Catholic parents in Ontario can exempt their children from radical sexual indoctrination

Catholic parents in Ontario: when all this is over and school returns,  remember that you have the right to exempt your children from radical sex-education. Every Day for Life Canada has been covering these issues for years. At the link, you will find index links to the other posts on these matters. 

https://everydayforlifecanada.blogspot.com/2020/04/ontario-catholic-parents-do-exempt-your.html

Bishop Fred Henry - A man with a pair ... (of letters)

The first one is here!

The new letter is below. Bishop Fred Henry is responding to the totalitarian actions of the socialist government in Alberta attempting to force the homosexualist and transgendered agenda on Catholic schools. The trustees and school board chairs have shown themselves to be defiant and badly catechized Catholics. The bishops are reaping what they have sowed and it is hard to be sympathetic to them for their half century of catechetical malfeasance.

Still, one must appaud when it is meet to do and Bishop Fred Henry must be supported in prayer and in action.

God bless him, I say.

Totalitarianism in Alberta - Part II

In my recent Pastoral Letter, I wrote that the Alberta Government Gender Guidelines issued on January 13 show no evidence of consultation with, or sensitivity to, the Catholic community. They breathe pure secularism. This approach and directive smack of the madness of relativism and the forceful imposition of a particular narrow-minded anti-Catholic ideology.

If you are reading this piece in the hopes of discovering an apology and/or a retraction, you might as well stop reading right now. That's simply not going to happen.

I have received considerable support for what I said and the way in which I said it. Nevertheless, there were a few "nay-sayers" ­ some have called for my resignation, others have resorted to unpublishable name calling, and of course, there were several references to the famous catch-all these days, "Who are you to judge?" The later suggesting that I was espousing a teaching contrary to the openness of Pope Francis.

In point of fact, Pope Francis has said quite a bit about gender. "The acceptance of our bodies as God's gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the ­Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one's own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it" [Laudato Si 155].

Furthermore, in Sacred Scripture there are different but interrelated sets of texts about judgment. Without attempting to be exhaustive, there are at least three that are especially noteworthy:

1) Warnings about judgment: "Stop judging that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged...." This is not an injunction against judgment, but a warning that the judgment should be rendered with a good heart free from hypocrisy, arrogance, meanness of spirit, or hate. Consequently, "remove the beam from your own eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye." The principal purpose of a judgment is to help a brother or sister avoid debilitating actions and improve. The awesome burden of judging is the realization that we will be "judged as we have judged." Some cite the incident of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus by those who would stone her as evidence that we should not judge others. Nothing could be further from the truth. The incident manifests God's mercy and loathing of hypocrisy, but he did judge her behavior as evidenced by his admonition: "Go and sin no more."

2) Instances of judgment abound: ­Peter to Simon the magician "...for your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness of yours... for I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chain of wickedness" [Acts 8: 20-23]. Paul to Elymas, "you son of the devil, you enemy of all that is right, full of every sort of deceit and fraud. Will you not stop twisting the straight paths of the Lord?" [Acts 13:9-10]; and Paul to Peter, "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he clearly was wrong" [Gal 2:11].

3) Cautions particularly to overseers or leaders about judgments: "Thus says the Lord: you, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me if I tell the wicked, 'oh, wicked one, you shall surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked one from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself" [Ezekiel 33: 7-9].

Paul's advice to Timothy is difficult for some of us: "Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, correcting opponents with kindness. It may be that God will grant them repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth, and that they may return to their senses out of the devil's snare, where they are entrapped by him, for his will" [2 Tim 2: 23-26].

Only God can judge the state of the human soul but it is pure nonsense to suggest we cannot and should not judge human behaviour. Reluctance to judge moral behaviour is the inevitable consequence of moral relativism and moral subjectivism that has eroded confidence in the ability to determine objective moral truth on which sound judgment is based.

The last word on this subject belongs to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: "How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves ­ thrown from one extreme to the other.... Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error [cf Ephesians 4, 14].

Having a clear Faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an 'Adult' means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties.

A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth" [Way of the Cross in 2005 for Good Friday].

