III. Now before any of you send me hate mail (always welcome, by the way, but in the com boxes is preferable), let’s provide some prefacing evidence to bolster my scandalous claim. Just a simple graphical juxtaposition.

Before there was this…

Here we see a young Fr. Fraser – dignified, steadfast, outfitted in cassock and biretta, purpose burning in his eyes. Notice his missionaries: pensive, composed, confident, you can even see suffering in their faces.

- CONTRA -

Now, in the post-Vatican II era, we have this alarming situation…

Here we see “Fr. Charlie Gervais with his Charlie’s Angels (Lay Missioners)” and, possibly, with Margaritaville playing in the background – and, goodness gracious, where’s Bosley? Just one of the guys, partying it up with the laaaaadies, no clerics, just casual clothes. At this point we can invoke Canon 284 and remind the good father that “clerics are to wear suitable ecclesiastical garb”. However, methinks such legalisms are irrelevant to a organization which presently enforces “dialogue” over “debate” (one mark for you if the purposeful contradiction was identified).

IV. Okay. If your knowledge about Catholic history is exclusively gleaned from books published by Novalis, or if you’re Ron Rolheiser groupie (giggles), you probably think that the pre-Vatican II period – say, from Friday March 25, 33 AD running to Wednesday October 10, 1962 – was the Dark Age of the Catholic Church. That nasty, riotous Paul of Tarsus got the Engine of Despotism going and afterward it was pan-Christian suppression topped off with a baleful palette of its correlates: Eurocentric arrogance, the Crusades, exploitation and decimation of pagan cultures, colonialism, slavery, industrialization, The Perry Como Show, “and all the rest of it”, to use that hallowed phrase of Belloc. Directly linked in with the fable of international subjugation by the Catholic Church was its missionary work and associated activities because, err, that’s how Christianity spread throughout the globe. Problem is, those missionaries – so we are incessantly told by V2-darlings and assorted neo-Caths – were malevolent and mendacious medievalists: stern, mean, tough, rigid, humourless, devoid of those metrosexual sensitivities necessitated in this modern era of “inclusivity” and health-shake afternoons with Oprah. Be it St. Jean de Brébeuf converting the Huron (later thanked by being butchered to death by the Iroquois), or St. Francis Xavier in India and Asiatic parts beyond, or the longsuffering, leprous St. Damien in Hawaii, or even St. Thomas’ Summa contra Gentiles (written with missionaries in mind) – all these labours and martyrdoms and more, done in the name of Our Lord and Our Lady, were effectively as naught. It’s a lovely mythology, fun for the kids, even (shock!) the CCCB endorses it, and the SFM site affords us with the standard narrative. Hope you have a bottle of Jack Daniels handy. Now take a swig and hold your nose:

V. Don’t know about the reader, but it’s rather difficult to see God “present and active in other religious cultures” when, for example, the Hindu caste system is considered. When by birth a person is invariably classed as an “Untouchable”, condemned to a life of misery, penury, with no opportunity for elevation in social status, it’s hard to perceive the hand of God here, nor an eventual development of a thriving middle class. Galatians 3:28 provided that solution: “There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus”. Or, if having had the displeasure of reading the Qur’an, selections from the Hadith or any honest history of Islam, you’d have to admit that “the Prophet” Mohammed was an ultraviolent, murderous, psychologically-disturbed, sadistic, sexual pervert, a pedophile to boot, and that Islam spread throughout the world solely by way of the sword. Don’t see God’s presence there. However, Lucifer’s is, that stench who fell from heaven. Hey, what can I say? Guess I’m old fashioned. “But TH2, you palaeo-traditionalist nincompoop, you… you antediluvian desperado who eats kittens for breakfast, how dare you enunciate such horrendous things about the Religion of Peace?”, someone might query. This isn’t the post to respond to that question,[5] though let’s steer back on track and observe how Scarboro Missions submits itself before the representatives of Islam. A reader of this blog provides a disturbing e-mail report:

