that it becomes a means to make ourselves the center of attention. If, in accomplishing a good deed, we do not have as our goal God’s glory and the real well being of our brothers and sis-ters, looking rather for a return of personal in-terest or simply of applause, we place ourselves outside of the Gospel vision.

In today’s world of images, attentive vigi-lance is required, since this temptation is great. Almsgiving, according to the Gospel, is not mere philanthropy: rather it is a concrete expression of charity, a theological virtue that demands interior conversion to love of God and neighbor, in imi-tation of Jesus Christ, who, dying on the cross, gave His entire self for us.

How could we not thank God for the many people who silently, far from the gaze of the media world, fulfill, with this spirit, generous ac-tions in support of one’s neighbor in difficulty? There is little use in giving one’s personal goods to others if it leads to a heart puffed up in vain-glory: for this reason, the one, who knows that God “sees in secret” and in secret will reward, does not seek human recognition for works of mercy.

In inviting us to consider almsgiving with a more profound gaze that transcends the purely material dimension, Scripture teaches us that there is more joy in giving than in receiving (cf. Acts 20,35). When we do things out of love, we express the truth of our being; indeed, we have been created not for ourselves but for God and our brothers and sisters (cf. 2 Cor 5,15).

Every time when, for love of God, we share our goods with our neighbor in need, we dis-cover that the fullness of life comes from love and all is returned to us as a blessing in the form of peace, inner satisfaction and joy. Our Father in heaven rewards our almsgiving with His joy. What is more: Saint Peter includes among the spiritual fruits of almsgiving the forgiveness of sins: “Charity,” he writes, “covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pt 4,8).

As the Lenten liturgy frequently repeats, God offers to us sinners the possibility of being for-given. The fact of sharing with the poor what we possess disposes us to receive such a gift. In this moment, my thought turns to those who realize the weight of the evil they have committed and, precisely for this reason, feel far from God, fear-ful and almost incapable of turning to Him. By

drawing close to others through almsgiving, we draw close to God; it can become an instrument for authentic conversion and reconciliation with Him and our brothers.

Almsgiving teaches us the generosity of love. Saint Joseph Benedict Cottolengo forth-rightly recommends: “Never keep an account of the coins you give, since this is what I always say: if, in giving alms, the left hand is not to know what the right hand is doing, then the right hand, too, should not know what it does itself” (Detti e pensieri, Edilibri, n. 201). In this regard, all the more significant is the Gospel story of the wid-ow who, out of her poverty, cast into the Temple treasury “all she had to live on” (Mk 12,44). Her tiny and insignificant coin becomes an eloquent symbol: this widow gives to God not out of her abundance, not so much what she has, but what she is. Her entire self.

We find this moving passage inserted in the description of the days that immediately pre-cede Jesus’ passion and death, who, as Saint Paul writes, made Himself poor to enrich us out of His poverty (cf. 2 Cor 8,9); He gave His en-tire self for us. Lent, also through the practice of almsgiving, inspires us to follow His example. In His school, we can learn to make of our lives a total gift; imitating Him, we are able to make ourselves available, not so much in giving a part of what we possess, but our very selves.

Cannot the entire Gospel be summarized perhaps in the one commandment of love? The Lenten practice of almsgiving thus becomes a means to deepen our Christian vocation. In gra-tuitously offering himself, the Christian bears witness that it is love and not material richness that determines the laws of his existence. Love, then, gives almsgiving its value; it inspires vari-ous forms of giving, according to the possibil-ities and conditions of each person.

Dear brothers and sisters, Lent invites us to “train ourselves” spiritually, also through the practice of almsgiving, in order to grow in charity and recognize in the poor Christ Himself. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that the Apostle Peter said to the cripple who was begging alms at the Temple gate: “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk” (Acts 3,6). In giving alms, we offer something material, a sign of the greater gift that we can impart to others through the announcement and witness of Christ, in whose name is found true life.

Let this time, then, be marked by a personal and community effort of attachment to Christ in order that we may be witnesses of His love. May Mary, Mother and faithful Servant of the Lord, help believers to enter the “spiritual battle” of Lent, armed with prayer, fasting and the practice of almsgiving, so as to arrive at the celebration of the Easter Feasts, renewed in spirit. With these wishes, I willingly impart to all my Apostolic Blessing.

Benedict XVI


Here are excerpts taken from the homily given by Ivan Cardinal Dias, Prefect of the Con-gregation for the Evangelization of People and legate for the Holy Father, on the occasion of the beginning of the Jubilee of the 150th anni-versary of the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette Soubiroux at Lourdes. The homily was delivered at the underground St. Pius X Basilica in Lourdes, France, on De-cember 8, 2007:

God’s grace and mercyAs pilgrims assembled in the love of Christ,

we wish to remember with gratitude and affec-tion the apparitions which took place here in Lourdes in 1858. Together, we try to feel the pal-pitations of the maternal heart of our dear celes-tial Mom, to recall her words, and to listen to the message which she presents to us still today.

We know well the story of these apparitions. The Blessed Virgin came down from Heaven as a Mother who is worried about her sons and daughters living in sin, far from Her Son Jesus. She appeared at the grotto of Masabielle, which at the time (1858) was a swamp where pigs grazed; it is precisely at that place that She wanted a shrine to be built, to show that God’s grace and mercy must triumph over the seedy swamp of human sins.

Nearby the apparition site, the Virgin Mary had water gush forth in plenty, that pilgrims still drink and carry with much devotion all over the world, which represents the wish of our dear Mother to spread Her love and the salvation coming from Her Son throughout the world. Finally, from this blessed Grotto, the Virgin Mary launched an urgent call to all for prayer and penance, in order to obtain the conversion of the poor sinners.

The message of the Virgin todayIt may be asked: what significance may the

message of Our Lady of Lourdes have for us today? I would like to place these apparitions in the larger context of the permanent and fero-cious fight between the forces of good and evil, that has taken place since the very beginning of the history of mankind in the Garden of Eden, and will last until the end of times.

The apparitions at Lourdes are indeed part of the long chain of apparitions of Our Lady, which began 28 years before, in 1830 on the Rue du Bac in Paris, announcing the decisive entrance of the Virgin Mary into the heart of the hostilities between Her and the devil, as it

is written in the Bible, in the Books of Genesis and Revelations. The Miraculous Medal that the Virgin Mary asked to coin on this occasion showed Her with Her ams opened, from which rays of light were going forth to all sides, mean-ing the graces that She would distribute to the entire world. Her feet were resting on the globe, crushing the head of the serpent, the devil, showing the victory of the Virgin Mary over the Evil one and his forces. Around the image, one could read: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.”

It is remarkable that this great truth of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was asserted here 24 years before Pope Pius IX defined it as a dogma of faith (in 1854); four years later, here in Lourdes, Our Lady Herself wanted to reveal to Bernadette that She was the Immaculate Con-ception.

After her apparitions at Lourdes, the Holy Virgin has not ceased to manifest her great maternal concerns for the fate of mankind in her several apparitions worldwide. She has everywhere asked for prayers and penance for the conversion of sinners, for she predicted the spiritual ruin of certain nations, the suf-ferings that the Holy Father would face, the general weakening of the Christian faith, the difficulties of the Church, the rise of the Anti-christ and of his attempts to replace God in the life of men, attempts which, despite their instant success, would nevertheless be des-tined to fail.

An offensive against the forcesof the Evil one

Here, at Lourdes, as everywhere in the world, the Virgin Mary is weaving a enormous web of her spiritual sons and daughters in the whole world in order to launch a strong offen-sive against the forces of the Evil one, to lock him up and thus prepare the final victory of her divine Son, Jesus Christ.

The Virgin Mary invites us once again today to be a part of her combat legion against the for-ces of evil. As a sign of our participation at her offensive, she demands, among other things, the conversion of the heart, a great devotion to the Holy Eucharist, the daily recitation of the rosary, unceasing prayer without hypocrisy, the acceptance of sufferings for the salvation of the world. Those could seem to be small things, but they are powerful in the hands of God, to whom nothing is impossible. As the young David who, with a small stone and a sling, brought down

the giant Goliath who came to meet him armed with a sword, a spear, and a shield (cf. 1 Sam 17,4-51), we will also, with the small beads of our rosary, be able to heroically face the as-saults of our awesome adversary and defeat him.

The final struggle between the Church and the Anti-Church

The struggle between God and his enemy still takes place, even more so today than at the time of Bernadette, 150 years ago. Because the world finds itself stuck in the swamp of a secu-larism that wishes to create a world without God; of a relativism that stifles the permanent and unchangeable values of the Gospel; and of a religious indifference that remains undis-turbed regarding the higher good of the mat-ters of God and the Church. This battle makes innumerable victims within our families and among our young people. Some months be-fore becoming Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla said (November 9, 1976):

“We are today before the greatest combat that mankind has ever seen. I do not believe that the Christian community has completely understood it. We are today before the final struggle between the Church and the Anti-Church, between the Gospel and the Anti-Gospel.”

Mary will crush the head of the serpentBut one thing is certain: the final victory

will be God’s, thanks to Mary, the Woman of the Book of Genesis and of Revelations, who will fight at the head of the army of her spiritual sons and daughters against the enemy forces of Satan and will crush the head of the serpent.

During this Jubilee Year, let us thank the Lord for all the corporal and spiritual graces granted to hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in this holy place, and through the intercession of St. Bernadette, let us pray to the Virgin Mary and ask Her to strengthen us in the spiritual battle of every day, so that we may live in its entirety our Christian faith, by practising the virtues that dis-tinguished the Virgin Mary: fiat, magnificat ans stabat; that is to say, a dauntless faith (fiat), joy beyound measure (magnificat) and uncompo-mising faithfulness (stabat).

O Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, blessed are Thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The 150th anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady at LourdesThe fi nal struggle between the Church and the Anti-Church



by Louis Even

Textbooks generally distinguish three great powers belonging to the Government that are necessary to keep order and stability in the na-tion, to protect the lives, goods and rights of the citizens: the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary.

The legislative power is the power that makes laws.

The executive power is the power which ad-ministers the nation in conformity with its laws.

Finally, the judiciary power is the power that enforces the laws of the country, to prosecute and condemn those who transgress them, to pass judgment on the litigation’s between cit-izens throughout that country.

It is the Constitution of the nation that de-fines, grants and divides the juridiction of these three powers. These are therefore constitution-al powers.

However, there is another power, which is not mentioned in textbooks of colleges and universities, a power that is not establised or defined by the Constitution, but which is actually greater than all three official consti-tutional powers; a power that dominates the lives of individuals, families, institutions, even governments themselves.

This superpower is the monetary power, the power to control money and credit.

It is this power that was denounced by Pope Pius XI in his Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno, in 1931:

“This power is being most forcibly exer-cised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the en-tire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will.”

Everybody knows where the three consti-tuional powers reside: the legislative power has its seat in parliaments, the executive power res-ides in the offices of ministers, and the judiciary power resides in the courts.

But where does this superpower, a power not mentioned in the constitution, the power that controls money and credit, reside?

It resides in the banking system. It is in the banks that financial credit is actually created and cancelled.

Banks create moneyIt is when a bank grants a loan, either to a

contractor, a retailer, or to a government, that new financial credit is created. The banker doesn’t use the depositors’ money, but simply credits the borrower’s account with the loan granted, just as if the borrower had deposited that amount. But the borrower actually neither brought in nor deposited any money, since he came to the bank to get money that he did not have.

The borrower will now be able to issue checks on this account that he did not have when he entered the bank, but that he now has upon leaving.

No account of any other customer of the bank was reduced. This is therefore a new ac-count, added to the accounts that already exist. The total credits in the total accounts of the banks in the country are therefore increased by the amount of this new account.

There is therefore an increase in financial credit, modern money, which will be put into circulation by the checks of the borrower issued on this new credit.

On the contrary, when a borrower comes to the bank to repay his loan (credit that had previ-ously been borrowed), it reduces the quantity of credit in circulation accordingly. The total quantity of blood in the economic life is thus reduced by the same amount.

A simple bookkeeping operation, made with one stroke of the pen, had created financial credit. Another simple bookkeeping operation, when the loan is repaid, cancels, destroys this credit. This credit disappears the same way it was created, through a simple bookkeeeping operation.

It is easy to see that, if during a given period of time, the total of the loans exceeds the total repayments, this puts more credit into circula-tion than what is cancelled. On the contrary, if the total of the repayments exceeds the total of the loans, it causes a period of reduction of credit from circulation.

If the reduction period persists, the whole economic body is affected by it: it is called a crisis — a crisis caused by a restriction of credit.

These periods of increase and reduction are not due to mere chance, but to the action of the banks. They are not like the seven fat and lean cows of Pharaoh’s dream in the Book of Genesis, but banking cows which are made fat or lean according to the rate of loans and repayments.

Whatever the conditions of economic life in the past centuries, money is nowadays a must to maintain production that comes from vari-ous sources, goes through various succesive stages, until the finished goods are thrown on the market.

However, those who need these goods to live can obtain them only provided they can show the money to the suppliers. Money is basically a licence to live, and those who con-trol these licences, who allow or refuse them, who condition their quantity and length in circu-lation actually control our lives in such a way, as Pope Pius XI wrote, that “no one dare breathe against their will.”

Money would be worthless if there were no products on the market. Now, it is the popula-tion of the country that makes the products; as for the controllers of money and credit, they produce absolutely nothing: they do not cause a single stalk of wheat to grow, do not produce one single pair of shoes, do not manufacture one sole brick, do not dig into a mine shaft, and do not pave one square inch of road.

It is the country’s population that carries out these projects. But to be able to produce all these things, the population needs the approval of the controllers of money.

A superpower dominates governmentsThe superpower resides in the banks

Louis Even (1885-1974)founder of the “Michael” Journal

At the bank, the pen that rules the world



Money is a licenceMoney is nothing but a ticket, a licence that

costs nothing to produce but a decision and a drop of ink. And in order to get this licence, the population must get into debt for all that they produce. Can one imagine worst economic tyr-anny?

The banker’s pen which consents or re-fuses to give to individuals, to corporations, to governments, the right to mobilize the skills of professionals, the nation’s natural resources, that pen commands; it grants or refuses; it sets conditions on the financial permits that it gives; it gets into debt those individuals or govern-ments to whom it grants permits. The banker’s pen has the power of a scepter in the hands of a superpower — the monetary power.

From 1929 to 1939, we endured ten years of economic paralysis. Not one government thought it had the power to put an end to it. A declaration of war came, and the financial permits to produce, to draft, to destroy and to kill, suddenly appeared overnight.

This fact, on its own, should have been an eye-opener, and made everybody understand by now that this 10-year Depression was noth-ing but a 10-year refusal by the controllers of money and credit of releasing licences (money). It only required their decision to put an end to the depression and money shortage. For ex-ample, the decision came to instigate the war, when the money-licences were issued by the billions, to finance six years of the most expen-sive war ever.

