Pierre Marchildon, Full-time Pilgrim of St. Michael

A journal of Catholic patriots
for the kingship of Christ and Mary
in the souls, families, and countries
For the Triumph of the Immaculate
Pilgrims of Saint Michael, 1101 Principale Street
Rougemont, QC, Canada J0L 1M0
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website: www.michaeljournal.org Printed in Canada
For a Social Credit economy
in accordance with the teachings of the Church
through the vigilant action of heads of families
and not through political parties
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. Michael
passed away on December 17, 2007, at the age of 59
He traveled throughout the world as was the wish of Louis Even
Pierre Marchildon addressing the crowd at our
September, 2007 Congress in Rougemont
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 Monday,
December 17, 2007, at the age of 59 years
and 8 months. It is really a great loss our Movement,
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 Marchildon
left us with a great emptiness.
The circumstances of his death
After passing many medical examinations from
which the results were not very alarming, Pierre
Marchildon, accompanied by Jacek Morawa, entered
in the hospital of Mississauga, Toronto at 7
p.m. on December 17. While they were at the reception
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 completely
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 beginning
Pierre 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. Clement
Marchildon, were both solid Social Crediters.
Pierre was the ninth of their ten children.
When his mother, Virginia Hamelin-Marchildon,
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 services;
it was in this manner that he was formed.
Full-time Pilgrim of St. Michael
consecrated to Mary
On March 8, 1974, at 25 years of age, after
a youth that was a bit frivolous, Pierre Marchildon
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
(continued on page 2)
Lying in state in the House of the Immaculate in Rougemont

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 according
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 dedication
He 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 vigilant
as he was. His monthly meetings were always
well attended: by Canadians and other nationalities,
there were always an imposing group of Polish
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 telephone
to invite the people to his monthly meetings
and he was always successful. His conferences
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 preparation,
as if inspired by the Holy Spirit, he gave a
speech that lasted for two hours. His talk was profoundly
spiritual, according to the testimony of his
collaborators in Toronto. Those who heard him
Contents
“Michael”. January-February, 2008
Pages
In memory of Pierre Marchildon 1 to 3
Our vocation as Pilgrims of St. Michael 4-5
Message of Pope Benedict XVI for Lent 6
The Jubilee of the Apparitions of Lourdes 7
A superpower dominates governments 8-9
Pope: globalization means world disorder 9
The subprime crisis. Vic Bridger 10-11
Economy on artificial life support. 11
Bad fruits from a system of debts. L.E. 12-13
North American Union update. M.A.J. 14
Masonic influence and secret clubs. M.B. 15
Adoration for life. M.A. Jacques 16
In vitro fertilization. M. Schooyans 17-18
The miracles of the Scapular 18-19
Our Lady of Ephesus 20
Esotericism or New Age. M.A.J. 21
St. Charbel Maklouf of Lebanon 22-23
Siege of Jericho and weeks of study 24
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.
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 brothers
Mark and Maurille, two good Social Crediters,
and others from his family and friends saw him
then for the last time.
4000 subscriptions per year
Each 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 dynamism
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 multitude
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 world
Since he was bilingual he went to all the provinces
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, Belgium,
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 message
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, Colombia,
Peru and Argentina, etc. And everywhere
that he went, apostles came after him. His conferences
left hope for a better world to the families,
a world of justice, peace and prosperity. He explained
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 received
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. Michael.
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 Father,
he will do more for us and with us… I will
offer my Mass for him today with all of my seminarians.
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… eternal
rest.”
+ Bishop Benjamin Almoneda, Philippines
Pierre was making friends and Social
Crediters with everyone... even with the
kangaroos in Australia!
From Most Rev. Nestor Ngoy, Bishop of Kolwezi,
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 easily
came through in his voice and manner. He
was an excellent public speaker, mainly I think
because he spoke from the heart.
(continued on page 3)
Page 2 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

“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 everyone
he met here will be joining with me in sending
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 Cistercians
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 Brouillard,
Oblate of Mary Immaculate and Fr. Pamphile
Akplogan and Fr. Albert. (See picture below.)
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
(continued from page 4)
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.
Here is the text of the homily at the memorial
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 crucifixion.
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 disciples
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 without
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 determination
showed in everything that he
did. I know that Pierre passed on
that same energy and determination
to his friends of the “Michael”
Journal.
Dear friends of Pierre! I hope
you will use your energy and determination
to keep his memory
alive and to share those memories
with each other. Remember how
he smiled, the sound of his laughter,
the way his eyes lit up whenever
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 darkness
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
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 3

