Catholic Problems in Western Canada

from

from the granite heart of our mighty Rockies, that call comes through their valleys, is heard over the "Great Divide" and whispers its way to the foothills. Soft as the evening breeze, s

illages, by the rivers and winding bays of our Maritime Provinces, along th

ife's dawn, eyes sparkling with the fires of early youth, instinctively turn to the West. From all points of Eastern

m lie the wealth and prosperity of the country at large. The Eastern manufacturer anxiously scans the daily paper to be posted on crop conditions in the West. They regulate to a great extent the activities and output of his pla

nt energies of old European nations. Settlers of every race and creed hav

e and abroad. Nothing can stop this onward march to the land o

d 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 freight

ke of Canada with almost exclusive reference to the Western Provinces. Some one remarked to him, "Y

deals 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 paramou

ughout 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 imperat

y 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

e Catholic Chu

ssing needs of the Western Church, for numerous and various are the difficulti

rvey. 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

eatest difficulties. Living often 30, 40 and 50 miles from a Catholic chapel, these settlers drift away from the authority, tea

e such a sweep on the boundless prairies, the terrific blizzards of the long winter months, will always remain great obstacles to an intense Cat

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 boundarie

rant 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

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 i

ippled by that instinctive shyness and extreme reserve which seem to grasp him as he steps on our shores, the foreigner often lose

efections among the faithful. You must live for some years

nd 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 o

c 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; fro

ches and their tremendous activities. Mixed marriages are the outcome of these circumstances. God alone knows how many o

*

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

h in the West is a ca

st heard it? Wha

onse of

ugle 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

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 North

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

or 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 s

s, most imperative. How can it be accomplished? By

. 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

of centralized effort and the advisability of central organization rather than mul

nting 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 goo

attempt to formulate what we could call a plan of campaign for our Western apostles. We wish only to submit a few suggestions which

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

stleship-as too modern, etc.[2] The only answer I can give are the facts and figures of the America

ewspapers, 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

s' visit. For, let us not forget it, one family now lost to the Church means several families in the coming generation. This absence of

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 un

" [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. T

, 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 enthusi

of the Catholic Chur

erature, auxiliary soc

olic society is ever t

nse of responsibility t

tern missions depends

s and shoulders

y 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 secre

h he professes. Coming from a body which has had for many years a well-organized system of missionary propaganda and which, in spite of its many and grave doctrinal difficulties, is fairly well permeated with missionary spirit, it is a shock to find that within the Fold so little attention is paid to what really ought to be the very breath of life to its peop

and grudgingly rendering their minimum of service, for we realize how Christ is thus being 'wounded in the house of His friends' and His Bride made to lose Her comeliness in the

e need of men and means at home that I am convinced we ought to send both men and means abroad. In exact proportion as we freely give what we have freely received will our works at home prosper and the zeal and number of our priests be multiplied. This is the test and the measure of C

ern Church is "carrying coals to Newcastle," we would state that the West now needs more the help of the East than at any other time. The organized parishes are

ons. Nothing strengthens faith and stimulates genuine piety, as prayers and sacrifices for the gr

Christian. Is there anything more instructive and more pathetic than the invitation of the Saviour to co-operate with Him in this great work of the Redemption. "And seeing the multitudes he had compassion on them: because they were distres

to send "labourers to the ripening harvest." And could

ll its breadth and fulness, should we not broaden our vision, readjust it, we would say, to the new scale of changing conditions? Only then will we be able to marshal our forces and throw the weight of Catholic principles into the solving of the social, economic and religious problems of the hour. "The Church cannot remain an isolated factor in the nation. The Catholic Church possesses spiritual and moral resources which are at the command of the nation in every great crisis. The message to the nation to forget local boundaries and provincialism is a message

ontinuous effort that will gradually crystalize that vision into a definite workable project. A flourish of trumpets and blaze of Catholic zeal,

anization, in a healthy condition. It realizes that co-operation from the Church at large will exist and maintain itself only if preceded, accompanied and upheld by a strong and vigilant Catholic public opinion. In return public opinion, once creat

ion we must first cr

of giving and of giving for great causes is in the air. A campaign of that nature-we have seen it o

our lingual and racial differences that have created in the past among us so many unfortunate misunderstandings and have

lems of the present . . . praesentia tangens . . . and the vision of brillia

S YOUR

Catholic Register" of Toronto. The Catholic Church Extension Society republis

her than circumferences that marked divisions of work and of jurisdiction; but, in any case, administrative divisions were never intended to be divisions of brotherhood. In places where we are well established we are inclined to look upon Christian brotherhood in an abstract way. In the West they feel it as a necessity of Catholic life, not only as a source of financial help, but as brotherho

of England, had in its editorial notes the

LICY" OF A

To readjust our methods to conditions as we find them means efficiency with the least waste of energy, and acting on this principle Father Daly advocates a 'survey' of membership and conditions of the Catholic Church in unorganized districts as the one means of getting at lapsed Catholics. 'Too often,' he observes, 'we are waiting for the fallen away to come to us.' This is true indeed. Protestant proselytizers in the west of Canada have the whole 'survey' scheme worked out on a scientific basis. Father Daly is more willing to learn from them. "I am a f

resident of the Church Extension, dated, March 14, 1919, at a point of Saskatchewan we know

end and de

must write my appreciation. I am sure that very few people in the East realize what a veritable necessity those Free Lances you spoke of are to so many Western people, or

more. And I wonder if my brothers would make those, were it not for my mothers insistence. They are surrounded by such bad influences. It's not that it is a sectarian influence, but rather a total lack of religion altogether. The only things that matter greatly are the material things of this world. To confess yourse

ent and patronage of the pastor, a Xavirian Mission Circle had been formed. Within eighteen months after its organization the newly found circle had paid off a $500.00 mortgage for a heavily burdened priest in the South, had adopted eight abandoned children of the Chinese Missions, had sent 1,000 Mass intentions, was supporting seven catechists in Africa, India, and China, was educating a Chinese seminarian, had given 150 volumes to the p