For Pope Francis, legalism makes Christians stupid. [CNA]

[KSU]

Was the subject matter of my link hyperbolic?

Catholic schools and orphanages which the Irish state wouldn’t provide “ultimately proved disastrous” to Ireland. And the majority of Catholics thus lost their deep traditional Faith, priests became homosexuals, etc. because of the Church.

The last half of your post, however, is in line with official reports which made international news. No need to get more explicit.

Here’s hoping Our Lord (and St. Patrick, who is spinning in his grave) enable you Irishmen to start righting the ship there. It looks like we American Catholics may lose much of our freedoms ourselves if the vote goes wrong.

 

[Rau]

…Although I don’t quite understand the statements of someone who lived here for 58 years and who has personally met the people involved have to somehow be proved.

I didn’t intend to come across as asking you to prove anything. I’m simply observing that the facts are such that your personal observations can in fact be confirmed with independent evidence that sums up the data for the entire province, not just the people you actually knew. zz912 wanted independent objective data - he now knows it should exist.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

My grandparents, my father, and close friends (one disfigured by torture) also survived/escaped the WW II Socialist horrors in Eastern Europe. Some of my family members, to whom we sent CARE packages, simply disappeared there. So, what have we proved?

You ignore my point–the disgraceful, official persecution of Christian clergy and citizens who want to practice their Faith in the Canadian public square (one of the freest places on the face of the earth, as you put it). But for a reason known only to you, you make an issue out of my use of a metaphor–a mere figure of speech that refers to something as being similar to another thing for rhetorical effect.

You are the one who wrote that Canada is an anti-Catholic gulag. It is you who reaffirmed that in post 222. Canadians who are on this thread say it is not – and I who had legal residence there while on special assignment also say such a statement is absolutely dreadful.

I should be glad to interview with the Canadian who agrees with you that the nation of Canada is, in fact, a gulag.

At the same time, no one in this thread made an issue out of your questionable use of the word Church, viz:

“American readers will, with rare exception,… be ignorant of how the Church, which already had considerable power and influence in New France, stepped into a role of which they made an awful mess of it, to be frank.”

And

“I was…absolutely horrified, in turn, by the terrible things on a massive scale with which I came face to face…The Church ruined itself and lost for itself the legitimate role in society…”

We know that the Church itself is holy; the Body of Christ on earth. It didn’t make an awful mess in Canada, nor did it ruin itself and lose its legitimate role in society.

Readers merely winced, knowing you simply took literary license. But you did not see fit to do the same with my metaphor, anti-Catholic gulag, where in fact there is persecution and oppression of the Church in Canada.

As for the last part of your post, to save this thread, I’ll ignore it.

My questionable use of the term Church?

Wherever a Particular Church is duly established, under its bishop, with him surrounded by his college of presbyters, the Church is present, in its divine constitution.

If you do not know that, then you do not know one of the most basic and fundamental points of ecclesiology.

One therefore rightly and properly speaks of “The Church” when one is speaking of the Church is Quebec – which is constituted by the metropolitan sees of Gatineau along with its three suffragans, Montreal along with its four suffragans, Ville de Quebec along with its three suffragans, Rimouski along with its two suffragans, and Sherbrooke along with its two suffragans…in sum 19 (arch)dioceses – excluding the diocese for the military which crosses provincial borders and, for this consideration, the eastern Catholic eparchies.

This is the Church…in Quebec.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Indeed.

I only visited Ireland once in my life and not in an official capacity although several of my assignments had me working side by side with Irish priests. The horror stories they related I can sympathise with. “Disastrous” is an apt word.

Apart from you and OraLabora, I frankly never had reason or occasion to consider the situation of the Irish Church through the lenses of what I did in Quebec.

You have prompted me with another subject to read in retirement…and to ring those old Irish confreres still alive for a chat vis-a-vis Quebec.

