The story of Divine Mercy Publications began in 1981, when Val Conlon, an Irish businessman, picked up a leaflet bearing the image of Jesus. At that time, he considered himself a lukewarm believer. He took part in the rituals of Catholicism but rarely reflected on their deeper meaning.

One day, he picked up a leaflet that was put in his letterbox and whilst gazing at this leaflet which had an image of Jesus, he wondered could it really be the image of Jesus. As he had time on his hands he read the leaflet fully, it said this was a message for our times from God, given to a nun in Poland, who eventually became Saint Faustina. It claimed this message from God, if spread throughout the world, could save all of humankind.

This moment marked the beginning of a search, a journey of discovery, leading him to places where only the mercy of God would bring a sincere soul searching for God.

He, having his own resources, was able to take time off to firstly authenticate the information contained in the leaflet, and where it came from. It referred to a message of Jesus—which became known as the Message of Divine Mercy, originating in Poland and in Lithuania. Lithuania was politically part of Poland at that time and it was in a convent there where Sr. Faustina received the most powerful prayer from Jesus, now known as the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. He travelled to both of these countries then to Italy to meet Ugo Festa who was a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair. Ugo had experience of this particular image of Jesus coming alive to him and healing him of all his ailing’s instantly.

Then Val travelled to the USA to meet the Marians, the religious community that had possession of the Saint Faustina’s diary. He travelled to all of these places before he was satisfied that the ‘Message of Divine Mercy’ was authentic and needed to be brought to the attention of the world. Following this discernment, he retired from business and devoted the remainder of his life, which is now over 40 years to spreading this message. The conclusions he had reached gave him, for the first time, a genuine conviction. He found great comfort and peace through his newfound belief in God and His Divine Mercy, and so felt compelled to share this message with as many people as he could reach out to.

Jesus asked that His message be spread in deed, word, and prayer. To share it through the word, Val founded Divine Mercy Publications. Using the proceeds from these publications, he sought to live out God’s mercy in action by establishing his charity called HUDT (Help Us Dry The Tears). In response to the call for prayer to intercede for mercy for the world, he also established apostolate prayer groups.

He has since written many books on the subject and has distributed millions of leaflets and prayer cards throughout the world, as well as thousands of articles in a magazine he publishes, called the “Divine Mercy Newsletter”. He does not claim to have definitive answers; but writes about what he believes and what he has discovered in his search for the truth about God. He restored an old Loreto Convent in Letterkenny, Ireland, and brought the Sisters of Merciful Jesus founded by St. Faustina there to spread the message.

He was invited to the Agape meal in the Vatican, for the canonisation of Saint Faustina and had a personal meeting with Saint John Paul II. He also met Cardinal Macharski in Kraków, and worked with Cardinal Bačkis in Vilnius, where he helped restore many sites associated with the message of Divine Mercy in the city of Vilnius, the most important being the restoration of the ruined convent where Saint Faustina received the “Chaplet of Divine Mercy”. It is now open as a Museum, and the greatest memoriam to Divine Mercy in the world.

In addition, he collaborated with Cardinal Ortega of Havana, Cuba, in rebuilding an old Havana church and reconsecrating it as a church of Diviner Mercy.

He built two Divine Mercy Churches in Moldova with the help of Bishop Anton Cosa and one in Georgia with the help of the Bishop of Tbilisi. He has built two hospices for the dying in Lithuania. 

He built a school for children with long term medical complaints in the hospital grounds in Bucharest, Romania.

After the collapse of the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime in Romania, Val purchased a house in Bucharest where he got three religious sisters to work with him and help feed the most impoverished families. Then he serviced a medical clinic in the house with the attendance of a doctor who prescribed medicines which were paid for by his charity. 

He organised and paid for operations for street children and the very poor in the Marie Cure Hospital in Bucharest. But his most proud work with the charity were two solutions he researched that saved children’s lives. He researched and discovered an operation for dealing with Osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as brittle bone disease, from which many children died. He contacted many hospitals in his research but not until he got in touch with Orthopaedic Surgeon Anthony McGuiness in Cork University Hospital did he get the answer. He then worked with a children’s surgeon in the Marie Curie hospital Dr. Dan Catana and a medical group in Germany and organised special titanium rods that could be attached to their bones and would not be rejected by their bodies, also with the rods being designed to be pliable to allow for children to take part in sports when fully recovered, and telescopic, so that they would grow with the growing of the child. Thus avoiding new operations through their young life replacing rods that had become too small. A whole new concept that changed how steel rods were used in young children where certain operations necessitated them.

The second researched healing he brought to the children’s hospital was, accidents in which children’s oesophagus collapsed. In Romania outside the cities people made their own liquid soap with cheap chemical ingredients and storied them in used soft drinks bottles. Children coming across these bottle thought they were soft drinks and consumed them resulting in their oesophagus being burned up by the chemicals used in the liquid soap many children died from this terrible accident. Val researched this problem and found in America they had a tube that could be put into oesophagus and the children could be fed with liquid nutrients through the tube which allowed the oesophagus at the same time to heal. This new procedure saved many lives.   

His charity which has now many helpers are organising works of mercy for children, all over the world.  In Peru, in India, in Kena, in Brazil, in Ecuador, in Romania and Ireland, as Jesus asked for in His message of Divine Mercy. The Charity is called “Help Us Dry The Tears Foundation” or “Divine Mercy in Action”