Catholic Problems in Western Canada
G >> George Thomas Daly >> Catholic Problems in Western Canada1. _Policy of Education_.--The acuteness of our sense of duty depends
largely on the breadth and depth of our vision. This principle
explains the importance of the Catholic Extension educational policy.
Through its official organ, "The Catholic Register," by means of
pamphlets, leaflets, and lectures and sermons, the Society is most
intent on giving to the Catholics of Canada, first hand knowledge of
conditions in our mission districts. We are perfectly convinced that
when all our Catholics will have fully realized the truth of these
conditions, they will immediately understand their responsibilities and
fulfill generously their duty. But what is that "call of the West"
which the Catholic Church Extension is sounding like a cry of alarm
through the country? You all know, what I would call, "the Romance of
the West."
A few decades ago Western Canada was but a bleak, lifeless plain,
extending from the Great Lakes to the foothills of the Rockies, dotted
here and there with the Indian wigwam, the roving herds of buffaloes,
the solitary chapel of the Catholic missionary, and the lonely posts of
the Hudson Bay fur-traders. Suddenly under the magic steel of the
plough, that immense waste of land woke up from its age-long slumber.
The desolate prairie became within a few years the greatest granary of
the world. The Indian trail gave place to transcontinental highways,
to those "long, long, and winding," steel trails that have led the
youth of our Country and the exiles of Europe "into the lands of their
dreams." These trans-Canada roads have conquered distances and linked
the Atlantic to the Pacific. They may well be considered as the
arteries of our Dominion; through them indeed flows rapid and warm the
blood of our national life and in them one can hear, as it were, the
pulsations of its great and noble heart. The transcontinental lines
are responsible for the birth and phenomenal growth of our Prairie
Provinces.
What are the conditions of the Church in these new and promising
Provinces? It is not the time, nor is it the place to discuss errors
or absence of policy that have crippled the Church's work and growth in
that period of rapid transformation. We take facts as they are now.
The Church in Western Canada to hold its ground, to extend its work and
develop its institutions, has an absolute need of the help of the East.
The barrier of immense distances to which are added, for long months,
unfavorable climatic conditions; diversity of nationality, variety of
racial ideals, differences of language, customs and traditions; absence
of Catholic traditions and a prevailing atmosphere of unbelief and
irreligion; such are, in a few words, the tremendous obstacles against
which the Western Church in its infancy has to contend.
This vision of distress, the Extension wishes to place before every
Catholic in Canada; this call for help, it wishes him to hear.
But particularly the _future_ of the Church in these Provinces forms
the subject of the Extension's preoccupations. We all realize the vast
possibilities of our Western Provinces, and the important part they
must of necessity play in the future affairs of our Dominion. The
Church's influence then will be what we make it by our efforts now, and
its progress will be in exact proportion to the amount of our foresight.
This responsibility of the _present_ and the _future_, the Church
Extension preaches to all in season and out of season. Like the beacon
by the sea, it is ever turning its revolving lights over the immense
uncharted ocean of our Western missions and hopes that with time, every
Catholic in Canada will take his course on them. For, let us not
forget it, if we do not take care of our mission districts, others
will, and that to the detriment and loss of the Church.--_Fas est ab
hoste doceri_! It is permissible, says the proverb, to receive a
lesson from an enemy. Only those who have worked out West on the
missions know to what extent unscrupulous and most aggressive
proselytizers are always on the ground, ever at work among our people.
They are digging broad and deep trenches around the settlements of our
Catholic foreigners, particularly Ruthenians, draining to their profit
the dormant energies of the new Canadian. The invasion is slow but
sure, the leakage, great and continual. This lesson that comes from
the tremendous activities of the various Protestant denominations
should strike home more forcibly. The more stinging the lash, the more
sudden the rebound.
This educational policy of the Church Extension appeals to the Catholic
mind and tells it something it desires to know. It awakens that latent
Catholicity which Baptism has given us and on which the narrow
limitations of time and space have no claim. This education of our
Catholic laity in the value and necessity of the missionary spirit, in
the perfect knowledge and true appreciation of its character in the
Church of God, is the end and result of the Extension policy. To make
that spirit the inspiring, guiding and testing power of Catholic life,
is the definite aim of its educational work, of its publicity campaign.
