Description
The Pilgrims of St. Michael were founded in Canada in 1939 by Louis Even and Gilberte Côté-Mercier to "promote the development of a better world, a more Christian society, through the diffusion and the implementation of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, in every sector of society, especially the economic field."
The Pilgrims of St. Michael wear white berets in their apostolate work, which consists of holding meetings, distributing leaflets, visiting families to pray with them a decade of the Rosary, and present to them social credit-based "solutions to the present economic injustices".
The organization publishes the Michael Journal five times a year in English (Michael), French (Vers Demain), Polish (Michael) and Spanish (San Miguel).
Michael is "a journal of Catholic patriots for the Social Credit monetary reform through the education of the population and not through political parties".
The organization claims that it has thousands of part-time apostles who give their spare time to visit families to make the Michael Journal known, and a core of full-time apostles who reside at the organization's headquarters in Rougemont, Quebec. Full-time apostles are mostly continuously on the road in different regions of Canada and other countries. The organization is volunteer-run, and its millions of free leaflets are financed by the donations of benefactors.
The French publication, Vers Demain, has been published since 1939, while the English version began in 1953, the Polish version in 1999, and the Spanish version in 2003. The Pilgrims print and distribute every year in every continent the equivalent of 30 million free 4-page offprints, translated into more than eight languages.
The Roman Curia comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use of in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office and universal mission in the world. It is at the service of the Pope, successor of Peter, and of the Bishops, successors of the Apostles, according to the modalities that are proper to the nature of each one, fulfilling their function with an evangelical spirit, working for the good and at the service of communion, unity and edification of the Universal Church and attending to the demands of the world in which the Church is called to fulfill its mission.
Social justice is justice in relation to a fair balance in the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity.
Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he saw as a chronic deficiency of purchasing power in the economy, Douglas prescribed government intervention in the form of the issuance of debt-free money directly to consumers or producers in order to combat such discrepancy.
The Canadian social credit movement is a political movement originally based on the Social Credit theory of Major C. H. Douglas. Its supporters were colloquially known as Socreds in English and créditistes in French. It gained popularity and its own political party in the 1930s, as a result of the Great Depression.
Polish Americans are Americans who either have total or partial Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 8.81 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.67% of the U.S. population, according to the 2021 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Historically in Quebec, Canada, there were a number of political parties that were part of the Canadian social credit movement. There were various parties at different times with different names at the provincial level, all broadly following the social credit philosophy; at various times they had varying degrees of affiliation with the Social Credit Party of Canada at the federal level.
The Camino de Santiago, or in English the Way of St. James, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition holds that the remains of the apostle are buried.
The Social Credit Party of Ontario (SCPO) was a minor political party at the provincial level in the Canadian province of Ontario from the 1940s to the early 1970s. The party never won any seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It was affiliated with the Social Credit Party of Canada and espoused social credit theories of monetary reform.
Social conservatism in Canada represents conservative positions on issues of family, sexuality and morality. In the European and North American context, social conservatives believe in natural law as well as traditional family values and policies. In Canada's modern context, social conservatism also includes pro-life values on abortion and euthanasia.
The Catholic Church and politics concerns the interplay of Catholicism with religious, and later secular, politics. The Catholic Church's views and teachings have evolved over its history and have at times been significant political influences within nations.
Religious socialism is a type of socialism based on religious values. Members of several major religions have found that their beliefs about human society fit with socialist principles and ideas. As a result, religious socialist movements have developed within these religions. Those movements include Buddhist socialism, Christian socialism, Islamic socialism, and Jewish socialism. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, socialism is a "social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. [...] Early Christian communities also practiced the sharing of goods and labour, a simple form of socialism subsequently followed in certain forms of monasticism. Several monastic orders continue these practices today".
The Antigonish Movement blended adult education, co-operatives, microfinance and rural community development to help small, resource-based communities around Canada's Maritimes to improve their economic and social circumstances. A group of priests and educators, including Father Jimmy Tompkins, Father Moses Coady, Rev. Hugh MacPherson and A.B. MacDonald led this movement from a base at the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Saint Michael originally refers to the archangel Michael, who appears in the Bible as a heavenly being.
The Ukrainian Cooperative Movement was a movement that addressed the economic plight of the Ukrainian people through the creation of financial, agricultural and trade cooperatives that enabled Ukrainians to pool their resources, to obtain less expensive loans and insurance, and to pay less for products such as farm equipment. The cooperatives played a major role in the social and economic mobilization of the Ukrainian people, most of whom were peasants. First begun in 1883, by 1939 cooperatives had 700,000 members in western Ukraine, employing 15,000 Ukrainians. The cooperatives were shut down by the Soviet authorities when western Ukraine was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939. However, they continue to exist and flourish among Ukrainian emigrants and their descendants in North and South America, Europe and Australia—in Ukrainian diaspora.
Louis Even was a lay Christian leader and publisher who founded the social credit movement in Quebec. He co-founded and led the Pilgrims of Saint Michael, better known as the white berets, with Gilberte Côté-Mercier and was a founder of the Union of Electors, a predecessor of Réal Caouette's Ralliement créditiste.
Quebec in English is a Canadian television miniseries which aired on CBC Television in 1965.
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Mar Thoma Sleeha Syro-Malabar Church is a pilgrimage church located in Thulappally, Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Kanjirappally in the Indian state of Kerala. The St. Thomas's feast festivities held there every July attract a number of devotees from in and around Kerala.
Protest! was a clandestine leaflet issued in 1942 as a protest by Polish Catholics against the mass murder of Jews in German-occupied Poland.