Yet, you may still hear backward scholars deny that the volume of credit in circulation depends upon the action of the banks. These scholars, who resist the obvious, are an invalu-able support to the superpower through their ignorance — if it is really ignorance on their part, or perhaps through vested selfish interests that bind them, or through their collusion with a power which can bring them easy promotions.

Upper-class bankers on the other hand, know very well that financial credit, which makes up the bulk of modern money, is created and cancelled in the ledgers of banks.

A distinguished British banker, the Right Honourable Reginald McKenna, one-time Brit-ish Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of Fi-nance) and Chairman of the Midland Bank, one of the Big Five (five largest banks of England), addressed an annual general meeting of the shareholders of the bank on January 25, 1924, and said (as recorded in his book, Post-War Banking):

“I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, cre-ate and destroy money. The amount of finance in existence varies only with the action of the banks in increasing or decreasing deposits and bank purchases. We know how this is effected. Every loan, overdraft, or bank purchase cre-ates a deposit, and every repayment of a loan, overdraft, or bank sale destroys a deposit.”

Having also been Minister of Finance, Mc-Kenna knew very well where the bigger of the two powers — the power of the banks and that of the sovereign government of the country — resided. And he was frank enough to state the following, which is very uncommon among bankers of his level:

“They (the banks) control the credit of the nation, direct the policies of governments, and keep in the palm of their hands the destinies of the peoples.”

This is a statement which is in complete agreement with what Pope Pius XI wrote in his Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno, in 1931, about “those who, because they hold and con-trol money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason sup-

plying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the en-tire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will.”

The solutionThe solution is to replace this non-consti-

tutional superpower with a constitutional mon-etary organism, similar to the judiciary system, staffed with qualified accountants instead of judges. These accountants would, like judges, fulfill their duties independently of the powers that be. They would base their operations — additions, subtractions, or rules of three — on statistics which do not depend upon them, but on the statements of the production and con-sumption of the country, resulting from the free activities of free producers to respond to the or-ders freely expressed by free consumers.

This means that money and credit would only be the faithful reflection, the expression in figures, of economic realities.

If the pen of an usurped superpower can create or refuse, according to the will of this ty-rant, the financial credit, based on the nation’s real credit, the pen from a constitutional mon-etary power would be as effective to issue the financial credit, to the service of the population and all the members of society. This end would be specified in the law.

There would no longer be a purely financial hindrance. Getting into debt to foreign bankers for things that we can produce in our own coun-try — this idiocy would cease to exist. Prices that keep going up, when production becomes easier and more plentiful — such an inconsis-tency would cease to exist in a monetary body that is obligated by law to make the financial aspects of the economy the exact reflection of reality.

The seeking of new job creations while the machine, instead of human labour, supplies products — such a ridiculous policy would be relegated to a past history of subjection to a monster. The astronomical waste, due to the production of things that are useless to the normal needs of people, with the sole end of creating jobs, would be banned as a lack of re-sponsibility to the generations that must suc-ceed us.

And thousands of other things as well will ensue with this establishment of a monetary power of service, and when this unbearable rule that links income solely to employment is done away with, when the first effect of progress should be a free man. Thhis would allow him to devote himself freely to activities which are less materialistic, and to tend towards the blossom-ing out of his personality and freedom.

Louis Even

The Jan. 7, 2008 issue of the Italian news-paper Il Messaggero reports:

“The issue of globalization, which has been one of Pope Benedict XVI’s primary concerns, will be at the center of his first so-cial encyclical. It has been leaked from the Vatican that the encyclical will be made pub-lic on March 19, feast of St. Joseph, patron of laborers. (It will also be the Pope’s name day.) Globalization has been a key point in many Papal documents — from an appeal to the G8 during their June 2007 summit, with a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel asking her to urge her colleagues to help Africa more and to forgive debts to poor countries, to his homily during his pastoral visit to Velletri in September, when he denounced globaliza-tion carried out only for economic reasons.”

On Sunday, January 6, 2008, the solem-nity of the Epiphany, the Holy Father issued strong words in his homily:

“Yet, what the prophet (Isaiah) said is also true today in many senses: ‘thick dark-ness covers the peoples’» and our history. Indeed, it cannot be said that ‘globaliza-tion’ is synonymous with ‘world order’ - it is quite the opposite. Conflicts for economic supremacy and hoarding resources of en-ergy, water and raw materials hinder the work of all who are striving at every level

to build a just and supportive world. There is a need for greater hope, which will make it possible to prefer the common good of all to the luxury of the few and the poverty of the many. ‘This great hope can only be God... not any god, but the God who has a human face’ (Spe Salvi, n. 31): the God who showed himself in the Child of Bethlehem and the Crucified and Risen One.

If there is great hope, it is possible to persevere in sobriety. If true hope is lacking, happiness is sought in drunkenness, in the superfluous, in excesses, and we ruin our-selves and the world. It is then that mod-eration is not only an ascetic rule but also a path of salvation for humanity. It is already obvious that only by adopting a sober life-style, accompanied by a serious effort for a fair distribution of riches, will it be pos-sible to establish an order of just and sus-tainable development. For this reason we need people who nourish great hope and thus have great courage: the courage of the Magi, who made a long journey following a star and were able to kneel before a Child and offer him their precious gifts. We all need this courage, anchored to firm hope. May Mary obtain it for us, accompanying us on our earthly pilgrimage with her maternal protection. Amen!

Pope: globalization is synonymous with world disorder

New social encyclical due by March 19th



by Vic Bridger

Most people would have heard by now the problem that exists and which will continue to exist regarding the housing collapse in the United States.

The reason for the collapse and the foreclos-ures is basic and should not be a surprise to a Social Crediter. The reason can be given in one word: MONEY.

We know that under the current financial ac-counting and banking system that people are liv-ing on drafts upon the future. Whether that is in the form of a bank overdraft, personal loan, credit card debt or a housing mortgage it makes no dif-ference. All repayments for debt incurred in the past have to be repaid out of future income.

We also know that all bank lending is a debt and that all money that comes into existence comes in as a result of borrowing from banks and that means money comes into existence as a debt.

Banks are businesses and as they deal in money, which is a debt, it is necessary for them to be as prudent as possible in their day-to-day operations. When there were controls in place to ensure they did not go beyond certain limits there was some measure of safety. Those regulatory controls, which have been gradually removed, al-lowed the banks to reduce the fiat control from 18% to 12% to what is today a negligible %. When banks have reached the position of lending nearly 100 to 1, i.e. lending $100 for $1 in their posses-sion they reach a point where growth is restricted as well as leaving themselves open to substantial losses.

Having reached this stage banks resort to bor-rowing themselves from other banks and then can continue to lend on the same basis as before.

Add to this scenario banks lending to other institutions who in themselves are in the lending business. Such is the case with the banks putting together bundles of mortgages and sold as mort-gage-backed securities.

The purchases of these mortgages then use them as collateral to issue bonds in order to fi-nance other deals. Such is the growth of what is called the “sub-prime market”. The money origin-ally lent homebuyers attracts interest and the idea is that this interest will cover the interest to be paid on the bonds issued.

To add to this the sub-prime market institu-tions have been lending to homebuyers on a no deposit and 100% financing of their homes. Some-times falsifying records to show the borrower’s earnings greater than they were and locking them into low interest rate contracts, which escalated after the initial period.

As if this was not enough some of these sub-prime market forms created new “structured fi-nance products” referred to as collateralised debt obligations (CDOs). They are in actual fact “slices” of the other mortgage securities, issued as bonds.

To put it simply it is operating on the principle that one debt can be split into two or more and of-fered on the market. Many of these CDOs were picked up by “hedge Funds” who in fact borrowed money to buy them.

When people have been lent money for the purchase of a home and do not have the continu-ing ability to meet their commitments for what-ever reason foreclosures occur. When interest rates increase or when people enter into contracts with an interest rate that converts to a higher rate at a later date for instance one, two or three years more problems arise.

It is like a house built out of a stack of play-ing cards or those structures built with dominoes. When one starts to go, the rest follow. When fore-closures increase and homes have to be sold to obtain cash the value of the homes decrease, which exponentially increases the problem.

Because many banks around the world have been lending money and buying into hedge funds they eventually feel the crunch when things go wrong.

Banks in Australia, Canada, and Europe have been affected by the recent collapse of the sub-prime market.

Authorities, particularly the Central Banks have been attempting to keep the problem under wraps but finally had to concede that it WAS A BIG PROBLEM.

The US Federal Reserve, the European Cen-tral Bank, the Central banks of Canada, England, Switzerland, the Bank of Japan and Sweden’s Riksbank got together to work out a plan to create money to inject into commercial banks to starve off what could develop into a massive collapse of the world’s financial structure.

In keeping with the usual question that is put to Social Crediters we can ask, “Where is the money coming from?”

The answer is quite simple, they create it out of nothing like the commercial banks do.

The whole exercise in the debt lending game is for the banks to offload their risks out of the banking system. It has been estimated by the US Congress’s Joint Economic Committee that al-though there have been 1.7 million foreclosures in the first eight months of 2007 it is expected that probably 2 million families will lose their homes over the next two years.

That statement is sufficient to indicate that the problem is going to get worse.

It is interesting to note the resort to the idea of a “Change of Heart” creeping into the debate on the problem. C.H. Douglas in his book Social Credit wrote:

“No one, having debated any consideration to the subject, can fail to feel the exasperation at the exhortation of the confirmed sentimental-ist forever clamouring after a ‘change of heart’. What effect on his particular difficulties is it go-ing to have, if the miner, abandoning self-interest, goes to his employer and offers to accept half his present wages? Or the mine-owner, faced with a loss, who raises his men’s wages? What effect on the dividends of the shopkeeper already in debt to his bank, and in doubt as to the source from which he shall pay his next week’s rent, and meet the difference on his overdraft does it have, if smitten with the sudden desire to apply the golden rule to business, he sells his goods at half their cost to him, because he knows his clientele, who are coal-miners, cannot afford more?

The US Treasury Under Secretary for Domes-tic Finance has been urging key lenders to take a more sympathetic approach.

There is, however, one question that has al-ways baffled Social Crediters. How is it possible to borrow your way out of debt?

Whether or not current efforts by Central Banks to alleviate the problem are successful, time will tell. Whether it is next year, the year after, or the year after there is one thing certain many, many people are going to be hurt.

What the current problem does illustrate is the funny money system under which our expert financiers support, is that it is an illusion and not based upon reality. It is an illusion to the extent that the money accounting system is false and yet whilst accepted by people as being real it does affect them in a real physical way.

Like the oasis mirage in the desert the phys-ical reality will express itself in natural terms.

Houses are made from physical properties. Money is a nothing, yet accepted as being repre-sentative of the physical properties, which it is not.

One economist writing on the sub-prime col-lapse unwittingly puts his finger on a very import-ant factor. He refers to the crisis as a confidence crisis stating that since the sub-prime crisis inten-sified last July major banks have lost confidence in each other. He says that without trust the system falls apart. That does sum up the basic problem. Banks lend, and in this particular case, not on the basis of something physical but on the thought or idea that the entity to whom loans are made will be repaid with more money than they the banks have lent.

If a financial system is built on nothing more than trust or confidence it is no different from the actions of a con man or a counterfeiter. Provid-ing no one questions the con man or people are prepared to accept counterfeit money he will get away with his actions and counterfeit money will do the same job as the real thing. It all depends on trust and confidence.

The economist writer also makes valid point when he commented that we in Australia are lucky that the banks here “were not heavily into sub-prime poker and lucky that this gave the Re-serve Bank time to institute major changes in the way it deals with our banks to give them greater confidence that they can continue without the risk of running out of money”.

There is no doubt that it is like a game of pok-er. It is pure gambling based on maintaining confi-dence both in your own action and the confidence that others will act accordingly. If we disregard the occurrence of the sub-prime collapse it is possible to see the effect of a restriction of bank credit on industry.

It was stated earlier that all debts have to be repaid out of future income. This being so it is ob-vious that any restriction on the receipt of income whether in the form of wages and salaries, divi-dends or profits means a reduction in the ability to liquidate or reduce a debt incurred.

Mr. and Mrs Bridger of Australiawith Pierre Marchildon

(source: www.deesillustration.com)

The sub-prime crisis in the U.S.A.



Businesses can continue to operate provided they are either making a profit or can show their bank a cash flow statement that will indicate that future cash will eventuate to be paid into the bank. A business may have assets, which can be regarded as being “gilt edged”, and have a cash flow, which is more than acceptable to their bank or even investors but the moment that its credit rating or ability to obtain credit becomes obvious, the pack of cards can start to fall.

It has been stated more than once in these columns that if the financial “experts” who op-pose Social Credit and what Douglas has said about our debt system there is one simple way to prove the analysis wrong; Stop lending, stop creating credit ! They know that the moment that happened the system would collapse. That is why Central Banks were so eager to get to-gether to prop up the commercial banks.

If any further evidence is required one has only to look at recent events involving a Company that was regarded as a shining light in the invest-ment field.

The Company, Centro Properties Group, which has investments in at least a dozen coun-tries around the world including the US, Can-ada, Europe, Russia, China, Brazil, India, Japan, Africa and other Latin American countries has succumbed to the sub-prime collapse. Centro is Australia’s second largest shopping centre owner with a $26.6 billion managed property portfolio. It owns almost 700 shopping malls in the US and 128 Australian centres.

Centro borrowed heavily to finance a rapid US expansion, increasing from $11.5 billion to $26.6 billion in about 12 months. Australian banks have a $4 billion exposure to Centro Properties Group including $1.5 billion in unsecured loans. On top of this Centro attempted to refinance $1.3 billion of its long-term debt in early December but hit a brick wall. It has announced that it must refinance its mounting debt by mid-February or it will be in dire straits.

Perhaps we can look forward to a “change of heart” by the banks and all will be well but it may take more than just that to stay off the repercus-sions felt by other investors. It may well be that Superannuation Funds will be affected reducing the returns to superannuants on the money they have forgone in wages and salaries.

The banks involved in selling their mortgage debts have been very shrewd. They create the debt when they lend to borrowers and as a result they create the money when the money borrowed and credited to the borrowers account and is then used by the borrower to purchase. When the bank sells off the mortgage debt it relieves itself of any risk. It receives payment from the entity buying the debt. The sub-prime entity or whoever may have bought the debt are not in the position of creating money in the manner that banks do.

To add salt to the wounds the private banks in Australia have decided to increase their interest rates on home mortgages in particular. This ac-tion has been taken because of the effect that the sub-prime market has had on their borrowings. In other words they expect the home owner who has an existing mortgage whether taken out last year or five years ago to pay more interest to the banks in order to cover the losses incurred by the banks on their bad investments and borrowings.

According to the “experts”, interest is the price of money. Money borrowed is no different to money bought. Imagine the uproar if all com-panies leasing motor vehicles or involved in Hire Purchase contracts decided that their company was not doing too well and decided to increase the lease charge or Hire Purchase fees. Imagine any company going back to the purchaser of one of their products and asking for more money be-cause they had to reduce their losses because they had a duty to their shareholders.

