A revealing letter from a young student

            Mr. Louis Even has received a letter dated from June 3, 1968, and coming from a town in the province of Quebec. We already published it in the August 1968 issue of French Vers Demain, and in the September 1968 issue of our English Letter (now replaced by English Vers Demain).

When we first published that revealing letter, we thought that the revolution announced had _ many chances to come in October, due to the great number of Communists supposed to be in Quebec during that month. The revolution was not achieved but there were numerous revolutionary "contests" by students in many schools and universities, there were bombs laid in private houses by the revolutionists, there were riots. If the authorities had not used the police force, the events would have easily worsened up to an irreversible turning-point. Now strikes of teachers are in the air, and atheistic paganism sprawls every where with more audacity than ever. The letter that Mr. Even received from a young student remains therefore a warning which must be taken into consideration. We quote it almost completely:

            Dear Mr. Even,

            I am a student completing his classical studies this year. And I shall tell you without exaggeration that for six years long I was an exemplary pupil, until I came to Philosophy grade. At that moment, the company of fellow-students inclined to the destructive doctrines of socialism and atheism, and the reading of authors such as Sartre, Camus and Vian, led me to disown all that in which I had firmly believed, all goods that my parents had instilled into me: that is, respect for authority and for Catholic religion.

            Doubtlessly prompted by the Spirit of Evil, I set about conceiving a passion for the cause of communism, reading Mao Tse-toung, ridiculing in behaviour and speech such values as chastity, religious devotions, attendance to Mass, free ownership, etc. For one moment, I even passionately wanted to desert my studies to go to Cuba and take a hand in what I called, in my fiendish ingenuousness, the "liberalization of Man". I equally experienced narcotics, and if I may venture to confess it, forbidden love.

            This tells you what a wretched character 1 had become and was for one year and a half.

Till the Light came to me . . .

            This happened as I was searching in the family library, when I fell unexpectedly on a life of Maria Goretti. Or I should rather say, it was the hand of God that pushed the book towards me. I began to turn over the pages ; I wanted nothing more than to mock that admirable maiden whom at that time I still considered as a mere little hypocrite.

            Will you believe it ? I was instantaneously confused by the beauty of that story. In a moment, I realized how down I had run in one year, I compared myself with that young girl . . . and I deemed myself much miserable.

After I closed back the book, I did what I had not done any more for years: I prayed.

            I prayed the Blessed Virgin, for whom I had already felt much fervour during my childhood. And then it was . . .

            Then it was I understood that I should keep on praying much to delete the evil I have done through the last year.

            And I understood I should pray even more to prevent serious events that are to happen in Quebec these coming twelve months.

            These events will originate in Montreal, in the University of Montreal, where, as you know it better than I, all the agitators meet, communists, atheists, unchristians and others.

            And what happened just latterly in France and Europe is nothing when compared with what will happen then. The anarchist movement in an instant will set the whole province and the whole country ablaze. That stroke has been prepared for a long time by the creeping forces of communism. Your paper is the only one that is aware of that fact and exposes it. This is why I wrote you.

            And then we shall see in Canada . . . an atheistic, socialist Government, that will impose the most shameful laws to our people. The churches, temples of God, will be closed, the priests cast into prison, and the agents of the dictatorship will do violence to the nuns. Free ownership will be abolished . . . But you know all as well as I do about the atrocities taking place in those so-called "people's democracies".

            I beg this of you upon what I hold most sacred, that you publish part or the whole of this letter, which you inform the Catholic opinion of the threatening danger, and even warn the Authorities in order that the communist hydra, that endangers our traditional values and the peace for all, be expurgated. This I ask you not in my own name, but in the one of the One who loves us.

Perhaps will you hesitate to publish that. You should not ! Think of the danger impending over us all. Think of the generation of tomorrow, being prepared for atheism and communism (I talk with full knowledge of the case). Do not care for the reactions that my disclosure could produce. Some will understand and act . . . in time, I hope.

But, I am sure, if all the Catholics of the country pray sincerely, it will be possible to avoid the catastrophe. Therefore, communicate my message to them. Send notices to all newspapers insist that they be published in the front page. Try to have it said before the TV cameras — but not with CBC: as I am acquainted with someone of the people there, I know that the main part of those who work for that corporation are barefaced atheists, and they will reject your request.

Let God guard us !