This American Spectator column from a decade back deals with a spate of church desecration. But, from the perspective of 2010, what most struck me upon rereading was the small aside that a ski-masked gang storming a cathedral at prayer, hurling used condoms at worshippers, desecrating paintings with bloody tampons, attempting to smash the tabernacle and lighting up a burning cross at the entrance doesn't qualify, under Quebec law, as a "hate crime". As Constable Sylvie Latour explains below, the "hate" law cannot be used against people who "in good faith" attempt "to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject" - even if you're "arguing" with sanitary napkins and condoms. Who knew? If only I'd hurled used tampons at Mohammed Elmasry and Khurrum Awan, I could have saved myself a whole heap of trouble. Just when you think Canada's "hate" laws can't any dumber or more worthless, they always do....[Hat tip to S.K.]
Monday, May 03, 2010
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose
Mark Steyn, in "Vandals in the Churchyard" (American Spectator, May 2, 2010), reprints a column from a decade ago with an eerie applicability to events of today. He prefaces the column with the following remarks:
When will rank-and-file Catholics awaken to the fact that their Church is at war and under withering attack? How long will they sit idly by, oblivious to the fact, caught up in the tyranny of immediacy and their evening sitcoms over their pizzas and beers? How long will they unthinkinly watch as their sons and daughters imbibe the widespread relativism purveyed by corrupting media braiwashings, their sons innocent of Catholic formation and their daughters donning scanty fashions that shout "F___ me!"? (Sorry about that, but you have to call it what it is.) Where is our John the Baptist calling this generation to repentance? Is there a young soul left who understands what that means? Where is our St. Joan of Arc calling us to arms?
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