Our vocation as Pilgrims of St. Michael
Speech of Pierre Marchildon at our 2007 Congress
Here is the translation of the
speech that Mr. Pierre Marchildon
gave at our International
Congress in Rougemont in September,
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 Social
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 recognize
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 separate
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 economic
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 Church
John 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 present
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 today
because there is an urgency! It is therefore
important “that in America the agents of evangelization
(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 inspired
by it (the Social Doctrine) become capable
of interpreting the present situation and determine
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 principles
of justice, there is one who
says that we have the rights over
all the natural riches of the country.
We have rights also over all the
fruits of today’s modern machinery,
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 receive
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 economics,
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, instead
of three billion, it is four billion people who
live on two dollars a day.
The United Nations came out with a document
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 population
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% interest
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 accused.
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 propaganda
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 presupposes
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, “Globalization
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 individuals.”
(May 17, 2001)
This is where we are going at a hundred miles
an hour. The Pope says to “devote ourselves totally
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 necessities
of life today, tomorrow, after tomorrow and
always.”
Guarantee! That is a nice word. The beautiful
dividend of Social Credit would guarantee the necessities
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 Union
We made a new leaflet on the North American
Union. They really want to control all of North
America and South America, in making one country
with Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central
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 everything,
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 institutions
of other countries must follow the constitution
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
(continued on page 5)
Page 4 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
(continued from page 4)
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 everybody
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 “beautiful
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 believe
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 multinationals
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 control
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 identified
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 Mary
I mentioned today in the intentions of the Rosary,
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 sacrifices,
to repent, but we did not listen to Her because
we had a second World War, She said that
in 1917.
And now, it is possible that we will have another
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 invented
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 human
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 conversion.
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 moments
that are waiting for you.” She showed us
her Heart at Fatima, but now she tells us: “I offer
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 accomplished
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.
Jacek Morawa and Pierre Marchildon
I know another who was totally consecrated,
it was our founder, Louis Even. Totally consecrated
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 everywhere.
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 apostles
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 families,
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 asking
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 apostolate
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 journal,
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 subscription.
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 attained
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 electronic
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 tomorrow
with all of the invitations that I have received!
Do not give up! May God bless you! Thank you.
Pierre Marchildon
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 5

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 opportunity
to deepen the meaning and value of
our Christian lives, and it stimulates us to rediscover
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 attachment
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 constant
temptation, teaching us to respond to our
neighbor’s needs and to share with others whatever
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 communion,
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 Catholic
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 before,
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 concerned
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 sisters,
looking rather for a return of personal interest
or simply of applause, we place ourselves
outside of the Gospel vision.
In today’s world of images, attentive vigilance
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 imitation
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 actions
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 vainglory:
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 discover
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 forgiven.
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, fearful
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 forthrightly
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 widow
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 precede
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 entire
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 gratuitously
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 various
forms of giving, according to the possibilities
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
Page 6 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

The 150th anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes
The fi nal struggle between the Church and the Anti-Church
Here are excerpts taken from the homily
given by Ivan Cardinal Dias, Prefect of the Congregation
for the Evangelization of People and
legate for the Holy Father, on the occasion of
the beginning of the Jubilee of the 150th anniversary
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 December
8, 2007:
God’s grace and mercy
As pilgrims assembled in the love of Christ,
we wish to remember with gratitude and affection
the apparitions which took place here in
Lourdes in 1858. Together, we try to feel the palpitations
of the maternal heart of our dear celestial
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 today
It 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 ferocious
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
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
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, meaning
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 Conception.
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 sufferings
that the Holy Father would face, the
general weakening of the Christian faith, the
difficulties of the Church, the rise of the Antichrist
and of his attempts to replace God in
the life of men, attempts which, despite their
instant success, would nevertheless be destined
to fail.
An offensive against the forces
of 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 offensive
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 forces
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 assaults
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 secularism
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 undisturbed
regarding the higher good of the matters
of God and the Church. This battle makes
innumerable victims within our families and
among our young people. Some months before
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 serpent
But 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 distinguished
the Virgin Mary: fiat, magnificat ans
stabat; that is to say, a dauntless faith (fiat), joy
beyound measure (magnificat) and uncompomising
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.
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 7

