Corrupting Constitutions, Controlled Commuting and Changing Climates
In discussing the theme of Church-State relations in class, I offer students examples of constitutions of various countries, those founding documents that shape the laws and mores of the nation. As the refrain against (apparently) unjust laws has it, ‘it’s unconstitutional!’. Many constitutions still bear the trace of the country’s original religion, evoking its principles as the basis of law – even if many nations have strayed from their roots. Few such constitutions are more explicitly religious, and Catholic, than that of the Irish, who were not ashamed of the Faith of their fathers. That is, until recently. It all may fall apart next summer, when, as John Duggan points out, they hold a referendum on a radical secularization of their constitution. Read Duggan’s description, and weep. The Gaels – especially the legions of brainwashed millennials – have already been primed by decades of secular, anti-Catholic barraging by the media and the schools. When we add to the ambivalence and apathy of the Church, along with the myriad of scandals, we should not be surprised to see the once-valiant Irish vote for abortion and same-sex ‘marriage’. The snakes that Patrick drove out are returning with a vengeance. I vaguely recall a prophecy by the mediaeval monk Saint Malachi that Ireland would be inundated by the sea before she completely lost the Faith. So make that pilgrimage to the Emerald Isle soon!
Or perhaps not. At the G20 summit, where the leaders of the twenty ‘elite’ nations fly in legions of private jets to bewail and lament the effects of excess carbon emissions, our benighted potentates have unanimously agreed to global Covid vaccine passports which, if fully implemented, would mean the loss of the right of freedom of movement to those deemed to be ‘unvaxxed’. I say ‘deemed’, for the requirements for being ‘fully vaxxed’ keep extending and shifting, with boosters upon boosters, and no end in sight. The unvaxxed may well end up prisoners of their own country – or worse. One woman recently admitted to me in hushed tones at a medical office where mask mandates were in place, that she got the ‘two shots’, but is for sure not getting anymore. We will see, as the screws may tighten. She may as well have gotten none, for two will soon not be enough – it already isn’t at Notre Dame university, with the booster required just to enroll. It’s going to be three, four and more galore. Draw your line in the sand now for the pharmaceutical balrogs, and no farther.
Meanwhile, at the same hip conference, climate change zealotry has infected the minds of too many, worse than a physical virus. Fear not him who can kill the body, but we should have some concern for those who can harm the soul, and turn the mind into mush. One can almost see the swirling discs in the eyes of the Just Stop Oil zombies, like in those cartoons with a hypnotized Bugs Bunny – or was that Daffy Duck? – doing the bidding of Elmer Fudd. Alas, this is all too real life, and these iconoclasts, gluing themselves to roadways and artwork, are all for mayhem and destruction. From oil paintings to pipelines, it’s all gotta go to ‘save the planet’. I don’t think they quite know what nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ means, without all that we know as ‘civilization’. And much of that civilized culture requires a steady supply of energy. In a recent interview, one of these zealots, in his twenties, claimed as ‘proof’ for runaway, apocalyptic global warming, that London was ’40 degrees last summer!’. Hmm. Has England’s capital never had a heat wave before? Was this spike in temperature really caused by too much carbon and oil? Are there other factors at play?
To ask questions of this or any sort is to be labeled a ‘denier’, worthy of the worst. David Suzuki thinks they should all be locked up. He’s worse than the inquisition, which was at least concerned with truth, and offered people a trial. The climate crusaders have become almost fully unhinged from science, and are now full-bore into religious mania. Peruse, amongst any number of examples, a certain Michael Robbins, talking apocalyptica from a secular perspective, and claiming as an absolute certainty that the planet is on a runaway train to irrevocable heat death. Of course, if this does not transpire – and I predict with more certainty that it won’t – they can just claim the climate changed a different way, like it always does, heating up and cooling down, over days, weeks, years, millennia and aeons, from ice ages to rain forests to tundra and savannah. The temperature currently swings ten to twenty degrees in a day where I live. Might all this fluctuation have something to do with that million-mile-wide-and-three-million degree nuclear inferno we call the Sun?
A final thought: If the oceans are going to rise by a few feet in the next few years, inundating everything for many miles inland, why are all million/billionaire climate zealots snapping up prime waterfront in Florida, New Zealand and other heliophilic locales? And why is China permitted to continue to burn millions of tons of coal? Might they know something they’re not telling us – or, more to the point, selling us?
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→