When our laity will have absorbed the lesson, it will be ready for
action. This knowledge will awaken our sense of responsibility and
prompt our sympathetic support. This leads us to say a word on the
Society's policy of action.
2. _Policy of Action_.--Vision resolves itself into action. When the
mind sees deep and clear, the heart feels warm and generous, the will
acts promptly and decisively. As the spark leaps bright and sharp from
the silent battery, ignites the fuel and drives the piston, so will a
broad vision give a generous impulse to action. You readily see the
value of an educational policy, and its intimate connection with that
of action.
Action to be efficient and lasting must be organized. Grouping of
forces, co-ordination of efforts, are what we need most in the Church
of Canada. In the rank and file of the laity, hidden treasures of
enthusiasm, latent powers of energy go to waste, because there is no
leader to awaken them, or if aroused, no organization to direct them.
The policy of the Catholic Extension is to bring to vigorous activity
these long slumbering desires, to give an effective vent to the pent up
energies of the Catholic heart, to group all Catholic missionary work
for the conservation and propagation of the Faith in our mission
districts.
Have we not been working too much as separate units? Has not our zeal
been limited by the boundaries of our parishes and dioceses? What
activities have been absorbed by side-issues, while the great cause of
the Church at large should have occupied our attention! We were
deliberating . . . and the West was being lost to us! The time has
come to rally around the Church in our mission fields and prove
ourselves worthy of our name--"Christian" and our surname--"Catholic."
The policy, therefore, of the Extension is to enlist the organized
effort of every parish, of every diocese in a great missionary
movement, and to throw the weight of the Catholic influence of the East
into the immense field of our Western missions. It is not for the
promotion of any project, for the benefit of any particular section of
the Church in Canada, that the Extension Society exists. True genuine
Catholicity is the only inspiration of its activities.
This united action will manifest itself first and above all in
_prayer_. The preservation of the Faith, and the conversion of souls
are supernatural works depending primarily and in the final analysis on
the grace of God. Never has it been more necessary to emphasize this
trait of the Catholic Aspostolate. Confronted with elaborate schemes
of finance and the co-operative action of various denominations, we may
take lessons from them, but should never forget that there is something
more fundamental; we mean, the grace of God. Our prayer--the prayer of
every child, the prayer of every man and woman within the fold, the
prayer of every nun and priest, should be the prayer of the Master to
the Heavenly Father: "Send harvesters into the fields!" How powerful
should not that prayer be! How strong a binding link between the East
and the West!
But prayer, like faith, without works is dead. The Extension,
therefore, not only solicits our prayers, but also our help to meet the
needs of our home-missions--_Men and money_, financial aid and
apostolic vocations, these are the needs of the hour. Money to build
chapels, schools, orphanages, hospitals; money to help the Catholic
press, the spreading of Catholic Literature; money to forward the great
and vital cause of higher education. This organized financial
assistance of the Church in the East, as a whole, as a corporate body,
is the best expression of the reality and sincerity of Catholic
solidarity. To boast of our beautiful churches and sumptuous
cathedrals in the East and to leave our priests in the West without a
decent chapel to say Mass denote either painful ignorance of actual
facts or the fallacy of our Catholicity.
Great is the need of money, but greater still the need of men. The
principal work of the Extension is to foster, develop and bring to
fruition missionary vocations for the West. Burses are founded to
assist young men in their studies, and in a few years, it is the hope
of the Extension to be able to send to every diocese of the West
zealous harvesters for the harvest that is awaiting them beyond the
Lakes. Could we be invited to share a more noble task than to
contribute to the education of the heralds of the Gospel, of the
ambassadors of Christ to that Western Kingdom of ours?
Let us conclude.
These are the _principles_ on which rests the Church Extension Society;
this is the _policy_ it pursues. The adoption of these principles and
the furtherance of this policy will, we are confident, develop the true
type of the Catholic Laity. The parish, its works, its pastor, will be
the first to benefit by this missionary spirit of the laity. Long
enough has the priest, the missionary, laboured alone in the harvest
field and borne the heats of the day; long enough have but a few loyal
and generous souls shouldered the burden of the missionary work in
Canada; long enough have our Catholics limited their zealous efforts to
the confines of their parish or their diocese. The time has come for
every Catholic in Canada to answer the call of the Master, to take his
place in the harvest field, to share the responsibilities of the
present and prepare a glorious future for the Church in our great and
prosperous Dominion.