A superpower dominates governments
The superpower resides in the banks
by Louis Even
Textbooks generally distinguish three great
powers belonging to the Government that are
necessary to keep order and stability in the nation,
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 administers
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 citizens
throughout that country.
It is the Constitution of the nation that defines,
grants and divides the juridiction of these
three powers. These are therefore constitutional
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 constitutional
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 exercised
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 entire
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 constituional
powers reside: the legislative power has
its seat in parliaments, the executive power resides
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 money
It 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 account,
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.
Louis Even (1885-1974)
founder of the “Michael” Journal
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 previously
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 circulation
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 various
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 control
these licences, who allow or refuse them,
who condition their quantity and length in circulation
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 population
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.
(continued on page 9)
At the bank, the pen that rules the world
Page 8 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
(continued from page 8)
Money is a licence
Money 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 tyranny?
The banker’s pen which consents or refuses
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 governments
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 nothing
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 example,
the decision came to instigate the war,
when the money-licences were issued by the
billions, to finance six years of the most expensive
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 invaluable
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 British
Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of Finance)
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, create
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 creates
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 control
money, are able also to govern credit and
determine its allotment, for that reason sup-
plying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the entire
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 solution
The solution is to replace this non-constitutional
superpower with a constitutional monetary
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 consumption
of the country, resulting from the free
activities of free producers to respond to the orders
freely expressed by free consumers.
The Jan. 7, 2008 issue of the Italian newspaper
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 social
encyclical. It has been leaked from the
Vatican that the encyclical will be made public
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 globalization
carried out only for economic reasons.”
On Sunday, January 6, 2008, the solemnity
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 darkness
covers the peoples’» and our history.
Indeed, it cannot be said that ‘globalization’
is synonymous with ‘world order’ - it
is quite the opposite. Conflicts for economic
supremacy and hoarding resources of energy,
water and raw materials hinder the
work of all who are striving at every level
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 tyrant,
the financial credit, based on the nation’s
real credit, the pen from a constitutional monetary
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 country
— this idiocy would cease to exist. Prices
that keep going up, when production becomes
easier and more plentiful — such an inconsistency
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 responsibility
to the generations that must succeed
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 blossoming
out of his personality and freedom.
Louis Even
Pope: globalization is synonymous
with world disorder
New social encyclical due by March 19th
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 ourselves
and the world. It is then that moderation
is not only an ascetic rule but also a
path of salvation for humanity. It is already
obvious that only by adopting a sober lifestyle,
accompanied by a serious effort for
a fair distribution of riches, will it be possible
to establish an order of just and sustainable
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!
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 9

The sub-prime crisis in the U.S.A.
Mr. and Mrs Bridger of Australia
with Pierre Marchildon
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 foreclosures
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 accounting
and banking system that people are living
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 difference.
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, allowed
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 possession
they reach a point where growth is restricted
as well as leaving themselves open to substantial
losses.
Having reached this stage banks resort to borrowing
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 mortgage-backed
securities.
The purchases of these mortgages then use
them as collateral to issue bonds in order to finance
other deals. Such is the growth of what is
called the “sub-prime market”. The money originally
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 institutions
have been lending to homebuyers on a no
deposit and 100% financing of their homes. Sometimes
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 subprime
market forms created new “structured finance
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 offered
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 continuing
ability to meet their commitments for whatever
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 playing
cards or those structures built with dominoes.
When one starts to go, the rest follow. When foreclosures
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 subprime
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 Central
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 although
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 sentimentalist
forever clamouring after a ‘change of heart’.
What effect on his particular difficulties is it going
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 Domestic
Finance has been urging key lenders to take a
more sympathetic approach.
There is, however, one question that has always
baffled Social Crediters. How is it possible
to borrow your way out of debt?
(source: www.deesillustration.com)
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 physical
reality will express itself in natural terms.
Houses are made from physical properties.
Money is a nothing, yet accepted as being representative
of the physical properties, which it is not.
One economist writing on the sub-prime collapse
unwittingly puts his finger on a very important
factor. He refers to the crisis as a confidence
crisis stating that since the sub-prime crisis intensified
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. Providing
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 Reserve
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 poker.
It is pure gambling based on maintaining confidence
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 obvious
that any restriction on the receipt of income
whether in the form of wages and salaries, dividends
or profits means a reduction in the ability
to liquidate or reduce a debt incurred.
(continued on page 11)
Page 10 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
(continued from page 10)
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 oppose
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 together
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 investment
field.
The Company, Centro Properties Group,
which has investments in at least a dozen countries
around the world including the US, Canada,
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 repercussions
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 action
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 companies
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 because
they had to reduce their losses because
they had a duty to their shareholders.
It is bad enough when the Reserve Bank increases
interest rates and banks pass on the increase
but to simply increase interest rates to
maintain their profit position is, to put it mildly despicable.
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
by Richard C. Cook
Our economy is on
an artificial life-support
system, a barely-breathing
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,
Richard C. Cook
along with most of the financial
magnates big and small. The fact is that
the economy of much of the world is in a decisive
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, terrorism,
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 growing
failures of Western globalist finance whose impact
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 catastrophe
How did today’s looming tragedy come to
pass? Looking for causes is like peeling an onion.
What we are really seeing are the terminal
throes of a failed financial system almost a century
old. It’s happening because, since the creation
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 debtbearing
loans. Interest on this lending tends to
grow exponentially unless overtaken by real economic
growth.
The banks, along with the bank-leveraged
equity and hedge funds, are preparing for the biggest
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 laboratory
for diverse monetary systems.
During and after the Civil War (1861-5) we had five
This article is taken from the Jan.-Feb. 2008
issue of the Australasian Social Credit Journal
A Journal of the Social Credit School of Studies,
209 Palm Lake Resort, 1 Webster Road, Deception
Bay Q. 4508, Telephone (07) 33859794,
E-mail: socialcredit@ecn.net.au — Internet:
http//www.ecn.net.au/~socred/
Our economy is on an artificial life-support system
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 produced
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 sovereignty.
Central to the program would be the elimination
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 Constitution
says too. It’s the system we had before
1913.
The monetary prescription
The fundamental objectives of monetary policy
should be to secure a healthy producing economy
and provide for sufficient individual income.
The objectives should not be to produce massive
profits for the banks, fodder for Wall Street swindles,
and a blank check for out-of-control government
expenditures.
Note I referred to income. I did not say “create
jobs.” That is the Keynesian answer, because
Keynes was a collectivist, and the main thing collectivists
like to come up with is to give everyone
more work to do, even if it’s just grabbing a shovel
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 economy
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 eldercare?
Why can’t others comfortably go into lowerpaying
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 mature
world economy is capable of providing a decent
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 America’s
real task should be for the twenty-first century.
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)
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 11

