Catholic Problems in Western Canada
G >> George Thomas Daly >> Catholic Problems in Western CanadaThe Call of the West! Across the ocean it has gone and awakened the
dormant energies of old European nations. Settlers of every race and
creed have rushed to our shores, like the waves of "the heaving and
hurrying tide."
The attraction of the Canadian West has become general, at home and
abroad. Nothing can stop this onward march to the land of promise. A
new Canada is being created beyond the Great Lakes.
A very small fraction of the Western fertile soil is under cultivation
and already the phenomenal yield has prompted the nations at large to
call the Prairie Provinces "the granary of the world." Already in
Canada the industrial, commercial, and to a great extent, the political
world hinges on the Western crop. It is the great source of Canada's
national wealth. For, the prodigious resources of our mines and
forests, and the annual yield of our harvest are the two poles upon
which revolves the credit of our country abroad. But the growing value
of the West to the economic and national life of Canada is a mere
shadow of its increasing importance in the religious world. Above the
hum of the binders and loud clatter of the threshing machines, above
the sharp voice of the shrieking steel rail, counting, as it were, one
by one, the freighted cars on their way to the Eastern ports, above the
clamor of commerce and industry, ring out the voices of immortal souls.
The West, for the Church of God also is the land of great possibilities
and brilliant promise. The waving sea of its wheat fields calls to
mind the words of the Master: "Lift up your eyes and see the countries
ready for the harvest. . . . The harvest is great indeed but the
labourers are few. . . ."
On his return from a visit to our Canadian West Cardinal Bourne, in the
course of conversation, spoke of Canada with almost exclusive reference
to the Western Provinces. Some one remarked to him, "Your Grace is
referring to conditions in the West?" "Yes, the West, the West is
Canada!" he replied.
No one can over-estimate the importance of the West from a Catholic
standpoint. It is a new empire that is being formed beyond the Lakes,
an empire with tremendous and perennial resources, with ambitious
ideals and progressive policies, with forward-looking people and
youthful leaders. There the ultra-conservatism of the East has been
brushed aside and space made for a new democracy. The question of
paramount importance for us is: "What will be the condition of the
Church in that coming part of Canada? What share will She have in the
solving of the social, educational and economic problems of that new
domain?"
Every Catholic should be interested in this vital issue. The call of
the West for a Catholic is the call of the Church, the call of a Mother
to a loyal son. She has a right to a hearty response from every
Catholic throughout our broad Dominion. It is, therefore, a duty of
conscience for every son of the Church in Canada to come to the
assistance of his mother, to take her honor to heart. At the present
hour this duty is most imperative, this obligation most pressing.
There is nothing in the wide sphere of our Catholic social duties so
immediate in its urgency or so far reaching in its consequences. The
Church depends on the loyalty of her children.
To bring this call of our Western missions to the attention of every
individual Catholic, to make every soul a co-operator in the extension
of God's kingdom in Canada, to develop that sense of responsibility
which makes one consider the Church's business his own business, to
rally our disbanded forces, to unite our sporadic efforts around the
great work of the "Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada"--such
is the object of these few pages. To place facts before the reader,
and suggest remedies; to sound the call of the West, loud and sonorous
as the bugle pealing a great "_reveille_," strong and clear as the
trumpet blast that stirs the blood; to prompt a timely and generous
response in the East, by uniting the Church of Canada in a crusade of
prayers and sacrifices for our Western Missions: this is our aim and
hopeful ambition.
_The Call of the Catholic Church in the West_
The call of the Church in the West is a cry for help. Great indeed are
the pressing needs of the Western Church, for numerous and various are
the difficulties with which Catholics have to contend on the prairie
and in the small towns.
The first barrier to surmount is _distance_. The very layout of the
country is to a great extent a hindrance to the efficient working of a
parish. The survey of the land has been made from a strictly economic
point of view. Large farms,--vast wheat fields--were the final object
of the survey. The social, educational, and religious phases of the
situation are in the background. This renders church and school
problems particularly difficult to solve, as was outlined in Dr.
Foght's report of the educational survey in the Province of
Saskatchewan (1918). This difficulty--let us not forget--will persist
for years to come in Western Canada. According to competent
authorities wheat growing, being essentially a large unit undertaking,
demands extensive farming. This statement is very important, for its
consequences in Church organization are far-reaching.
