Ottawa-In harmony with a five thousand year-old Judeo-Christian tradition, Canada's bishops have re-committed themselves over the past two years to their role of public defenders of natural law morality , be it then somewhat hesitantly (see articles "The Catholic community battles Same-Sex 'Marriage'," June 2005, pp. 33-42; and Catholic bishops react in "The triumph of unreason," Sept., pp. 11-13). They have flatly rejected  the government's enactment of SSM legislation (Bill C-38).

            Archbishop Brendan O'Brien, President of  the bishops' conference (CCCB),  stated in July, 2005, that the legislation put at risk the future of marriage in Canada. "Canadians are witnessing a dangerous deterioration of their communal values," he noted.

            Other bishops called it "a radical and unjustifiable break from an ages-old tradition which robs the matrimonial union of a man and a woman of its uniqueness." Others, again, defiantly said that the vote would "change nothing to the reality of marriage."

             The question is: what is to be done? This question must be confronted on different levels. One level is political-social; another spiritual-moral. Both of these, in turn, require responses applicable in the pursuit of short-term and long-term goals.                          

          Bishop Fred Henry has provided the proper answer for the spiritual-moral area when he stated on July 31 that Canadians "need to re-think our attitude towards children, the prevailing contraceptive mentality, the practice of abortion, our divorce-culture, and day-care parenting." In other words, we have to undo 40 years of legal-moral regression. In this issue, Rory  Leishman recalls the failure to publicly oppose and refute Catholic dissenters, whether theologians or judges, as a contributing factor  to the decay which must now be overcome (page 9).                                                                                             

          And Bishop Faber MacDonald of St. John, N.B., touched upon the immediacy and personal nature of  this vision when he called for "upholding the true meaning of marriage through word, deed, and personal witness." (For a sane view of marriage, see " The kingdom under siege" by Lianne Laurence page 7.)

            As for what is to be done on the political-social level, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec City and Primate of Canada speaking for all Canadian bishops, told the Senate that the government's action will involve "largely unforeseeable, but assuredly negative, consequences for Canadian society." Bill C-38, he said, was based on "a false understanding of the fundamental equality between persons, on an erroneous understanding of minority rights, on a faulty interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and on a truncated understanding of freedom of religion" (see Sept. C.I., pp. 12-13).                                                                                      

          So there we have it. By implication, the Catholic community--by far and away the largest religious group in the country-will have to bestir itself with an as yet unheard-of vigour. And it must do this in the teeth of a raging secularist faction  which has no intention of turning the other cheek. It reminds one of the tasks God gave Jeremiah, and John the Baptist, and a host of martyr saints.

            Jeremiah relates how the word of God came to him and explained that He had appointed him a prophet to the nations (1: 4-5), that he was to tell them "everything I command you" and behold,

            "I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you" (1: 17-19).

 Jeremiah was delivered from their hands, but in a sense the people did prevail against him by paying no heed to the Lord's warnings. Thereupon Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Jerusalem were destroyed.

To think that Canada could be destroyed is not a farfetched idea. The links across this vast country are tenuous, with separatist feelings in Quebec at 50, and in Alberta at 30 per cent. From abortion to same-sex "marriage," the government, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, has ruthlessly alienated the Catholic and Evangelical communities. They intend to keep it up-which is not surprising:  the Liberal-NDP coalition is preparing to support private Bill C-407, calling for euthanasia.

The time has come for Catholics to stop waffling and throw-out the Liberal-NDP coalition in the coming election.

N.B. Subsequently the Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, decided that Bill C-407 has too many loopholes. He withdrew support for the bill but announced he himself would introduce euthanasia legislation.