Bad fruits from a system of unpayble debts
Taxes, income tax, unemployment, poverty
by Louis Even
Rich country, indebted country
What 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 indebted
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 system
Is this not a contradiction? How can the
richest country have the biggest public debt?
Speaking logically, it is certainly contradictory.
But with the actual financial system, this is
what must happen. In reality the more a country
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 compare
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 cannot
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 reimbursements
What do you call “new money”?
All increases in the volume of money in circulation.
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 spontaneously.
It did not fall from heaven: there is no money
that falls like rain or snow.
It was not made by the Government: the
Government proclaims to those who want to
The solution: finance without debt
through an honest monetary system
listen that there is no other money than the
money which comes from taxes and loans.
This billion was not manufactured by farmers,
the working class, or by the industrialists.
These people manufacture agricultural and industrial
products but they do not manufacture
money.
This extra billion came about because borrowers
(individual borrowers or public borrowers)
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 borrower
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 period
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 billion
the debts paid off.
And this is how all increases in money create
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 happens;
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 money
to pay salaries, so it is a true crisis.
But never can the total of the debts disappear
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 reimbursements
which must be larger than the
loans, this signifies that we would have to globally
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; necessitating
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 reimbursements.
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 workers
are the fruits of the stupidity of a system
which demands reimbursement of more money
than it has created.
A paralyzing load that is not removed
But 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 higher
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 offered
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 because
they also extract from the public, through
taxes, more money than they put back into circulation
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 succeeds
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
(continued on page 13)
Page 12 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

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In This Age of Plenty ........................................$20.00
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The Federal Reserve
It is urgent to put an end to the scandal of poverty
(Nuevo) Union Norte Americana - Spanish
~ (Nuevo) El Rosario - Spanish
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
(continued from page 12)
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 disappear
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 consumption,
the system of progressive indebtedness
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 express
itself by a total financial enrichment; and
instead of taxes and surcharges on prices, individuals
would receive dividends and discounts
on prices.
The actual system is a lie; it is a false accounting.
Social Credit would be a just accounting,
an exact financial expression of economic
realities. The first can only give rotten
fruit. The second would produce good fruit, in
abundance for all.
Louis Even
Moving?
Make sure “Michael” moves with you
If you are about to move, or have just moved,
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your post office, so that they can inform us about
it. Otherwise, Canada Post returns your “Michael”
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address unknown,” and charges 95 cents for each
paper thus returned.
The role of media: spreading and defending truth
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 Communications.
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 solidarity.
Unfortunately, though, they risk being
transformed into systems aimed at subjecting
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 communication
to be exploited for indiscriminate
‘self-promotion’ or to end up in the
hands of those who use them to manipu-
Toronto monthly meetings
April 13, 2008
Lithuanian Hall, 2573 Bloor St. W.
One block west Dundas Subway Station
Rosary at 2:00 p.m. – Meeting at 2:30 p.m.
Information: (416) 749-5297
Rougemont monthly meetings
House of the Immaculate
1101 Principale St.
February 24, March 30, 2008
Simultaneous translation into English
10:00 a.m. Opening. Rosary. Lectures
5:00 p.m. Holy Mass
Send this form with your cheque or money order to:
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 situations
the media are used not for the proper
purpose of disseminating information, but
to ‘create’ events.
“It is essential that social communications
should assiduously defend the person
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 scientific
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 contribute
to making known the truth about humanity,
and defending it against those who
tend to deny or destroy it.”
Benedict XVI
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“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
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Page 13

