Details

Written by: The Wanderer

Category: January - February - March

Published: 18 September 2026

Hits: 0

A Retiring Bishop's Farewell Advice

In a farewell message, retiring Archbishop Edward J. Hunkeler of Kansas City, Kansas (U.S.A.), urged the faithful to "cling to Christ in the Holy Eucharist", be devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and remain loyal to the Pope:

"1. Cling to Christ in the Holy Eucharist. I am saddened by the neglect of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and of the Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament in parishes, by the decline of personal and private devotions such as visits to the Tabernacle and Holy Hours of prayer and meditation. It is vain to hope to live a life totally dedicated to Christ without constant and intimate association with Him. Personal acts of deep devotion to Him will enrich your liturgical participation in the Holy Mass.

-"2. A converted priest said: It is a simple fact, clearly shown in history, that disbelief in the Divinity of the Son increases in proportion as respect for the Blessed Virgin declines. Wise Christians find the Child with Mary His Mother, in Bethlehem and at the foot of the Cross. The Rosary is one of the finest devotions to Christ and His Mother, combining in a simple way vocal and mental prayer. To Jesus through Mary. When the Breviary, the visit to the Blessed Sacrament and the Rosary, were a daily part of the busy priest's life, identity crises, of which we hear often today, were few and defections from the holy vocation were most rare.

"3. Be loyal to the Vicar of Christ, the Pope. Recognize and uphold his authority, Hear and read and heed his teaching, for of him it is that Christ promises "he that heed you heeds Me", not of every other teacher, dissenting theologian or proud scholar. The vicious attacks of the present day on the teaching authority of the Pope indicate both the power and the intelligence of the forces of evil. They fully understand what a bulwark of faith Christ provided for the People of God in Peter and Peter's successors. Love Christ; love His Vicar and pray for him".

Nov. 13, 1969

---

: ".... in our days not alone is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few, who ordinarily are not the owners, but merely the depositaries and managers of the capital they administer following their own inclination. -

"This power becomes particularly irresistible when 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... The forfeiture of power: it should govern from above, as a sovereign and supreme arbiter, in'utter impartiality and with the only care of the common good and justice; but it has fallen to the rank of a slave and become the docile instrument of all the passions, of all the ambitions of inte

rest's

Pope Pius XI. in the Encyclical "Quadragesimo Anno"

Details

Written by: Rev. Fr. P. COFFEY

Category: January - February - March

Published: 17 September 2026

Hits: 0

A Philosophical Approach and a Factual Analysis

An Eminent Catholic Priest Concurs with C. H. Douglas

The article which is reproduced below was first published in the issue for August 1936, of the "Irish Ecclesiastical Record", an old. established monthly journal under episcopal sanction, issued from Maynooth College, Ireland. The Maynooth College is the seminary where most of the Catholic clergy of Ireland (and of several other countries) receive their training, The late Reverend Father Peter Coffey, a Doctor in Philosophy, was a professor at Maynooth... for over 30 years and was distinguished for logical thought and clear and fearless expression...

A Foreword by the Author

Our present Holy Father (Pope Pius XI) has repeatedly appealed to Christendom, especially to Christian men of influence in Church and in State, to the Bishops and the clergy, to do their utmost not only in proclaiming, but in applying to every department of human life and affairs, those Christian social principles which alone can heal and save our very sick social order.

It is the right application of those principles that is so difficult. It demands an accurate knowledge of prevailing policies in industry, trade and commerce; and of how those policies are working out, i.e., affecting for well or ill the lives of the masses in every country. Though the ills of society, economic and political, are obvious and menacing, their real causation must be discovered by accurate diagnosis before they can be remedied; and such diagnosis is no easy matter.

Having devoted many years to careful study and observation of those phenomena, the present writer thinks that it might possibly serve a useful purpose if he were permitted to put before readers of the I.E. Record - very tentatively and Salvo Meliori Judicia — and in very brief outline — a sort of map or survey of some of the lines of thought along which his investigations have led him; and some of the conclusions towards which they have pointed. Problems are raised and stated rather than solved. But they are problems and urgent ones. His formulation of questions and theses and conclusions is necessarily condensed, and may possibly prove to be in part unacceptable or even unintelligible. But if they are suggestive or provoke serious thought and investigation -- which is their purpose — he will gladly apologize for their brevity and baldness of statement.