✠ F. B. Henry

Bishop of Calgary

- See more at: http://calgarydiocese.ca/messages-from-the-bishop/1370-totalitarianism-in-alberta-part-ii.html#sthash.iSBgzWvd.JBmKfW3p.dpuf

Bishop Henry can be reached at:
bishop.henry@calgarydiocese.ca
Telephone: (403) 218-5526
Fax:              (403) 264-0272

How wonderful that his brother Bishops in Canada are lining up behind him. Oh, you mean they're contacting him and encouraging him and offering Mass for him, just not speaking out and standing beside him? 

Oh, well; I guess the dog's got them.

Ontario Education : Wynne and Sandals have lied to the Public

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                 MARCH 5, 2015

Wynne and Sandals have lied to the Public

RE: Ontario Sex Education Program

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Education Minister Liz Sandals lied to the public when they maintained that former Deputy Minister of Education and convicted child predator, Benjamin Levin, was not involved in developing the controversial sex education curriculum.  On the contrary, he was responsible for the version published in 2010 which was not substantially modified in the 2015 version.

This is made clear by the following:

In a 2009 newsletter, as deputy minister, Levin said he was “responsible for ... everything that they do” and to “implement” the “new” approach.

·        On March 6, 2009, Levin wrote and signed a memo that put himself in charge of Ontario’s school curriculum.  He stated, “I am writing to provide an update on our sector’s agenda ... I will be filling the ADM (assistant deputy minister) position previously held by George Zegarac ... The division formerly headed by George Zegarac will be renamed as ‘Learning and Curriculum.’ It will have responsibility for curriculum and for Special Education including Provincial Schools.”

·        On April 6, 2009, Levin penned a memo saying, “Today, the ministry released its new equity and inclusive education strategy paper ... This province wide strategy has been a priority for our Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne and me.”

·        On June 24, 2009, Levin wrote that the “Realizing the Promise of Diversity: Ontario’s Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy” sets out a “vision for an equitable and inclusive education system.” He wrote “the principles of equity and inclusive education should be embedded into all aspects of board and high school operations including program, employment, research, curriculum, resources, instructional and assessment practices.”

·        In an interview published in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education’s (OISE) winter 2009 newsletter, Levin said: “I was the deputy minister of education. In that role, I was the chief civil servant. I was responsible for the operation of the Ministry of Education and everything that they do; I was brought in to implement the new education policy.”

These memos end the confusion as to just what his involvement was in the curriculum.  He was in charge of it.

It is alarming that Levin would use his position as Deputy Minister to manage a program to desensitise and groom children about age-inappropriate matters, such as masturbation, the use of pornography to stimulate erotic feelings and to teach that anal sex and oral sex are healthy alternatives to vaginal intercourse.  It appears reasonable to assume that Mr. Levin’s influence in the development of the sex education curriculum was motivated by his own perverse attraction to children.

According to Dr. Robert McDonald, a retired psychotherapist and medical doctor, “Any action which sexualizes a child before he or she is ready is sexual abuse.  Therefore, so-called sex-ed for children before puberty is an act of sexual abuse.”

Wynne and Sandals maintain they will not accept any changes to the 2015 sex-ed program.  This dictatorial position is appalling.  We live in a democracy not a totalitarian state. 

Unfortunately, it is our Ontario children who will be the helpless victims of this sex education program imposed by these politicians.

Gwendolyn Landolt, Vice President of REAL Women of Canada states,  “Wynne and Sandals seem to believe that all they have to do is shout ‘homophobe’ at those who object to the curriculum, and this will erase any problems with it, as well as erase any other problems from the long list of improper activities carried on by this government.  The latter cannot be believed or trusted.”

This curriculum is not acceptable and should be withdrawn so that it can be properly reviewed and allow parents opportunity to be consulted on its contents.

-        30 -

  

For further information contact either:

C. Gwendolyn Landolt                                                   Diane Watts

National Vice-President                                                 Researcher

REAL Women of Canada                                               REAL Women of Canada          

(905) 787-0348                                                             (613) 236-4001

(905) 731-5425                                                             email: realwcna@rogers.com

email: realwcto@realwomenofcanada.ca

Web: www.realwomenofcanada.ca

See also Jonah in the Heart of Ninevah for more.

Lying Premier, Buffaloed Bishops, Suffering Catholics

Catholic Premier Dalton McGuinty

Taking a page out of the book "How to Lie to a Cardinal" from Barack Hussein Obama, (Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York), Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has done the same thing to Toronto's new Cardinal, Thomas Collins. While Obama is trying to intimidate the Catholic Church in America, McGuinty, a Catholic, is going to force Ontario's Catholic Schools to implement so-called, "Gay-Straight Alliances." At least Obama has an excuse, he's not Catholic. Dalton is a Catholic and should no better; good-luck to him on Judgement Day.