Preaching Mohammedism, denying Christ – in a Catholic chapel. Refusing to answer questions about the undeniable global carnage spawned by Mohammedism. Attendees instructed to keep questions within parameters set by Political Correctness (i.e. shut up). Goodness gracious, it’s a type of stealth Jihad that would even make Tariq Ramadan blush. You see, this is what happens when ecumaniacal, milquetoast Catholics heap paeans on other religions excepting their own, enabling and superelevating these other religions, oblivious to the threat they pose to Catholicism if embraced without qualification. How quickly do they grovel and, alas, are later tossed in garbage bin once their usefulness is no more. Lenin called such people “useful idiots”.

VI. All this openness to anything and everything ties in with SFM’s advocacy of “inculturation”, claimed to be “a fruit of Vatican II”. True, the fruity aspect is apparent, however the inculturation claim is false. It has a long history in the Church, notably with the Jesuits. We’re not speaking of the slick, smooth-talking, feminized, oh-so-sweet-and-sensitive Jesuits of the modern day (here, the off-Broadway enthusiast and culture editor at America magazine immediately comes to mind). Rather, the old time Jesuits, the real men, before this order by and large went all Liberace for liberation theology. One example of authentic inculturation was manifested in the missionary life of the aforementioned Jesuit Jean de Brébeuf. A skilled linguist, he learnt the Huron language when in Canada. He developed a grammar for it, writing the first dictionary of this language, even translating prayers. He assimilated into the Huron culture, understood its various customs, and so forth. But this type of inculturation, having conversion to Catholicism as the goal, is altogether unlike the à la carte inculturation at SFM, which has group hugs as its prime directive. An analogy would be syrupy, celebrity crap like this. For SFM, inculturation means, for instance, “to integrate the Native sweetgrass ceremony into Catholic Masses”. Ah, no, that’s a liturgical abuse, a grave one, if not a downright abomination. Although, liturgical abuse is evidently commonplace at Scarboro Missions, judging by this photograph…

Bravo, Annibale, molto bravo! Let’s see… ceramic vessels. That’s a no no. Gold or silver the chalice must be. Wooden altar? Nope. Should be stone. Groovy kitchen table altar cloth – check. Laymen lounging around the altar in unkempt civies – check. Acoustic guitar – check. Artistically sterile church interior – check. Adorable felt banner – check (note the theological egalitarian expression thereon). Accordingly, we now have no other option except to exclaim: Goodness gracious, what’s going on over there?

VII. Well, the evidence highly suggests Scarboro Missions, that once great society of Msgr. Fraser, has devolved into your run-of-the-mill social justice activist group with an undergirding philosophy that can only be characterized as syncretism. That is, an amalgamation of all the world’s religions/philosophies into one, regardless of stark, irreconcilable differences between them, specifically as all of them differ from Catholicism. Since 1965 that ever-burgeoning Kafkaesque ecumenaucracy has concocted multifarious techniques to supposedly override interreligious incompatibilities. How? By diluting Catholicism into a syncretistic swirl of religiosities palatable only to those with the most refined, non-judgemental tastes. Meaning, call Dr. Feelgood because HERE COMES EVERYBODY! For some years the CCCB’s Canadian Centre for Ecumenism has been successful at implementing such techniques. Check out its website and educate yourself on the “Green Church”. There’s even a “Multi-Faith Calendar”. Don’t forget, April 28 is “Buddha Day”. Hooray! That’s just fabulous… where’s my bottle of Jack Daniels?