NORTH AMERICAN UNION UPDATE
Henry Kissinger said in 1993: “NAFTA is the architecture to a greater integration of North America.”
The Security and Prosperity Partnership is really
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 nations.
The Montebello Summit Meeting
On August 21, 2007 the leaders of North America
met in Montebello, Canada. Meeting under the
guise of the S.P.P., they discussed the “opportunities
and challenges facing North America and to
establish priorities for further collaboration.” Proponents
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 speculation,
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 involved.
“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 Oklahoma’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 dollar
The US dollar is sinking very quickly, and if it collapses,
and it seems to be heading in that direction,
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 accidental;
the International
Bankers
want the Ameri-
cans to accept a
global currency,
as the countries
of the European
Union now have. South and Central American economies
will be severely affected, as well as the Asian
community which has invested heavily in the United
States.
This chart shows the downward slide of the US dollar,
which went down 30% in fi ve years.
Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the
International Monetary Fund, expounded: “This is all
The preparations for the North American Union are moving
forward. This logo will soon be on every license in the
U.S., and has already been accepted in North Carolina.
pointing to a greatly increased risk of a fast unwinding
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 October
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 European
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 Order’
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 homeschoolers
German families have been fl eeing the country
in an attempt to have some control over the education
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 Germany
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 International
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 children
from parents for nothing more than homeschooling.
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 ensure
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 countries.
Trans-Texas Corridor
In 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 Canada,
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 Corridor
has been promoted and in process since the
establishment of the Security and Prosperity Partnership
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 economic
growth while improving environmental quality.”
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 experience
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 population
know what is happening and how we can fi ght
against this diabolical plan.
M. A. Jacques
The European Commission
puts pressure on Africa
The European Commission is already casting
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 commission,
said that “a hasty deal might come at a
tremendous cost to the rural African populations
and to African industry.” EU President Jose Barroso
defended the treaties and said that “some
countries had already agreed to sign.” Eight countries
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.
Page 14 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

Once and for all, it’s time to get at the root
of Masonic influence and “secret” clubs
by Michael Brown
www.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 tirade
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 entitled
The Solomon Key — focuses on the mysterious
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 Masonic
link to the very way that the nation’s capital is
laid out architecturally. An aerial view of Washington,
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 landmarks,
the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, and
along the walls of the White House and the Jefferson
Memorial, notes the AFB news service.
“At the center of these stands the Washington
Monument, a vast brick obelisk whose dimensions
themselves are symbolic: 555 feet high by
55 wide (170 meters by 17).
“The number five is said to refer to the traditional
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 Masonic
ritual in 1793.”
One could argue that the design of the capital
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 excludes
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-
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
vious trend to build a world government and likewise
are befuddled by the documented existence
of secret groups that like Masons also include major
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 Bohemian
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 tremendous
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 — including,
often, presidential candidates.
Why the secrecy? This organization not only
has enormous political cloud, but allegedly influences
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 understand.
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 government,
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 microchips
(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 borders
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 careful
of these matters. Is it just the domain of “Illuminati”
(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 supporter
of the trans-national highway — recently
fueled such apprehensions by traveling to Turkey
to attend — yes — the secretive Bilderberg conference.
Meanwhile, former Mexican president Vicente
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 leaders,
including the current president, as initiates.
Are we too concerned about the highly secret annual
meeting of government, business, and diplomatic
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, however,
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 corporations
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 deserve),
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 expanding.
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 Masonic
temple with its own architecture of sphinxes
and colonnades dominates a corner of 16th Street
near the city center —- one of a number of Masonic
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 nobody
knows what he’s going to say.”
Michael Brown
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“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 15

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 importance
of prayer in the life of every Catholic
is something that cannot be emphasized
enough. With abortion comes grave consequences,
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 Divine
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 continues
the promotion of Eucharistic adoration.
Adoration for Life
The vocation of every Catholic is to follow in the
evangelical footsteps of Our Lord, by bringing the
good news to our brothers and sisters
in Christ.
“The deep unity between
prayer and action is at the
basis of all spiritual renewal.
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 incorporated
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 seriously
considering the call to discipleship, through
our dedication to apostolic work that truly is the application
of our commitment to God.
The Pilgrims of St. Michael are Roman Catholic
laity in communion with the Magisterium of the
Church and we are in good standing with our local
Bishop. We attend daily Mass and say the Rosary;
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,
The Miracle of Lu, Monferrato _ Italy
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 decision
that had “serious consequences”.
The deepest desire of many of these mothers
was for one of their sons to become a
priest or for a daughter to place her life completely
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 mothers
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 General
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.”
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 inform
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 family
and from the heart of every believer. Jesus himself
has shown us by his own example that prayer
and fasting are the fi rst and most effective weapons
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 resolutions
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, advocating
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 countless
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 organizational
plans to help anyone who would like to start
perpetual adoration, especially to stop the evil of
abortion: http://www.acfp2000.com, http://www.perpetualadoration.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 adoration,
after you have enough members you can extend
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 replacements
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 opening
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 cooperation
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 literature
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
Page 16 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