Laurel Broten, Minister of Education has been designated by Dalton to lecture the Catholic Church the Bishops and the Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association on "acceptance" and the Catholic faith.

The Bishops of Ontario, through the Ontario Assembly of Bishops has taken a quiet, behind the scenes approach. They have misjudged and they have been misled by a lying, deceitful Premier and government which has manipulated the bishops' presumptuousness of good intentions on the part of the government.

They have arrived late to the party.

When was the first time you heard this debate? Was it with the Halton Catholic DSB last year or TCDSB after every other Catholic School Board in Ontario had to deal with it? Do you remember the homosexualist pressure applied to the Halton Trustees championed from a Judas on the inside who ran for election as Trustee for this singular purpose?

The Bishops of Ontario let our Catholic School Trustees enter this debate improperly armed and guided on a matter that is fundamental to Catholic Schools.

Where was the statement from the pulpits to the Catholic faithful last year and the year before to wake-up and respond to this assault on our religious liberty? Did you even hear anything 15 months ago when Dalton McGuinty tried to pass a law that oral and anal sex talk be part of elementary school curriculum? At least Evangelical leader Charles McVety was out there, where were our bishops?

Of course bullying is unacceptable. Bullying of all types is unacceptabl! It breaks the Fifth Commandment and is a Mortal Sin which can only be relieved by Confession and Penance and hopefully recompense to the victim. I was bullied. Most are bullied. But, I'll tell you, the facts don't add up that those with same-sex attraction are the number one reason for bullying. It is body image and then it is ethnicity and race and academic ability and awkwardness.
Wake up, being "gay" is in and the homosexualist lobby and the secularists who hate the Catholic Church because She is all that is left that stands between truth and falsity, despite the sins of her members, want Her destroyed.

This is nothing more than an attack on our religious heritage and liberty.

Yes, Ontario. Your religious liberty.

It is the same fight being waged on the Church by the liar in the Whitehouse.

Don't tell me as a faithful Catholic, "Do away with the system and then we'll have real Catholic schools."

No. Sorry. You don't have that option. Is the system as Catholic as it should be? No, but you don't tear it down, you fix it! What have you done to help?

If you don't stand up as a Catholic then consider it a betrayal of Michael Power, Armand-François-Marie de Charbonnel and Sir Richard W. Scott who fought for our rights 170 years ago. It is a betrayal, even to the likes of Sir John A. MacDonald and George-Étienne Cartier. To all the nuns and priests and your parents and grandparents and great grandparents and great-great grandparents who did without so that there would be Catholic Schools to preserve our faith and convert the world.

This is an attack on us and it is the first step to attempt to do away with us. Are you going to let it happen? Are you going to let this rotten government, this lying deceitful Catholic Premier of scandle from Ornge and EHealth to his Green Energy Boondoggle and of the campaign lie of No New Taxes do this?

Today, the Cardinal has come to the fight in the public. He has penned a response; an articulation that sums up the matter quite appropriately The approach is measured and forthright.

It has clarity and it has charity.

Is it enough? 

ASSEMBLY OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS OF ONTARIO

May 28, 2012

Observations on a recent change in government policy re: proposed anti-bullying legislation

For some time now we have all been particularly concerned about making sure that our schools are safe and welcoming places for everyone. This concern has been reflected in new educational policies over the last several years, and most recently in proposed legislation such as Bill 13 and Bill 14.

For the comments of the Ontario bishops concerning these bills, and the wider issue of bullying that has occasioned them, I refer you to our brief published on the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario website.

For the moment, I would simply like to comment on the recent change in government policy concerning one method of addressing one form of bullying, and of providing personal support for some students, namely Gay-Straight Alliances.

All of those who care about Catholic education are committed to assuring that Catholic schools are formed by the principles of the Gospel, in which all people are treated with love and respect. As we Christians put it, not as some pious platitude but as a practical norm for life: Catholic Schools must be places where each person is received as Christ.

This may not always happen in a Catholic school, for we are all sinners, but we earnestly try to live up to this standard. We have a rich array of spiritual resources, and methods developed out of our faith tradition, which not only fight bullying, but shape a school environment that is welcoming to all. Our schools also provide competent and compassionate personal support for individuals. We also consistently have sought, and continue to seek, to work together co-operatively with the Ministry of Education to assure that Catholic schools meet and exceed all government standards.