The appeal that comes to the Church of Canada from the Catholic
Extension is straightforward. It needs no apology. It stands its
ground on its own merits. It is not--let us never forget it--an appeal
to our charity. It is a pressing call to accomplish a sacred duty, a
timely warning not to neglect it. And indeed, active co-operation in
the work of Extension is, we repeat, an unfaltering belief in the
reality of our Catholicism. It knits our soul to the very soul of the
Church, our heart to Her heart.
Strengthened by these highest motives of Catholic Solidarity and
Christian Charity we should give joyfully and generously. Let us levy
a tax on our income, no matter how small it may be, remembering the
fiduciary character of our earthly possessions. Let us give our time
and our services to this noble Cause. Let us give lovingly and
willingly our children to the great harvest, if it be God's will to
call them to His service. But above all let us pray that the Kingdom
of Jesus Christ may come in our beloved Country through the Extension
of His divine Church.
[1] This chapter formed the substance of a Sermon preached on
"Extension Sunday" in St. Finnan's Cathedral, Alexandria, Ont.
CHAPTER III.
PRO ARIS ET FOCIS[1]
Militancy is the characteristic feature of God's Church on earth. New
dangers, fresh struggles await Her at every turn of the road in Her
onward march to eternity. Assailed from within by her own children,
attacked from without by bitter enemies, she is ever working out
through the frailties of human nature her sublime destiny. Not of this
world, but passing through it, She has necessarily to suffer from the
inherent weakness of her children. It is the human side of the divine
Church. Those who would be scandalized at this ever renascent warfare
against the Catholic Church, in all times and in all countries, should
remember that this hall-mark of true Christianity is the fulfillment of
Christ's promise and the realization of his prophecy.
In this great firing line of the Church militant every Catholic has his
place. His marked duty is to make the divine triumph over the human in
his individual life and through it--no matter how limited his circle of
influence may be--in the great life of the Church and in society at
large. He should make his own the various problems confronting the
Church in his country and help, within the sphere of his activities, to
offer a happy solution.
Two great problems now face the Church in Canada, and tax to the utmost
the wisdom of its leaders: The race problem and the Ruthenian problem.
In many centres the former has weakened the principle of authority and
paralyzed our efforts of co-operation; the latter means a tremendous
leakage through which the Church, particularly in Western Canada, is
losing every day an important and vital factor.
The race problem has always existed and will always exist in the Church
of God. This problem is imbedded in human nature. It plunges its
roots into the very depths of the human heart. Language is the
tap-root which gives life and vigor to its various manifestations.
Language is indeed the best expression and highest manifestation of the
race. The race problem therefore is generally complicated with the
language problem.
The Catholic Church has always respected the racial feelings and the
language of nations, for they are based on natural law, and natural law
is nothing else but the expression of the fundamental relations
constituted by God. Yet history can tell what the Church had to suffer
from racial and language differences. We all agree on principles, but
often differ on policies. The angle of vision varies; facts are
misrepresented; ideals misinterpreted; feeling and not judgment is
appealed to, in these racial conflicts. But it is not our intention to
deal with this great problem. Only let us ever remember the words of
Benedict XV. in his letter "_Comisso Divinitus_" to the Catholics of
Canada. He sees in our divisions a source of weakness for the Church,
a subject of scandal for our separated brethren and a cause for him of
sadness and anxiety. Let us therefore hope that the wishes of the
Common Father of Catholicity will soon be realized and that the Church
in Canada will see the clouds of misunderstanding lift and a brighter
day break on the horizon.
The problem to which I would draw again the attention of our Catholics
throughout the land is one that has been frequently of late placed
before the Catholic public. But as its aspects are ever changing and
its importance growing, I would wish to throw light on some new factors
at play in this momentous issue.
