Where have Canada's Catholic leading voices gone?

Where is Canada'a Catholic leadership?

What has happened to Canada's Catholic leaders? Where have they all gone? There's so few voices to be heard defending and promoting the Catholic faith. Isn't this the Year of Faith? The majority of them are mostly silent. This is happening in our schools, our churches and our public places. Consider the following recent disconcerting examples.

In Quebec, things have gotten so bad that a court ruling told Loyola High School that it's essentially illegal to teach religion and thus be Catholic. This Montreal private Catholic school, according to this legal decision, must teach the province's mandatory generic Ethics and Religious Culture course, ERC. This ruling is supported by the Supreme Court of Canada in its dismissal of an appeal by parents from Drummondville, Quebec who sought to have their children exempted from the ERC program. In Ontario, the implementation of Equity Education policies and the passage of Bill 13 have been used to attack Catholic education.

The Supreme Court of Canada of Canada in its verdict in early 2012 against parents from Drummondville sided with the province. Many concerned Catholic parents simply wanted to exempt their children from the Ministry of Education's mandated ERC course. These parents were fighting for parental rights and religious freedom. The court decision was a no to these liberties. The court said that all school courses including religion have to be "neutral" which means they have to be morally relative. The Catholic faith has slowly become illegal in Canada. And regrettably as Christians, we have allowed the violation of true religious freedom, not mere private prayer and worship, to become a reality backed by law.

To their credit, the bishops of Quebec recently released a press statement disagreeing with the high court's conclusion. However, to fight back and try to save Catholic education in the province, much more needs to be done. This paper protest may be too little too late. Christian education has been under attack for decades in Canada and the bishops, and in fairness most of the laity, have permitted it to happen. How many of them supported Cardinal Ouellet when he strongly spoke up against the culture of death? Now Loyola High School has been told by a court ruling, when you strip away the legal talk, that it cannot be Catholic. In other words, it's not legal to teach the Catholic faith. What more will it take before we truly wake up to this sad truth?

Then, have you may have heard of the Ontario Catholic Principals' Council and the Ontario School Chaplains' association both in support of a student camp named Micah run by individuals who oppose the Catholic Church and others who promote homosexuality. A recent LifeSite News story tilted, "Catholic chaplains/principals promote summer camp run by dissidents, gay activists: parents protest", provides the sad details. What has been the Catholic leadership response to this? Nothing of substance so far and for the most part it's business as usual.

In addition, there's the teacher with the Ottawa Catholic District School Board who organized a school trip with students from two Catholic high schools, St. Peter and St. Matthew, just before the U.S. presidential election. The purpose of the trip: to help re-elect Barack Obama. The trip was initially approved by the board, but later cancelled when the true intent of the excursion became known to the public. Why would Catholics schools allow a teacher to take students to Ohio to help support and elect the most pro-abortion president who has ever been in the White House? The school board officials and the school principal have maintained that the students would have been there as observers only, but internal documents show that they knew all along about the real reason for the trip. Catholic board leadership and the principal have responded to this two ways: first with denial and then with silence. If the bishops also continue to keep silent about these events, the little that is left of the Catholic school system will totally disappear.

Lastly, we have the case of Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe of Sault Ste. Marie who just weeks ago stated that Justin Trudeau should be encouraged to address the students and staff at St. Charles College. In fact, he was quoted as saying that Trudeau, "In many ways might be a source of inspiration.” Where is Bishop Plouffe getting his information about Trudeau? An "inspiration" for what? And hasn't Justin's father Pierre done enough moral damage to Canada already? Have we forgotten the omnibus Bill C-150 of 1968-69 that legalized abortion, contraception and gambling? Does his son Justin wish to do follow-up work and inform students about other lies to support abortion and same-sex marriage?

Most Canadian bishops got it terribly wrong when they failed to completely embrace Humanae Vitae and some are still getting it wrong. Bishop Plouffe is just one more example. It's a very sad time for Canada's Catholics to have a shepherd speak in support of a person who publicly contradicts what the Church teaches. We need to pray and fast for our Catholic leaders so they are inspired to make their voices heard. Silence is no longer an option because it suggests, as silence usually does, acquiescence and promotion of the anti-Christian secular status quo.