Bullies use many excuses to mistreat others - it is usually because someone stands out in some way. If any students are mistreated, because of whatever factor attracts the attention of the bully, then that is evil. Our concern is that all students be welcomed and loved, and that none be bullied. In Catholic schools we seek to attain that goal through methods that arise out of our Christian faith tradition, are shaped by it, and are in harmony with it.

A "Gay-Straight Alliance" is a particular method of addressing one form of bullying, and providing personal support. The GSA model was developed in the United States in the 1980's. Because this model is so closely related to a movement with particular views concerning the human person and the issues of life, people who disagree with those views are understandably concerned that the model can serve as a means not only to address bullying, but to promote the views with which they disagree. Those who share those views will no doubt wish to use the GSA methodology. They are certainly free to do so.

I question, however, why provincial legislation should make this particular method normative in a Catholic school, which has its own different but effective methods of attaining the goal of addressing bullying and providing personal support for all students, ones which, unlike GSAs, arise out of its own fundamental principles and are in harmony with them. If the point is that there is something unacceptable about those Catholic principles, then I find that troubling, and wonder whether caricatures of Catholic faith are in play. I recognize, of course, that even among Catholics the richness of our faith, and the reasons for its teachings, have not always been communicated effectively. This is even more true within the popular culture in which we live, the sea in which we all swim.

GSAs are the only particular method or strategy mentioned by name in Bill 13. That is interesting. Now, with the recent change in policy, if any student insists on this particular method, then the trustees and principals who are responsible for the religious foundations of the school are compelled to agree.

As pastor of a large diocese, on the road constantly visiting the people, I have again and again heard concern from parents and educators about the proposed imposition of the GSA methodology on Catholic schools. That same concern has been expressed to me by people of other faiths, since parents often choose to send a child to a Catholic High School precisely because they expect a particular approach to life which is largely in harmony with their family and faith convictions.

Names of organizations carry with them a distinct content: if someone asks you to join the Liberal, Conservative or New Democratic Party, you rightly expect something different from each. These groups each have their own traditions, their own shape. So the key issue is not just the name itself, but the content connected with the name, with the "brand". Is it something that you want, or something that is in harmony with your basic principles? If it is, then fine; but it should not be imposed on a community.

Some questions come to mind:

1. Why is a piece of provincial legislation being used to micromanage the naming of student clubs?

2. Why are Catholics not free to design their own methods to fight bullying, and provide personal support to students, as long as they attain the common goal of a welcoming and supportive school? Why must they instead be compelled to accept a particular method that comes from a different approach to the great issues of life?

3. The leadership of students is crucial in the fight against bullying, and in making their school a place of love and respect for all. In fact, the most effective way to stop bullying may well be the example of fellow students. Students work together with the adult leadership of the school to promote the good of all. But trustees and principals are legitimate stewards of the spiritual tradition of the school, and in a Catholic school, that includes the Catholic faith tradition. Why should the power of provincial law be used to override that legitimate adult authority so that this one particular method can be imposed by any student who wants to do so?

4. With the principle established that the legitimate local authority is nullified in this case, then is any student free to introduce any program, any club, or any advocacy group relating to any issue? Over a year ago, I heard the principle behind this new policy expressed this way: "if a student wants it, he or she has got it." That may sound attractive, but it is a very shallow and distorted view of student leadership. Trustees and principals are legitimate adult stewards of the common good of the school community at the local level, and it is not helpful when Queen's Park moves in to remove that responsibility.

5. Apart from whatever one thinks of the idea of GSAs, in any particular school is a GSA the most effective method to help students being targeted by bullies? Who makes that decision in a local school? Is it those adults who are entrusted with responsibility for the local school community and all of its members? The new policy says that they do not. Is that wise?

To the members of our Catholic community: I urge you to reflect on the implications for Catholic education of this sudden government change in policy, and of the extraordinary privileging of one particular way of dealing with bullying and personal support. Catholic educators should be free to make sure that Catholic schools are loving learning environments in which every person is treated with love and respect, and to do so in a way that arises out of our faith tradition and is in harmony with it. We need to consider the path ahead.

