Michael August - September 2013

faith. Young people want to live life to the fullest.

Encountering Christ, letting themselves be caught

up in and

uided by his love, enlarges the horizons

of existence, gives it a firm hope which will not dis-

appoint.

Faith is no refuge for the fainthearted, but some-

thing which enhances our lives. It makes us aware of a

magnificent calling, the vocation of love. It assures us

that this love is trustworthy and worth embracing, for

it is based on God’s faithfulness which is stronger than

our every weakness.

A light for life in society

54. Absorbed and deepened in the family, faith

becomes a light capable of illumining all our relation-

ships in society. As an experience of the mercy of God

the Father, it sets us on the path of brotherhood. Mod-

ernity sought to build a universal brotherhood based

on equality, yet we gradually came to realize that this

brotherhood, lacking a reference to a common Father

as its ultimate foundation, cannot endure. We need to

return to the true basis of brotherhood.

The history of faith has been from the beginning

a history of brotherhood, albeit not without con-

flict. God calls Abraham to go forth from his land

and promises to make of him a great nation, a great

people on whom the divine blessing rests (cf. Gen

12:1-3). As salvation history progresses, it becomes

evident that God wants to make everyone share as

brothers and sisters in that one blessing, which at-

tains its fullness in Jesus, so that all may be one. The

boundless love of our Father also comes to us, in

Jesus, through our brothers and sisters. Faith teach-

es us to see that every man and woman represents

a blessing for me, that the light of God’s face shines

on me through the faces of my brothers and sisters.

How many benefits has the gaze of Christian

faith brought to the city of men for their common

life! Thanks to faith we have come to understand the

unique dignity of each person, something which was

not clearly seen in antiquity...

At the heart of biblical faith is God’s love, his con-

crete concern for every person, and his plan of salva-

tion which embraces all of humanity and all creation,

culminating in the incarnation, death and resurrection

of Jesus Christ. Without insight into these realities,

there is no criterion for discerning what makes human

life precious and unique. Man loses his place in the

universe, he is cast adrift in nature, either renouncing

his proper moral responsibility or else presuming to

be a sort of absolute judge, endowed with an unlimit-

ed power to manipulate the world around him.

55. Faith, on the other hand, by revealing the love

of God the Creator, enables us to respect nature all

the more, and to discern in it a grammar written by

the hand of God and a dwelling place entrusted to

our protection and care. Faith also helps us to devise

models of development which are based not simply

on utility and profit, but consider creation as a gift for

which we are all indebted; it teaches us to create just

forms of government, in the realization that author-

ity comes from God and is meant for the service of

the common good...

Consolation and strength amid suffering

56. To speak of faith often involves speaking of

painful testing... Christians know that suffering cannot

be eliminated, yet it can have meaning and become

an act of love and entrustment into the hands of God

who does not abandon us; in this way it can serve as

a moment of growth in faith and love. By contemplat-

ing Christ’s union with the Father even at the height of

his sufferings on the cross (cf. Mk 15:34), Christians

learn to share in the same gaze of Jesus. Even death is

illumined and can be experienced as the ultimate call

to faith, the ultimate “Go forth from your land” (Gen

12:1), the ultimate “Come ! ” spoken by the Father, to

whom we abandon ourselves in the confidence that

he will keep us steadfast even in our final passage.

57. Nor does the light of faith make us forget the

sufferings of this world. How many men and women

of faith have found mediators of light in those who

suffer! So it was with Saint Francis of Assisi and the

leper, or with Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and

her poor. They understood the mystery at work in

them. In drawing near to the suffering, they were

certainly not able to eliminate all their pain or to ex-

plain every evil. Faith is not a light which scatters all

our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in

the night and suffices for the journey. To those who

suffer, God does not provide arguments which ex-

plain everything; rather, his response is that of an ac-

companying presence, a history of goodness which

touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of

light. In Christ, God himself wishes to share this path

with us and to offer us his gaze so that we might see

the light within it. Christ is the one who, having en-

dured suffering, is “the pioneer and perfecter of our

faith” (Heb 12:2).