The planless settling of the Catholic homesteaders here and there on
the prairie, has also created for the Church one of its greatest
difficulties. Living often 30, 40 and 50 miles from a Catholic chapel,
these settlers drift away from the authority, teaching and sacraments
of the Church. To form self-supporting parishes in the sparsely
settled districts is often an impossibility.
To this barrier of immense distances are added for long months,
_unfavourable climatic conditions_. The very severe cold, the high
winds which have such a sweep on the boundless prairies, the terrific
blizzards of the long winter months, will always remain great obstacles
to an intense Catholic life in rural parishes. Many Sundays, from
December to March, it is a real impossibility for those who live at any
distance to go to Church.
And who are those who have settled on our Western plains? This is not
the place to discuss the immigration policies of the past. We are
dealing with facts. We have the _most cosmopolitan population_ one
could imagine. The most divergent factors go to make up the racial
composition of our western population. We know of a city parish that
counted 16 different nationalities within its boundaries. During the
first and second generation, during what we would call the period of
Canadianization of these various national elements, the Church has to
face a most difficult and complex situation.
Diversity of nations means _variety of ideals, differences of customs
and traditions_. The disassociation from former relations and the
sudden transfer to new conditions of life, have proved to be such a
shock to many settlers that they fail to readjust their lives to the
arising needs. "Separated from the influences of his early life the
immigrant is apt to suffer from disintegrating reaction amid the
perplexing distractions, difficulties and dangers of his new
environment. Frequently it happens that old associations are destroyed
and there is no substitution of the best standards in the new
environment. A vacuum is created which invites the inrush of
destructive influences." How many foreigners have been lost to the
Church because the teachings of their Faith were no longer handed down
to them, wrapped up, we would say, in the folds of their national
customs and celebrations! The oriental and southern mind is more
particularly susceptible to the influence of this national tinge with
which religion itself comes to them.
The fusion of so many ethnical groups and their adaptation to new
surroundings are the result of a very delicate and slow process,
especially in rural communities. "You cannot play with human chemicals
any more than with real ones. You have to know something of
chemistry," said Winston Churchill. Thousands of foreigners have been
lost to the faith because many of our own, clergy and laity, did not
know the first elements of "human chemistry." The great leakage from
the Church in the West is among Catholic immigrants. Unscrupulous
proselytisers on the specious plea of "Canadianization" have weaned
them from the faith of their fathers. This nefarious process is still
at work, especially in the Ruthenian settlements.
_The number of languages_ complicates still more this ethnical problem.
Not hearing the Catholic doctrine in his own language and crippled by
that instinctive shyness and extreme reserve which seem to grasp him as
he steps on our shores, the foreigner often loses contact with the
Church. Like a transplanted shrub in an uncongenial soil, he
languishes for years in his faith and its practices.
_The very atmosphere_ of the West is another great cause of defections
among the faithful. You must live for some years "out West" to
appreciate the full meaning of this statement.
Moral atmosphere is to the soul what air is to the lungs; it is health
and life. Two elements constitute that factor which plays such a vital
part in our religious life--tradition and environment. _Tradition_
links the past to the present and gives to the soul a certain stability
amidst the fluctuations of life. It is made up of details if you wish,
but, like the tossing buoy, these details betray where the anchor is
hidden. This absence of the past has a great influence on our Western
Church. People hailing from all points of Eastern Canada, of the
United States and of Europe, have not yet formed religious traditions
which are to the Catholic life of the family and of the parish what
roots are to a tree.
And what _environments_ surround our scattered settlers on the prairie?
Only those who have come in close relation with the lonely homesteader
can understand how much he is debarred from the influence of Catholic
life. Very often not even a chapel is to be found for miles and miles.
A chapel, no matter how humble it may be, is in the religious world of
a community like the mother-cell; in it life is concentrated; from it
emanates activity. Mass is now often said in a private house, a public
hall or a school house. Children who have not known the beauty and the
warmth of Catholic worship will hardly appreciate its lessons.
Moreover, _social relations_ often bring our Western Catholics in very
frequent contact with the different Protestant churches and their
tremendous activities. _Mixed marriages_ are the outcome of these
circumstances. God alone knows how many of our Catholic boys and girls
have been lost to the faith through "mixed marriages" and marriages
outside of the Church.