To our friends and neighbours of other faiths, or of no faith, including those who disagree with any or all of the beliefs of the Catholic Church, and those who personally support the beliefs that form the context for GSAs: please consider the implications for all when legislation is enacted that overrides the deeply held beliefs of any faith community in our province, and intrudes on its freedom to act in a way that is in accord with its principles of conscience. If it happens to us, it can happen to you, on this and other issues. When religious freedom becomes a second class right, you also will eventually be affected.

There is no reason for this controversy. We all want schools that are loving and welcoming places for everyone. We simply ask that diversity be respected in our society, and that we be able to attain the common goal of welcoming schools, and of personal support for students, using methods that are in harmony with the faith we cherish.

Thomas Cardinal Collins

Archbishop of Toronto
President, Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario

10 ST. MARY STREET, SUITE 800
 TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, M4Y 1P9 • TEL (416) 923-1423 • FAX (416) 923-1509
website: www.acbo.on.ca e-mail: acbo@acbo.on.ca

Did Dalton McGuinty threaten Catholic Bishops?

Did Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal government cabal of CINO's, homosexualists, secular humanists, atheists and Anti-Catholic Bigots threaten the Bishops of Ontario with the de-funding of Catholic Education to demand their support for ramming a pro-homosexual curriculum that conflicts with Catholic teaching on Ontario schools?

What you read below has been spoken of for at least six months by Catholics in the know in Toronto and Ontario.

"Under threat of a withdrawal of funding to Catholic schools by the Ontario Liberal government the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario reluctantly approved the homosexual ‘anti-bullying’ clubs in April and similarly approved an ‘equity’ policy addressing ‘sexual orientation’ last October.

Passage of the Toronto Catholic school board’s equity policy is considered a watershed advancement of homosexual activism in Ontario’s education system. The Toronto board is the last and by far the largest Catholic board to implement the policy as part of the Ontario government’s sweeping “equity and inclusive education strategy”. LifeSiteNews.Com

As a Catholic, educated and of privilege, you have even more to answer to Him who said, "better that he have a millstone tied around his neck and is thrown into the bottom of the sea than to scandalise one of my little ones."

Dalton, you have a lot to answer for to the people of Ontario on October 6.

Dalton, as an educated and privileged Catholic, you have even more to answer for to your Creator and mine.

As a fellow Catholic man, I ask you to ponder these words from Our LORD and Saviour: "It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones."

Readers outside of Canada or at least Ontario, particularly those in the United States will find it shocking that Catholic schools in Ontario are government funded. It is constiutional right of Catholics in Ontario dating back to even before Confederation in 1867.

Halton Trustees: One more chance to get it right!

UPDATE:

Cowards and really bad CINO's! (Catholics In Name Only)

The pro-family policy was supported by trustees Anthony Danko and Jane Michael, and it was opposed by Paul Marai, Arlene Iantomasi, Ed Viana, John Morrison, Diane Rabenda, and John Mark Rowe. Board chair Alice Anne LeMay abstained.

Trustees
Alice Anne LeMay (905) 632-6300 lemaya@hcdsb.org
Jane Michael (905) 319-6582 north@cogeco.net
Arlene Lantomasi (905) 529-6155 iantomasia@hcdsb.org
John Morrison (905) 639-4718 john@braintanksolutions.com
Mark Rowe (905) 877-9510 mrowe6@sympatico.ca
Ed Viana (905) 632-6300 vianae@hcdsb.org
Diane Rabenda (905) 632-6300 rabendad@hcdsb.org
Anthony Danko (905) 825-9159 dankoa@hcdsb.org

Most Rev. Gerard P. Bergie, Bishop of St. Catharines
Chair, Ontario Bishops Education Commission
Catholic Centre
P.O. Box 875
St. Catharines, ON L2R 6Z4
Tel: (905) 684-0154
Fax: (905) 684-2185
E-mail:bishop@stcatharinesdiocese.ca

Most Rev. Douglas Crosby, O.M.I., Bishop of Hamilton
700 King Street West
Hamilton, ON L8P 1C7
Tel: (905) 528-7988
Fax: (905) 528-1088
E-mail: wdunn@hamiltondiocese.com

Most Rev. Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto
President, Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario
1155 Yonge Street
Toronto, ON M4T 1W2
Tel: (416) 934-3400 #609
Fax: (416) 934-3452
E-mail: archbishop@archtoronto.org

Tonight, the Catholic School Trustees in Halton (Oakville, Burlington, Milton, etc) to the west of Toronto in the Diocese of Hamilton, have an opportunity to overturn last week's Committee decision to overturn the Board policy and recommend the creation of so-called "gay-straight alliances." The vote was 7-2 to recommend pushed by a 23 year old trustee* elected last October who hid his homosexual lifestyle and poltical agenda from the voters and the Board! It is the same nine trustees now on Board who will vote again.

