More on Magisteria and Mohawks

We Catholics are now perforce to ponder more deeply the limits of Magisterial authority – specifically papal pronouncements – in light of the current holder of the office. As we await whatever is in store for us in the Amazonian post-synodal exhortation, the reader may peruse this hard-hitting article from National Review writer Daniel Mahoney.

We should recall the quip of the great Oratorian Cardinal and Church historian Venerable Cesare Baronius, that what matters most is not how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven, which I, with Mr. Mahoney, wished the Magisterium, and the Church universal, spent more of its time and energy doing.

The Mohawk ‘nation’ has blocked Via Rail trains from travelling on the Toronto-Montreal corridor, in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, protesting the proposed LNG pipeline out west. As someone asked, where are the police?

I only have two questions concerning the whole Indigenous debacle:

Who counts as ‘Indigenous’, and how is this determined? Bloodline? Genetics? Adoption? Self-identification? Marriage? And is not this some sort of ironically inverse racism? The reader may recall a ‘law’ passed on Kahnawake reserve outside Montreal a number of years ago – that anyone marrying a non-Inidgenous person would be exiled. Is this still allowed in Canada? Or does a reserve still count as ‘Canada’?

The second question follows upon this rhetorical one: However one defines ‘indigenous’, are those who belong to this group under the rule of law in Canada? If not, then we are tottering towards a state of chaos and anarchy, if certain individuals of a certain ethnicity or religion can flout the law, while others cannot. The law either applies to everyone, or it applies to none, and becomes an arbitrary use of force.

A final note on the massacre in Thailand: The soldier who went a shooting rampage in a shopping mall has himself been killed, after murdering at least 26 people, and seriously wounding dozens more. We know not the motive or intent, but, as per our custom, pray for the dead, the wounded, the perpetrator and all those affected.

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→