The Purpose of Industry

What is the purpose of the industrial and economic organization of society? Is it to provide employment — work -- for all (for a moral as well as a material object)? Or is it to produce, and make available, material goods and services with the least possible amount of work (employment)?

The process of increasing the productive efficiency of human labour, and of gradually diminishing the amount of it required — and of supplementing it by labour-saving machinery, during the past 150 years, has now reached the stage at which society, so organized, can make available an ample sufficiency of the material necessaries of life for all with a steadily diminishing amount of human labour (employment).

But this organization has been working so defectively — has so deplorably failed to deliver for use any more than a mere fraction of the wealth which it is equipped to produce — that

1. the public does not yet realize the enormous productive capacity of the industrial system, and
2. still thinks that a sufficiency of wealth can be produced only by the whole population labouring as long and as hard as people had to work ages ago, before modern labour-saving machinery was invented.

Hence confusion of thought about point 1 above. Hence misleading interpretation of the Divine command to labour, and of St. Paul's observation that work is the sole just title to the necessaries of life, an interpretation condemned by Pius XI in the Quadragesimo Anno. Hence misguided Catholics advocating the scrapping of machinery in order to give more employment. Hence blaming machinery as a curse instead of seeking to discover why machinery is being more and more held up idle, and what is preventing the distribution and enjoyment of its products.

... People generally are just beginning to realize that the world, under the capitalist industrial and economic regime, has reached the age of potential plenty. They hear of millions of tons of wheat and coffee being destroyed; calves being slaughtered in millions; crops being deliberately reduced; wealth in a variety of forms being destroyed instead of being distributed for consumption; men willing to work being kept idle; machines and factories running short time in all countries; while at the same time millions of the world's population are in destitution, and their natural right to marriage, to "increase and multiply", frustrated because the system is failing to distribute the ample and increasing wealth which it could produce if it were permitted. But while they rightly cry out for reform of the system, they are mostly ignorant and in error as to what is really wrong, and hence espouse futile and unlawful schemes of reform.....

Such schemes are Communism and Socialism – unlawful because they deny natural human rights; futile, because they wrongly diagnose, and would therefore fail to cure the economic evils from which society is suffering. The Popes have condemned them, and that is enough for Catholics.

The Function of Money

To find the right remedy we must diagnose the disease aright. The obvious and natural purpose of all economic and industrial association is to provide material goods and services for use and consumption. To serve this end there are two processes:

(a) production (including transport) and

(b) distribution of products among consumers by exchange (trade, commerce).

The former is becoming ever more and more efficient. Therefore the defect lies in the latter; it is distribution that has broken down. Now the medium of distribution is money. The monetary system is not discharging its natural function: i.e. is not delivering the goods.

Money is essentially à system of exchange tickets, the value or validity of which is based on men's belief (credit) in the wealth-producing capacity of the community using them. Its sole rightful function is to ensure that all the wealth which the community is capable of producing be continuously produced and exchanged among consumers for use. It is the duty of the State so to control the system of issuing money tickets for wealth-production and cancelling them through wealth-consumption that the system effectively discharge the above-mentionned function. But all modern Governments have neglected that duty by committing the whole money system to the unfettered control of groups of private citizens, who have ignored that essential purpose of the system, and have made it subserve an opposite and anti-social purpose: which is nothing less than monopoly and consolidation of all economic and even political power and domination of society in their hands.

Pope Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno, has explicitly called attention to this international world-monopoly of finance, and indicated some of its disastrous consequences.

The controllers of this financing or banking system issue the community's money tickets (for wealth-production and distribution) to the community as a debt to themselves (at interest) and recall and cancel those tickets (through prices for a portion of the wealth produced) before the total wealth thus produced is exchanged for use by consumers: thus causing an ever-widening chasm between the community's purchasing power as consumers, and the total of accounted prices (which is the total money owing to the banking system) for the wealth which the community has produced. Hence forced export and competitive struggles of nations for foreign markets: hence piling up of international debts: hence economic conflicts leading to wars; hence the progressive mortgaging of the whole industrial plant and capital and wealth-sources of society to the world monopoly of banking.