It is bad enough when the Reserve Bank in-creases interest rates and banks pass on the in-crease but to simply increase interest rates to maintain their profit position is, to put it mildly de-spicable. Of course this is all done under cover of using the VARIABLE loan racket.

The action of the banks is little less than criminal although legal because our politicians allow it.

Whatever happens it strengthens the claim by Social Credit that there needs to be a change in the financial accounting system to reflect facts and not mirages.

Vic Bridger

This article is taken from the Jan.-Feb. 2008 issue of the Australasian Social Credit Journal A Journal of the Social Credit School of Stud-ies, 209 Palm Lake Resort, 1 Webster Road, De-ception Bay Q. 4508, Telephone (07) 33859794, E-mail: [email protected] — Internet: http//www.ecn.net.au/~socred/

by Richard C. Cook

Our economy is on an artificial life-support system, a barely-breath-ing hostage in a lunatic asylum. That asylum is the U.S. and world financial systems which are on the verge of collapse.

The inmates are the world’s central bankers, along with most of the fi-nancial magnates big and small. The fact is that the economy of much of the world is in a deci-sive downward slide which the financiers cannot stop because the systems they operate are the primary cause. As often happens, the inmates rule the asylum.

In such an environment, crime, warfare, ter-rorism, and other forms of violence are endemic. Only the most naïve, self-centered, and deluded jingoist could describe such a scenario in terms of the freedom-loving Western democracies being besieged by the “bad guys.”

Rather what is happening highlights the grow-ing failures of Western globalist finance whose im-pact on political stability has been so corrosive. As many responsible commentators are warning, we are likely to see major financial shocks within the next few months. The warnings are even coming from high-flying institutional players like the Bank of International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund.

The root cause of the catastropheHow did today’s looming tragedy come to

pass? Looking for causes is like peeling an on-ion. What we are really seeing are the terminal throes of a failed financial system almost a cen-tury old. It’s happening because, since the cre-ation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 — even during the period of the New Deal with its Keynesian economics aimed at full employment — our economy has been based almost entirely on fractional reserve banking.

This means that under the regime of the world’s all-powerful central banking systems, money is brought into existence only as debt-bearing loans. Interest on this lending tends to grow exponentially unless overtaken by real eco-nomic growth.

The banks, along with the bank-leveraged equity and hedge funds, are preparing for the big-gest fire sale in at least a generation. Insiders are going liquid to get ready. If you think Enron was “the bomb,” you won’t want to miss this one.

What can be done?There are so many flaws in the system that it’s

time for real change.

As I have been pointing out in articles over the last several months, the key to a rational solution would be immediate monetary reform leading to a fundamental shift in how the world conducts its financial business. It would mean taking control of the world’s economy out of the hands of the private bankers and giving it back to democratically elected governments.

I spent twenty-one years working for the U.S. Treasury Department and studying U.S. monetary history. For much of our history we were a labora-tory for diverse monetary systems.

During and after the Civil War (1861-5) we had five

different sources of money that fueled our economy. One was the Greenbacks, an extremely successful currency which the government spent directly into circulation. Contrary to financiers’ propaganda, the Greenbacks were not inflationary. (…)

The banking system which rules the economy through the Federal Reserve System has pro-duced the crushing debt pyramid of today. The system is a travesty. Banks, which can be useful in facilitating commerce, should never have this much power. Many intelligent people have called for the Federal Reserve to be abolished, including former chairmen of the House banking committee Wright Patman and Henry Gonzales and current Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Some might call such a program a revolution. I prefer to call it a restoration — of national sover-eignty. Central to the program would be the elim-ination of the Federal Reserve as a bank of issue and restoration of money-creation to the people’s representatives in Congress. This is what our Con-stitution says too. It’s the system we had before 1913.

The monetary prescriptionThe fundamental objectives of monetary pol-

icy should be to secure a healthy producing econ-omy and provide for sufficient individual income. The objectives should not be to produce massive profits for the banks, fodder for Wall Street swin-dles, and a blank check for out-of-control govern-ment expenditures.

Note I referred to income. I did not say “cre-ate jobs.” That is the Keynesian answer, because Keynes was a collectivist, and the main thing col-lectivists like to come up with is to give everyone more work to do, even if it’s just grabbing a shov-el and digging ditches like they did with the WPA during the Depression.

The idea of “income,” as opposed to “jobs,” is a civilized and humane idea. When are we going to realize that everyone doesn’t need a paying job in order for an industrial economy to provide all with a decent living? When are we going to realize that the productivity of the modern econ-omy is part of the heritage of all of us, part of the social commons?

Why can’t mothers have the choice of staying home with the kids like they could a generation ago? Why can’t some people choose to do elder-care? Why can’t others comfortably go into lower-paying occupations like teaching or the arts? Why can’t some just opt to study or travel for a while or learn new skills or start a business without facing financial ruin as they often must today? Why can’t retirees enjoy their retirement instead of having to stay in the job market or worrying about Social Security going broke?

The U.S. and world economies are on the brink of collapse due to the lunacy of the financial system, not because we can’t produce enough.

Contrary to so many doomsayers, the ma-ture world economy is capable of providing a de-cent living for everyone on the planet. It cannot because the monetary equivalent of its bounty is skimmed by interest-bearing debt.

Fundamental monetary reform implemented to restore economic democracy is what Amer-ica’s real task should be for the twenty-first cen-tury. One thing is for certain. The out-of-control financial system that has wrecked the U.S. and world economies over the last generation cannot be allowed to continue.

(source: www.richardccook.com)

Our economy is on an artificial life-support system

Richard C. Cook


Bad fruits from a system of unpayble debtsTaxes, income tax, unemployment, poverty

The solution: finance without debt through an honest monetary system


by Louis Even

Rich country, indebted countryWhat is, materially speaking, the richest

country in the world?It is, without doubt, the United States of

America. The United States is the country which is the best equipped, that produces the most, that has the most products to offer others, and the one who is the most able to increase its production even more.

The United States sends more products to other countries than it receives from them. Whether it is under the Marshall Plan, or through aid to the organization for the defense of the West, the United States puts millions of American dollars at the disposition of other countries, who can buy American products for the value of these millions of dollars.

What is the country that is the most in-debted in the world?

It is the United States of America. Now in 2008, their national debt is over 9,200 billion dollars.

The trick of a false financial systemIs this not a contradiction? How can the

richest country have the biggest public debt?Speaking logically, it is certainly contradic-

tory. But with the actual financial system, this is what must happen. In reality the more a coun-try augments its potential for production, the more it enriches itself; but at the same time, it indebts itself more financially.

It is not any different in Canada. Compare on one side, the actual riches of the country now to what they were 300, 200, 100, 50, or 25 years ago. You will find that the actual riches have always increased. On the other hand com-pare the national debt with what it was in the beginning, such as 200, 100, 50, 25 years ago; you will see that the debt has also augmented.

It is the same thing for the debts of the provinces and the municipalities.

But how can this be?It is because the more there is production,

the greater the amount of money that is needed to represent it, to permit the transfer or flow of products. Therefore the increase of money can-not be made without an increase in the debt, in a system where all new money comes under the form of loans which constitute a debt.

Loans and reimbursementsWhat do you call “new money”?All increases in the volume of money in cir-

culation.If in a country there was 5 billion dollars in

circulation last year and if there are 6 billion in circulation this year it is evidently because, at some point, we added one billion. This billion which did not exist last year and which exists this year, is a new billion.

This billion did not come by itself, because there is no money that is created spontaneous-ly.

It did not fall from heaven: there is no mon-ey that falls like rain or snow.

It was not made by the Government: the Government proclaims to those who want to

listen that there is no other money than the money which comes from taxes and loans.

This billion was not manufactured by farm-ers, the working class, or by the industrialists. These people manufacture agricultural and in-dustrial products but they do not manufacture money.

This extra billion came about because bor-rowers (individual borrowers or public borrow-ers) obtained loans from banks amounting to a billion dollars. (These loans consisted simply of amounts inscribed by the banker in credit, not by investors who brought cash, but by a bor-rower who came to get some.)

To be more exact, it would be necessary to say that there was more than a billion dollars in

loans during the year, because during this pe-riod of time there were also reimbursements.

These reimbursements remove money from circulation, and loans put money into circulation. If the amount in circulation went up by one billion, it is because the sum of the loans surpassed by one billion the sum of ‘the reimbursements.

Loans constitute debts to be reimbursed, and these reimbursements discharge debts. If the loans surpass the reimbursements by one billion, the debts contracted exceed by one bil-lion the debts paid off.

And this is how all increases in money cre-ate an increase in debts.

But could it not happen that the sum of the reimbursements would be greater than the sum of the loans?

Yes, for a limited time. This is what hap-pens; for example, when banks make it harder to lend and are demanding of reimbursements. When that happens, the money in circulation decreases and we soon have a depression. Less money to pay for products and less mon-ey to pay salaries, so it is a true crisis.

But never can the total of the debts disap-pear completely: it is impossible to reimburse them completely, even by taking all the money which has been put into circulation through loans. This, for the good reason that he who borrows indebts himself for more than the amount of the loan. We call this interest on the loan.

Since money enters into circulation through loans and since money disappears through re-imbursements which must be larger than the loans, this signifies that we would have to glob-ally reimburse more money than what is in total circulation. It is a mathematical impossibility.

That is why the total debt is unpayable.

This is why the world becomes more and more indebted, and as mankind develops; necessi-tating loans from the Financiers.

In that case, should not the sum of the debts be even bigger than it is?

The sum of the debts would be even bigger in effect; if there would not be debts which are discharged in other ways than by reimburse-ments.

There are debts which are discharged through bankruptcies. The debt therefore, is not reimbursed or is only partially reimbursed but the guarantees of the loan are seized.

Bankruptcies, closed factories, abandoned farms, and all the miseries which ensue for the deposed owners or for the unemployed work-ers are the fruits of the stupidity of a system which demands reimbursement of more mon-ey than it has created.

A paralyzing load that is not removedBut there are industries which reimburse

their loans, including the interest. There are others who develop their enterprises without loans from the banks. There are governments which in certain years diminish their public debts.

All this is true because like you say there are reimbursements, there are some who do it: but altogether they cannot. Those who succeed in finding 106 where there is only 100, take the additional 6 from the sums put into circulation by the loans of others. These others will only have more difficulty in trying to make their own reimbursements.

The success of one makes the plight of the others more desperate.

As for the industries which finance their developments without loans, they do so with money extracted from the public through high-er prices to finance the amount. We call this auto-financing. But it is not at all an automatic financing; it is financing at the expense of the buyers, the result is that buyers are obliged to deprive themselves of products which are of-fered and which they need because the higher prices are over their budget. This is another bad fruit of a financial system which is false and unhealthy.

As for the governments who succeed at times in diminishing their public debts, it is be-cause they also extract from the public, through taxes, more money than they put back into cir-culation through their expenses.

What they give in reimbursement of their debt, the citizens no longer have to buy the products which are offered to them. The result is again the same: less purchases, products not sold, total or partial unemployment for many, establishments closed because of the bad flow of their products.

A bad tree can only give bad fruit. And the fact of passing the weight from one shoulder to the next does not lessen the load: it only suc-ceeds in creating conflicts. And we know there are many conflicts today.

What is true between those in debt in the same country is true among other countries


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On January 24, 2008, feast day of St. Francis of Sales, patron of journalists, the Holy See presented the Pope’s Message for the 42nd World Day of Social Communica-tions. Here are important excerpts:

“The media, taken overall, are not only vehicles for spreading ideas: they can and should also be instruments at the service of a world of greater justice and solidar-ity. Unfortunately, though, they risk being transformed into systems aimed at subject-ing humanity to agendas dictated by the dominant interests of the day. This is what happens when communication is used for ideological purposes or for the aggressive advertising of consumer products. While claiming to represent reality, it can tend to legitimise or impose distorted models of personal, family or social life. Moreover, in order to attract listeners and increase the size of audiences, it does not hesitate at times to have recourse to vulgarity and violence, and to overstep the mark.

“Humanity today is at a crossroads.... We must ask, therefore, whether it is wise to allow the instruments of social com-munication to be exploited for indiscrim-inate ‘self-promotion’ or to end up in the hands of those who use them to manipu-

late consciences... Their extraordinary impact on the lives of individuals and on society is widely acknowledged, yet today it is necessary to stress the radical shift, one might even say the complete change of role, that they are currently undergoing. Today, communication seems increasingly to claim not simply to represent reality, but to determine it, owing to the power and the force of suggestion that it possesses. It is clear, for example, that in certain situa-tions the media are used not for the proper purpose of disseminating information, but to ‘create’ events.

“It is essential that social communica-tions should assiduously defend the per-son and fully respect human dignity. Many people now think there is a need, in this sphere, for ‘info-ethics’, just as we have bioethics in the field of medicine and in sci-entific research linked to life.

«The media must avoid becoming spokesmen for economic materialism and ethical relativism, true scourges of our time. Instead, they can and must contrib-ute to making known the truth about hu-manity, and defending it against those who tend to deny or destroy it.”

Benedict XVI

The role of media: spreading and defending truth

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which are in debt. And the source of conflict among individuals and classes are also the source of conflict among nations, it always ends badly.

Is it possible to have a financial system that does not indebt as we become richer?

Yes there is one, it was proposed to the world in 1918: Social Credit.

Social Credit does not create un-payable debts, because it would cause money to be created to the rhythm of production and to dis-appear to that of consumption.

If it is somehow possible in a limited time, to consume more than we produce, because of earlier surpluses it is impossible on the whole, to consume more than that which is produced. No one can make a loaf of bread, a pair of boots, or a pin disappear, that was not first produced.

If therefore money would arrive according to production and disappear according to con-sumption, the system of progressive indebted-ness would be inconceivable.

An individual or a group of individuals could certainly still indebt themselves but on the whole, the common debt would not exist. On the contrary real total enrichment would ex-press itself by a total financial enrichment; and instead of taxes and surcharges on prices, indi-viduals would receive dividends and discounts on prices.

The actual system is a lie; it is a false ac-counting. Social Credit would be a just ac-counting, an exact financial expression of eco-nomic realities. The first can only give rotten fruit. The second would produce good fruit, in abundance for all.

Louis Even


The Security and Prosperity Partnership is re-ally a conglomeration of the treaties used to create the European Union. The S.P.P. utilizes the same undemocratic means to execute policies and laws without the knowledge or consent of the citizens they are forced upon. These same tactics will be used in our continent of the Americas, when these governments establish the North American Union. The S.P.P. stands for the integration of the United States, Canada and Mexico into what equates as a complete loss of sovereignty for the three na-tions.

The Montebello Summit MeetingOn August 21, 2007 the leaders of North Amer-

ica met in Montebello, Canada. Meeting under the guise of the S.P.P., they discussed the “opportuni-ties and challenges facing North America and to establish priorities for further collaboration.” Pro-ponents of a plan were discussed to make all of North America a single “competitive player in the global markets” so that globalization will advance for the United States, Canada and Mexico. Among the topics considered was the mass movement of military personnel deployed in North America. The S.P.P. requires that procedures be developed for “managing the movement of goods and people across our shared borders during and following an emergency.” Our leaders continue to publicize the NAFTA trade agreements and the importance of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, despite the fact that 18 states in the United States are opposing both of these measures with legislation.