Suffering reminds us that faith’s service to the

common good is always one of hope — a hope which

looks ever ahead in the knowledge that only from

God, from the future which comes from the risen

Jesus, can our society find solid and lasting founda-

tions. In this sense faith is linked to hope, for even if

our dwelling place here below is wasting away, we

have an eternal dwelling place which God has al-

ready prepared in Christ, in his body (cf. 2 Cor 4:16-

5:5). The dynamic of faith, hope and charity (cf. 1 Th

1:3; 1 Cor 13:13) thus leads us to embrace the con-

cerns of all men and women on our journey towards

that city “whose architect and builder is God” (Heb

11:10), for “hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5).

Pope Francis

Louis Even

Questions

f you, Social Crediters, say that you want to

reduce taxes, and with time, to ultimately elimin-

ate them completely, then how will government

departments and public bodies be able to run the

nation?

And on top of that, if you demand

a monthly dividend for each citizen,

how can these dividends be financed

if there are no taxes?

If everyone receives a period-

ical dividend, and if this dividend is

large enough to ensure a decent live-

lihood, then who will still want to

work?

If public works and dividends

are to be financed by newly-created

money, won’t this new money cause

there to be too much money in circu-

lation and bring about inflation?

Won’t money then lose its value?

And what will happen to the savings

and pensions?

You also talk about a price ad-

justment through a discount on

prices compensated to the retailers:

does this mean that the Government

will control prices?

And what about commercial banks in a Social

Credit system? Would they become nationalized,

or even eliminated altogether ?

The answers

These questions, and many more like them,

have been answered over and over in past issues

of MICHAEL. However, these questions are still be-

ing asked today, either by those who come across

Social Credit for the very first time or by those who

did not understand the answers given in the past be-

cause they were interpreting them in the light of the

present financial system.

The fact is that, the Social Credit financial prin-

ciples are incompatible with the present financial

system. This does not mean that Social Credit would

do away with the existing financial mechanisms; So-

cial Credit would actually all of them, or almost all of

them, but these mechanisms would have to be puri-

fied, so to speak, from the false philosophy — or lack

of philosophy — that poisons them.

In the present financial system the possibilities

of production and distribution are subordinate to fi-

nance. In a Social Credit system, on the other hand, it

would be the possibilities of production, distribution

and the needs expressed by the population that the

financial system would be subordinate to.

Example: A town needs a new school.

In the present financial system we would ask the

question: “Can we find the money to

build the school ? If so, let’s build it;

if not, we will have to do without the

school.”

In a Social Credit system the ques-

tion would be put differently: “Do we

have the physical means to build the

school ? If not, we will obviously have

to do without it. But, if we do have the

physical means to build the school,

then we will build it. How will it be fi-

nanced? Instead of money being the

cause to prevent the building of the

school, new money would be issued

(created) for its construction. In the

same measure that the construction

would progress, new money would

be issued to pay for it.

As for the distribution of goods,

the same reasoning is applied. There

are goods, on the one hand, and there are needs, on

the other. In the present financial systems the ques-

tion is asked: “Are those in need able to pay for their

goods? If yes, then no problem. But if they cannot

pay, then the goods will remain on the shelves in the

stores, even though their needs remain unsatisfied.”

Social Credit puts it this way: “Since goods are

produced in order to fulfill the needs of man, then it

is necessary that man have the required means to

pay for the goods needed.”

From this we can see that the present financial

system maintains a position of control. Whereas, in

a Social Credit system, the finance would be made

to serve mankind. The two systems are totally in-

compatible with each other.

Who then, is right ? — those who defend the

present financial system, reasoning and making de-

cisions only according to financial possibilities? Or

those who advocate for Social Credit, resolving to

base the decision to produce, on the actual physical

possibilities and needs of society?

Which of these two systems, would you say, bet-

A few questions and principes

about economic democracy

Louis Even, founder

of MICHAEL

MICHAEL August/September 2013