Another disastrous consequence, indicated by the Pope, is the effective enslavement, indicated by the Pope, of the State (i.e., of all modern Governments, of all political organization and authority in the modern world) to a superstate plutocracy in which supreme political power is usurped and wielded by the monopolistic controllers of the very lifeblood of economics and industry, which is finance (see Quadragesimo Anno, 105-8, p.39 of Catholic Social Guild Year Book for 1934).

Now, in this utter perversion of right order: for the industrial and economic organization, and the authority of this latter ought to be (in the temporal domain) supreme. This authority derives rightly from God, and not from the superior might or craft of those who have usurped economic domination and are swayed by greed of power.

But, as as consequence of this growing financial impoverishment of the masses, and of progressive mortgaging of the community's productive plant and capital and wealth-sources to the finance-controllers – which has now reached such a stage that while nominal and legal capital ownership still vests mainly in individual and corporate wealth-producers, the real power of control that characterises capital-ownership actually and effectively rests in the controllers of financial credit — as a consequence of those two economic conditions of modern society, the State had had perforce to take over and administer many of the economic organs within the State.

Pope Pius XI, in the Quadragesimo Anno, has indicated some of those co-operative organizations — guilds or corporations – of wealth-producers (including wage-workers, owner-employers, share-owners, etc.) the purpose of which would be to secure a better-planned and more efficient production of wealth. But they can accomplish this purpose only if the State first makes the money system subserve industry by legally directing this money system to keep the products of the community's industry (as producers) distributed for use to the community (as consumers).

Ills to be remedied

It is the duty of those commissioned to teach and to rule, whether in Church or in State, not only to formulate sound practical principles for the guidance of men in their social, political, and economic relations, but also to study the actual conditions prevailing in those relations, so as to be able rightly to apply the principles to the facts, for the elimination of abuses and the amelioration of conditions.

Among the pertinent facts, are, e.g., these:

• (a) that the Banking System alone has and exercises de facto the power of creating and cancelling money;
• (b) that the value, validity, purchasing power of this money rests ultimately not on gold, but on the National Credit (cf. Moratorium of 1914), i.e., the community's potential rate of real wealth production compared with consumption;
• (c) that, therefore, the community should not be forced to pay a perpetual money levy to private creators and issuers of money on its creation and issue;
• (d) that the community is forced to pay such a levy, and this in money which not the community, but only the bankers can create;
• (e) that this payment of interest by the community to the banking system for money newly created (and costless) is on a wholly different footing from interest charged on already circulating money by individuals who have earned and saved this money and invested it in (or lent it to) industry;
• (f) what it was, perhaps, to the former practice Pope Leo XIII referred when he said (in the Rerum Novarum) "the mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with the like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men";
• (g) that, however, this may be, it is manifestly unjust that the whole community be forced to pay a perpetual money levy (which it must, partly in prices, partly in direct and indirect taxation) for the use of its own money, to these groups of private citizens (i.e., the directors of the banking system) who costlessly create and issue (and withdraw and cancel) this money;
• (h) that this injustice is aggravated by the further fact that the community, as real wealth producers, cannot create the additional money which they must repay periodically to the banking system in addition to the principal sum lent" to them (e.g., they cannot create the additional £5 which they must pay to the banking system for the use of £100 for a year; only the bankers can create this £5 and lend it to the indebted community — also at interest. Hence the present-day impossibility of paying even interest charges on international debts, except by incurring further debts to the banking system.)

It is a verifiable and verified fact that in every capitalist country the total money income of the community available to purchase for consumption the products of its own industry, is a steadily diminishing fraction of the total price values which the banking system claims to recover from the community through--the sale of their products.....

This has arisen because any and every given section of the circuit flow of money (out from the banking system to the producers as costs, and back to this system from consumers as prices) fails to distribute for use to consumers all the real wealth which it was instrumental in producing.

The consequences of this failure of money to discharge its essential function are disastrous and cumulative.

The reason of this failure (i.e., the reason why the circuit flow of money distributes only a fraction of the wealth which it produces) is, in turn, because this function of money is ignored by the policy and practice of the banking system, and Governments have all failed to secure that money discharge this vital function.