The Montebello Summit was held in secret with no press coverage. The protesters, who arrived from all over Canada and the United States, were kept away by a large cordon of police and barbed wire fencing. President George Bush laughed at concerns that the meeting was not allowed media coverage, saying “I’m amused by some of the spec-ulation, some of the old – you can call them political scare tactics. If you’ve been in politics as long as I have, you get used to that kind of technique where you lay out a conspiracy and then force people to try to prove it doesn’t exist. That’s just the way some people operate.” Canada’s Prime Minster Stephen Harper dismissed the demonstration even after he was told that there were hundreds of protesters in-volved. “I’ve heard it’s nothing. A couple hundred? It’s sad,” he said.

Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon has established that he will introduce state legislation in the next session of the House opposing the NAFTA treaty. Senator Brogdon’s plan is to remove Okla-homa’s membership in the North America Super Corridor Coalition. He elucidated that “NAFTA is not free trade; its managed trade”, and “the S.P.P. is sold as security! But it’ll have the exact opposite effect…and the European Union started in the same way as a trade agreement.” Judging by the number of states opposing NAFTA and the NAU, there are a growing number of state offi cials who are beginning to think the same way as Senator Brogdon.

The United States dollarThe US dollar is sinking very quickly, and if it col-

lapses, and it seems to be heading in that direc-tion, then America would be removed as a global power. Now in 2008, gas is three dollars a gallon, which is 150% higher than it was in 1967. This is not acci-dental; the Inter-national Bankers want the Ameri-cans to accept a global currency, as the countries of the European Union now have. South and Central American econ-omies will be severely affected, as well as the Asian community which has invested heavily in the United States.

Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, expounded: “This is all

pointing to a greatly increased risk of a fast unwind-ing of the U.S. current account defi cit and a serious decline of the dollar.” Economists are now starting to debate the possibility of another dollar disaster similar to the Great Depression. The demoralization of the US dollar is in fact the best excuse that the Federal Reserve could give the American people to encourage them to accept the Amero dollar. Indeed, there hasn’t been much talk of a new currency before now because the banking conglomerates know that the American people would never give up the dollar without a battle, but the equalization of the US dollar these last few months show that we are heading in that direction. We have only to compare ourselves with the already chaotic European Union. When the EU changed their national currencies to the euro, those who had large (or even small) savings lost 60% of what they had. They were only allowed a certain amount of days in which to exchange their money into euro, otherwise their money would be devalued and they would get nothing. So they really had no choice but to accept whatever the EU banks would give them.

The European Union:a future North America

The European Union grows more undemocratic with each closed-door meeting. In Portugal, in Octo-ber of 2007, the European leaders met in Lisbon to revise the European Constitution. There were over 200,000 citizens who protested on the secrecy of the meeting and the fact that they are no longer allowed any say in the running of their countries. The protest was ignored completely by the press, although it was the largest Portugal had seen in 20 years.

A quote from Thomas Rupp, who is a leader of the European Referendum Campaign, affi rmed that “they boasted that they have managed to get over an international crisis, but in fact they just increased the EU’s democratic crisis by completely avoiding the citizens.” (EU Observer, Oct. 3, 2007)

Democracy, according to the philosophy of the Eu-ropean Union Commission, is slighted to be replaced by imperialism. France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy takes it one step further by stating the benefi ts of a “new world order” based on United Nation policies with a “change of mindset and behaviour.” The ultimate goal for all ‘New World Or-der’ propagandists is the One World Order. This is the reason the European

Union was created, and why the elite are pushing for the North American Union.

Germany terrorizes homeschoolersGerman families have been fl eeing the country

in an attempt to have some control over the educa-tion of their children. Germany has outlawed home-

schooling since the time of Hitler, but it’s only now that the government has started re-enforcing the policy. This is another sign of the evils of a Ger-many that is part of a EU controlled imperialistic constitution. WorldNetDaily reports that in early January of 2008, a man from Bavaria sent this message: “This morning we received a call from the German ministry of education. Tomorrow they will send the police to our home and take Josia (6), Lou Ann (10) and Aileen (13) by force to the public school.”

Joel Thornton, who is the president of the In-ternational Human Rights Group that advocates for the homeschoolers in Germany, avowed that “German government offi cials are willing to violate their own procedures to take the custody of chil-dren from parents for nothing more than home-schooling. Were there criminal activity going on that was being avoided would be understandable, however the system would probably not be so quick to act.”

In Communist Russia, the control of the state over the nations’ children was a perfect way to en-sure that they would be indoctrinated at an early age in the teachings of Socialist Marxism. This is

the plan of the New World Order followers, and this policy will soon become the norm in all EU coun-tries.

Trans-Texas CorridorIn the latest news, taken from the website for the

Trans-Texas Corridor www.keeptexasmoving.com, details are given for the expansion of toll highways through Texas. As one of the reasons is for this effort to expand, they say that the Corridor(s) will help to “increase trade between the U.S., Mexico and Can-ada, contributing to a rise in regional mobility and economic status for all the nations.” Many states are fi ghting the expansion of the Corridor, although the media coverage has been non-existent. The Corri-dor has been promoted and in process since the establishment of the Security and Prosperity Part-nership in 2005.

In the “vision statement” issued by the United States Department of Transportation, it articulates: “The United States freight transportation system will ensure the effi cient, reliable, safe and secure movement of goods and support the nation’s eco-nomic growth while improving environmental qual-ity.” By having such highways pass through North America, it would be impossible to control who is coming in and out of the country. Immigration will grow on an unprecedented scale with no security or direction. In Europe, they are already experiencing this on a huge extent to the great discontent of the populace.

So the expansion continues, and we as citizens of North America cannot allow our nations to ex-perience the loss of sovereignty and global chaos that the NAU will bring to us. We must take a stand and inform the people by ordering the leafl et on the North American Union from our headquarters today, spreading them everywhere and letting the popula-tion know what is happening and how we can fi ght against this diabolical plan.

M. A. Jacques

NORTH AMERICAN UNION UPDATEHenry Kissinger said in 1993: “NAFTA is the architecture to a greater integration of North America.”

The preparations for the North American Union are mov-ing forward. This logo will soon be on every license in the U.S., and has already been accepted in North Carolina.

The European Commission is already cast-ing a voracious gaze upon the often overlooked continent of Africa by putting pressure upon the African Union to sign trade agreements that are intended to force them to open their markets to include more goods and services. Alpha Oumar Konare, who is the chairman of the African com-mission, said that “a hasty deal might come at a tremendous cost to the rural African populations and to African industry.” EU President Jose Bar-roso defended the treaties and said that “some countries had already agreed to sign.” Eight co-untries have already begun interim agreements with the EU. The enormous natural wealth of Africa makes it an economically profi table target for the multinational corporations.

The European Commissionputs pressure on Africa

This chart shows the downward slide of the US dollar, which went down 30% in fi ve years.


by Michael Brownwww.spiritdaily.com

During the coming months there is bound to be major hoopla over a new book by Dan Brown, who wrote the blasphemous DaVinci Code.

This time, hopefully, it will not be such a ti-rade against the Church. It may be folly to hope for that.

But one beneficial thing it could bring into sharp relief is Freemasonry; any such light into that darkness is a benefit.

For rumor is that the novel — tentatively en-titled The Solomon Key — focuses on the mysteri-ous Masons and their secret influence, especially in Washington, D.C.

The book, claims one report, is “set to lift the veil on mysterious Freemason symbols carved into the very fabric of the historic streets and buildings of the U.S. capital.”

Word is that the new adventure will be based in the heart of that city, “which could reveal some astonishing facts for history buffs.”

If that is correct (and his new novel is not just another attack on Christianity), those “astonishing facts” may include what many believe is a Mason-ic link to the very way that the nation’s capital is laid out architecturally. An aerial view of Washing-ton, many point out, shows a perfect square and the compass -- which are the universal symbols of Freemasonry. (See picture below.)

Is such simply a coincidence? We really don’t know. Perhaps no one does. George Washington is said to have demanded that the capital be laid out in a symbolic square. The shape of a square and compass is also formed by drawing a line on the map between two of the city’s major land-marks, the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, and along the walls of the White House and the Jeffer-son Memorial, notes the AFB news service.

“At the center of these stands the Washing-ton Monument, a vast brick obelisk whose dimen-sions themselves are symbolic: 555 feet high by 55 wide (170 meters by 17).

“The number five is said to refer to the trad-itional five orders of architecture — which in turn relates to the Freemasons’ regard for geometry as a symbol of order, and of ‘the great geometrician’ — the supreme being,” says the news item.

Inside the Capitol building, it further notes, “lies a cornerstone laid by George Washington himself, dressed in his ceremonial apron, in a Ma-sonic ritual in 1793.”

One could argue that the design of the cap-ital is based more on neo-classical style -- the efforts to establish a new republic based on an ancient Roman republican model rather than anything that related to Freemasonry. But we are concerned with any social-spiritual group that ex-cludes Jesus in the way Masonry does and that has initiation rituals which can be linked back to occultic Egyptians, Babylonians, and others.

Are Masons part of a larger scheme?

That’s something backed more with theories than evidence, but we are concerned with the ob-

vious trend to build a world government and like-wise are befuddled by the documented existence of secret groups that like Masons also include ma-jor political leaders.

We’re not prone to conspiracy theories, but why the secrecy? Why, for example, are there the Bilderberg Club, the Club of Rome, and the Bo-hemian Grove so clandestine? And why do they sometimes interweave?

It is time for all of this to come aboveboard and it is remarkable that the media has never touched it — perhaps until now. Will Dan Brown’s novel provoke a needed discussion?

It is time for us to understand the influence of the Bilderbergs, who meet each year in tremen-dous secrecy. Those meetings occur in Europe and the closed-door sessions involve about 120 business, government, and media leaders from that continent and also North America — includ-ing, often, presidential candidates.

Why the secrecy? This organization not only has enormous political cloud, but allegedly influ-ences the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England.

The goal, fear some, is to create a “world company” that will morph into a single world body of governing the masses for the benefit of a mysterious elite.

There is Bilderberg influence over the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other bodies that affect us in ways we don’t under-stand.

It is time that we understood them. It is time too that we made our politicians explain this matter.

“The Bilderberg Group is not the end but the means to a future One World Government,” writes one author, Daniel Estulin. “This organization has grown beyond its secretive beginnings to become a virtual shadow government which decides in total secrecy at annual meetings how its plans are to be carried out.”

The ultimate goal, fear such writers, is to exercise hegemony over the world (starting with Eurasia) and bring about a globalized market place that would be controlled by the single gov-ernment, policed by a United World Army, and financially regulated by a World Bank, with a micro-chipped population that is monitored and with life needs stripped down to “materialism and survival work, buy, procreate, sleep — all connected to a global computer that monitors our every move.”

This would seem paranoid if there had not been such strides of late in introducing micro-chips (ostensibly to keep medical information), and if luminaries such as Henry Kissinger and the Rockefellers had not been attached to that or groups such as the Trilateral Commission.

It would also seem more paranoid if there was not such a push — as we clearly see in our time — for “one unified Europe” and now even “one unified North America.”

Indeed, besides the curious opening of bor-ders is the prospect of a super-highway that would unite Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. The seed of the union rests in passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s under George Bush Senior (and then Bill Clinton).

Paranoia? Perhaps. We have to be very care-ful of these matters. Is it just the domain of “Il-luminati” (and the “black helicopters”)? Or do we now need to take a closer look at some of these fears?

Governor Rick Perry of Texas — a strong sup-porter of the trans-national highway — recently fueled such apprehensions by traveling to Turkey to attend — yes — the secretive Bilderberg con-ference. Meanwhile, former Mexican president Vi-cente Fox makes no bones about his support for North American unification.

Folks can go too far with such things (it seems unfair to proclaim the current President Bush as using the devil’s sign when he uses a hand signal that is really a cheer for the Texas Longhorns), and perhaps folks get overly wrought about another secret, Masonic-like group: the Skull and Bones Society, based at Yale, and with a number of lead-ers, including the current president, as initiates. Are we too concerned about the highly secret an-nual meeting of government, business, and diplo-matic leaders at Bohemian Grove in California?

Whatever the answer to that question, we can say that such secrecy is no huge comfort and that it’s obvious we’re in an era where corporations are laying down the foundation for a single global entity, moving even into China (which is atheistic and who is ostensibly is our enemy).

How much of this is consciously designed, and how much is simply the momentum of our times, is subject to debate. There is a spirit, how-ever, that is moving in the world, and corporations should be watched more than anything.

Will secret oligarchies and the powerful men behind the curtain soon see things to fruition?

Our masses have been hypnotized by cell phones, TV, and media that are owned by cor-porations that are becoming multi-national and often participate in elite organizations (at least in the case of Bohemian Grove, which like the Masons has a ritual with occult overtones).

However the Masons figure into all this (they are often given more credit than they may de-serve), they have had their place as an example of secret initiate groups that seek to exert — and have exerted — influence.

The trend is growing. The groups are expand-ing. And there is certainly that overlap between various organizations. Small comfort there.

Whatever the influence of Masons in the architecture of Washington, it is a fact that a Ma-sonic temple with its own architecture of sphinxes and colonnades dominates a corner of 16th Street near the city center —- one of a number of Ma-sonic lodges in the capital and just a stone’s throw from the White House.

Oh, the webs that secrecy weaves.

Brown “had a contact with us but then cut it short,” said Akram Elias, grand master-elect of Washington’s Grand Lodge. “We are all sitting around waiting for his book to come out but no-body knows what he’s going to say.”

Michael Brown

Once and for all, it’s time to get at the rootof Masonic influence and “secret” clubs

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On January 22, 2008, a group of Pilgrims of St. Michael traveled to Washington, D.C. to spread the message of the Rosary to the Pro-Life marchers on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. The impor-tance of prayer in the life of every Catholic is something that cannot be emphasized enough. With abortion comes grave con-sequences, and we must take action now with prayer and good works.

The death toll rises every day since the start of legalized abortion. The effects of abortion on society are far reaching and devastating. We will counter this great evil of our times with adoration for life and the respect for human life as advocated by the Roman Catholic Church. The Pilgrims of St. Michael echo the cry of Blessed Mother Teresa:

“If a mother can become her children’s executioner, what can we say about the other murders and wars raging in the world?”

She also said on another occasion: “I have said often, and I am sure of it, that the greatest destroyer of peace in the world today is abortion. If a mother can kill her own child, what is there to stop you and me from killing each other?”

The Pilgrims of St. Michael take an active stand by uniting ourselves in prayer and action to the Di-vine Mercy of God, especially through devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist. The growing popularity of this devotion is a great hope for our country and the world. During his pontifi cate, Pope John Paul II encouraged it, in recognition of the great needs of our world and the current Pope Benedict XVI con-tinues the promotion of Eucharistic adoration.