VIII. The specific technique wielded by SFM to quash the singularity of Catholicism is its “Principles and Guidelines for Interfaith Dialogue”. It’s reads like a list of conversation topic suggestions specifically tailored for tipsy floozies at the local bridge club. When it comes to matters ecumenical, SFM’s motto can be summarized thusly: dialogue good, debate bad. Let’s take a meticulous look [TH2 comments in bolded square brackets]…

IX. We’ve just conducted an inspection of the philosophical driving force behind SFM. Let’s now briefly examine its finances and assorted departments/offices. We’re not going to criticize specific personnel and membership save to say that a perusal of SFM’s photo gallery displays a predominance of grey hair, habitless nuns and other baby boomer concomitants. Therefore, the “biological solution” is likely operative. An uncharitable remark? It’s not something one necessarily gains pleasure in saying. Still, facts are facts, and the ecumenical syncretism promulgated by SFM clearly is inimical to traditional Catholicism. Scarboro Missions is a charitable organization with information published in the public domain and is thus open to scrutiny. If SFM regularly advertises in the Catholic Register and has done so for years, i.e. a source of income for CR, the chance is infinitesimal that its editors are going to dispatch an investigative reporter to 2685 Kingston Road to check out what’s really going on over there. It will cover all the happy clappy stuff, to be sure. But for dissenting shenanigans? Forgetaboutit. They remain unexplored, or left unsaid even if the shenanigans are privy to those within the Church establishment. Thusly, the job of Inspector is left to those in the “new media” and, sometimes, to uncouth monsters like yours truly.

X. Two charity websites aid us in getting a snapshot of the financial situation. As of the last update on December 10, 2011, donate2charities.ca shows the following for SFM: Revenue = $6,575,217 and Expenditures = $4,329,387, meaning the former exceeds the latter by $2,457,830. Not too bad. Of the total expenditures, nearly $700K (16%) goes to administration and $1,451,354 (34%, greater than rest of expenditure items) is vaguely categorized as “other”, which can meaning anything, and 34% is quite a hefty anything. SFM has Liabilities worth $11,074,213. However, Assets far surpass this value, at $39,505,822 of which $35,956,344 (a whopping 91%) is (interestingly) classified as long-term investments. Obviously, a financial expert is being consulted by Scarboro Missions. This isn’t a bad thing. SFM is definitely not in the red – always nice to hear about a Catholic organization, except it would be marvellous if SFM would devote its resources to spreading authentic Catholicism instead of peddling that Golden Rule claptrap. The site donate2charities.ca gives a 2-stars-out-of-5 ranking for SFM, which certainly isn’t a compliment – in fact, it sucks – and one still wonders where the 1.5 mill in “other expenditures” is going. Let’s hope not to martini lunches in Yorkville.

XI. The other charity monitor website is opencharity.ca. Some eyebrow raisers here. SFM receives monetary gifts mainly from parishes, convents, monasteries, “charitable corporations” and three dioceses (Kingston, Hamilton, St. Catharines). The norm. But SFM also gives money to various groups. It’s largest gift, a $50,000 donation, goes to Development and Peace (SFM has partnered with D+P since its inception in the 1967). Given that the feds recently slashed D+P funding by a staggering 65%,[7] it wouldn’t be unreasonable to posit a flurry of e-mails from D+P HQ to Scarborough, respectfully asking SFM to exceed is $50K gift next time around. SFM also donates to the left wing outfit Citizens for Public Justice. Its ExecDir is Joe Gunn. He’s a buddy of Glen “I’ve-got-the-hots-for-Elizabeth-Johnson” Argan, and so you can read Gunny’s regular column at the Western Communist Reporter. SFM also donates to Ploughshares (no surprise) and, intriguingly, to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the David Suzuki Foundation. Why a Catholic organization would donate pro-abortion/depopulationist agencies is a mystery to this blogger. Mind you, the amounts are paltry ($165 to CCPA, $50 to DSF). Yet it’s the symbolism of donating to these groups which is telling, evidencing there’s a few rascals within Scarboro Missions’ inner ranks sympathetic to anti-natalist policies (protection of “the workers”, “the environment” is camouflage). Note that Cardinal Collins is Director of the SFM board. Given that he’s been head honcho in YYZ since 2006, a concern arises as to why His Eminence is letting this happen. Or why SFM’s website is permitted to provide supportive links to pro-abortion organizations such as UNICEF, Amnesty International, OXFAM and KAIROS.[8] Just minutiae? Or maybe he missed that board meeting. Anyway, not much information on pro-life activities at the SFM website. Just two mentions of the word “abortion” when a search was performed, and those were merely quotations from external documents/sources.