Thank you, (name removed by moderator). You may have even given me the impetus for one more journal article for publication.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

There was, the paper I linked to some posts ago documented it. However by 1960 the difference had lessened greatly, a trend that started some time in the 50s.

Although I don’t quite understand the statements of someone who lived here for 58 years and who has personally met the people involved have to somehow be proved. It’s like me asking you to prove that the Civil War actually happened or that sex scandals in the Church happened in the US. I find it borders on rudeness in fact. I can appreciate that as Americans this will not be common knowledge, but some measure of respect for the knowledge of someone only one generation removed from this era would have been appreciated.

We need to remind ourselves that the Church is populated by sinners including her clergy and local bishops; I and Fr. Ruggero have pointed out the sins of the pre-conciliar Quebec clergy. These events were to us every bit as tragic as the sex scandals in your local church (and indeed ours too), as you can imagine. It saddens me that fellow Catholics would have so little solidarity and empathy for what happened here, instead blaming it all on on the perceived faithlessness of French-Canadians. They didn’t lose their faith, they had it crushed by their own clergy by placing demands on the people that the Church never did, as your quote above from Pius XII shows so well.

Frankly, the way you have been treated is beyond insulting, OraLabora.

It is worse than asking Americans to prove the Civil War, as you say…it is actually like saying to an American of African descent or an American of Native American descent that they do not know what they lived and that they are incapable of reliably relating the history of their own people and their own life experience as they speak what are, in fact, lived experiences that are hardly arcane.

If an American did that to me about my European history and lived experience, I would frankly take extreme umbrage.

 

[KSU]

…Wherever a Particular Church is duly established, under its bishop, with him surrounded by his college of presbyters, the Church is present, in its divine constitution.

If you do not know that, then you do not know one of the most basic and fundamental points of ecclesiology.

One therefore rightly and properly speaks of “The Church” when one is speaking of the Church is Quebec…

This is the Church…in Quebec.

Recall that when the Pope gave an off-the-cuff reply and said the Church should apologize to homosexuals, he quickly corrected himself and explained that when he said “the Church” he meant individuals. “The Church is holy; we are sinners”, he explained, and made it clear that individual Christians, not the Church, should apologize to all people that they had offended.

The Pope’s clarification, of course, was ignored. For days, ninety-nine percent of the world’s “news” organizations had screamed out their usual half-truth headlines: Pope Says Church Must Apologize to Gays. The Catholic flock wouldn’t know ecclesiology from the psychology used by the media to confuse them. But Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who had publicly instigated the matter in Ireland, got his wish.

Bottom line, you won’t be convinced about the dangerous use of the word “Church” as the culprit in Canada , and I still believe the de-Catholicization of Quebec, the anti-Catholic Socialist politicians in all of Canada, and the current nightmarish anti-Catholic conditions referenced in the link you are inexplicably ignoring campaignlifecoalition.com/shared/media/editor/file/PersecutionOfChristians(1).pdf
makes the metaphor “gulag” not inappropriate. Here are just two examples that should make you outraged:

May 2 2005: A Saskatchewan man, Bill Whatcott, is charged by a human rights tribunal with alleged “hate speech” and ordered to pay $17,500 in damages to several homosexuals who complained of “hurt feelings”. His alleged crime was distributing a flyer in Regina which contained warnings against the dangers of a homosexual lifestyle. In true “thought police” fashion, the tribunal imposes a “lifetime speaking ban” on Whatcott, preventing him from ever again speaking publicly against homosexuality. Amazingly, the Saskatchewan appeal court subsequently upholds this ludicrous violation of Whatcott’s Charter right to free speech.

Jun 1 2006: BC’s Ministry of Education announces it will incorporate positive teaching about homosexuality as a mandatory part of school curricula from kindergarten to Gr. 12. Furthermore, the existing right to opt-out their kids from “sensitive” classroom lessons will be taken away from parents, whenever the topic discussed involves homosexuality.

