It is minus 38 or so in Edmonton, without wind chill, too cold even for the penguins in their zoo; they have multiple feet of snow in Vancouver; minus twentysomething here where I write. The glaciers are doing quite fine. But global warming, global cooling, climate change, continues, and Greta’s gettin’ angrier. Anon, on to real matters.
Did he, or didn’t he? That is, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, co-author with Robert Cardinal Sarah the new book on priestly celibacy? The former Pope’s name is on the cover, published by Ignatius Press, and the man in charge, Father Joseph Fessio, says it’s staying on there. This, despite Benedict’s secretary, Archbishop Gänswein, claiming that the Pope Emeritus had no intention of being co-author, despite contributing to much of the book. One theory is that Pope Francis, with some intention to relax the rules of celibacy, was upset at the book being published, and ordered the former Pope’s name be retracted. Yet, Pope Francis is on record stating he has no intentions of changing the universal law of celibacy in the Latin rite (the Eastern practice requires some further thought and modification, but more on that later), even quoting Pope Saint Paul VI’s dictum that ‘he would rather give his life before changing the law of celibacy’.
I suppose we may never know the whole story, as with so many things in the Vatican today. I frankly wish that people, secretaries, popes and potentates, would just cease with all this intrigue, and strive to fulfill our Lord’s exhortation to say what you mean, let your yes be yes, and your no be no. And unless there is a grave and proportionate reason to hide one’s name, anonymity should be avoided. I think Pope Emeritus thinks along these lines, for he has not been afraid to wade into controversy before; witness his 2006 Regensburg address, and his denunciation of Islam. Hence, I would suspect he minds not his name is on the cover – but others agitators in various hierarchical positions, well, their knickers may be in a bit of a twist. And so much the worse for them.
Priestly celibacy – the state of not being married – is really about continence, the refraining from sexual activity, so that one may devote oneself, heart, mind, soul and body, to the ‘things of the Lord’. If a man wants not that, then one may wonder about his desire for the priesthood. After all, as a conformity to Christ in the deepest sense, the priest should imitate his Saviour in the most essential aspects of His life, not least His celibacy and continence, along with His poverty and evangelical zeal. Comfort and cossetting is not for the priest.
We will have more to say on the Liberals’ intent to broaden of the scope of euthanasia – all to be expected and predicted from the pro-death Trudeau government. For now, complete this survey if you have not already done so, and speak your own mind before the January 27th deadline. Otherwise, if we continue on the tragic path we now tread, to paraphrase the late John Maynard Keynes, we may all soon be dead, just before our time.
After all, our hospitals have to save money, and just today, those here in Ontario will be begging the Ford government for an extra billion dollars in funding, much of that, of course, going to the bloated salaries of the myriad of workers, from janitors making six figures to physicians making multiple times that. Doctors driving to practice in their beemers and mercs and Teslas, able, should they so desire, to work half time and still make more than thrice or more the average wage. And the waiting lists grow and grow, as the system is flooded and overloaded. You could pour three billion more dollars into this gaping socialist maw and it still would not be enough, for the needs would just expand, like the girth of Canadians (one of the primary health problems being obesity and its own myriad spin-off ailments, to say nothing of depression, spiritual malaise, depression, suicide, hopelessness). We need to re-examine what ‘health’ means, not just proper bodily functioning, but a harmony between body and soul, right living, before God, with a serene and peaceful conscience, one willing to accept death when the call comes.
Don’t expect the ‘Conservative’ Party to be of much help in any of this. The two hyped-up candidates to replace Andrew Scheer as leader are snoozeroos, my hand falling asleep just typing in their names, Peter ‘why the long face?’ McKay and Rona Ambrose, life-long politicians, dredged up from the non-glory days of yesteryear like a 90’s era music video, hoping against hope to defeat the socialist boy-king Trudeau, who hands out money and favours like candy to those who catch his eye and narrow ideological viewpoints.
Are these all we’ve got in Canada? Will they do anything to stop the onward slouch of the culture of death? Smile, if you will, at the very suggestion. McKay is on record attributing Scheer’s recent humiliating loss to Trudeau due to the fact that issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, about which no one ‘wants to talk’ in McKay’s enlightened, middlebrow view, were hung about the hapless would-be Prime Minster’s neck by social conservatives ‘like a stinking albatross’.
I’m not sure about albatrosses, but I have heard something about millstones and those who scandalize and cause harm to the most innocent, like, say, the unborn, the elderly, the infirm.
And McKay and Ambrose and whomever else they end up choosing will probably march in all the Gay Pride parades going, arm-in-arm with Prime Minister Eid-Sock Blackface. The Conservatives want a watered-down Liberal with a Conservative sticker, someone even more malleable, more comfortable with ‘Canada’ as it now stands, more centre-ish, that Andrew Scheer, which is saying something.
My recommendation? McKay and Ambrose should sit well back and enjoy their gold-plated pensions. We have to be willing to end the status quo in Canada, one man, woman, priest, sister, mother, father, family at a time, to stand athwart the slow death of this country, and yell, Gandalf-esque, ‘thus far, and no farther!’. Then work to pull back the tide.
What does this mean in the concrete? If you are able, remove your children out of the corrupt, debilitating, mind-numbing, zombie-inducing school system, even if there be ‘good teachers’ there, the overall effect is deleterious to children, more malleable to their errors pummeled into their still-forming brains six to eight hours a day, to say nothing of the baneful effect of their feral peers. Difficult as it may be, strive to home-school or private school; immerse them in the Faith, in truth, beauty and goodness. Attend Mass regularly, daily, if you are able. Pray the Rosary. Read Scripture. Learn the Catechism and teach it to your children. Listen to and play good music, from Vivaldi, Bach and Mozart, to Irish, folk and musicals. Don’t vote Liberal, nor for anyone who won’t stand for the unborn, the sick, the elderly. Those who advocate for death are not much better than Nazis, and perhaps even worse – for they should know better with enough historical precedents, and they will be judged not just historically, but spiritually. For we all must make a reckoning before that most just of Judges of the time we have been given, and how we treated the least of the brethren. Enough of the milquetoast mush from ersatz conservatives. Stand for what you believe in, right to the point of suffering and death.
Only so will things turn around. And better for the whole thing to run aground than try the incremental approach that has only inched – or should I say kilometred – us ever-closer to Gomorrah.
And trust in God, and praise Him still, our Saviour and our God.