Catholic Problems in Western Canada | Page 8

is to the soul what air is to the lungs; it is health and life. Two elements constitute that factor which plays such a vital part in our religious life--tradition and environment. Tradition links the past to the present and 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 on our Western Church. People hailing from all points of Eastern Canada, of the United States and of Europe, have not yet formed religious traditions which are to the Catholic life of the family and of the parish what roots are to a tree.
And what environments surround our scattered settlers on the prairie? Only those who have come in close relation with the lonely homesteader can understand how much he is debarred from the influence of Catholic 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; from it emanates activity. Mass is now often said in a private house, a public hall or a school house. Children who have not known the beauty and the warmth of Catholic worship will hardly appreciate its lessons.
Moreover, social relations often bring our Western Catholics in very frequent contact with the different Protestant churches and their tremendous activities. Mixed marriages are the outcome of these circumstances. God alone knows how many of our Catholic boys and girls have been lost to the faith through "mixed marriages" and marriages outside of the Church.
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These various obstacles, geographical (distance and climate), ethnical (race and language), religious (absence of Catholic tradition and surroundings), are the ever open crevices through which a tremendous leakage has been 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 the sea of unbelief and irreligion. In the wreckage there is still a gleam of hope. Great numbers yet cling to a remnant of the old faith of their fathers; it will keep them afloat until helping hands come to their rescue.
The Call of the Church in the West is a call of distress. Has the Church in the East heard it? What is its response?
The Response of the East
Has the Church at large in the East heard the call of the West? Has that cry of distress gone through the ranks of our Catholics like the shrill blast of the bugle 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 like a cry in the wilderness, lost in the noise of our busy world, stifled by the clamour of other voices, smothered under other diocesan and parochial claims?
In the Church of Canada there have always been generous and noble souls for whom the missions of the West have had a mysterious attraction. Who can read without emotion of the heroic deeds of the first Jesuits who followed the explorers and courreurs-des-bois in their perilous adventures? What tribute of admiration and gratitude do we not owe to the Oblate missionaries 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 Northwest Territories. The Church of Canada will ever remain indebted to these noble pioneers of the cross, apostolic bishops and priests of the first hour; their saintly lives are forever emblazoned on the pages of Canadian history; the western trails murmur their names in gratitude and the children of the prairie still bless their memory by the dying fires of their camps.
Indeed the Province of Quebec for years sent her money to help the struggling schools of Manitoba. The Catholic Church of Canada has pledged itself in the Plenary Council of Quebec to help the Ruthenian cause; the Catholic Church Extension Society of late years is enlisting the sympathies of Eastern Catholics for our Western missions. With the help of their motherhouses our various sisterhoods have dotted the West with convents, schools, hospitals and charitable institutions. We all recognize the beauty and the heroism of their