Nota in Brevis, November 20th

Masked, armed Muslims stormed the Radisson hotel in Bamako, Mali, taking 170 hostages.  As I write, there is an operation underway to free them, but I suppose we should get used to this, and not just in Islamic countries like Mali.  The tentacles of the ideology of ISIS, a virulent form of Islam, which bears many similarities to the early days of the ‘religion of peace’, spread pretty much all over the world, even in our own ‘peace-keeping’ Canada.  It may be a while before this happens to your local Holiday Inn, but, as the Parisians sipping Bordeaux on a cafe terrace so recently and tragically found out, one never knows the day nor the hour, does one?

 

Justin Trudeau is already in over his head, at least financially.  The young-ish man brought up on wealth and privilege has apparently little idea of economics.  The Greek term oikonomia is literally the art of running a household, and, one may presume, it is one of the primary tasks of our leaders to ensure that our financial house is in reasonable order.  For nearly the past century, our dear leaders have failed to a greater or lesser extent in this fundamental task, resulting in our current, and growing exponentially, unmanageable debt, but I fear Trudeau Jr. will put them all to shame with his financial extravagance, especially should he actually keep all the election promises he made.   A report from the Canadian Press calculates that bringing over the proposed 25,000 Syrian refugees will cost an estimated 1.2 billion dollars.  The Liberals have also spent $500,000 on advertisement trying to convince the public of the wisdom of this endeavour (after promising to cease such partisan, biased, taxpayer-funded ads).  And they are still talking about Mike Duffy’s 64,000 dollar cheque.  We have only seen the beginning, I fear, of what the Liberal majority will do.

 

Finally:  Feminist backlash against transgender men.  Germaine Greer, noted feminist activist, has come out, so to speak, against such mutilated sideshows as ‘Caitlin’ Jenner, claiming that such men have no right to usurp her gender.  I cannot print in this family-friendly magazine how Ms. Greer so eloquently put it, but let us just say that removing part(s) of one’s anatomy does not a woman make.  Rather, I would add, what it does make one is a eunuch, but not the way Christ euphemistically intended, as in ‘putting to death’, or, more properly, sublimating, one’ s sexual desires for the sake of the kingdom.

 

Most Reverend Marcel Damphousse, until now bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall, has been appointed bishop of Sault-Sainte Marie, after the resignation of Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe.   Bishop-elect Damphousse received his theological training at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa, after completing a degree in psychology.  Let us pray for our bishops, that they truly implement the teaching of Vatican II, liturgically and spiritually, as it stands within the whole history and tradition of the Catholic Church.  I will have more to write on this in the future.