The distribution of real wealth produced for use, and consumption (which is the essential purpose of the whole economic organization of society), is thus subordinated by the banking system to the policy of withdrawing the money it issues, at the quickest rate (for re-issue as a new debt at interest), irrespective of whether it has distributed or not all the wealth it has been instrumental in producing.

Wealth-producers are thus perpetually forced to accept as the primary objective of all their efforts, not the production and distribution of all the wealth they are capable of producing and distributing, but the periodical recovery, for the cancellation by the banking system, of larger sums of money than this system issued through them to the community.

• This in turn involves
• (a) cut-throat competition to recover proportionately the greatest sum in prices in return for the least expenditure in costs and the least volume of goods sold;
• (b) a steady stream of bankruptcies (of the weaker and less ruthless producers) as an inevitable result of the mathematical impossibility of recovering'for the banks more money than exists in the community;
• (c) the replacing of competition by monopolistic rings to raise prices;
• (d) the growing accumulation of an unsaleable surplus in each capitalist country;
• (e) the forced export of this surplus and consequent struggle for foreign markets, ending in international economic and military conflicts;
• (f) the development of the banking policy of financing capital equipment to provide consumers (though wages etc.) with money to purchase some of the otherwise unsaleable surplus of consumers' goods;
• (g) the gradual breakdown of this device, owing partly to substitution of machinery for human and wage paid employment, and partly through the capital equipment becoming excessive and lying idle (through lack of consumers' incomes which would purchase its ultimate products).

Details

Written by: Editorial Staff

Category: January - February - March

Published: 17 September 2026

Hits: 0

From a Dominican Father. Rome

Reverend Father Guérard des Lauriers, professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of Latran, Rome, has signed the two following declarations. Of which the written photostat is reproduced on this page of Vers Demain. The letters of Father Des Lauriers are in French language.

On February 12th (Wednesday) I met Msgr. Paul Philippe, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Msgr. P. Philippe twice declared to me before another withness:

"The Holy Office (ex) has never taken in charge the case of San Damiano. The Holy Office carried no condemnation against San Damiano. One (Ordinary of Piacenza) would do well to keep abreast of the "positive" and not take such severe measures. But we can not go against the Bishops.

"The Holy Office will not take charge of San Damiano, unless the Ordinary of Piacenza would not succeed in cleaning up the situation, for example if the number of pilgrims would keep increasing".

J.M.L.G. Des Lauriers

Rome, 12th April, 1969

On Wednesday, April 30th, 1969, feast day of St. Catherine of Sienna, Cardinal Seaper, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, received in an audience six priests including the signer of these lines. He stated:

"The Church is always slow, before deciding the authenticity of an apparition. At the beginning, she lets the local Bishop do. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith did not take in hand the San Damiano affair. There is no condemnation stated against San Damiano.

"The Cardinal also declared he had not given any authorization regarding the rite of giving Communion in the hand".

J.M.L.G. Des Lauriers,

O.P.. Rome, 20, 5, 69

From a Franciscan Father, Assisi, Italy

The letter below is written by Father Francesco Cucchi, a Franciscan of the Missionary College of Theology, Assisi, Italy. We also have the photostat copy. Whoever would be tempted to blame Vers Demain for reproducing those documents, will be answered that we received these letters in photostat and that a photostat is already a publication. If somebody made a mistake, that was the one who made the photostat. Now, it is too late to stop the news. And may be, we should thank God for having met somebody who was ready to publish the truth.

Franciscanum Collegio Missionario Theologico

dei Frati Minori Conventuali

Assisi, 13th, November, 1968

Mr. Pariuetti,

Thank you for your letter and all the news. Always forward, courage and love for the service of the Great Queen, the Mother of God, who calls us to a life of sanctity admist the struggles and tribulations.

It is true, there are too few Italian priests at San Damiano. Many are afraid of the opposition of the Bishop of Piacenza. But now, we hope that many of them will wake up and come to give homage to the Blessed Virgin.

It is also true, we know it well, that the priests and Bishops are so afraid to admit "supernatural things". They fight against the people composed of good faithful; nevertheless we listen to the voice of God and of His Divine Mother without disobeying our duties as good Christians. Do also say that, in this case, the order of the Bishop of Piacenza has no validity, since he is against the truth of so many supernatural signs and so many graces, favors and miracles performed by the Mother of God. It is much wiser to obey to God, when the proofs are so obvious: seing that this Bishop would never recognize the facts, nor take into consideration the proofs and miracles of the graces that so many people received and attested.