* * * * * *
Immigration has brought to the Church of Canada many serious and knotty
problems. Among these stands first and foremost the Ruthenian
question. Only those who have followed the various developments of
this perplexing problem and are fully aware of the unceasing activities
of the various Protestant denominations among Catholic foreigners,
grasp their meaning and understand their importance to the Church. The
average Catholic, we are sorry to say, is not awakened to the reality
of this live issue and fails therefore to meet his responsibilities.
Over 250,000 Catholic Ruthenians, of the Greek rite, have settled in
Canada within the past decade or so. They are scattered throughout the
length and breadth of our immense Dominion. You will find them in the
very heart of our large industrial centres, from Sydney to Vancouver,
and in compact groups on our Western prairies. The vast majority of
these Ruthenians belong to the Catholic Church and are our brethren in
the Faith. To protect them against unscrupulous proselytizers, to help
them to keep the faith in the trying period of their acclimatization to
our Canadian national life, in a word, to make the Church of Canada
assume the proper responsibility which Catholic solidarity imposes on
all her children in regard to this new factor of Catholicity in our
country, . . . this is the Ruthenian problem as it presents itself to
us with its various aspects and critical issues. Problems of the moral
and religious order are of a very complex nature. Principles remain
but circumstances change with the fancies of imagination, the impulse
of passion, the whims of the will. This explains how, in the great and
everlasting war between right and wrong, truth and error, the line of
battle is ever shifting, the methods of attack ever changing. Various
therefore have been the phases of the problem under discussion. But,
we presume, they may all be related to two periods: the period of
settlement and the period of assimilation.
_The Period of Settlement_
When a few years ago our shores were heavily invaded by the rising tide
of an intense immigration from the British Isles and Continental
Europe, the Church had to face conditions heretofore unknown. Without
doubt, the most complex in its elements, the most serious in its
consequences, was the Ruthenian issue. It was a case of providing for
the spiritual wants of over a quarter of a million souls. The dearth
of priests, the difference of rite, the difficulty of language, and the
great number of Ruthenians, created for the Church an almost
insurmountable barrier which nothing short of a miracle could
otherthrow [Transcriber's note: overthrow?]. This sudden and large
influx of Catholics belonging to the Greek rite, into a Country where
the Latin Church alone prevailed, constitutes a fact that has never
been seen before in the history of the Church. Thousands and thousands
of these Greek Catholics were scattered through the prairies; roaming
flocks without shepherds, a prey to ravening wolves. Heresy, schism,
atheism, socialism and anarchy openly joined hands to rob these poor
people of the only treasure they had brought with them from the
old-land,--their Catholic Faith. Presbyterian ministers were seen to
celebrate among them "bogus masses"; schismatic emissaries tried to
bribe them with "Moscovite money"; fake bishops were imposing
sacrilegious hands on out-laws and perverts; traitors from among their
ranks, like Judas, bartered away their faith for a few pieces of
silver; a subsidized press,--"The Canadian Farmer" and "The Ranok"--was
ever at work, playing on their patriotism and exploiting their racial
feelings, to cover with ridicule their faith and pious traditions. The
public school became in the hands of the enemy the most powerful
weapon. Government itself, through its various officials, often went
out of its way to thwart the efforts of our missionaries.
It is not without poignant emotion that we have followed, at close
range, this struggle for the mastery of the Ruthenian soul. We hardly
know which we should admire the more, the faithfulness of the
simple-minded Ruthenian, or the devotedness of the few missionaries
who, for the last fifteen years, have lived, worked and died among
them. We all remember that cry of distress, that demand for help which
came from Archbishop Langevin in favor of his Ruthenian children. It
broke upon the land as a clarion call and its voice was heard in the
first Plenary Council of Quebec. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate--the
pioneer missionaries of the West, the Basilians, the Redemptorists, and
a few French-Canadian secular priests, were the first to answer the
call. They divided among themselves that immense field of labour. God
alone knows what sacrifices, what heart-burnings, what hours of
discouragement and loneliness, were theirs in that strenuous period of
settlement when the wilderness began to blossom, when homesteads were
seen to spring up on the bare soil. We have a faint idea of these
difficulties when we read the "_Memoir: 'Tentative de Schisme et
d'heresie au milieu des Ruthenes de l'Ouest Canadien_," of Father
Delaere, C.SS.R., (1908), and Father Sabourin's pamphlet, "_Les
Ruthenes Catholiques_" (1909).
