Essays in Idleness

I am very much in need of a short post. For lately, I go on blathering two thousand words a day, and this is no good sign; especially with Holy Week upon us. But you see, gentle reader, there is so much more to say. It is a problem I have, known as graphomania: each intended squib starts turning into a book. My greetings to anyone still bearing with me.

So let me take today a simple question from a reader, and answer it, simply.

The one I have selected is from a man named Brett, who shares my delight in the memory of the great Canadian thinker, George Grant. After a formidable proem, he asks:

“From a Catholic perspective, can we see in Catholicism, not only the possibility for the salvation of individual souls, but the salvation of Canada as an ideal — even if it means planting it in different soil than its original dreamers had the vision for?”

I reply:

That I do not know how a Catholic order could be implemented in Canada today, without tanks. But if gentle reader has some tanks, I am willing to try.

Would it solve our problems? I don’t think so. That would require genuine personal conversion on the part of a plurality of Canadian souls, which unfortunately cannot be achieved at gunpoint. And even then, all the background problems of sinfulness would remain; together with the usual material ones.

The best we can do is posit the thing, reminding that the original Canada — the actual one, not the fake — was founded on unambiguously Catholic principles by Champlain. As you say, the original conditions are long gone.

And the best way to posit this “restoration” is, I think: candidly and directly. That is, to oppose the prevailing secular religion not only in the main, but in every jot tittle and inference of the thing — to make clear that it is evil and ugly and false, and that the alternative is good and beautiful and true. Like Saint Paul, we should be constantly on the offensive.

Of course, this will get us punished, but hey.

In particular: plans never work. That is part of our religion. Only Christ can save us; Christ the King, dead and Resurrected. (Le roi est mort, vive le roi!)

As a man of the thirteenth century I would observe, that the Middle Ages weren’t planned. They just happened — more and more as the little European peninsula became more Christian.

What more is there to say?

Saint Jean de Brébeuf, pray for us.

Saint John Baptist, pray for us.

O modest and shadowy Saint Joseph, patron of Canada, pray for us!