Five days ago, some lunatic in a truck killed four Muslims in London, Ontario. Our glorious leaders lost no time climbing over each other to see who could most loudly denounce the murders as an act of terrorism<\/a>.<\/p>\n Back in 2008, Canada declared The World Tamil Movement<\/a> (an entity previously known mainly for earthquake relief efforts and supporting Tamil immigrants) as a \u201cterrorist organization\u201d because of alleged financial support to the Tamil Tigers\u2014despite the fact that no member of the WTM had even been charged with a crime<\/a>, much less convicted.<\/p>\n The Catholic church has killed, raped, and assaulted thousands during its residence within this nation\u2019s borders. It has a history of torture, murder, and inquisition dating back to the third century. The latest revelation\u2014215 dead children hidden away beneath the soil (from a single residential school<\/em>\u2014there were over 130 of those<\/a>, most under Catholic jurisdiction) is bound to be only the tip of the latest iceberg. (Late-breaking update:<\/strong> Oh, speak of the Devil: another mass grave discovered<\/a> at a residential school in Manitoba.) The church\u2014which continues, surrealistically, to tout itself as a Moral Authority to the rest of us\u2014doesn\u2019t even bother to deny these atrocities, even while it refuses to apologise<\/a> for them.<\/p>\n 215 x ? (Graphic credit: CBC)<\/p><\/div>\n An act committed for a political, religious, or ideological purpose, check. Intended to intimidate, check. To compel people to do or refrain, to intentionally cause harm, to cause death or injury check check<\/em> check<\/em><\/strong>. The Vatican\u2019s treatment of Indigenous peoples is a classic example of terrorism as defined by the Canadian government itself<\/em>.<\/p>\n Four people dead: terrorism. An organization with no criminal warrants at all: terrorist.<\/p>\n Thousands of dead kids with more to come, a generations-long legacy of rape, assault, and murder? Tax-free status, private schools, and a vacuous bobble-head of a PM who bleats about making things right while his own government spends $163.5 million<\/a> (and counting) fighting court decisions favourable to First Nations. A PM who, even now, proclaims his Catholic identity without any apparent shame.<\/p>\n What could possibly constitute a mitigating factor here? Why have we not banned this odious hate group and thrown its silly-hatted officials into jail? Why haven\u2019t we, at the absolute least, told them to pay some fucking taxes?<\/p>\n A common refrain is to cite all the “good things” the church has done over the years: the counselling, the food banks, the overseas missions[1]<\/a><\/sup>. Anyone tempted to run that particular rationale up the flagpole might ask themselves how they\u2019d feel if Ted Bundy, say, had argued Sure I killed all those people, but hey: I volunteered in a soup kitchen! I gave to the March of Dimes!<\/em><\/p>\n Another approach is to plead reform, to hang one’s head and say Yes we’ve been bad, we’re sorry about raping and killing all those kids and we’re sorry about our small part in the <\/em>Sixties Scoop<\/em><\/a> and we’ll do much better going forward\u2014 no, seriously, we really mean it this time\u2014 so can’t we just let bygones be bygones?<\/em> Again: imagine any other murderer getting to walk if they just promise they won’t kill any more people in the future. Imagine a murderer getting to walk after he’s already made that promise in the past, and broken it.<\/p>\n A third argument\u2014perhaps the weakest, given that Catholic atrocities extend nigh unto the present day\u2014is that it was a different age: that in hindsight the Inquisition and the Crusades and even the residential schools may not have been among the Church’s finest hours, but they were after all merely a product of their time. It’s unfair to judge those days by modern standards, especially since the modern institution has done so much good. (Ahem.)<\/p>\n Which is an odd defence for an institution which has always exalted itself as the bearer of Eternal Truth. The whole point of Christianity is that God’s laws do not<\/em> change: they are perpetual, apart from ephemeral community standards. There is no moral relativism. There is Good and there is Evil and the Vatican exists in a sinful world to help the rest of us tell one from the other. To claim now that the Church never really led society but was a mere weathervane, blamelessly reflecting whatever morals happened to be in fashion at the moment? That’s not just a shameless attempt to weasel out of culpability. It raises an existential question: if the Church doesn’t act to better society but merely to reflect it, what the fuck is it for<\/em>?<\/p>\n None of these arguments strike me as especially compelling. So why are the leaders of this criminal organization still walking around free? Is it because it\u2019s only terrorism if the other guy does it, just another iteration of Nazis and Skin Cream<\/a> and Gallo’s Humor<\/a>? Is it because the government realizes that if it starts down that road, it would logically have to declare itself<\/em> a terrorist organization because of its complicity (scratch that: because of its initiative<\/em>) in institutionalized acts of violence against Indigenous peoples? Or is it simple inertia: Sure we’d go to town if this was some new cult but Catholicism’s <\/em>everywhere; way too much trouble to pull it out by the roots. Besides, can we really do without the Catholic vote?<\/em><\/p>\n I suspect that’s it. It\u2019s easy to prosecute one racist asshole driving a truck; it\u2019s simple, it doesn\u2019t cost you any votes, it makes you look like a hero fighting on the side of the angels. Changing the very fundamentals of Canadian society? That’s just too much work. It may be ethically laudable\u2014mandatory, even\u2014but let’s get real. It’s not gonna happen.<\/p>\n Why, you might as well talk about weaning the country off Big Oil.<\/p>\n So now you know the answer to the question posed in the title. It is not an answer that bodes well for the future. Because if the one cry that’s supposed to get people off their asses by appealing directly to the brain stem\u2014that visceral, reflexive, refrain Think of the children!\u2014<\/em>if that<\/em> isn’t enough to make us even follow the rules we wrote for ourselves, what hope does the planet have?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/cbc-residential-1024x585.jpg\")
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