They must resind this lunacy!

Dear Chairwoman LeMay and Trustees of the Halton Catholic District School Board;

The Bishops in Ontario have issued the following statement:

“The debate surrounding Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs) in Catholic high schools is being complicated by the fact that people are not distinguishing between an objective and a strategy. GSAs are a strategy that some people propose to achieve an objective with which the Bishops of Ontario are in agreement: that all students in schools feel safe and respected. Our objective is that each student be treated with dignity, for each is a child of God. It is not right or fair to suggest that one particular strategy is the only way to achieve a given goal. We seek to achieve the goal of a safe and loving environment for all students in a way that is in harmony with our faith.”

As a 13 year-old in a Toronto Catholic High School, I was bullied and not only by students! (probably for the same motivation as that which causes this blog to be--guts!) Nothing was there to prevent this bullying and nothing was done to help me deal with it.

If the issue is “bullying” then that is what you are to deal with--for all of your students, those with confused sexual identity and those without. Any and every child deserves protection. As the bishops have rightly said, you are confused!

You must not succumb to the secular media and homosexualist pressure outside the Board or by the person sitting around the Boardroom table who has an agenda, though he clearly hid it well from the electorate.

Before anything else, you are Catholics and you must act as so and that requires that even though you all sit on the Committee that voted to recommend so-called “gay-straight alliances” you must now reject them.

If you do not do this, then you have lost your right to govern and you will be held accountable in this world, and the next.

Alice Anne LeMay, Chairwoman (905) 632-6300 lemaya@hcdsb.org

Jane Michael (905) 319-6582 north@cogeco.net

Arlene Lantomasi (905) 529-6155 iantomasia@hcdsb.org

John Morrison (905) 639-4718 john@braintanksolutions.com

Mark Rowe (905) 877-9510 mrowe6@sympatico.ca

Ed Viana (905) 632-6300 vianae@hcdsb.org

Diane Rabenda (905) 632-6300 rabendad@hcdsb.org

Anthony Danko (905) 825-9159 dankoa@hcdsb.org

Paul Marai* maraip@hcdsb.org

Irish beggars and Hindoos!

I guess George Brown must have really hated it when the Lebanese arrived in the "Belfast of North America."

Know your history!

Since I would not encourage you to give one penny to buy a copy of the left-liberal rag known as the Toronto Star...

Lynda Hurst
Feature writer

"... Irish beggars are to be met everywhere, and they are as ignorant and vicious as they are poor. They are lazy, improvident and unthankful; they fill our poorhouses and our prisons, and are as brutish in their superstition as Hindoos."

– Newspaper editor George Brown

Conservative Leader John Tory's provocative campaign call for public funding for all faith-based schools, or for none, has many Ontarians wondering how Roman Catholics came to have a separate system in the first place.

When and why did it happen?

Some may think the "right and privilege" began with the 1867 Constitution Act. But, in fact, separate schools pre-date Canada's Confederation. And they were neither a right nor a privilege, but a reflection of reality.

That reality was a grim one if you were Catholic in the Ontario of the 19th century, especially in York, as Toronto was then called.

Known as the "Belfast of North America," the city was populated mainly by Northern Irish and Scottish Protestants, who were appalled by the arrival of thousands of Irish Catholics forced out of Southern Ireland during the Great Famine of 1845 to 1849.

The quote at the beginning of the article, from the Globe newspaper, was typical of the unrelenting bigotry against the impoverished "Papist" immigrants, their large families and peasant ways, their "Mick superstitions" and, perhaps worst of all, lack of loyalty to the British Crown.

In 1844, Egerton Ryerson, an English-born Methodist, became chief superintendent of schools for Upper Canada (Ontario), charged with setting up a system of "common" or public schools. By public, read Protestant. A few Catholic schools run by the church and paid for by the community would be allowed on the side.

Ryerson promised that a public system would prevent a "pestilence of social insubordination and disorder" being spread by the "untaught and idle pauper immigration."