In vitro fertilization: scientism and ascendant amorality
by Msgr. Michel Schooyans
In 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 determine
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 because
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 individual
necessarily has the ontological status of a person,
this is a philosophical con clusion. It would be a
double sophism to conclude that since science cannot
say anything about the human person as such,
nobody, whether the man in the street, the philosopher
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 theoretical
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 continuing
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. Utility
(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 position
would be to “infringe upon academic freedom”
and to “block the development of science”. This type
of argument does not survive examination.
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
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 banalization
of the deliberate killing of human beings
gravely blunts the sen sitivity of humanity’s person-
MONSIGNOR SCHOOYANS is
Professor of Political Philosophy at
the Catholic University of Louvain,
Belgium, and a member of the Pontifical
Academy of Social Sciences.
The ideas expressed in this article
are further developed in his book
Power over Life Leads to Domination
of Mankind. Taken from the
Jan.-Feb. 2008 issue of Social Justice
Review (Central Bureau of the
CCVA, 3835 Westminster Place, St.
Louis, MO 63108 USA; website:
www.socialjusticereview.org).
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 Teresa
often made this point.
The manipulation of human embryos inescapably
accustoms people to complacency in the face
of murder of any kind. If I can dispose of the existence
of a human being just conceived, one whom
I can scarcely imagine, but to whose presence science
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 physics,
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 cypher
that he must decode. This mystery has to be
dis cerned and probed by the intellect, employing for
this pur pose convergent and complementary methods.
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 cannot
involve any scientifi c consideration that would
pro vide the basis for a morality superior to experimental
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 biologists
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
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 training
period, and
three of them have
decided to join us
full time. We invite
other young people
to imitate them!
strongly of Manichaeanism. We must dispute the
pessimist vision that considers matter — particularly
the body — as con temptible, and therefore manipulable
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 fertilization,
like that con cerning abortion, requires
that doctors rethink the speci fi city
of their mission, and weigh the consequences
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 common
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 before
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 interdisciplinary
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 according
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 systematic
eugenics. Doctors and Christian hospitals, in
(continued on page 18)
Jonah and the whale
A little girl was
talking to her teacher
about whales. The
teacher said it was
physically impossible
for a whale to swallow
a human because
even though it was a
very large mammal
its throat was very
small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed
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”.
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 17

Miracles of the Scapular of Mount Carmel
What are sacramentals?
Sacramentals are holy things or actions
of which the Church makes use to
obtain for us from God, through her intercession,
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 bishops;
second, exorcisms against evil spirits;
third, blessed objects of devotion.
The blessed objects of devotion most
used by Catholics are: holy water, candles,
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 smaller
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, England,
on July 16, 1251, with this promise: “Who-
In vitro fertilization
(continued from page 17)
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 ethical
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 destruction
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 technicians
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 reproduction,
through eugenics, to end in programmed
dying. Finally, from the point of view of moral theology,
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 criteria
we must take into account in order to make
well-founded eth ical judgements about biotechnological
procedures. There should never be any
soever dies wearing this Scapular shall not suffer
eternal fire. It shall be a sign of peace and a
safeguard in times of danger.”
question of regarding the right to free dom in scientifi
c research as an absolute, nor, above all, of using
it as the ultimate criterion for scientifi c morality. Unfortunately,
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 possible
or seems doable is permissible and even desirable
without restriction or condition. The free dom
granted to scientists is absolute, often with the endorsement
of poorly informed pastors or of moralists
who fail in their role. The scientist is consecrated as
unac countable. Pastors and moralists thus contribute
greatly to imprisoning scientists in pure biology,
pure politics, pure positive law.
To the degree that moralists exclude any normative
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 recognition,
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 moralists,
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 worship
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 expands
to new and unsuspected breadth. The attitude
toward human life has become the touchstone
of all morality. It governs both private as well as so-
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 because
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 associates,
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 Scapular
faithfully; 2. Observe chastity according
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 consists
essentially of two quadrilateral panels
of woolen cloth (about two and three-quarter
inches long by two inches wide), connected
with each other by two strings or
(continued on page 19)
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
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 fundamental
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 associated
with such questions, such as the freezing
of human embryos, pre-implantation diagnosis,
stem cell research and attempts at human cloning.
All these, he said, “clearly show how, with
artificial insemination outside the body, the barrier
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 matter,’
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.”
Page 18 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
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ands 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 appeared
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 inseparable.
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 devotion
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 buried
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 devil
You 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 arrive
at Cartegena, Colombia, South America. St.
Peter used to insure the salvation of his converts.
First, he organized catechists to give them instructions.
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 missionary
On 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 solid
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-
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
(continued from page 18) tion to God’s Mother. He cried out, “Holy Mother became conscious and spoke up: “Father, I am not
of Carmel! Help me! save me!” A moment later, a Catholic.”
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.”
“Then why are you wearing the Brown Scapular?”
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 Mantle
through the Scapular.
Saved from the sea
Another 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 minister,
together with his wife and children and other
passengers, struggled to the deck to pray for forgiveness
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 fire
Nearer our own times, in May of 1957, a Carmelite
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 Westboden,
Germany. The pious inhabitants of a 2-family
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 Virgin
Mary.
A train accident
One of the most extraordinary of all Scapular
incidents took place in the United States. It happened
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 remained
alive and conscious for 45 minutes — just
enough time until a priest could arrive to administer
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 saved
Still 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 without
Her Scapular. Later, as he was offering the
Holy Sacrifice, a young man approached the altar,
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 presumed
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.
Conversions
We should even give the Scapular to non-Catholics
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
Necessity of wearing the Scapular
During 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 permit
me to place a Scapular on each of you?” Six
agreed, one refused. Soon all Scapular wearers
went to confession. The seventh continues to refuse
— only to please them he put on the Scapular,
he would do nothing more.
Morning came, and as the time of the execution
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 approximately
50 paces from the bodies. Six men died with
Mary’s Scapular; the seventh died without the
Scapular.
Further miracles
A Jesuit missionary in Guatemala tells an incident
of Our Lady’s Scapular protection. In November
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 reduced
to ashes, but her Scapular was not touched
by the flames.
In the same year of 1955, a similar miracle occurred
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 protection.
Today, although he still bears a few scars
from the explosion, this young man has special
reason to remember the Blessed Mother’s protection
in time of danger.
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Page 19