And say it loud and clear to the Redemptorist Sisters, that one Bishop is not the Church. One Bishop can give his directives and his orders only to his subordinates in his diocese. These orders and dispositions do not hold any validity for the faithful of other cities and other nations. A citizen may go and do all that he believes is good and serious, especially to pray and to invoke the Mother of God, in any part of the world, therefore at Piacenza and in any city of the world. On that account, do not have any fear, for I myself go to San Damiano also, in the utmost confidence, with the permission of my Superior. I am not obliged to follow the orders of the Bishop of Piacenza.

I even say more: the Holy Father believes with all his heart in the supernatural apparitions at San Damiano. The Madonna sent Pope Paul VI "a personal message" through the medium of Mamma Rosa. And I am myself very well aware of the fact, since it is precisely a priest of Assisi who brought the message to the Vatican.

And then, in private, the Pope has sent his thanks to San Damiano by a Cardinal. And in these last months, the Holy Father has sent his nephew, Mr. Montini (the son of his brother). Therefore, we may be in peace, because the Madonna has spoken to the Holy Father, and the Holy Father knows all and approves what is happening at San Damiano.

Much more, the parish church of San Damiano was closed by order from the Bishop, and during this time the Holy Father secretly asked the Bishop of Piacenza to have the church opened again every day, Friday included. Tell this aloud, either to the nuns, or to the people, or to the bishops and priests and to everybody. The nuns make a great mistake when they say the devotees to San Damiano are against the Church and in error and in sin. Do say the Holy Father knows everything, approves and acknowledges the apparitions and messages of San Damiano.

And yourself, Mr. Pariuetti, have no fear whatsoever. Always forward, courage, faith and love for the Madonna, The Holy Rosary in the families, Communion and confession.

It is true that divine apparitions were never more sorely needed than today.

Francesco Cucchi

Seminary of Assisi

Details

Written by: Editorial Staff

Category: January - February - March

Published: 17 September 2026

Hits: 0

"A Great Epidemic will come Over

"After the Epidemic, the Chastisements"

Friday, December 12, 1969

Excerpts

For a long time, for many years, have I announced you that a great epidemic will come over, but you do not believe my words. After that epidemic, the chastisements will take place.

What will become of you who have not listened to my motherly commendations? What will become of you, my sons of predilection (priests) who have not opened your heart to the entire humanity, who did not have me known, nor loved. A Mother who, day and night, unceasingly calls you. Make a good examination of your conscience, my children, make a good examination of your conscience, and repent while some time is left you to do it. Come back to forgiveness, come back to love. I Myself will do all, I shall listen to you. A mother does all for her children.

Whatever happens, if you call me, I will always be close to you. But hold very fast the weapon of Rosary, hold it clenched in your hands. That is what will bring you to eternal salvation. In all the families, say the holy rosary.

I am the Mother of the Church. I am the Queen of Apostles, and I love them so much, so much, my Apostles! I would like to have them all kneeling around me, repentful. I would like to see them all blooming in the sanctity of christian love, because great is their mission. My sons of predilection, if yourselves are saints, you will bring all the souls to Heaven. If you live in charity, in love, in poverty, all will follow you.

December 16, 1969

Excerpts

When the sad hour takes over, there will be no one but Me to rescue you, because I let my Son Jesus die for you. It is Myself, the Mother of Sorrows, Myself, the Immaculate Conception, who will come and crush Satan, to save all my children here below.

You, my beloved children, be courageous, do not fear. When you are near Me, you must not fear, but rejoice, being well loved and well known by your Mamma, because you understood downright my motherly words, when I came here, in this place. And Me, I understand you all, I sympathize with you all, and I love you.

And you, revivify more and more your faith, more and more your love, and cling always more to my feet, to my mantle, you and your dear ones, with your guardian Angel, with your saints, who are your advocates and will guide you towards Heaven.

And your Mamma will take you by the arm, will... (?)... you wings, and will bring you to the door of Heaven, where Jesus will welcome you with so much love and happiness.

In the name of my Son, I give you a strong benediction, and I send you, on your forehead, the kiss of my love, of my peace and of my pardon.