Catholic Problems in Western Canada

by George Thomas Daly

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?