The Spirituality of Louis Even

This year is the 50th anniversary of the death of Louis Even. It is good to explore the depth of the spirituality that enlivened the man who founded the Pilgrims of St. Michael. Without his solid faith in God and immense love for his neighbour, Louis Even would not have undertaken the work of educating the population with the aim of freeing them from the tentacles of financial dictatorship.

Economic Democracy is "applied Christianity"

Some people would like the journal, MICHAEL, to discuss monetary reform without any mention of religion, and others would prefer that the magazine addressed matters of religion, without reference to monetary reform.

Yet, we all possess both a body and a soul and are on earth only a short time. While on earth we are pilgrims moving toward a spiritual destiny, that is, to live in union with God in Heaven forever. Material goods are indeed an end, but the ultimate end is God. The reason for the existence of all of creation is to glorify God.

When in 1934 Louis Even discovered what he called the "great light" of Economic Democracy, he immediately recognized that the Dividend was the mechanism to incarnate the Christian principles of social justice in the realm of economics, particularly relevant to each person's right to the use of material goods and the distribution of daily bread to all. He made it his duty to make this known to all people.

Clifford Hugh Douglas once said that Economic Democracy could be defined by two words: applied Christianity. As has been discussed in previous issues of MICHAEL on Economic Democracy and papal teachings, a comparative study of Economic Democracy and the social doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church shows how well Douglas' financial proposals would apply the Church's teachings on social justice.

Mr. Even knew the Church's social teachings, and never missed an opportunity to comment on them in the light of the Economic Democracy, or Social Credit, proposals. We, Social Crediters, know that money should be an instrument of service, but the bankers, in appropriating control over its creation, have made it an instrument of domination. The most striking commentary on this matter was by Pope Pius XI who wrote in his Encyclical Letter, Quadragesimo Anno, in 1931:

"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."

Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort

Saints Louis-Marie de Montfort and Maximilian Kolbe were important to the life and work of Louis Even.

Louis Even, born in Montfort-sur-Meu, France, on March 23, 1885, was christened Louis-Marie in honour of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, who was also born in Montfort-sur-Meu. In his book, True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis de Montfort, born in 1673, says that Marian devotion, far from removing us from Christ, brings us closer to Him; far from being a detour, it is a short cut. Louis Even inherited from his patron saint this devotion to the Virgin Mary, and the consecration to the Mother of God marked his entire life.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Another saint important to Louis Even was Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest, who also had a great devotion to Mary. In 1917, the same year as the Apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima and also the creation of Social Credit by Clifford Hugh Douglas, St. Kolbe founded the Militia of the Immaculata to convert the Freemasons.

St. Maximilian founded a monthly review, The Knight of the Immaculata, which was published until September, 1939 when Hitler's armies invaded Poland. The same month, the first issue of VERS DEMAIN (the French-language version of the English language magazine, MICHAEL) was published in Canada, as though to take over the battle for the triumph of the Immaculata from Kolbe's periodical. Louis Even's motto was "To build the Kingdom of the Immaculate".

Father Kolbe, who died a martyr in 1941 in the concentration camp of Oswiecim, Poland, had founded Niepokalanow, the "City of the Immaculata", where over 600 brothers worked to disseminate various publications intended to make Our Lady known and loved. Father Kolbe strived to instill a belief in the importance of soliciting subscriptions to these publications, and increased the paper's circulation to over one million copies, when the City of the Immaculata was forced to close in 1939.

To make Our Lady known and loved

In December, 1964, at the age of 79, Louis Even became seriously ill but recovered against all expectations. He said: "I have obtained a reprieve. I have loved the Blessed Virgin much in my life, but perhaps I have not made her loved enough."

Since the beginning, every meeting of the Movement began with the recitation of the Rosary. But during the last ten years of his life, from 1964 to 1974, Louis Even did even more: besides continuing to write on Social Credit, he wrote articles on the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin throughout the world, sharing the Virgin Mother's insistence on the urgency for all her children to repent and return to God through the recitation of the Rosary.

In 1968, Mr. Even and the directors of MICHAEL travelled to San Damiano, Italy, to meet visionary, Rosa Quattrini, to whom the Virgin Mother had appeared since 1964. Our Lady delivered the following message to the Directors: "Apostles of right thinking, pray a lot to Saint Michael to defend you with his sword. Make me known and loved by everyone through the recitation of the Rosary." It was after receiving this message that the Pilgrims of St. Michael added the Rosary Crusade to their apostolate work, which consisted of reciting the Rosary with families they visited when spreading the Social Credit message.

Louis Even left a tremendous spiritual inheritance to the Pilgrims of St. Michael, the "apostles of right thinking" and "pilgrim-warriors". Let us become worthy of this legacy by soliciting subscriptions to our publication, MICHAEL, in order to make known the exceptional message of Economic Democracy.