* * * * * *
These various obstacles, _geographical_ (distance and climate),
_ethnical_ (race and language), _religious_ (absence of Catholic
tradition and surroundings), are the ever open crevices through which a
tremendous leakage has been draining the vitality of the Church in
Western Canada. So the call of the West is like the frantic S.O.S. on
the high seas, that snaps from the masts of a ship in danger. It is
the cry of thousands of Catholics sinking into the sea of unbelief and
irreligion. In the wreckage there is still a gleam of hope. Great
numbers yet cling to a remnant of the old faith of their fathers; it
will keep them afloat until helping hands come to their rescue.
The Call of the Church in the West is a call of distress. Has the
Church in the East heard it? What is its response?
_The Response of the East_
Has the Church at large in the East heard the call of the West? Has
that cry of distress gone through the ranks of our Catholics like the
shrill blast of the bugle call? Has it awakened our Catholics from
their torpid lethargy and quickened their sense of responsibility? Has
the call been answered, or has it gone out like a cry in the
wilderness, lost in the noise of our busy world, stifled by the clamour
of other voices, smothered under other diocesan and parochial claims?
In the Church of Canada there have always been generous and noble souls
for whom the missions of the West have had a mysterious attraction.
Who can read without emotion of the heroic deeds of the first Jesuits
who followed the explorers and _courreurs-des-bois_ in their perilous
adventures? What tribute of admiration and gratitude do we not owe to
the Oblate missionaries who lived and died with the wandering children
of the plains, who have kept the fires of Faith burning, from the banks
of the Red River to the Pacific Coast, from the winding shores of the
Missouri and Mississippi to the everlasting snows of the Arctic. Their
lives of heroism furnish a bright splash on the rather drab and bleak
landscape of what was known as the Northwest Territories. The Church
of Canada will ever remain indebted to these noble pioneers of the
cross, apostolic bishops and priests of the first hour; their saintly
lives are forever emblazoned on the pages of Canadian history; the
western trails murmur their names in gratitude and the children of the
prairie still bless their memory by the dying fires of their camps.
Indeed the Province of Quebec for years sent her money to help the
struggling schools of Manitoba. The Catholic Church of Canada has
pledged itself in the Plenary Council of Quebec to help the Ruthenian
cause; the Catholic Church Extension Society of late years is enlisting
the sympathies of Eastern Catholics for our Western missions. With the
help of their motherhouses our various sisterhoods have dotted the West
with convents, schools, hospitals and charitable institutions. We all
recognize the beauty and the heroism of their Catholic charity and
apostolic zeal. Notwithstanding these noble efforts, can we safely
state that the Church of Eastern Canada, as a whole, is deeply
interested in the Catholic welfare of the West? Have we kept pace with
the changing conditions the last decade has brought throughout our
Western Canada? _No_. _And this is our national sin_. The Church as
a whole, has not awakened to its responsibility. As individuals, as
parishes, as dioceses, Catholics here and there have nobly done their
duty. As a body, as a living Church of Canada, we have failed to help
the struggling West as we should have done. We have not thrown all the
energies of our great living, organizing Church into this missionary
work. The Catholics of our Eastern Provinces are not yet united in one
great, generous effort to protect and spread the Kingdom of God in
their own fair Dominion. The call of the Church in the West has not
been heard.
Never has the importance of the West loomed up before the public mind
as it has since the beginning of the war. To realize this you have
only to remark its growing influence in our political life. It cannot
be otherwise; the possibilities of the West are so great and so
numerous. Immense virgin prairies are still waiting for the plough.
After the war, during the period of reconstruction, necessarily so
pregnant of great events, the producing powers of our agricultural West
will be tremendous. This is, therefore, a trying period for the Church
in the West. Beyond the waving wheat of the prairie we should
contemplate the ripening harvest of souls. Like a growing youth, the
Church in Western Canada needs more than ever, help and support from
the Mother Church of the East. This assistance in the present stage of
the Western Church is a pressing duty of conscience, not only for the
individual Catholic, but particularly for the Church as a whole, in
Eastern Canada.
This duty is a duty of the hour, a duty most serious, most imperative.
How can it be accomplished? By the united action of the Eastern
dioceses of Canada.