I have been using the term “gulag” for many years in chats on other religious-based forums and never got a mummer of complaint from Canadians.

Peace.

 

[OraLabora]

Completely agree. Canada is no more and no less of an anti-Catholic “gulag” that the US is. It is a free secular nation, just as the US is. Are there individuals making life difficult for Catholics? Yes in all Western nations. But we knew we’d be persecuted for our faith eventually, everywhere. So was Jesus, in a massive way. So we do have to be on guard. But as an individual and oblate who simply tries to live his faith, I have never, ever been “persecuted”. Disagreed with ? Yes many times. That’s the nature of a free society.

I rather resent the term being applied here (I’ve cooled down enough to discuss it sensibly now). First, it is coming from someone whose own country has and continues to show much anti-Catholic sentiment; he or she should work on getting their own house in order before slamming my country. Secondly, it rather implies that we Canadian Catholics are too impotent to deal with these sentiments in our own country. We don’t need Americans or anyone else to point out the problems in our country. We are well aware of them and capable of tackling them on our own.

Lastly, Canada, like the Church, and the US too, is larger than the sum of its parts. Canada is a nation of individuals of all faith (and non-faith) backgrounds, but together in spite of disagreements, friction and normal day-to-day problems we’ve managed to put together a pretty good -yes"free"- country with a good quality of life. Good enough in fact that fare more people including many Catholics (Catholicism is growing there, through immigration) are trying to gain admission to this “gulag” than are trying to escape it.

Agree here too. I also find it odd that homosexuals, as a group, are being singled out for sex acts that a large number heterosexuals engage in as well, but folks on this forum are relatively silent about those…

 

[OraLabora]

zz912 wanted independent objective data - he now knows it should exist.

Then Google is his friend and I shouldn’t have to do all his research. However his initial data was completely inapplicable because it covered Canada as a whole. What I did was point out that this is not applicable to this situation. Rather than accept that from someone who lives here, he rather seemed to take umbrage with it and question the integrity of the messenger rather than admitting that he could be mistaken.

In any case the paper I linked to does clearly show that the birth rate was much higher in Quebec up through the first half of the last century (1960). It should give him food for thought, as should any reading of the history of the Church in Quebec in that era, though he may find the best sources are in French.

 

[OraLabora]

It is much the same situation in Quebec. As part of the British North America Act, the government allowed Quebec to keep its distinct religion and system of civil law. The school system was divided into “Catholic” (basically 80% of the population) and “Protestant” (essentially everyone else). For some years now though, Quebec schools have been de-confesstionalized. But as in Ireland the Church was mixed up with the state at almost all levels. Separation of Church and State as our US friends know it did not exist in Quebec until the Quiet Revolution started to move Quebec in that direction in the 1960s. The famous anecdote that has become a meme for the Duplessis years was that priests would preach from the pulpit that “I can’t tell you who to vote for in the next election but remember that Hell is red, and the Heavens are blue”. The party colours were red for the Liberals, and blue for Duplessis’s Union Nationale (now defunct).

The big difference is that Ireland lived under British rule, and our independence was acquired rather more peacefully and gradually. Economically though, Quebec was firmly under the Anglo yoke until I would say the late '70s when Quebec nationalism was at its peak and many Anglophones left the province.

 

[dans0622]

Having certainly not read the entire thread…how did the topic of Catholics in Quebec arise? Was it said that priests who did such-and-such in Quebec were “legalistic”?

Given the population of this forum, (many Catholics who are from and/or who have large families…are/were quite poor…are/were from rural areas…are/were looked down upon for any and all of these qualities even by fellow Catholics–and, truth be told, I personally fit into at least the first three categories), maybe the this conversation can appear to be more of a criticism of the lay faithful (those backward, rural, dirt-poor farmers who are so unsophisticated and will die young) than of the priests who gave bad example and advice…

For many, we never got bad advice from priests (as far as conjugal life). A bigger problem was (is) receiving no advice at all.

