Catholic Problems in Western CanadaDaly, George Thomas
Religion
Catholic Problems in Western Canada
Daly, George Thomas
Catholic Church -- Canada
silver; a subsidized press,--"The Canadian Farmer" and "The Ranok"--was
ever at work, playing on their patriotism and exploiting their racial
feelings, to cover with ridicule their faith and pious traditions. The
public school became in the hands of the enemy the most powerful
weapon. Government itself, through its various officials, often went
out of its way to thwart the efforts of our missionaries.
It is not without poignant emotion that we have followed, at close
range, this struggle for the mastery of the Ruthenian soul. We hardly
know which we should admire the more, the faithfulness of the
simple-minded Ruthenian, or the devotedness of the few missionaries
who, for the last fifteen years, have lived, worked and died among
them. We all remember that cry of distress, that demand for help which
came from Archbishop Langevin in favor of his Ruthenian children. It
broke upon the land as a clarion call and its voice was heard in the
first Plenary Council of Quebec. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate--the
pioneer missionaries of the West, the Basilians, the Redemptorists, and
a few French-Canadian secular priests, were the first to answer the
call. They divided among themselves that immense field of labour. God
alone knows what sacrifices, what heart-burnings, what hours of
discouragement and loneliness, were theirs in that strenuous period of
settlement when the wilderness began to blossom, when homesteads were
seen to spring up on the bare soil. We have a faint idea of these
difficulties when we read the "_Memoir: 'Tentative de Schisme et
d'heresie au milieu des Ruthenes de l'Ouest Canadien_," of Father
Delaere, C.SS.R., (1908), and Father Sabourin's pamphlet, "_Les
Ruthenes Catholiques_" (1909).
Let us hope that the Church in Canada will keep sacred the memory of
these harvesters of the first hour. The Catholics owe them a debt of
gratitude. We sincerely hope that the history of their heroic efforts
will not be lost and that the first to appreciate them will be the
coming Ruthenian generation. Father Delaere, C.SS.R.--who has laboured
among the Ruthenians in Western Canada for the last twenty years will
one day give us, we sincerely hope, the history of the settlement and
struggles of his adopted people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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