Our Lady of Ephesus
A few years ago while recovering from the
tragedy of September 11, 2001, and subsequently
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 twentyfive
years, stood on the street at the foot of the
World Trade Center viewing with unspeakable
horror as two planes attacked our city; our nation.
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 coworkers
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, Turkey;
Sister Marie, the hidden nun who is Foundress
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 Sisters
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 discuss
Sister Marie, and a connection formed in
my mind between the recent tragedy of September
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 gathering
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 number
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 Muslims
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 Muslims.
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
Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey
Our Lady’s House of Ephesus in Turkey is
venerated by Muslims and Catholics alike.
where Christians and Muslims pray together in
their own way to God the Father while honoring
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 Assumption
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 Catholicism
is an unnatural
continuous rent in the
Body of Christ; but in
Mary’s house, Orthodox
and Catholic
kneel side by side.
Before She was
the Mother of Our
Savior, Mary was a
devout Jewish maiden
who was raised by
Her mother and father,
St. Anne and St. Joachim, to be a devout Jewish
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 common
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 symbol
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 Poulin,
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 visionaries,”
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 Poulin
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 testimony
to tell the world of Sister Marie’s selfless
generosity, her valiant persistence and dedication,
and his debt of gratitude to her that he entreats
us to share with him and all of Christendom.
He offers us a compelling reason for our
zeal for the cause of Sister Marie and her mission
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 Providence,
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 Panaghia!
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 together
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 devastated
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, brotherhood
and peace, so will Sister Marie’s intercessory
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
Page 20 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
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Esotericism or “New Age”
In our world of today, we can fi nd many “alternative”
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 without
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 occult
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 religion.”
(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 Dialogue
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 occultism
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 using
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 varieties
of rock music, which have a powerful infl uence
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 human
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 underlying
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 deciphering
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 participate
in this cosmic divinity at different levels of
consciousness. We are co-creators, and we create
our own reality. Many New Age authors maintain
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 appropriate
techniques) for an ever greater harmony
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
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-salvation),
by mastering psycho-physical
techniques which lead to defi
nitive enlightenment.
New Age has a marked
preference for Eastern or
pre-Christian religions,
which are reckoned to be
uncontaminated by Judaeo-Christian
distortions.
Hence great respect is
given to ancient agricultural
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 patriarchal
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 consciousness
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 himself
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 historical
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 traditionalized
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 elements,
one metaphysical, the other psychological.
The metaphysical component
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 individual’s
search for “the real
behind what is only apparent,
the origin beyond time, the
transcendent beyond what is
merely fl eeting, the primordial
tradition behind merely
ephemeral tradition, the other
behind the self, the cosmic
divinity beyond the incarnate
individual.” Esoteric spirituality
“is an investigation of Being
beyond the separateness of beings, a sort of
nostalgia for lost unity”. They somehow deny history
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”.
New Age comes in many different forms.
Some of them are: witchcraft, palmistry,
fortune-telling, and astrology.
Is there just one Jesus Christ, or are
there thousands of Christs?
Jesus Christ is often presented in New Age literature
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 universal
Christ; Jesus is not considered to be the only
Christ; the death of Jesus on the cross is either denied
or re-interpreted to exclude the idea that He,
as Christ, could have suffered; 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.
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 fundamental
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 divine.
We are said by some to be living in “an age in
which our understanding of God has to be interiorised:
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 returns
to meet her Lord. The Gospels tell of many
meetings with Jesus, from the shepherds in Bethlehem
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 Christians
can and should engage in dialogue with anyone
who does not know Jesus.
The success of New Age offers the Church a
challenge. People feel the Christian religion no longer
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.
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
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 selfinfatuation,
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 creatively
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 cheerfulness,
and in their concrete love of neighbour, all the
fruit of their faith nourished in authentic personal
prayer.
Page 21