The vocation of every Catholic is to follow in the evangelical footsteps of Our Lord, by bringing the

good news to our brothers and sis-ters in Christ.

“The deep unity between prayer and action is at the

basis of all spiritual re-newal. It is at the basis of the great enterprises of evangelization and construction of the world according to God’s plans.” – Pope John Paul II

We have taken these words of Pope

John Paul II and incor-porated them into a way

of life. The combination of Eucharistic adoration and

evangelization is essentially Christological in nature. Christ’s

mission when He was among us over two thousand years ago is still continuing today. With the help of Divine Grace we can succeed in overcoming this great scandal of our times. We must co-operate with the Divine Plan as well by se-riously considering the call to discipleship, through our dedication to apostolic work that truly is the ap-plication of our commitment to God.

The Pilgrims of St. Michael are Roman Catho-lic laity in communion with the Magisterium of the Church and we are in good standing with our lo-cal Bishop. We attend daily Mass and say the Ro-sary; Holy Hours of adoration are also part of our weekly program. We are a movement of the press; our leafl ets and our Michael Journal (also in French,

Polish & Spanish) are spread all around the world. The propagation of the Faith through the work of the press is our charism, and we evangelize person to person as well as during meetings given to prayer groups and our door to door Rosary Crusade. The ideal given us by our founders is quite simply to in-form the population of the unbiased truth on what is happening in the world today.

As Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical, The Gospel of Life: “...a great prayer for life is urgently needed, a prayer which will rise up throughout the world. Through special initiatives and in daily prayer, may an impassioned plea rise to God, the Creator and lover of life, from every Christian community, from every group and association, from every fam-ily and from the heart of every believer. Jesus him-self has shown us by his own example that prayer and fasting are the fi rst and most effective weap-ons against the forces of evil (cf. Mt 4:1-11). As he taught his disciples, some demons cannot be driven out except in this way (cf. Mk 9:29). Let us therefore discover anew the humility and the courage to pray and fast so that power from on high will break down the walls of lies and deceit: the walls which conceal from the sight of so many of our brothers and sisters the evil of practices and laws which are hostile to life. May this same power turn their hearts to resolu-tions and goals inspired by the civilization of life and love.”

The Church has always had a very steadfast and unchanging view on the issue of abortion, and we echo the voice of our late Pope John Paul II, ad-vocating as he did during his entire pontifi cate the culture of life.

We organize a week of perpetual adoration once a year that we call our “Siege of Jericho”, as well as our holy hours of adoration, and we receive count-less blessings and graces from Heaven because of it. It is a priceless treasure that we will never fully understand.

Starting perpetual adoration in your parish is a very powerful way to help stop abortion. There are different web-sites and groups who have organiza-tional plans to help anyone who would like to start perpetual adoration, especially to stop the evil of abortion: http://www.acfp2000.com, http://www.per-petualadoration.org/organizing.htm

First ask your local pastor for permission to start one and he accepts it is up to the head coordinator to fi nd enough people to cover the hours needed. Even if at fi rst you start with just an hour of adora-tion, after you have enough members you can ex-tend it. The recommendation is two people per hour, meaning for perpetual adoration you would need about 168 people for one week.

One important detail to remember is the Blessed Sacrament must not be left alone, so it is up to the coordinator to make sure that each person really commits to their hour and are able to fi nd replace-ments if they cannot make it. It is important to also note that the organization of this devotion cannot be left up to your pastor alone, unless he prefers it that way. He will be needed to take care of the open-ing ceremonies and he can provide pastoral support and encouragement. The parishioners should work together to organize and operate the continuity of the adoration. This is essentially a devotion open to everyone. The many blessings that parishes have experienced through the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a great testimony of the living proof of God’s power working through the Eucharist.

The promotion of the culture of life through the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a precious means of attaining a life of true discipleship and co-operation with God’s will.

Let us continue to pray and work towards a better world through the promotion of a just and peaceful society that accepts the culture of life as the Catholic Church teaches it. The Pilgrims of St. Michael have pledged themselves to the service of Mary, Our Mother, through the propagation of litera-ture that is both truthful and urgent for our times. We must throw ourselves at her feet and through her intercession beg God for forgiveness and mercy, and ask for the courage to stand up for what He is asking of us for the future.

M. A. Jacques

Adoration for Life

The little village of Lu, northern Italy, with only a few thousand inhabitants, is in a rural area 90 kilometres east of Turin. It would still be unknown to this day if, in the year 1881, the family mothers of Lu had not made a deci-sion that had “serious consequences”.

The deepest desire of many of these moth-ers was for one of their sons to become a priest or for a daughter to place her life com-pletely in God’s service. Under the direction of their parish priest, Msgr. Alessandro Canora, they gathered every Tuesday for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, asking the Lord for vocations to the priesthood.

Through the trusting prayer of these moth-ers and the openness of the other parents, an atmosphere of deep joy and Christian piety developed in the families, making it much easier for the children to recognize their vocations.

Did the Lord not say, “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt 22:14)? In other words, many are called, but only a few respond to that call. No one expected that God would hear the prayers of these mothers in such an astounding way.

From the tiny village of Lu came 323 vocations! 152 priests (diocesan and religious), and 171 nuns belonging to 41 different congregations. As many as three of four vocations came from some of these families. The most famous example is the Rinaldi family, from whom God called seven children. Two daughters became Salesian sisters, both of whom were sent to San Domingo as courageous, pioneer missionaries. Five sons became priests, all joining the Salesians. The most well-known of the Rinaldi brothers is Blessed Philip Rinaldi, who became the third successor of St. John Bosco as Superior Gen-eral of the Salesians. Pope John Paul II beatifi ed him on April 20, 1990. In fact, many of the vocations from this small town became Salesians. It is certainly not a coincidence, since St. John Bosco visited Lu four times during his life. The saint attended the fi rst Mass of his spiritual son, Fr. Philip Rinaldi, in the village where he was born. Philip always fondly recalled the Faith of the families of Lu: “A Faith that made our fathers and mothers say, ‘The Lord gave us our children, and so if He calls them, we can’t say no.’”

Fr. Luigi Borghina and Fr. Pietro Rota lived the spirituality of Don Bosco so faithfully that the former was called the “Brazilian Don Bosco” and the latter the “Don Bosco of Valtellina”. Pope John XXIII once said the following about another vocation from Lu, His Excellency, Evasion Colli, Archbishop of Parma: “He should have become Pope, not me. He had everything it takes to become a great Pope.”

Every ten years, the priests and sisters born in Lu come together from all around the world. Fr. Mario Meda, the long-serving parish priest of Lu, explained that this reunion is a true celebration, a feast of thanksgiving to God who has done such great things for Lu.

The prayer that the mothers of Lu prayed was short, simple and deep:

“O God, grant that one of my sons may become a priest! I myself want to live as a good Christian and want to guide my children always to do what is right, so that I may receive the grace, O God, to be allowed to give you a holy priest! Amen.”

The Miracle of Lu, Monferrato _ Italy


In vitro fertilization: scientism and ascendant amorality


Jonah and the whaleA little girl was

talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swal-low a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.

The little girl stated that Jonah was swal-lowed by a whale.

Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.

The little girl said, “When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah”.

The teacher asked, “What if Jonah went to hell?”

The little girl replied, “Then you ask him”.

by Msgr. Michel SchooyansIn the discussion on in vitro fertilization, we keep

hearing that “science is not in a position to decide the question on the beginning of the human being, and would be incapable of saying when and if there is a human person present.”

This affi rmation is both true and false. It is true to the degree that it falls outside the scientifi c domain to deter-mine the nature, quality, and specifi city of the human per son, just as it does to affi rm or deny the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. It is false be-cause science, while strictly respecting method, can say something about the human individual, mark its emergence, and analyze the genetic identity card or map that it will retain throughout its life. When sperm meets ovum, biologists can declare that an original new being begins at that moment, a being that has the genes not of a horse, not of a rabbit, but of a man, a being who will pursue his development for seven ty or eighty years without interruption.

It would thus be sophistry to conclude that since science can say nothing about the human person as such, science cannot say anything about the human individual. As for affi rming that the human individ-ual necessarily has the ontological status of a per-son, this is a philosophical con clusion. It would be a double sophism to conclude that since science can-not say anything about the human person as such, nobody, whether the man in the street, the philoso-pher or the theologian, can say anything about it...

It would be a triple sophism to draw the practical con clusion that since science cannot say anything about the human person as such, the scientist can allow the thresh old at which the human being must be respected to drift at his convenience--or at that of his patrons or clients. In any case, even assuming that the scientist must refrain from taking a theor-etical position, he must still prudently con clude on the practical level that he must conduct himself as though he were dealing, without any doubt, with a human being. In the case of landslides, rescuers act on the hypothesis that there may be survivors, and they cannot be reproached for relentlessly continu-ing the search.

Once science assumes that it cannot decide the question of a human being’s beginning, and refuge is sought in the suspension of judgement, practice becomes normative. Ethics is no longer anything but the refl ection of an entire ly materialistic practice. What is done is good because it is done — whence we have an irresistible spiralling: fi rst abortion, then orthogenesis, in vitro fertilization, third-party donors, gestational mothers, eugenics, euthanasia, etc. Util-ity (for some) becomes the criterion of truth for all. Sometimes it is said that this is the price we must pay for scientifi c progress, and that to take a pos-ition would be to “infringe upon academic freedom” and to “block the development of science”. This type of argument does not survive examination.

The most costly war today, in terms of human lives, does not deploy nuclear or other sophisticated weapons. No, the most deadly war is the one whose victims are found in laboratories and clinics, among millions of human embryos and foetuses. The ban-alization of the deliberate killing of human beings gravely blunts the sen sitivity of humanity’s person-

al and collective moral con science. It cripples the mechanisms of human reason that are capable of checking the aggressiveness which is part of man. Aggressiveness thus becomes unbridled, and we can foresee that it will lead to an increase in the kind of behaviour that engenders war. Mother Ter-esa often made this point.

The manipulation of human embryos inescap-ably accustoms people to complacency in the face of murder of any kind. If I can dispose of the exist-ence of a human being just conceived, one whom I can scarcely imagine, but to whose presence sci-ence attests, why should I refrain from disposing of the existence of any other human being? ..

The debate on in vitro fertilization looks like a rehash ing of old discussions about scientism. Yes or no? — are the experimental methods of phys-ics, chemistry and biology the only valid methods of knowledge to which the human mind has recourse? Yes or no? — should the last word on the dignity and destiny of man come from these disci plines? Man will always remain a mystery to himself, a cy-pher that he must decode. This mystery has to be dis cerned and probed by the intellect, employing for this pur pose convergent and complementary meth-ods. However, we must denounce the statement inherited from the tradi tion of scientism: “regarding the beginning of the human person, somewhat as in the case of [the existence of] God, science is not allowed to decide, and as a consequence, we can-not involve any scientifi c consideration that would pro vide the basis for a morality superior to experi-mental prac tice.” In short, biology can explain what an organism is, and philosophy will tell us what a person is. But then, why should it fall only to biolo-gists to decide in fact that such and such a human individual has no right to respect?

Finally, it is necessary to avoid the pitfall of reenthroning an impossible dualism that smacks

strongly of Manichaeanism. We must dispute the pessimist vision that considers matter — particularly the body — as con temptible, and therefore manipu-lable by amoral means. In fact, under the guise of acting only on the body, the new technocrats touch the soul. Thus, if man is a substantial unity, then we can never forget that what defi nes man is precisely

that man rises above the matter that the biocrats depend on so heavily for their empire.

The controversy over in vitro fertil-ization, like that con cerning abortion, re-quires that doctors rethink the speci fi city of their mission, and weigh the conse-quences of this mission on the plane of moral obligation. Medicine will make a false turn if, intoxicated by the upward spiral of performance, it endorses the scientistic premises of a cer tain kind of biology. Instead of treating patients with their own interests fi rst, and in harmony with medical moral obligation, it will drift towards a veterinary kind of moral ity. A veterinarian ordinarily cares for animals not in their own interest, but in that of their

owners. Dr. P. Simon takes this shift to its ultimate conclusion by introducing the con cept of “medicine for the social body”. With perfect logic, the former Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of France places research for the good of the species above research for the good of the individual — the moral worth of society above that of the person.

Medicine follows an equally false path when it intro duces discrimination by reserving therapy for only certain categories of human beings, knowingly condemning oth ers to experimentation or death. Medicine takes a false step if, forgetting the com-mon good, it reserves the fruit of its achievements to a minority of privileged nations, or if it promotes research programmes in this direction.

Today’s advanced techniques allow doctors to trespass bounds they had been forced to surrender to — until now. This possibility places problems be-fore doctors that they cannot resolve alone. We have a right to expect from them a sense of responsibility suffi cient to recognize their lack of competence and to accept the principle of self-regula tion and of inter-disciplinary perspective. That is the conditio sine qua non of healthy discernment in [all] foreseeable and morally acceptable hypotheses, experi ments, or achievements, based on the respect due to every person from the fi rst moment of existence. If the powers of discernment are not employed, if doctors persist in resolv ing dilemmas case by case accord-ing to their passing inspiration, they will inevitably be caught up [on] a ser pentine path which, having led them from abortion on demand to “liberating” euthanasia, will lead them from in vitro fertilization to the State’s takeover of reproduction, via system-atic eugenics. Doctors and Christian hospitals, in

MONSIGNOR SCHOOYANS is Professor of Political Philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and a member of the Pon-tifical Academy of Social Sciences. The ideas expressed in this article are further developed in his book Power over Life Leads to Domina-tion of Mankind. Taken from the Jan.-Feb. 2008 issue of Social Jus-tice Review (Central Bureau of the CCVA, 3835 Westminster Place, St. Louis, MO 63108 USA; website:www.socialjusticereview.org).

On December 12, 2007, feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, four young people from Paraguay (three men and a lady) consecrated themselves to the Virgin Mary in our headquarters in Rougemont. They were in Canada for a six-month train-ing period, and three of them have decided to join us full time. We invite other young people to imitate them!


What are sacramentals?

Sacramentals are holy things or ac-tions of which the Church makes use to obtain for us from God, through her inter-cession, spiritual and temporal favors. Unlike sacraments which actually deliver grace, sacramentals prepare us to receive grace.

The chief kinds of sacramentals are: first, blessings given by priests and bish-ops; second, exorcisms against evil spir-its; third, blessed objects of devotion.

The blessed objects of devotion most used by Catholics are: holy water, can-dles, ashes, palms, crucifixes, medals, rosaries, scapulars, and images of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints.

We will talk now about one of the most extraordinary sacramentals — yet little known by so many Catholics — the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

A scapular is a shoulder width outer garment. It is worn over the shoulders front and back as part of a religious habit. When laypersons wished to share in the spiritual works of the Order, a much small-er sized scapular was made with two small pieces of cloth that are joined by straps or string so the scapulars could be worn over the shoulders under their clothes.

The Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel was a garment given by Our Lady herself to St. Simon Stock, General of the Carmelite Order, at Aylesford in Kent, Eng-land, on July 16, 1251, with this promise: “Who-

soever dies wearing this Scapular shall not suf-fer eternal fire. It shall be a sign of peace and a safeguard in times of danger.”

The privilege was later extended to lay persons who were duly installed by a priest into the confraternity of Mt. Carmel. This promise is called the Sabbatine Privilege be-cause in it the Blessed Virgin is said to have promised that She would free any Carmelite or Confraternity member from Purgatory on the first Saturday after death.

The Sabbatine Privilege

In his bull “Sacratissimo uti culmine”, dated March 3, 1322, Pope John XXII claims that the Blessed Virgin appeared to him on behalf of the Carmelites and their associ-ates, asking that he, as Vicar of Christ on earth, should ratify the indulgences which Christ had already granted in Heaven. Our Lady informed the Pope that She Herself would graciously descend into Purgatory on the Saturday after their death and bring to Heaven all Confraternity members She would find there.

The conditions for the Sabbatine Privilege are: 1. Wear the Brown Scapu-lar faithfully; 2. Observe chastity accord-ing to one’s state; 3. Say five decades of the Rosary daily, when substitution of the daily Rosary has been granted in place of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Scapular of Mount Carmel con-sists essentially of two quadrilateral panels of woolen cloth (about two and three-quar-ter inches long by two inches wide), con-nected with each other by two strings or


Miracles of the Scapular of Mount Carmel

particular, must refuse to become involved lest they lose their specifi c character in short order.

In vitro fertilization, on the philosophical plane fi rst of all, gives rise to serious problems of an ethic-al and politi cal order. It calls into question the basic principle in all human ethical systems, the foundation of all civilized soci eties: the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” is a rule which Kant, among many others, interprets to mean “always act in such a way as to treat the humanity within you and others as an end and not imply as a means.” In vitro fertilization opens the way to the de-struction of the family via reproduction itself, as well as by means of the socialization of reproduction. The devel opment of new (existent and anticipated) biotechnologies will amplify, soon and fantastically, the political and legal diffi culties already observed in our examination of the social, political and juridical risks caused by the liberal ization of abortion.

In vitro fertilization provides a gauge for the discre tionary powers held by high-ranking techni-cians who are caught up in the whirlwind of effi cacy, while sometimes imprisoned in amorality. These technicians offer leaders or powerful minorities unheard of instruments of domination, which will proceed from complete control over human repro-duction, through eugenics, to end in programmed dying. Finally, from the point of view of moral theol-ogy, it is urgent to give swift justice to the tiresome canard that in vitro fertilization is an open question, one to be decided by each individual, choosing his own truth in a beautiful “plu ralist” display. All the necessary principles are at hand in order to solve this problem, and there is no place whatso ever for a “new ethic” or a “new morality”.

Conclusion: no to ascendant amorality!A study of the different implications of in vitro

fertil ization emphasizes the solidity of the moral cri-teria we must take into account in order to make well-founded eth ical judgements about biotech-nological procedures. There should never be any

question of regarding the right to free dom in scien-tifi c research as an absolute, nor, above all, of using it as the ultimate criterion for scientifi c morality. Un-fortunately, in following these problems even briefl y, we soon get the feeling and then the conviction that the areas of biological research under consideration here are the headquarters of ascendant amorality. Only ability, per formance and progress count. “If we don’t do that, others will beat us to it. If we don’t try this, we risk letting others get ahead of us.” The researcher’s freedom is unlimited; whatever is pos-sible or seems doable is permissible and even de-sirable without restriction or condition. The free dom granted to scientists is absolute, often with the en-dorsement of poorly informed pastors or of moralists who fail in their role. The scientist is consecrated as unac countable. Pastors and moralists thus contrib-ute greatly to imprisoning scientists in pure biology, pure politics, pure positive law.

To the degree that moralists exclude any nor-mative intervention, they automatically contribute to the general ized moral positivism that fl oods the entire fi elds of biolo gy, law and politics. However, moralists just might remind themselves of what they should be reminding others, namely, of the primacy of the human individual, regardless of his or her stage of development. In this very primordial recog-nition, all interpersonal relationships are rooted.

If moralists, out of guilt over the Galileo affair, choose to sidestep the issue, they become de facto accomplices in the unbridled and irresponsible folly that has already invaded laboratories, hospitals and innumerable dispen saries. Some pastors and mor-alists, already intimidated by the noisily reported facts, fall into an even greater stupor since they often adopt an inferiority complex before labo ratory technicians. Nevertheless, they must refuse to wor-ship the modern Golden Calf whose power rests on the dominance of new biotechnologies. If not, they will open wide the way for new Hitlers and Stalins, whether through ignorance, compromise or failure in duty.

We see from this that the moralist’s task ex-pands to new and unsuspected breadth. The atti-tude toward human life has become the touchstone of all morality. It governs both private as well as so-

In vitro fertilization(continued from page 17)

On Jan. 31, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI invited the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to give particular attention to “the difficult and complex problems of bioethics.” “The two fun-damental criteria for moral discernment in this field,” he added, “are unconditional respect for the human being as a person, from conception to natural death; and respect for the origin of the transmission of human life through the acts of the spouses.”

The Pope highlighted new problems associ-ated with such questions, such as the freezing of human embryos, pre-implantation diagnosis, stem cell research and attempts at human clon-ing. All these, he said, “clearly show how, with artificial insemination outside the body, the bar-rier protecting human dignity has been broken. When human beings in the weakest and most defenseless stage of their existence are selected, abandoned, killed or used as pure ‘biological mat-ter,’ how can it be denied that they are no longer being treated as ‘someone’ but as ‘something,’ thus placing the very concept of human dignity in doubt.”

cial morality. The lessening of respect for the human individual points ipso facto to the disap pearance of the meaning of personhood. When I impose myself as the measure of another individual’s existence, the sense of morality is dissolved and with it, the sense of sin. When we act as creators and proprietors of the genet ic patrimony that we solely transport, then the sense of fi nitude, the sense of creation and the sense of Providence vanish.

When through his actions and thought man has extir pated from mind and heart all idea of loving, parental, fra ternal and existential relationships, he fi nds himself naked and in the tragic condition of a solitary individual who is vulnerable and exposed to the power of his rivals — and at the same time, of a lord without pity, to the degree that he can wield his power over others.

Msgr. Michel Schooyans


bands in such a manner that, when the bands rest on the shoulders, the front segment rests before the breast, while the other hangs down an equal distance at the back.

In the last apparition at Fatima during the Miracle of the Sun on October 13, 1917, Mary ap-peared as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and held out the Brown Scapular. Lucia, the eldest of the three children interpreted it as Our Lady’s desire that we wear the Brown Scapular. Later on, Lucia was to state that the Rosary and the Scapular are in-separable.

People are enrolled in the Scapular by a priest only once. Worn Scapulars are simply replaced. The Scapular requires us to live as authentic Christians in line with the teaching of the Gospel, to receive the sacraments, to profess our special devotion to the Blessed Virgin, which should be expressed each day through penance, prayer and chastity in accordance with one’s state in life.

Two great founders of the Religious Orders, St. Alphonsus, of the Redemptorists and St. John Bosco of the Salesians, had a very special devo-tion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and both wore Her Brown Scapular. When they died, each was buried in priestly vestments and Scapular. Many years later their graves were opened, the bodies and sacred vestments in which they were bur-ied were decayed-dust! But the Brown Scapular which each was wearing was intact. The Scapular of St. Alphonsus is on exhibit in his Monastery in Rome.

Here are some of the reported miracles due to the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel:

Protection against the devilYou will understand why the devil works

against those who promote the Scapular when you hear the story of Venerable Francis Ypes.

One day his Scapular fell off. As he replaced it, the devil howled, “Take off the habit which snatches so many souls from us!” Then and there Francis made the devil admit that there are three things which the demons are most afraid of: the Holy Name of Jesus; the Holy Name of Mary and the Holy Scapular of Carmel. To that list we could add the Holy Rosary.

The Great St. Peter Claver was another of God’s heroes who used the Scapular to good advantage. Every month a shipment of 1000 slaves would ar-rive at Cartegena, Colombia, South America. St. Peter used to insure the salvation of his converts. First, he organized catechists to give them instruc-tions. Then, he saw to it that they were baptized and clothed with the Scapular. Some ecclesiastics accused the saint of indiscreet zeal, but St. Peter was confident that Mary would watch over each of his more than 300,000 converts!

Our Lady protects a missionaryOn day in 1944, a Carmelite missionary in the

Holy Land was called to an internment camp in order to give the Last Rites. The Arab driver made the priest get off the bus four miles from the camp because the road was dangerously muddy. After two miles, the missionary found his feet sinking deeper and deeper into the mire. Trying to get sol-id footing he slipped into a muddy pool. Sinking to his death this desolate place, he thought of Our Lady and Her Scapular.

He kissed his great Scapular — for he was wearing the full habit — and looked toward the holy mountain of Carmel, the birthplace of devo-

tion to God’s Mother. He cried out, “Holy Mother of Carmel! Help me! save me!” A moment later, he found himself on solid ground. Later he said, “I know I was saved by the Blessed Virgin through Her Brown Scapular. My shoes were lost in the mud, and I was covered with it, but I walked the remaining two miles praising Mary.”

Saved from the seaAnother Scapular story that bears repeating

took place in 1845. In the late summer of that year, the English ship, “King of the Ocean” found itself in the middle of a wild hurricane. As wind and sea mercilessly lashed the ship, a Protestant minis-ter, together with his wife and children and other passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for for-giveness and mercy, as the end seemed at hand. Among the crew was a young Irishman, John McAuliffe. On seeing the urgency of the situation, the youth opened his shirt took off his Scapular, and, making the sign of the Cross with it over the raging waves tossed it into the ocean.

At that very moment, the wind calmed. Only one more wave washed the deck, bringing with it the Scapular which came to rest at the boy’s feet. All the while the minister, a Mr. Fisher, had been carefully observing McAuliffe’s actions and the miraculous effect of those actions. Upon questioning the young man, he was told about the Holy Virgin and Her Scapular.

A home saved from fireNearer our own times, in May of 1957, a Car-

melite priest in Germany published the unusual story of how the Scapular saved a home from fire. An entire row of homes had caught fire in West-boden, Germany. The pious inhabitants of a 2-fam-ily home, seeing the fire, immediately fastened a Scapular to the main door of the house. Sparks flew over it and around it, but the house remained unharmed. Within five hours, 22 homes had been reduced to ashes. The one structure which had the Scapular attached to its door. The hundreds of people who came to see the place Our Lady had saved are eye-witnesses to the power of the Scapular and the intercession of the Blessed Vir-gin Mary.

A train accidentOne of the most extraordinary of all Scapular

incidents took place in the United States. It hap-pened around the turn of the century in the town of Ashtabula, Ohio, that a man was cut in two by a train; he was wearing the Scapular. Instead of dying instantly, as would be expected he re-mained alive and conscious for 45 minutes — just enough time until a priest could arrive to admin-ister the Last Sacraments. These, and other such incidents, tell us that Our Blessed Mother will take personal care of us in the hour of our death. So great and powerful a Mother is Mary that She will never fail to keep the Scapular contract, i.e. to see that we die in God’s grace.

A priest’s life is savedStill another Scapular miracle concerns a

French priest who had gone on pilgrimage. On the way to say Mass, he remembered that he had forgotten his Scapular. He knew he would be late if he went back to retrieve it, but he could not envision offering Mass at Our Lady’s altar with-out Her Scapular. Later, as he was offering the Holy Sacrifice, a young man approached the al-tar, pulled out a gun, and shot the priest in the priest in the back. To the amazement of all, the priest continued to say the prayers of the Mass as though nothing had occurred. It was at first pre-sumed that the bullet had miraculously missed its target. However, upon examination, the bullet was found adhering to the little Brown Scapular which the priest had so obstinately refused to be without.

ConversionsWe should even give the Scapular to non-Cath-

olics for Our Lady will bring conversions to those who will wear it and say one Hail Mary each day, as the following true story will show. An old man was rushed to the St. Simon Stock Hospital in New York City, unconscious and dying. The nurse, seeing the Brown Scapular on the patient, called a priest. As the prayers were being said for the dying man, he

(continued from page 18) became conscious and spoke up: “Father, I am not a Catholic.”

“Then why are you wearing the Brown Scapu-lar?” asked the priest. “I promised my friends to wear it,” the patient explained, “and also to say one Hail Mary a day.” “You are dying,” the priest told him. “Do you want to become a Catholic?” “All my life I wanted to be one,” the dying man replied. He was baptized, received the Last Rites, and died in peace. Our Lady took another soul under her Man-tle through the Scapular.

Necessity of wearing the ScapularDuring the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s,

Seven Communists were sentenced to death because of their crimes. A Carmelite priest tried to prepare the men for death; they refused. As a last resort, he brought the men cigarettes food and wine, assuring them that he would not talk religion, in a short while they were all friendly, so he asked them for one small favor: “Will you per-mit me to place a Scapular on each of you?” Six agreed, one refused. Soon all Scapular wearers went to confession. The seventh continues to ref-use — only to please them he put on the Scapular, he would do nothing more.

Morning came, and as the time of the execu-tion came near, the seventh man made it clear that he was not going to ask for a priest. Although wearing the Scapular he was determined to go to his death an enemy of God. Finally, the command was given, the firing squad did its deadly work, and seven lifeless bodies lay sprawled in the dust. Mysteriously a Scapular was found approximate-ly 50 paces from the bodies. Six men died with Mary’s Scapular; the seventh died without the Scapular.

Further miraclesA Jesuit missionary in Guatemala tells an in-

cident of Our Lady’s Scapular protection. In Nov-ember of 1955 a plane carrying 27 passengers crashed. All died except one young lady. When this girl saw that the plane was going down, she took hold of her Scapular, and called on Mary for help. She suffered burns, her clothing was re-duced to ashes, but her Scapular was not touched by the flames.

In the same year of 1955, a similar miracle oc-curred in the Midwest. A third-grader stopped in a gasoline station to put air in his bicycle tires, and at that moment an explosion occurred. The boy’s clothing was burned off, but his Brown Scapular remained unaffected: a symbol of Mary’s protec-tion. Today, although he still bears a few scars from the explosion, this young man has special reason to remember the Blessed Mother’s protec-tion in time of danger.

Solicit subscriptionsto “Michael”


A few years ago while recovering from the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and subse-quently learning of the life and works of Sister Marie De Mandat-Grancey, I became convinced that Sister Marie is a woman for our time. My husband Anthony and I have lived all our lives in the New York City area on Long Island where we met, married in 1981, and have raised six children. On September 11, Anthony, who has commuted to work in New York City for twenty-five years, stood on the street at the foot of the World Trade Center viewing with unspeakable horror as two planes attacked our city; our na-tion. He had recently left his employment at One World Trade Center in a career move. Tragically, in a matter of minutes, among the thousands who perished, many of Anthony’s previous co-workers and friends were brutally taken from this world. He returned to work a few months later to be haunted daily by the view from his new office window; a dark and desolate hole.

