New Canuck PM to have a little talk with Archbishop of Ottawa about what it means to be a Catholic

When Ed. told you on Sunday that I would be in Canada for the federal election on 19/10, he described two of the parties' leaders -- Justin Trudeau (Liberal) and Tom Mulcair (NDP) as "cafeteria Catholics". Some readers may think we (Ed. and I) are being judgmental. Others may have no idea what we're talking about. I will explain.

To be a practising Roman Catholic means more than just being baptized and calling yourself Catholic when the census-taker knocks at the door. [Do they still do that? Ed.] It means accepting and applying the teachings and commandments of Holy Mother Church in one's day-to-day life. Not just on Sunday, but every day.

When I say "the teachings and commandments", I mean all of them. You can't pick and choose, as you would in a cafeteria. That means you can't be a good Catholic and go along with the secular humanist orthodoxies of the modern age. Some ideas and acts which are now acceptable to society at large are simply wrong -- sinful -- for Catholics.

Abortion is wrong. Artificial birth control is wrong. Homosexual acts are wrong. Same-sex "marriages" are wrong. Receiving Holy Communion or other Sacraments is wrong for Catholics who have remarried after being divorced.

That means that faithful -- full of Faith -- Catholics are almost by definition social conservatives. All those wrong are more or less permissible for the majority of "Christians", as well as non-believers. But there is one wrong which is dear to the hearts of a lot of social conservatives. That's capital punishment, which is a sin, condemned by God in the Fifth Commandment.

Yet there are political leaders of all stripes, in North America and Europe, who call themselves Catholics but ignore the commandments of God and His Church. One such is Justin Trudeau, the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada.

M Trudeau is nothing if not "progressive". As such, he supports abortion on demand, LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, the whole lot. (He's against capital punishment though.) Yet he goes to church every now and then, and receives Holy Communion. Whether he commits a mortal sin by so doing is not for me to judge. But Most Rev. Christian Riesbeck, Auxillary Bishop of Ottawa, has suggested that M Trudeau could be denied communion for his public stance on abortion.

The Church’s Code of Canon Law states (Canon 915) that those who are "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion." On May 23rd, Bishop Riesbeck told LifeSiteNews, "Out of concern for safeguarding the reverence that is due Our Lord in the Eucharist, and to avoid scandal, one could possibly apply this norm even in the case of a pro-abortion Catholic politician who is extremely vocal about his position."

Now that he is the Prime Minister-designate, M Trudeau says that he is hopes to speak soon with Bishop Riesbeck's boss, Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, to clarify the implications of his public stance in favour of legal abortion.
Bishop Riesbeck's remarks in May were prompted by M Trudeau's declaration that all Liberal candidates must support access to legal abortion, regardless of their own beliefs on the matter. A day or so later, Abp. Prendergast told the Catholic Register that he would not refuse Trudeau Holy Communion without first having met with him.

The CBC reports that a date for the PM's meeting with Abp. Prendergast has yet to be established. They do not say whether the meeting will take place in the prelate's office or in the confessional.

Further reading: "Justin Trudeau 'looks forward' to meeting with Ottawa archbishop about receiving Communion"

Getting stoned is good for you, sez Muslim cleric

Brampton ON ain't what it used to be. When a couple of Walt's agents grew up there, it was a one-stop-light farming town northwest of Toronto, the font of all evil. It was a white community, where the Italian Catholic immigrants were considered exotic. There were a few Jews, but no synagogue. And certainly there was no mosque.

Well, Brampton has changed. White folks are in the minority now -- not to say an endangered species! And mosques abound. One of them provides a pulpit [Is this right? Ed.] for Sheikh Faisal Hamid Abdur-Razak, who preaches a hellfire-and-brimstone version of Islam.

Sheikh Faisal is against sin, and in particular adultery and homosexuality. These are not regarded as serious sins by the "Christian churches". The former is winked at and the latter is effectively encouraged in certain "Christian" circles. But according to the imam, adulterers and gays should be put to death... preferably by stoning.



Yep, stoning is good for the Muslim soul, if not so good for the body. If you're a sinful Muslim and get stoned, your soul will be purified as the stones rain down on your head.

Some people -- perhaps even some Muslims -- would call Sheikh Faisal a raving loony, and his beliefs medieval and barbaric. But many Muslims -- perhaps a majority -- would agree with him.

In 2010, the Pew Research Centre published "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa" -- an extensive poll of the views of modern life held by people in Middle Eastern and African countries where Islam is the dominant religion. Here's a quote.

"The survey finds considerable support among Muslims in several countries for the application of criminal sanctions such as stoning people who commit adultery, and whipping or cutting off the hands of thieves. Support for these kinds of punishments is consistently lower among Christians than among Muslims. The survey also finds that in seven countries, roughly one-third or more of Muslims say they support the death penalty for those who leave Islam."

These opinions were expressed by majorities of Muslims in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan and Nigeria.

