Labouré’s Labour of Love, and Kenney’s Legal Limits

Although not in the universal calendar, today is the memorial of Saint Catherine Labouré , the visionary of the Miraculous Medal, mentioned yesterday. Besides Our Lady appearing to her, with the mission to have the medal forged – which proved spectacularly successful, with millions donning the sacramental – Sister Catherine lived a hidden life in her convent of the Visitation Sisters in Paris, quietly and devoutly caring for the elderly for over four decades after the visions, until her death on this day in 1876, her body still lying incorrupt in the convent chapel at Rue du Bac, where the Virgin Mother appeared to her, and where the saint prayed all those years, in silence.

Hence, Saint Catherine provides quite an a propos patron for our day, wherein so many of the old, the infirm, the single and solitary, find these days of lockdown and isolation well-nigh unbearable.

I say ‘well nigh’, for God always provides the grace to endure what suffering He sends, admittedly an easy thing to write from a place of relative comfort.

Which is why I find the recent decrees of the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, so odd and off-putting, to put things mildly. He claims the province is not in lockdown, but has just promulgated a law forbidding anyone to have any guests at their home, with the ironically titled ‘peace officers’ – who will be bringing anything but peace – issuing fines ranging from $10,000, all the way to $100,000 for ‘serious offences’- left ominously ambiguous. How many families can pay back six figures?

I find his law a ‘serious offence’, and, prescinding from all the medical debates, charge the Premier with violating the inviolable sanctuary of the home. How is this going to be enforced? With neighbour snitching on neighbour, or, worse, relatives on each other? Will police do roving checks or road blocks – as is already happening – to see whither you go and whence you come? Infra-red scanners and SWAT teams? Is forming a totalitarian police state – with officers invading the very living and bed rooms of the nation – and financially, psychologically, and spiritually crushing families, worth the debatable lowering the risk and spread of Covid? The burdens of these lockdowns fall most heavily upon the elderly and the infirm. To what extent is this all worth it, and even beneficial?

I sympathize, that Premier Kenney is in a tight spot, with advice from medical personnel that this is the plague to end all plagues – which it does not seem to be, and one wonders what they will do if such a thing comes along.

More to the point, this would all be easier to bear if there were some clear goal in mind. We could lockdown for six weeks, six months, six years, and the virus is still going to be there – waiting patiently. As far as this writer knows, the only way to get past a pestilence is an infallible vaccine – which will never exist, for viruses mutate, and Covid-19 will become, like a tired re-run, Covid-22. And are they going to force everyone to take a vaccine, rushed into service before even being tested on animals?

Or, as has happened any number of times in history, we achieve eventual natural immunity. The situation we’re in now, is going to be the same in 2021, and 2025. So it seems prudent to adapt to it, protect the vulnerable, as we might, but allow us all to live life, which eventually must go on.

I had hoped that Jason Kenney, a fellow Catholic, and someone whom I have met in my travels through life, might see things from a more supernatural perspective, that, in the principle of double effect, there are worse things than threats from a virus, and that, as Pope John Paul II states in Evangelium Vitae, even this life is only a penultimate good – our ultimate end is in heaven, and we must maintain the means to attain that supernatural goal – hope, charity, friendship, community and, most of all, access to the sacraments and the Holy Eucharist, even if they entail some degree of ‘risk’.

After all, God sends us plagues and pestilences, and a host of other sufferings, which we will not be able to avoid; but they are all for our greater good, not only so we may learn that this life and its many goods are not all there ‘is’, but that to enter eternal life, we all must eventually pass through that dark door of suffering and death, with the hope that, in the end, as Blessed Julian of Norwich optimistically said, ‘all manners of things shall be well’.

And well they shall be.

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 Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop

As a follow-up to my thoughts on Payette’s payout, here be a stark image of where are here in Canada. As the graph shows in, well, graphic terms, since 2025, the public sector has contributed to 95.5% of economic growth. The private sector – which funds the public sector, or is supposed to – has[…]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→

Presidential Pardon of Weronika Krawczyk

As a good news, follow-up to our story from Poland, of the persecution of Weronika Krawczyk for her pro-life views, we heard that she has been granted a presidential pardon. One might still wonder why one needs a presidential pardon for simply holding the long-held belief that the child within the womb is a child,[…]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→

Pope Leo and a Rosary for Peace

Pope Leo XIV has asked Catholics across the world to join him in a Rosary for peace today, at 18:00 Rome time (6 pm), which would be noon from where I write (EST). If you are able, whether at that time or another, and in whatever way you pray, to join in intercession with the[…]Continue reading→

Payette’s Payout

I was glancing through some headlines, and noticed a mention of Julie Payette – engineer and astronaut and sometime the Queen’s representative in Canada – which brought back vague memories. She was appointed Governor-General by Justin Trudeau in 2017. Ms. Payette resigned in 2021, amidst claims that she created a ‘toxic work environment’, with allegations[…]Continue reading→