Each diocese is a constituted unity in itself, but not for itself
alone. Like each particular organism in the human system, it exists
for the benefit of the whole. The Catholicity of the Church implies
this idea of solidarity whereby the strong help the weak and the rich
come to the rescue of the poor. Never, perhaps, has the Church
suffered so much from the wasting of energies. The torrent, if not
directed, spends its energy on itself; turned into the mill race, every
drop counts.
One of the great lessons the war has given to the world is the absolute
necessity of centralized effort and the advisability of central
organization rather than multiplying organizations. We are living in
an age of _efficiency_ through _co-operation_.
_Fas est ab hoste doceri_.--The lesson coming from our separated
brethren should strike home. One has to go West to see the feverish
activities of the different denominations in that new field. Ask the
mission organizers of the various non-Catholic bodies how much money
comes from the East to support the struggling Protestant churches of
the West; visit their immense printing establishments which are
producing and distributing the literature you will find on the table of
the lonely Western settler; study these organizations which are
supplying field secretaries, teachers, social workers to our foreign
Catholic settlements, then you will begin to understand this word of
Pius X.: "The strength of the enemy lies in the apathy of the good."
The mass of evidence, which can be had by the simple reading of the
non-Catholic missionary reports, as to their activities in Western
Canada, is nothing short of staggering. What examples! What lessons!
Should they not turn our apathetic Catholics into enthusiastic
apostles, stir them into watchfulness and action? And what could we
not do _with more unity of action_?
Two conditions make united action possible--_uniform plan_ and
_authoritative leadership_. It would be rather preposterous on our
part to attempt to formulate what we could call a plan of campaign for
our Western apostles. We wish only to submit a few suggestions which
may help to group our scattered energies and bring rescue to the
Church, particularly in the unorganized districts of Western Canada.
To readjust our methods to conditions as we find them _means efficiency
with the least waste of energy_. Therefore, we claim that a "survey"
of membership and conditions of the Catholic Church in unorganized
districts is an absolute necessity. It is the only _logical basis_ for
true _knowledge of conditions_ and for development. This "survey" will
bring us into immediate contact with the fallen-away Catholics. As it
is now, are we not too often _waiting_ for the fallen-away to come to
us? If the survey has proved essential in the solving of educational
and social problems, why should it not commend itself in religious
matters? Proselytizers--especially the English Biblical Society, with
headquarters at Toronto and Winnipeg, have the survey of the West down
to a science. Their map room in the Bible House of Winnipeg is a
perfect religious topography of Western Canada. We are firm believers
in what we would call the "Catholicization" of modern methods that have
proved beneficial to any cause. "Without this survey and the grasp
which it yields of the relative proportion of things, a vast waste of
matter and energy alike is inevitable."
This Catholic survey of unorganized districts may appear to some as "a
dream," a desk-policy of apostleship--as too modern, etc.[2] The only
answer I can give are the facts and figures of the American Catholic
Church Extension, whose work along similar lines proves their
efficiency and high value.
The specific and ultimate object of the survey would be to keep
Catholics who live out of the radius of parish life, in constant touch
with the Church, its teaching, its sacraments and its authority. The
mailing of Catholic literature pamphlets, devotional and controversial,
and newspapers, the teaching of catechism by correspondence, as is
practised in certain districts of Minnesota, the selection of teachers
for foreign districts and of boys for higher education, the
establishment of a central Catholic Bureau of information in each
Province, which could serve as a clearing house and centre of Catholic
activities, and other means of apostleship, these would be the natural
consequences of the survey. Who cannot see what a help this would be
to our scattered Catholics? A great help to keep the faith among the
scattered home-steaders.
The service of an _auto-chapel_ would bring them also, at least once a
year, the benefit of the sacraments and the blessing of the priests'
visit. For, let us not forget it, one family now lost to the Church
means several families in the coming generation. This absence of
contact with the Church has been for our scattered English-speaking
Catholics especially, one of the great causes of the loss of faith.
And what about our mission to non-Catholics? We have the truth; are we
doing enough, not only to keep it among our own, but to spread it among
others? Are we aggressive enough? And still I hear the Master say:
"And other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also _I must
bring_ and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and
shepherd" (Jo. X, 16). _We must bring_ them back; they _shall hear our
voice_. . . . On the strength of that command and of that promise
should our policy not be more saintly aggressive? What an immense
field awaits the zeal of true apostles! Nowhere more than in the West
has absolute disintegration set in among the different denominations.
