Youthful Ambition Pays Big

So Mr. Oosterfhoff has won the by-election, becoming the youngest MP ever to win a seat in the provincial legislature.  I wish him and his constituents all the best, but still stand by what I wrote, that there should be certain criteria for leadership, whether by custom or by law.  Ideally, we as voters would and should just know who would make a good candidate, but things have become so disordered, the whole system so open to abuse, demagoguery, buying votes, holding all those dependent on the government hostage to one’s positions, that we need more than a major overhaul, a revolution of sorts.

There is this that will limit Mr. Oosterhoff, and perhaps allow him to grow into his office:  Members of parliament in whatever legislature, federal or provincial, have little or no power.  In the infamous words of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, ‘they’re nobodies’.  I don’t mean this in any derogatory sense to the new delegate or anyone else (but cannot speak for the intentions of the deceased Trudeau).  It is just that power has been concentrated very much ‘at the top’, with the Premier and Prime Minster and their hand-chosen cabinet members doing whatever they want, making all the decisions, and ‘whipping’ their members (yes, that is the verb they use) to vote in the party line.  Whoever thinks we live in a democracy should examine how things are actually run. We are rather in a semi-functional socialist oligarchy.

At least Mr. Oosterhoff professes Christianity and, we may presume, some true conservative principles.  However, ‘conservative’ must mean more than simply ‘not being pro-abortion’, but, rather, having a desire, mission and capacity to preserve and apply all of the best and most noble principles and mores that have been handed down to us by our ancestors.  Does he have that capacity?

The sad thing is that there are likely legions of young ‘political science’ students out there across the country, and there are quite literally thousands of them, in their teens and early twenties, whetting their chops for a chance to organize their own run at office.  What else will they, and the innumerable others following unproductive degrees, do upon graduation?

For we live in the midst of socialism, and the only way to make a decent living now is to be born of rich parents, and inherit a wealthy portfolio, or attach oneself most firmly to the government teat.  Those who actually work in the private sector, producing wealth and things that increase the GDP of the nation, all the ‘working men’ described by Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum ‘by which a state grows rich’, well, they are being well and truly ripped off, treated as chumps, taxed beyond their means to support an ever-metastasizing State bureaucracy, whose employees demand near-ubiquitous six-figure incomes, benefits, parental leave, holidays, expenses, paid trips and excursions, all, of course, ‘for your benefit’.

But the benefits, alas, are almost all one-sided, and who knows when the tipping point will be reached?

Carney’s Amoral Majority

After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→

Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress

This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→

A Tale of Two Benedicts

A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→

My Name is Bernadette

April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→

The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus

As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→

Saint Gemma Galgani

On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→

An Ideological and Improper Translation

I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→

Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers

Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→