The holy hermit of Lebanon
The life of St. Charbel Makhlouf
God chooses certain
people to remind the
world in an extraordinary
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 arouses
admiration and universal
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 parents,
Antuna and Brigida Makhlouf,
who lived in the small hilltop town
of Beqaakafra, 140 kilometers north
of Beirut. He was christened Joseph,
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 Lebanon
was under the rule of the Ottoman
Empire.
When Joseph was three years
old, his father died. To ensure her
children’s keep and education, Joseph’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 enter
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, offering
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 permission
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 Eucharist
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 meditating
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 considered
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 radiate
the joy of his pure love to everyone
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 farmers’
fields and began to ravage the harvest.
For the people it was a terrible plague that
promised widespread famine. The monastery
Prior asked Father Charbel to go at once
to the infested fields, to pray over them and
bless them with holy water. The locusts disappeared
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 Sacrament
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.
(continued on page 23)
Father Charbel 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.
Page 22 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

In the small town of Ehme
there lived a mentally ill person
who was a great danger to
himself and others. With great
difficulty, several men brough
him to the monastery in Annaya,
but they were unable to
bring him into the church, for
he resisted with superhuman
strength. Father Charbel approached
and asked him to
go in with him and kneel before
the tabernacle. The man
calmed down and humbly did
as the monk asked. After praying
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 Sacrament.
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. Outside,
it was snowing hard, and a chill wind
was blowing. All the roads to the hermitage
were snowbound, and no one from the monastery
could inform the local villagers of the
hermit’s death. Yet a strange thing happened.
That very day every local villager experienced
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 continued
to shine for forty-five nights. The event
caused a great stir throughout the whole district.
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 relics.
For reasons of safety the Maronite Patriarch
decided to have the body brought to the
monastery. The grave was opened in the presence
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 confirmed
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 mortal
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-
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Pope Paul VI before a beatificatory picture of Fr. Charbel
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 monastery
became the focal point of pilgrimages,
not only for Christians but also Muslims and
those of other faiths.
Another exhumation took place on August
7, 1952, this time in the presence of the
Syriac-Catholic Patriarch, bishops, five professors
of medicine, the Minister of Health,
and other observers. The remains of the hermit
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 twentyfifth
of that year. Various attempts to stop
the emission of the fluid were made, among
others, by removing the stomach and intestines,
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 amazement
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 travels
I have consulted with professors of medicine
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 standpoint,
this phenomenon admits of no explanation,
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
Charbel remains in a state of
perfect preservation, while secreting
a mysterious fluid, which
I attribute to the intervention of
God Himself.”
Father Charbel was beatified
in 1965 and canonized on October
9, 1977 in St Peter’s Square
in Rome by the Holy Father, Paul
VI. No one ever photographed
Saint Charbel, neither did anyone
paint a portrait of him in his
lifetime. On May 8, 1950, still
another extraordinary event occurred.
Several Maronite missionaries
took a photo of themselves
before the Saint’s grave.
After the photo was developed,
it turned out that there was another
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 heaven
— daily, courageously, and without compromise.
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-denial,
and dying to sin. Let us unite ourselves
with Christ — the Source of Love — through
constant prayer, the reception of the Sacraments
of Penance and Holy Communion, and
sacrificial love of neighbor.
Fr. Mieczyslaw Piotrowski SChr
Reprinted 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
God’s cake
Sometimes we wonder, “What did I do to deserve
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 offers.
“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 wonderfully
delicious cake!
God works the same way. Many times we wonder
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. Whenever
you want to talk, He’ll listen. He can live anywhere
in the universe, and He chose your heart.
“Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org
Page 23

A great Siege of Jericho in Rougemont
From Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008
To Divine Mercy Sunday, March 30, 2008
Seven days and six nights of adoration and Rosaries
in 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 City
and week of study in Rougemont
on the Social Doctrine of the Church and its application
The 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 English
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, Spanish
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
Bernard Cardinal Agré
our house: $20 per day for three meals. All are welcome!
Page 24 “Michael” Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada — J0L 1M0
Jan.-Feb.-March 2008
Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org