At this same time, my friend Erin introduced me to a nun from the 1800’s who had captured her interest while she had visited Ephesus, Tur-key; Sister Marie, the hidden nun who is Foun-dress of Mary’s House in Ephesus. This house is the once hidden holy place where Mary, Mother of Jesus, not only spent Her final years on this earth but was assumed into Heaven. My friend had been diligently working for the cause of Sister Marie’s beatification. As we parted, she pressed Sister Marie’s prayer card into my hand.

Sister Marie, the Mother Superior of the Sis-ters of Charity, is responsible for acquiring and thereby protecting for all time the House of the Mother of God at Ephesus, Meryem Ana Evi, where Our Lady lived with St. John until Her Dormition and Assumption. Now in this new millennium she, like her beloved Mary’s house, is no longer hidden. But why?

Later that year, my friend and I met to dis-cuss Sister Marie, and a connection formed in my mind between the recent tragedy of Septem-ber 11, 2001 and Sister Marie. The few pieces of Sister Marie’s story with which I had become familiar and the role of Mary’s House as a gath-ering place for Muslims and Christians added up in my mind to a beautiful possibility. I recall saying to Erin that day, “This isn’t only about recognizing a woman’s holiness; this is about world peace!”

Later that evening, the date being 1/19, thinking about our discussion, it occurred to me that our meeting date of 1/19 was the exact reverse num-ber of 9/11, the date of tragedy. Could the hatred of 9/11 be reversed with forgiveness and prayer through the intercession of Sister Marie, just like those numbers?

The “Why Now?” question was answered. The world was ripe for healing in these times after 9/11, and the need for peace between Mus-lims and Christians was all too obvious. But to unwrap the answer to the “Why Sister Marie?” question would require some more study and prayer. What was clear, however, was that Sister Marie was the reason my friends and I were in discussion and prayer about the subject at all.

Sister Marie’s love for Our Lady and Her house at Ephesus is shared with the Mus-lims. I was intrigued to learn that Mary’s House is a common pilgrimage destination for both faiths where they join in peaceful prayer; a place

where Christians and Muslims pray together in their own way to God the Father while honor-ing Jesus’ Mother, Mary. Muslims honor Mary as God’s only creature, along with Jesus Christ, to be conceived without the stain of sin, just as we Catholics implore the Mother of God under the title of the Immaculate Conception.

Muslims visit this house to honor Mary, Mother of Jesus each August 15; coincidentally August 15 is the Catholic feast of the Assump-tion of Mary. The Assumption of Mary took place in this very house.

Another beautiful dimension to this story is that our Greek and Armenian, Orthodox brothers and sisters also visit this holy house to pray and honor Her whom they call Theotokos, Mother

of God. The division between the Eastern left hand of Christian Orthodoxy and the Western right hand of Christian Catholi-cism is an unnatural continuous rent in the Body of Christ; but in Mary’s house, Ortho-dox and Catholic kneel side by side.

Before She was the Mother of Our Savior, Mary was a devout Jewish maid-en who was raised by Her mother and father,

St. Anne and St. Joachim, to be a devout Jew-ish wife and mother. This Mother given to all God’s children by Our Lord Jesus Christ from His holy cross calls all God’s children home to Her house.

Clearly, Our Lady has established a com-mon ground between different faiths of this world where She gathers them in a little place of peace. Even though some in the world may define different religions as enemies, God Our Father calls us all His children. The House at Ephesus can be thought of as an earthly sym-bol of Mary’s Heart where She accomplishes this fraternity; where She fulfills Her mission as Mother of all.

Sister Marie’s essential contribution to assist Our Lady by the acquisition and preservation of this house has been a crucial link in this story heretofore appreciated by very few. Thankfully, one such devotee kept a diary.

The Holy Virgin’s House: The True Story of Its Discovery is the journal of Father Eugene Pou-lin, a Lazarist priest and contemporary of Sister Marie. At the outset of his record, we find Father Poulin a skeptic of what he calls “women vision-aries,” particularly A.C. Emmerich, the Catholic mystic whose detailed visions would later lead to the re-discovery of Mary’s house at Ephesus. Sister Marie, on the other hand, already had a lively faith in Emmerich, convincing Father Pou-lin to read the mystic’s vivid account of sacred history, particularly the passages relating to Our Lady’s life in Ephesus while in the care of the Apostle John.

Not only was Father Poulin immediately (and some might say, “miraculously”) impressed by Emmerich’s compelling and inspired work, he agreed to assist Sister Marie in her search for the holy house, conducting an expedition using A.C. Emmerich’s testimony as a “map.” Within a few weeks, he had found the house, and Sister Marie was arranging for its purchase with the help of her generous family in France.

Father Poulin writes a most profound testi-mony to tell the world of Sister Marie’s selfless generosity, her valiant persistence and dedica-tion, and his debt of gratitude to her that he en-treats us to share with him and all of Christen-dom. He offers us a compelling reason for our zeal for the cause of Sister Marie and her mis-sion in these times. He writes:

“The Lord, who sees and organizes things, had taken care to put before us a soul in love with beauty and goodness, who was ready to give herself to everything good. A great soul, devoted, ardent, pious, and generous; the noble Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey. She was, as God had chosen her to be, the terrestrial Provi-dence, like Panaghia’s Mother! For twelve years she has been charged of this valiant religious enterprise; she has never failed.

“Oh! How happy I am to give her all the respect she merits! Also, could these writings make known to posterity, long after us, to whom France, the Catholic Church are in debt for Pan-aghia! The Lord gave me this opportunity to say loudly what I had in my heart for a long time, to acquit what I deemed to be a serious debt. It is done. Praise be to God!

“Sister Marie has opened the door of Mary’s House so that all God’s children might enter. Every time we pray with Sister Marie, our hearts and souls are united and placed inside the Home of Mary by the Foundress of Mary’s House. Muslims, Orthodox, and Christians all joined to-gether in the home of a Jewish Mother.”

Is it any wonder the cause for beatification of Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey would be begun in New York, a city so recently devas-tated by murderous aggression cloaked in the guise of “religion?”

Let us thank God for Sister Marie without whom this beacon of peace, Mary’s House, might have been forever lost. Just as the Holy House at Ephesus is a place of healing, brother-hood and peace, so will Sister Marie’s interces-sory prayer and rise to beatification bless our bruised and battered city, country, and indeed the whole world.

Out of that dark and desolate hole springs forth a flower of hope for all of God’s children.

© 2007 By Lorraine Fusaro

Our Lady of Ephesus

Our Lady’s House of Ephesus in Turkey is venerated by Muslims and Catholics alike.

Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey


In our world of today, we can fi nd many “alter-native” means of healing and spirituality. We can be tempted to use these methods because of our natural inclination to fl ee pain and suffering. If only we understood that suffering with Christ also unites us in a profound way with His suffering on the Cross, we would realize that what the “New Age” religions offer us is only a false freedom from suffering. The New Age belief system hits us where we are the most vulnerable, through our personal pride, because we believe that we are able to heal ourselves with-out the help of God’s grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that: “All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame oc-cult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others — even if this were for the sake of restoring their health — are gravely contrary to the virtue of reli-gion.” (2117)

Here are some excerpts taken from a Vatican document on the subject of New Age issued by the Pontifi cal Council for Culture and Religious Dia-logue entitled: “Jesus Christ, Bearer of the Water of Life.”

It is useful to distinguish between esotericism, a search for knowledge, and magic, or the occult: the latter is a means of obtaining power. Some groups are both esoteric and occult. At the centre of oc-cultism is a will to power, based on the dream of becoming divine. Mind-expanding techniques are meant to reveal to people their divine power; by us-ing this power, people prepare the way for the Age of Enlightenment.

This exaltation of humanity overturns the correct relationship between Creator and creature, and one of its extreme forms is Satanism. Satan becomes the symbol of a rebellion against conventions and rules, a symbol that often takes aggressive, selfi sh and violent forms. Some evangelical groups have expressed concern at the subliminal presence of what they claim is Satanic symbolism in some va-rieties of rock music, which have a powerful infl u-ence on young people.

But it is not only something which affects young people; the basic themes of esoteric culture are also present in the realms of politics, education and legislation. It is especially the case with ecology. Deep ecology’s emphasis on bio-centrism denies the anthropological vision of the Bible, in which hu-man beings are at the centre of the world, since they are considered to be qualitatively superior to other natural forms. It is very prominent in legislation and education today, despite the fact that it underrates humanity in this way. The same esoteric cultural matrix can be found in the ideological theory under-lying population control policies and experiments in genetic engineering, which seem to express a dream human beings have of creating themselves afresh. How do people hope to do this? By deci-phering the genetic code, altering the natural rules of sexuality, or defying the limits of death.

In what might be termed a classical New Age account, people are born with a divine spark, in a sense which is reminiscent of ancient Gnosticism; this links them into the unity of the Whole. So they are seen as essentially divine, although they par-ticipate in this cosmic divinity at different levels of consciousness. We are co-creators, and we cre-ate our own reality. Many New Age authors main-tain that we choose the circumstances of our lives (even our own illness and health), in a vision where every individual is considered the creative source of the universe.

According to New Age beliefs, the journey is psychotherapy, and the recognition of universal consciousness is salvation. There is no sin; there is only imperfect knowledge. The identity of every human being is diluted in the universal being and in the process of successive incarnations. People are subject to the determining infl uences of the stars, but can be opened to the divinity which lives within them, in their continual search (by means of ap-propriate techniques) for an ever greater harmony

between the self and divine cosmic energy. There is no need for Revelation or Salvation which would

come to people from outside themselves, but simply a need to experience the salvation

hidden within themselves (self-salva-tion), by mastering psycho-physi-

cal techniques which lead to de-fi nitive enlightenment.

New Age has a marked preference for Eastern or pre-Christian religions, which are reckoned to be uncontaminated by Ju-daeo-Christian distortions. Hence great respect is given to ancient agricul-

tural rites and to fertility cults. “Gaia”, Mother Earth,

is offered as an alternative to God the Father, whose image

is seen to be linked to a patriar-chal conception of male domination

of women. There is talk of God, but it is not a personal God; the God of which New

Age speaks is neither personal nor transcendent. Nor is it the Creator and sustainer of the universe, but an “impersonal energy” immanent in the world, with which it forms a “cosmic unity”: “All is one”. This unity is monistic, pantheistic or, more precisely, panentheistic. God is the “life-principle”, the “spirit or soul of the world”, the sum total of conscious-ness existing in the world. In a sense, everything is God. God’s presence is clearest in the spiritual aspects of reality, so every mind/spirit is, in some sense, God.

When it is consciously received by men and women, “divine energy” is often described as “Christic energy”. There is also talk of Christ, but this does not mean Jesus of Nazareth. “Christ” is a title applied to someone who has arrived at a state of consciousness where he or she perceives him-self or herself to be divine and can thus claim to be a “universal Master.” Jesus of Nazareth was not the Christ, but simply one among many historical fi gures in whom this “Christic” nature is revealed, as is the case with Buddha and others. Every his-torical realization of the Christ shows clearly that all human beings are heavenly and divine, and leads them towards this realization.

Basically, the appeal of the New Age has to do with the culturally stimulated interest in the self, its value, capacities and problems. Whereas tradition-alized religiosity, with its hierarchical organization, is well-suited for the community, detraditionalized spirituality is well-suited for the individual. The New Age is ‘of’ the self in that it facilitates celebration of what it is to be and to become; and ‘for’ the self in that by differing from much of the mainstream, it is positioned to handle identity problems generated by conventional forms of life.

New Age “spirituality”New Age spirituality consists of two distinct ele-

ments, one metaphysical, the other psychological. The metaphysical compo-nent comes from New Age’s esoteric and theosophical roots, and is basically a new form of gnosis. Access to the divine is by knowledge of hidden mysteries, in each in-dividual’s search for “the real behind what is only apparent, the origin beyond time, the transcendent beyond what is merely fl eeting, the primor-dial tradition behind merely ephemeral tradition, the oth-er behind the self, the cosmic divinity beyond the incarnate individual.” Esoteric spiritual-ity “is an investigation of Be-ing beyond the separateness of beings, a sort of nostalgia for lost unity”. They somehow deny histo-ry and will not accept that spirituality can be rooted in time or in any institution. Jesus of Nazareth is not God, but one of the many historical manifestations of the cosmic and universal Christ”.

Is there just one Jesus Christ, or arethere thousands of Christs?

Jesus Christ is often presented in New Age lit-erature as one among many wise men, or initiates,

or avatars, whereas in Christian tradition He is the Son of God. Here are some common points in New Age approaches:

The personal and individual historical Jesus is distinct from the eternal, impersonal univer-sal Christ; Jesus is not considered to be the only Christ; the death of Jesus on the cross is either de-nied or re-interpreted to exclude the idea that He, as Christ, could have suffered; for Christians, con-version is turning back to the Father, through the Son, in docility to the power of the Holy Spirit. The more people progress in their relationship with God – which is always and in every way a free gift – the more acute is the need to be converted from sin, spiritual myopia and self-infatuation, all of which obstruct a trusting self-abandonment to God and openness to other men and women.

Our problem, in a New Age perspective, is our inability to recognize our own divinity, an inability which can be overcome with the help of guidance and the use of a whole variety of techniques for unlocking our hidden (divine) potential. The funda-mental idea is that ‘God’ is deep within ourselves. We are gods, and we discover the unlimited power within us by peeling off layers of inauthenticity.

The more this potential is recognized, the more it is realized, and in this sense the New Age has its own idea of theosis, becoming divine or, more precisely, recognizing and accepting that we are di-vine. We are said by some to be living in “an age in which our understanding of God has to be interio-rised: from the Almighty God out there to God the dynamic, creative power within the very centre of all being: God as Spirit”.

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ. He is at the heart of every Christian action and every Christian message. So the Church constantly re-turns to meet her Lord. The Gospels tell of many meetings with Jesus, from the shepherds in Bethle-hem to the two thieves crucifi ed with Him, from the wise elders who listened to Him in the Temple to the disciples walking miserably towards Emmaus. But one episode that speaks really clearly about what He offers us is the story of His encounter with the Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well in the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel; it has even been described as “a paradigm for our engagement with truth.” The experience of meeting the stranger who offers us the water of life is a key to the way Chris-tians can and should engage in dialogue with any-one who does not know Jesus.

The success of New Age offers the Church a challenge. People feel the Christian religion no lon-ger offers them — or perhaps never gave them —something they really need. The search which often leads people to the New Age is a genuine yearning: for a deeper spirituality, for something which will touch their hearts, and for a way of making sense of a confusing and often alienating world.

The heart of genuine Christian mysticism is not technique: it is always a gift of God; and the one who benefi ts from it knows himself to be unworthy.