Let us hope that the Church in Canada will keep sacred the memory of
these harvesters of the first hour. The Catholics owe them a debt of
gratitude. We sincerely hope that the history of their heroic efforts
will not be lost and that the first to appreciate them will be the
coming Ruthenian generation. Father Delaere, C.SS.R.--who has laboured
among the Ruthenians in Western Canada for the last twenty years will
one day give us, we sincerely hope, the history of the settlement and
struggles of his adopted people.
Little by little the Ruthenian Church in Canada is emerging from its
first chaotic state. The visit of Mgr. Septeski to Canada, the
appointment of the Very Reverend N. Budka as Bishop of all the
Ruthenians in Canada, marked a turning-point in their history.
Authority is, in the Church of God, the only great vital centre from
which proceed true order and permanent development. The war, it is
true, complicated the Ruthenian issue. We all know what difficulties
the Ruthenian Bishop had to face during this trying period, under what
dark clouds of ungrounded suspicion he lived. But the most painful
feature of this long and cruel ordeal was the absence of sympathy and
the lack of co-operation in those from whom, as a Catholic Bishop, he
had a right to expect them.
_The Period of Assimilation_
The period of settlement has passed, and already a young "CANADIAN"
generation has sprung up sturdy, thrifty, progressive from the
transplanted Ruthenian stock. The numerous children of that prolific
race are gradually passing from the home into the schools and from the
schools into the community life of the country. This Slavic race is
striking deep roots in Canadian soil, particularly in our Western
Provinces. The loss of faith has been heavy, we believe, especially in
our large cities. Naturally, allowance must be made for the drift-wood
which always follows the tide of immigration. In our rural centres, be
it said to the praise of that simple-minded people, and to the
confusion of the enemies of their faith, the great majority have kept
their allegiance to the Church of their baptism. But, where the "bogus
mass," the false priests and "Moscovite money" have failed, the
neutralizing process of a so-called "Canadianization" may succeed. The
flank envelopment has often a greater success than the frontal attack.
This leads us to dwell on another phase of the Ruthenian problem.
In the history of the human race there is nothing more complicated than
ethnic assimilation. It is a slow, delicate and, in many cases, very
dangerous process. In the laboratory of the world many explosions are
due to the ignorance of what we would call "human chemistry." "One
cannot play with human chemicals any more than with real ones. We know
by experience that at times they are _fulginous_ and ready to break
into open flames." But there are two elements which have to be treated
with the greatest care: Religion and Race. They are the two _foci_ of
the ellipse in which moves history; the two shores between which
oscillates the tossing tide of humanity. Lord Morley calls them "the
two incendiary forces of history, ever shooting jets of flame from
undying embers." This explains why the soil of history is so volcanic,
so filled with burning lava which time itself has not cooled.
_The racial element_ in ethnical assimilation is gradually modified by
the imperative adjustment of the immigrant to his new conditions of
life. For the observer and student of history there is nothing more
instructive and, at times, more pathetic than that borderland which
lies between what has been and what is to be in the life of the
immigrant. This violent breaking away from the past and gradual
assimilation with the present has its dangers. Unknown and occult
factors are at work with the blood of several generations, pulsating in
the veins of the new Canadian. Whilst beckoning hands stretch out to
receive him on our shores and initiate him into our national life,
other hands, the hands of the dead, stretch out through several
generations to lay claim on him. Like everything in nature this change
or rather this transformation should be imperceptible. Mutual
toleration is the factor of a healthy assimilation. This has given to
the United States a greater solvent power than has been shown by any
other nation, ancient or modern. Coercive assimilation arouses
national feelings, alien elements, and racial self-assertion. The
worst enemy of Canada is the political power which, to please a
blatant, ultra-loyal faction, pursues the policy of crushing into
uniformity the heterogeneous elements invited to the country and
allured to our shores with the bait of liberty. This patriotism may be
well called the last refuge of scoundrels; it is nothing but
Prussianism wrapped up in the very folds of the Union-Jack. Therefore,
when in the great work of Canadianization this law of social psychology
is not observed, we not only prevent assimilation, but we deprive the
nation of the fertilizing contact and invigorating contrast of various
ethnical elements and ferment future conflict.