Dan

 

[Robert_Bay]

MODERATOR NOTICE

This thread is wandering, please return to the topic of the original post.

 

[zz912]

Then Google is his friend and I shouldn’t have to do all his research. However his initial data was completely inapplicable because it covered Canada as a whole. What I did was point out that this is not applicable to this situation. Rather than accept that from someone who lives here, he rather seemed to take umbrage with it and question the integrity of the messenger rather than admitting that he could be mistaken.

In any case the paper I linked to does clearly show that the birth rate was much higher in Quebec up through the first half of the last century (1960). It should give him food for thought, as should any reading of the history of the Church in Quebec in that era, though he may find the best sources are in French.

In the paper you cited, although the Quebec rate was higher, it was never higher than 4. So the average family at that time in Quebec had 4 children. Some had more, some less, but most families were around 4 children.

Ten or more children is far outside the norm, even in Quebec in that time frame. That is what the paper you cited actually said.

So you haven’t given any evidence that supports your contention. In fact your evidence proves it false.

 

[OraLabora]

Having certainly not read the entire thread…how did the topic of Catholics in Quebec arise? Was it said that priests who did such-and-such in Quebec were “legalistic”?

More than legalistic, they subverted the Law to their own political ends, and then were rigourists in applying their interpretation of the Law.

It goes beyond well-intentioned, but erroneous advice, or no advice.

In that respect, the part of the discussion on Quebec that pertains to this issue is relevant to this thread as an example of an extreme case of what the Holy Father was talking about; an extreme case that is thankfully in our past. But it is still pertinent to the discussion and can serve as a warning for the future of the damage that extreme legalism can do to the Church, especially the souls of her people.

The rest of the Quebec wanderings probably are not and we should heed Mr. Bay’s advice. Unfortunately it was brought about though, by the incredulity of some posters who somehow needed “proof” of Quebec’s history.

Enough said.

 

[twf]

Precisely.

In fact, I seem to recall that His Grace, the Archbishop, and His Worship, the Mayor of Vancouver, recently jointly hosted an environmental conference at the St. John Paul II Pastoral Centre. Funny that His Grace wasn’t hauled away and subjected to forced labour…

 

[KSU]

All true, and you know the facts and where the bodies are buried, so to speak, better than I. If you disagree with me and think it best to be explicit about the state/prelate cabal of homosexual abuse, that’s on you. Our common Enemy and cultural enemies like to gloat.

But you side-stepped my point, which is that it’s dangerous and unnecessary to write on line that “the Church” is the cause of unspeakable horrors. The truth is that it was the Church-- directed personally by the deceived and then outraged Pope himself --which stopped the horror and cover up by prelates.

Please don’t misunderstand me; you were correct in your post #232 to draw the comparison to what happened in Quebec and Ireland. But, your wording leaves much to be desired when you agree with my friend Don Ruggero that it was the Church in Quebec that was the problem, and then going on to say it likewise was the involvement of the Church which proved disastrous in Ireland.

Again, the dupes of our common Enemy, as well as our invincibly ignorant cultural enemies, can misuse posts by knowledgeable Catholics such as you and Don Ruggero, who, posting among believers, employ literary shorthand. We all see the Church Herself being attacked and misrepresented over the back fence, in the media and on popular TV “comedy” shows. No need for us to innocently provide more fuel to the fire.

 

[KSU]

Jut now saw Robert’s Notice.

Good! Let’s get back to the OP.

 

[Rau]

In the paper you cited, although the Quebec rate was higher, it was never higher than 4. So the average family at that time in Quebec had 4 children. Some had more, some less, but most families were around 4 children.

Ten or more children is far outside the norm, even in Quebec in that time frame. That is what the paper you cited actually said.

So you haven’t given any evidence that supports your contention. In fact your evidence proves it false.

Clearly there would be a distribution of family sizes. How does the Canada wide average compare in a similar time frame?