The universal desire for Church Union is, in our mind, the best proof
of our statement. The most elementary principles of Christianity, of a
supernatural religion, have lost their grasp on the mind of the average
Protestant Westerner. Nominally, he belongs to a denomination, in
reality he belongs to none. And what are we doing to give them the
faith?
A uniform plan of action, once adopted, requires for execution, _an
authoritative leadership_, if desired results are expected. In the
Church of God the Bishops are our authoritative leaders--_Posuit
Episcopos regere Ecclesiam Dei_. In the ordinary life of the Church
this authority in matters spiritual is delegated to and operates
through the parish priests. The parish is with the diocese, the
established unit of religious organization. For the work in
unorganized districts, which is here the special subject of our
attention, could there not be in each Province or in each diocese, four
or five "Free Lances?" [3] Let them be diocesan missionaries, priests
chosen by the Bishops because of their special fitness for this great
work. They would be to the Church what the R.N.W. Mounted Police have
been to the Northwest Territories, or what the itinerant preachers are
to certain denominations in sparsely settled districts. Their mission
would be to visit, preach, baptize, say Mass in the distant districts
not visited by a parish priest. They would be the advance-guard of the
Church throughout the land. During the winter months they could
continue their work by attending to districts within reach of a
railway. The religious Orders,--and they alone can more easily supply
reserves and train subjects for this special work--the religious Orders
surely will be able to enter into this field of missionary activity, at
the same time protecting their subjects with the safeguards of the Rule
as also of paternal vigilance and guidance. An itinerant "regional
clergy" radiating from a centre where they are fortified by the
advantages of common life, is one of the Bishop of Northampton's
remedial suggestions among possible "new methods devised to meet new
needs." This suggestion is to be found in his Lenten Pastoral of 1920.
The Church in the East, through the Catholic Church Extension Society,
would gladly, if well informed on the matter, furnish the financial aid
for the support of these "free lances"--and their apostolic activities.
The Catholic Truth Society would gladly, contribute all the literature
needed to spread the truth and to keep the fires of faith burning on
our prairies. Grouping forces, co-ordination of efforts, is what we
need most in Canada. In the rank and file of the Catholic laity
treasures of enthusiasm, latent powers of energy go to waste because
there is no leader to awaken and direct them. The policy of the
_Catholic Church Extension_ is to act on these long unspoken desires,
to loosen the pent-up energies of the Catholic heart throughout the
land.
_The Specific Object of the Catholic Church Extension Society_
Through its press, literature, auxiliary societies and various other
activities, this apostolic society is ever trying to quicken among
Catholics a profound sense of responsibility to the Church Universal.
The welfare of our Western missions depends on how the Church in the
East understands and shoulders its obligation.
By financial aid we do not only mean donations and contributions, here
and there, from wealthy Catholics. What we have in view is the
financial assistance of the Church in the East, as a whole, as a
corporate body. Every Catholic in Canada must become more or less
interested in "Home Missions" and be willing to do "his little bit."
As the small fibrous roots are the feeders and strength of the tree, so
also the small and continued donations of all Catholics in the East
will be the support of our missions in the West. In the various
Protestant denominations, for every dollar given to support of the
local church another dollar goes to the "Home Mission Fund." At the
last general Methodist Conference (Hamilton, 1918) that Church pledged
_eight million dollars_ ($8,000,000.00) for their missions in the next
five years. With the enormous sums these various religious bodies
receive from the East they support the non-Catholic institutions of
higher education to be found in all cities of Western Canada, they
distribute free of charge tons of literature throughout the prairie,
they defray the expenses of their social workers, field secretaries,
etc. Among the Catholics of hundreds of parishes does not the
prevailing policy seem to be: "Charity begins at home"--and we may add,
often ends there. When one has paid his pew-rent and his dues, bought
a few tickets for a sacred concert or bazaar, thrown on the collection
plate each Sunday a few coppers or a small piece of silver, he thinks
he has accomplished all his duty to the Church. The vision of too many
Catholics does not go beyond the boundaries of their parish or their
diocese. Circumscribed in their views, they remain illiberal in their
sympathies.