Drifting Down the Stream

The saying has it that politics is downstream of culture, and I would only add that so is everything else. For what is a nation or a people but its culture, all that makes up its ‘life’ – customs, traditions, mores, entertainment, marriage, family, all that they do and don’t do. And culture, as its etymology implies is derived primarily from a nation’s religion, its cultus – how the people view God, or, more to the point for our era, their gods. There is a reason Pope Saint John Paul II ended many of his encyclicals with a discourse on culture. Peruse the last bit of Evangelium Vitae, paragraphs 78 – 101, for perhaps his most invigorating. For a more secular take, see this column from Mark Steyn.

This explains the midterm results in America last Tuesday: Whatever one thinks of election fraud, there is still the fact that millions voted for a party that is fully committed to the right to kill unborn babies right up to the moment of birth, and beyond, and to mutilate children in the name of an unhinged gender ideology – that one’s God-given sex can be changed at whim, and one’s body carved up to suit. Now, just today, the same party foisted a federal right to same-sex ‘marriage’ on every single state, regardless of what the people may think.

There are two cultures in America (and, in a different way in Canada and across the globe): A Christian one, that believes in the right to life, freedom and truth, and an anti-Christian one, that believes in murder and mayhem, that we may as well call demonic. That divide has always been there, running through each human heart, now become more evident and explicit, as we are forced by dint of the unfolding evil to take sides.

That as always been the choice, has it not? God Himself put before the Israelites nearly four millennia ago a choice between the way of life and the way of death, blessing and curse. That same decision that was given to Cain, and, while we’re at it, to Adam, Eve, and old Lucifer himself. There is no middle ground, and never has been, between heaven and hell. Choose wisely, dear reader, before it’s too late.

On that note, it is disheartening to read that the fastest growing religious group in Canada is ex-Catholics renouncing their Faith. It wasn’t that long ago that Canada was once a Catholic country, steeped in Christianity. Governor-General George Vanier had a blessed sacrament chapel in the house of Parliament. Imagine!

Of course, people don’t just give up their Faith, but chuck most of their Catholic morality as well, if it’s not the loss of that morality that prompts the apostasy in the first place. The chasm between the culture of life and death is wide and deep, and many are drifting to the wrong side. The way this is going, one wonders about the answer to Christ’s (rhetorical?) question, will He find Faith on His beloved earth when He returns?

Cardinal Ratzinger predicted over three decades ago that the Church of the future would be smaller, but more faithful. We’re now in that future. Smaller, certainly, and we may hope more faithful. Such fidelity may soon be foisted upon us, for there’s nothing like a pinch of persecution, with a hint of martyrdom, to bring out the best in a Catholic. Blessed are those who persevere unto the end. Our culture may be sliding into hell, but we don’t have to go along for the ride. Stay strong, in and with the grace of the good God. Swim against the stream. Live the culture of life to the full. Keep that Rosary in your hand, get to Confession regularly, and receive the Holy Eucharist, daily if possible. Try to convince as many as you might to cross the chasm before it becomes unbridgeable. God will not abandon us, and He wants us all in heaven more than we can possibly imagine. +

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

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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→