More to the point, it would also assimilate the Catholic minority into the prevailing Protestant culture.

Ryerson's plan was to split that minority. Those in the common schools would gradually be absorbed, while others, once they saw the poor quality of the education in their schools, would abandon them for the public system.

"That was his hope," says Michael Power, author of A Promise Fulfilled, a history of Catholic education in Ontario. "But that didn't happen."

The Catholic minority became more determined than ever to have their own schools.

While the first Catholic bishop of Toronto more or less went along with Ryerson's idea, the next one, Bishop Armand de Charbonnel, who arrived in 1850, was infuriated by the situation. He denounced the public/Protestant system as an "insult" to Catholics and began a 10-year battle for the same kind of separate schools in Ontario that were provided for the Protestant minority in Quebec.

In 1841, the Act of Union had combined Ontario and Quebec into the United Province of Canada, with one legislative assembly. Half the members were French-speaking Catholics.

Due solely to their support, two acts were passed, in 1855 and 1863, creating the basis for today's separate system.

They gave Ontario's religious minority the right to direct their property taxes to the separate schools and guaranteed Catholic trustees the same powers as their public system counterparts.

"It was a fair political trade-off," says Power. "The Protestant minority was recognized in Quebec, then the Catholic minority should also be in Ontario. They were the realities of the time."

The intent was to lessen widespread religious intolerance, he says, not to provide Catholic privilege here or Protestant privilege in Quebec. The issue remained incendiary, however, with Toronto's press never tiring of their crusade against Catholic school funding.

Canada, meanwhile, was moving step-by-step toward dominion status. In 1866, at the last conference before Confederation the following year, delegates from Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick met in London with British officials to draft the British North America Act (BNA).

A major bone of contention was education, with Catholic bishops lobbying for assurances that separate-school systems would be protected. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick opposed the idea, but a compromise was reached.

Section 93 of the BNA (subsequently known as the 1867 Constitution Act) would deal only with Ontario's and Quebec's religious minorities, and would be unrepealable. It gave them the constitutional right to separate school systems, though leaving it up to the provinces to work out the funding.

Quebec moved quickly, passing legislation in 1869 for corporate taxes to be divided between the public and separate systems, according to the number of children enrolled in each.

"Quebec was always generous to the religious minority," says Power. "There was no century of fuss in Quebec like in Ontario."

It was, indeed, a different story here. After Confederation, separate schools became a permanent feature of the educational landscape, but their funding would long remain a hugely contentious issue.

In 1936, Liberal Premier Mitch Hepburn, feeling disposed to do something, as he put it, for "those who eat fish on Friday," introduced a bill, similar to Quebec's, compelling corporations and public utilities to direct 40 per cent of their taxes to separate schools.

In a December by-election in East Hastings that year, anti-Catholic protests cost the Liberals a seat. The following year, Hepburn repealed the bill.

Only in 1964 did Catholic schools, at least up to Grade 10, become government-funded by then education minister Bill Davis. In 1984, when Davis was Premier, he controversially extended the funding to secondary schools.

Today, the Toronto Catholic District School Board alone has 168 elementary schools, 31 high schools and two combined primary and secondary schools.

With Canada's changing demographic face, a challenge was sooner or later inevitable. In 1996, a case before the Supreme Court argued that Catholic-only school funding contravened the 1982 Charter of Rights, which guarantees equal treatment for all, regardless of religion.

The court ruled against the application. It noted that the founders of the nation had used Section 93 of the 1867 Constitution act to make Confederation possible between two distinct groups, Protestants and Catholics.

Their specific rights were further underlined in Section 29 of the Charter, which states "nothing in this Charter abrogates...from any rights or privileges guaranteed by or under the Constitution of Canada in respect of denominational, separate or dissentient schools."

That section, the court said, ensured "the complete and continuous enjoyment, by the religious minorities, of such rights as were originally granted."

In 1999, the United Nations Human Rights Commission decreed that Ontario's separate school system is discriminatory and called for the issue to be addressed within 90 days. Conservative Premier Mike Harris refused.

And now the issue is back once again.

"People have to read history," says Michael Power, "to understand why Ontario's Catholic schools have had the right to exist since before Confederation."

As for Quebec: In 1998, it decided to end the religious distinctions, but maintained two secular systems based on language; a public French one, a separate English one.

Religion, after all, hasn't been Canada's only historical dispute. Just, it seems, the longest-lasting one.