For Christians, conversion is turning back to the Father, through the Son, in docility to the power of the Holy Spirit. The more people progress in their relationship with God — which is always and in every way a free gift — the more acute is the need to be converted from sin, spiritual myopia and self-infatuation, all of which obstruct a trusting self-abandonment to God and openness to other men and women.

God is not identifi ed with the Life-principle understood as the “Spirit” or “basic energy” of the cosmos, but is that love which

is absolutely different from the world, and yet cre-atively present in everything, and leading human beings to salvation.

To those shopping around in the world’s fair of religious proposals, the appeal of Christianity will be felt fi rst of all in the witness of the members of the Church, in their trust, calm, patience and cheerful-ness, and in their concrete love of neighbour, all the fruit of their faith nourished in authentic personal prayer.

Esotericism or “New Age”

New Age comes in many different forms. Some of them are: witchcraft, palmistry,

fortune-telling, and astrology.


God chooses certain people to remind the world in an extraordin-ary way of His existence, His all-powerful love, and unbounded mercy. Saint Charbel Makhlouf is one of the best known saints in the Middle East. He arous-es admiration and univer-sal awe because of the extraordinary miracles and signs wrought through the power of his intercession.

He was born on April 8, 1828, the fifth child of impoverished par-ents, Antuna and Brigida Makhlouf, who lived in the small hilltop town of Beqaakafra, 140 kilometers north of Beirut. He was christened Jo-seph, his parents being Catholics of the Maronite Rite. Their children grew up in a joyful atmosphere of mutual love which flowed from a life of daily prayer and hard work on the land. During this time Leba-non was under the rule of the Otto-man Empire.

When Joseph was three years old, his father died. To ensure her children’s keep and education, Jo-seph’s mother decided to remarry. She took as her husband an upright and devout deacon by the name of Ibrahim. At the age of fourteen, Joseph felt the first stirrings of a call to the monastic way of life; but it was only in 1851 that he decided to en-ter the monastery in Maifug. He applied for admission and there spent the first year of his novitiate. In his second year he moved to the monastery in Annaya, where, on November 1, 1853, he took his preliminary vows and took the name of Charbel — after the Antiochian martyr of 107 AD. He finished his theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood on July 23, 1859.

As a young priest in 1860, he was witness to the appalling massacre of over 20,000 Christians by Muslims and members of the Druse sect. Muslim troops murdered entire families of Christians without mercy, looting, plundering, and burning churches, convents, farms, and homes. Hundreds of refugees, hungry, wounded, and terrified by what had happened and might yet happen, sought shelter in the monastery of Annaya. Father Charbel rendered every possible assistance to the refugees, all the while praying, fasting, imposing severe penances upon himself, of-fering himself to God in a spirit of expiation for the crimes committed, and begging for God’s mercy on persecutor and persecuted alike.

When someone, who is totally devoted to God, prays, he makes God’s all-powerful love present in the world. It is Christ Himself who then speaks through him, conquering evil with good, lies with truth, and hatred with

love. No more effective means of struggling against evil in the world exists.

This is how Father Charbel fought evil, for he knew that the surest way of changing the world for the better was to change oneself, to become holy by uniting oneself with God. This was the main aim of his monastic life. Only those who sincerely seek after holiness make the world a better place.

On February 15, 1875, after spending seventeen years in the monastic community in Annaya, Father Charbel received permis-sion to move to the hermitage of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, there to unite himself with Christ, through prayer, manual labor, and even stricter acts of self-denial. This tiny, isolated hermitage (home to but three monks) stood 1,350 meters above sea-level. Charbel’s cell was only six meters square. He always wore a hair-shirt under his habit and slept only a few hours every day. Once a day he ate very meager meals without meat. The Eucha-rist was the focal point of his life. After long preparation, he would say Holy Mass in the

hermitage chapel, then remain there for two more hours of thanksgiving. His cherished form of prayer was Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. His daily round consisted of medi-tating on Holy Scripture, praying without cease, and working. In this way Charbel offered himself up to God, that God might purify his heart and free him of all evil inclinations and selfishness; in other words, He made him into a saint, such as Jesus desired. His fellow monks consid-ered him a saint during his lifetime, for they knew just how heroically he strove to imitate Jesus.

Only certain people are called to a way of life as rigorous as Charbel’s; but Christ calls every one of us to holiness. Our purpose on earth is to grow in love — to attain heaven; that is, to love as Christ loves us, and to realize in our daily lives His greatest commandment “that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (In 13:34).

So closely was Father Charbel united to Christ that he would radi-ate the joy of his pure love to every-one he met; and that is why Jesus could work all kinds of miracles and signs through him. One of the many miracles wrought by this Lebanese monk took place in 1885 in the fields of the poor villagers who lived in the

vicinity of the monastery of Annaya. A vast cloud of locusts descended on the farm-ers’ fields and began to ravage the harvest. For the people it was a terrible plague that promised widespread famine. The monas-tery Prior asked Father Charbel to go at once to the infested fields, to pray over them and bless them with holy water. The locusts dis-appeared from every field the monk blessed, and the harvest was saved.

In 1873 Father Charbel’s superior sent him to the palace of Prince Rachid Beik Al-Khoury, to pray for his son Nagibem who was dying of typhus. The doctors held out little hope for him. Father Charbel administered the Sacra-ment of the Sick to the boy and blessed him with holy water. An instant later, to the great joy of all present, Nagibem recovered. After finishing his medical studies, he went on to become one of the most famous physicians in Lebanon.

The holy hermit of LebanonThe holy hermit of LebanonThe life of St. Charbel MakhloufThe life of St. Charbel Makhlouf

Father Charbel knew that the sur-est way of changing the world for the better was to change oneself, to become holy by: uniting oneself with God. This was the main aim of his monastic life.



In the small town of Ehme there lived a mentally ill per-son who was a great danger to himself and others. With great difficulty, several men brough him to the monastery in An-naya, but they were unable to bring him into the church, for he resisted with superhuman strength. Father Charbel ap-proached and asked him to go in with him and kneel be-fore the tabernacle. The man calmed down and humbly did as the monk asked. After pray-ing in accordance with the eastern custom, Father Charbel read to him from the Gospel. Then a miracle occurred: the man regained his sanity. Later he married, had a large family, and moved to the United States. There are many other accounts of miracles associated with Father Charbel, but most occurred after his death.

Father Charbel died on Christmas Eve of 1898, while adoring before the Blessed Sac-rament. His fellow monks found him on the chapel floor. Flooding the body was a strange light radiating from the tabernacle. The monks saw this as a visible sign from heaven. Out-side, it was snowing hard, and a chill wind was blowing. All the roads to the hermitage were snowbound, and no one from the mon-astery could inform the local villagers of the hermit’s death. Yet a strange thing happened. That very day every local villager experi-enced an inner conviction that Father Charbel had been called to heaven. Young men set out with shovels to clear the snow, that they might reach the hermitage and carry the body to the monastery in Annaya. “We have lost a brilliant star that protected our Order, the Church, and all of Lebanon with its holiness” wrote the Prior. “Let us pray that God make Charbel our patron, who will watch over us and be our guide through the darkness of our earthly life.”

On Christmas Day, Father Charbel was laid to rest in a communal grave in the monastery. The following night a mysterious brilliant light became visible across the entire valley. It con-tinued to shine for forty-five nights. The event caused a great stir throughout the whole dis-trict. Thousands of Christians and Muslims came to the tomb to see this extraordinary phenomenon. Some managed to dig up the grave and help themselves to scraps of the saint’s clothing and locks of his hair as rel-ics. For reasons of safety the Maronite Patri-arch decided to have the body brought to the monastery. The grave was opened in the pres-ence of a doctor and other official witnesses. Though covered with wet mud, the exhumed body was perfectly preserved. The body was then subjected to medical tests, which con-firmed that it was free of any signs of decay; moreover, it gave off a wonderful aroma and a fluid of unknown origin (a mixture of plasma and blood). To this day, the fluid continues to seep out of the Saint’s body as a sign of Christ’s healing power. Father Charbel’s body was washed, dressed in fresh robes, laid in an open coffin, and interred in a chamber of the monastery closed to the public. Owing to the fluid constantly seeping out of the body, the monks had to change the Saint’s robes every two weeks.

It was only on July 24, 1927 that the mor-tal remains of the hermit were laid in a metal coffin and removed to a marble tomb in the monastery church. In 1950, a mysterious flu-

id began to flow in profusion from the tomb. The Maronite Patriarch had the tomb opened and the body, exhumed. This was performed in the presence of a medical commission, church representatives, and city officials. An extraordinary sight greeted their eyes. The Saint looked just as he had at the moment of death — in a state if perfect preservation. In fact, the mysterious fluid that constantly seeped from the Saint’s body had corroded the metal coffin and eaten its way through the marble of the tomb. Again the body of Saint Charbel was washed and dressed in new robes and, after being shown to the public for several days, laid in a new coffin, and placed in a tomb sealed with cement. That year a record number of miraculous healings and conversions was noted in Annaya. The mon-astery became the focal point of pilgrimages, not only for Christians but also Muslims and those of other faiths.

Another exhumation took place on Au-gust 7, 1952, this time in the presence of the Syriac-Catholic Patriarch, bishops, five pro-fessors of medicine, the Minister of Health, and other observers. The remains of the her-mit saint were incorrupt but submersed in the same mysterious fluid which continued to seep out. Saint Charbel was put on public display from August seventh to the twenty-fifth of that year. Various attempts to stop the emission of the fluid were made, among others, by removing the stomach and intes-tines, but all to no avail. Human efforts could not stop the power of God acting on the body of the holy hermit.

The renowned Lebanese professor of medicine, Georgio Sciukrallah, has closely examined the body thirty-four times over a period of seventeen years. This is how he summed up his many years of study: “No matter how many times I examined the body of Saint Charbel, I always found to my amaze-ment that it was intact, free of any decay, and supple as though death had just occurred. What amazed me in particular was the fluid constantly seeping from the body. In my trav-els I have consulted with professors of medi-cine in Beirut and in various cities across Europe, but none have been able to account for this phenomenon. The phenomenon is truly unique in all of history. If the body were to secrete only three grams of fluid daily (in fact it secretes several times more than that), then in the space of sixty-six years the total weight of the fluid would be 72 kilograms, which is considerably more than the weight of the body itself. ... From a scientific stand-point, this phenomenon admits of no explan-ation, for the human body contains five liters of blood and other fluids. Based on studies I made so far, I conclude that the body of Saint

God’s cakeSometimes we wonder, “What did I do to de-

serve this?” or “Why did God have to do this to me?”

Here is a wonderful explanation! A daughter is telling her mother how everything is going wrong: she’s failing algebra, her boyfriend broke up with her and her best friend is moving away.

Meanwhile, her mother is baking a cake and asks her daughter if she would like a snack, and the daughter says, “Absolutely Mom, I love your cake”.

“Here, have some cooking oil,” her mother of-fers. “Yuck” says her daughter. “How about a couple raw eggs?” “Gross, Mom!”

“Would you like some fl our then? Or maybe baking soda?” “Mom, those are all yucky ! ”

To which the mother replies: “Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a won-derfully delicious cake!

God works the same way. Many times we won-der why He would let us go through such bad and diffi cult times. But God knows that when He puts these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all make something wonderful !

God is crazy about you. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. When-ever you want to talk, He’ll listen. He can live any-where in the universe, and He chose your heart.

Charbel remains in a state of perfect preservation, while se-creting a mysterious fluid, which I attribute to the intervention of God Himself.”

Father Charbel was beatified in 1965 and canonized on Octo-ber 9, 1977 in St Peter’s Square in Rome by the Holy Father, Paul VI. No one ever photographed Saint Charbel, neither did any-one paint a portrait of him in his lifetime. On May 8, 1950, still another extraordinary event oc-curred. Several Maronite mis-sionaries took a photo of them-selves before the Saint’s grave. After the photo was developed, it turned out that there was an-other unknown figure — that of a monk — standing among

them. Some of the elderly monks recognized that figure as Father Charbel himself, and from that time on this photo has been the prototype of all subsequent portraits of the saint hermit. (See picture on opposite page.)

By the example of his life and constant intercession before God, Saint Charbel calls on us to aspire to eternal happiness in heav-en — daily, courageously, and without com-promise. One road only leads to heaven, and that is the one that Jesus invites us to take: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it” (Mk 8:34-35).

Taking Saint Charbel as our example, let us not fear the way of mortification, self-de-nial, and dying to sin. Let us unite ourselves with Christ — the Source of Love — through constant prayer, the reception of the Sacra-ments of Penance and Holy Communion, and sacrificial love of neighbor.

Fr. Mieczyslaw Piotrowski SChrReprinted with permission. This article is taken

from the excellent Catholic magazine Love One Another (n. 8), published by the Society of Christ. Website: www.loveoneanothermagazine.org

Pope Paul VI before a beatificatory picture of Fr. Charbel


From Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008From Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008To Divine Mercy Sunday, March 30, 2008To Divine Mercy Sunday, March 30, 2008

A great Siege of Jericho in RougemontA great Siege of Jericho in Rougemont

Seven days and six nights of adoration and Rosariesin front of the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the Monstrance

In our chapel of the House of the Immaculate, 1101 Principale St.Opening: March 23, 10 a.m. Mass at 5 p.m. on Sundays, and 7 p.m. on weekdays.

Confessions before each Mass. Lectures at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Adoration day and night.

March 30: monthly meeting (Divine Mercy Sunday) Opening at 10 a.m., Mass at 5 p.m.All are invited to come for the days and nights that are convenient for them. They will be lodged free of charge in

our two houses. And they will be able to prepare their own meals in our dining room.

June, 2008: Eucharistic Congress in Quebec Cityand week of study in Rougemont

on the Social Doctrine of the Church and its applicationThe next International Eucharistic Congress will be held in Quebec City, Canada, from

June 5th to June 22nd, 2008, with the theme: “The Eucharist, gift of God for the life of the world”. Bishops, priests, and faithful from all over the world will come to Canada on this occasion and many will take advantage of it and also attend our week of study in Rougemont. Chartered buses will leave Rougemont for Quebec City on Sunday, June 22, to attend the final Mass with the pontifical Legate. (Official website of the Eucharistic Congress: www.cei2008.ca)

As we expect many people, there will be one week of study in French in Rougemont June 6-13 (before the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City), and one week of study in Eng-

lish and Spanish in Rougemont June 24-30. The main lectures will be on the 10 lessons on Social Credit (which were recently published in “Michael”.) There will be also reports from various guests.

There will be also another week of study in Rougemont August 22-29, before our annual Congress in Rougemont August 30-31 and Sept. 1, 2008. Cardinal Agré of Ivory Coast will also attend this week of study and our Congress, and there will be simultaneous translation in English, French, Span-ish and Polish. Those who want to attend this week of study and our Congress should contact us before August 1, to make sure we can accommodate everyone. For the week of study and Congress in Rougemont, night’s lodgings are free, and meals will be offered in a hall next to our house: $20 per day for three meals. All are welcome! Bernard Cardinal Agré

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