What happens, Len wonders, when people who hold such views immigrate to the USA, the UK, France, Canada or the Netherlands? Do they change their beliefs? Do they make an effort to conform to the norms of the more civilized countries to which they come?

Sheikh Faisal, for one, seems to think we should accommodate him, not the other way around. And our wussy politicians let him preach this rubbish, because after all, it's a free country. And hate speech is only a crime for white Christians. Political correctness wins again!

What should be done with killers like the Tsarnaevs?

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead, killed in a shootout with Boston police about 36 hours ago. The elder of the two terrorist brothers was named for the infamous "Tamerlane", a vicious conqueror who razed ancient cities to the ground and put entire populations to the sword. Tamerlan is the one who said "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger brother of Tamerlan, was apparently wounded in Thursday night's gun battle. He was discovered yesterday evening, hiding in a boat in someone's driveway. He is now in custody in a Boston hospital, where he is said to be in serious condition.

"Why did they do it?" -- assuming that they did do it -- has already been asked by everyone from Walt to the Prez and back again. If Dzokhar lives -- well, who knows? --  he will doubtless be asked that very question. Do not expect a particularly rational answer. Rather we may hear something along the lines of "I was mad at the world, so I decided to kill some Americans".

It may be that the two brothers "suffered" from anomie or alienation or weltschmerz or all of the above. It may also be that they were agents of a foreign power -- Russia, for instance -- or a foreign "religion of peace". They certainly didn't try very hard to cover their tracks or escape. Perhaps they were looking forward to martyrdom for Islam, and the delights of the 72 virgins awaiting them in the Muslim heaven.

But let's go with the first possibility -- that they were acting on their own for no better reason than dissatisfaction with their lives in the country that welcomed them as refugees and gave them the opportunity to get an education and a better life than they could ever have had in Kyrgystan or Dagestan or anywhere else in the miserable part of the world from which they came.

What should be done with someone who would commit a cowardly, dastardly and ultimately meaningless act of that nature? How about strapping a pressure cooker filled with shrapnel to his back and then...

1000s of voices will be raised -- Walt can hear them already -- calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, at least for acts of terrorism. But was the Boston Marathon bombing an act of terrorism? Or just plain, senseless murder? Assuming the brothers Tsarnaev were not directed or controlled by outside forces, how is their crime any different from that of, say, Adam Lanza?

So Walt asks again, what is to be done with murderers? The Church teaches that we must follow the Sixth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill. What remains, then, is to remove murderers -- including terrorists -- from our society, not so much as punishment as for our protection and the (possible) deterrent effect on other killer wannabes.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, the British used to transport their worst offenders to Australia. The French gave their a one-way ticket to Devil's Island. Such places seemed so remote, in those days, that there was no way criminals could ever return to "civilization".

Do similar places of exile still exist? Well, Alaska has a lot of cold, empty space. And there are several flyspecks in the Pacific still under the flag of the USA. How about a nice trip to the South Seas for Mr. Tsarnaev? Maybe he wouldn't find 72 virgins there, but America would be rid of him.

Footnote: Walt hasn't forgotten about due process. Put Tsarnaev on trial before putting him on a slow boat to Guam.

Food for thought: Last week's Economist had an article, "Not dead yet", pointing out that the USA executed 43 criminals in 2012, less than half the number killed in 1999, when capital punishment peaked in America. Luckily for Adam Lanza, last April Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the deah penalty.

More food for thought: Should America (and Britain and Canada) really be opening the doors to "refugees" from places like Chechnya, a part of the Middle East that has spawned decades of violence -- from separatist wars to suicide attacks, blood feuds and hostage sieges. See "How did Chechnya's culture of terror come to Boston?"

"Let murderers hang themselves" has lots of support, Senator says

Hundreds of Canadians have contacted Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu to express their support for his suggestion that convicted murderers have their cells furnished with lengths of rope so they could do the right thing and remove themselves from society permanently.

M Boisvenu told Canadian Press, "The comments I got from 500 people, maybe even 600, said the media are exaggerating this. Also, these people are saying, ‘What Mr. Boisvenu said, that’s just what people think.’ The people who wrote to me, the majority are victims."

Walt awaits the senator's explanation of how murder victims could take pen in hand -- or keyboard, whatever -- to write, but perhaps something got lost in the translation there.

Something that people should know, before they rush to condemn M Boisvenu as some kind of right-wingnut is that he was a prominent victims’ rights advocate whose own daughter was murdered, and who lost another daughter in a car accident. Even so, the senator has advocated capital punishment only in cases where there is no hope of rehabilitation.

If you wish to express your support... or your revulsion... click here to e-mail Senator Boisvenu.

My own view on the matter of capital punishment is that of the Church, which reminds us that Exodus 20:13 has not been repealed. That said, if someone who has killed others -- especially members of his or her own family -- should ask for a dollar to buy a piece of rope, I would be at the head of the line to donate.