XII. Now to few of the offices/departments at Scarboro Missions. The Interfaith Office seems like a wonderful place, a joyous place: “At a dramatic pace, more and more regions of the world are becoming environments of multi-culture and multi-faith… The great faiths of the world are now talking to one another in a fashion that is new, challenging and exciting. And Christianity has joined the conversation”. It is my understanding that Christianity started the whole ecumenical fest, not joining afterward. And it’s preposterous to imply that other religions as such open to “ecumenical dialogue”. Just can’t see a conference entitled Ecumenism, Me and You: How to Achieve Non-Judgemental Interfaith Oneness in World Religions taking place in Tehran. Don’t see ecumenism originating from Japan. A combinatorial Shinto/Buddhism is the dominant philosophy and, as for ethnicity, 99% of the country’s population is Japanese. Not much multiculturalism in the Land of the Rising Sun. If TH2 recalls correctly, the Aztec religion involved human sacrifice, slicing open the chest, ripping out the heart of its many victims so as to appease the gods, afterward disposing bodies, then feeding viscera to animals. Now imagine if World Religions superstar Sr. Joan Chittister[9] hopped in a time machine, travelled back to thirteenth century Mesoamerica, then was transported directly atop the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan where the aforesaid sacrifices were in progress. Imagine the astonishment on the faces of the by-standers. Her billowing bouffant, her polyester pantsuit shimmering under the searing sun. “Goodness gracious, what have we here? Is this navy blue bombshell a sacrificial gift from the gods?”, said the guy holding a flint knife. What affable ecumenical adage could the Blueberry Muffin have vocalized to extricate herself from that unpleasant circumstance? – “Hey boys, happy Kwanza”?

XIII. So, then, this “talking to one another in a fashion that is new, challenging and exciting” is exactly that – talk, amongst themselves, though I would substitute the word “exciting” with “boring”. Pope Benedict says: “It is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate”. Years of seminars, meetings, conferences without a commitment of doing what Catholic missionaries are supposed to do: witness/convert outsiders to Catholicism as the religion not a religion. Hold on. SFM’s Vocations Department does have a suite of “commitments”. It does “witness to the sacred”. Then, let’s take a gander at one of these commitments: “Scarboro missioners see the urgency today of giving witness to the sacredness of the earth itself”. No, the pantheism ain’t working. It’s safe to deduce that the Divine Injunction to “subdue the Earth” in Genesis 1 isn’t looked upon positively. And what would a dissent-driven Catholic organization be in the post-V2 era without a Justice & Peace Office. Don’t want to discuss SFM’s version now because lately I find the entire field of “social justice” (i.e. bureaucratic mountains of nebulously-worded, never-to-be-read reports, letters, proceedings, communiqués, position papers, ad nauseum) to be utterly depressing. A Scarboro Missions example: “Work on social justice is done collaboratively and primarily through inter-church connections such as KAIROS, as well as interfaith and wider societal connections”. See? Depressing.

XIV. Finally, there is the Mission Information/Education Department, which might be alternatively named the Ministry of Unobjectionable Propaganda. It’s “committed to informing Canadian Catholics about issues in mission, what missioners are saying and doing in light of new developments in the world and how we can respond to the new directions in which the Spirit of God leads us”. The department produces study guides on “global justice and peace”, “ecological justice” and like documentation. Included with its commitment of “informing Canadian Catholics” are the kids. A variety of “student resources” are available, including high school “teaching models”. Here’s one for “World Religions Retreat Day”:

Classical Indian dance is based on the Natya Shastra, meaning “authoritative scripture regarding drama”, claimed to be written by the Hindu god Brahman.[10] It dramatizes gods in battle, demons too, the role of humans in this affair, with all the sexual undertones. As for Tai Chi? Whatever. I’ll go to a doctor if I have back problems. Don’t mean to be even ruder, but would it hurt that much to include a “prayer experience” (shudder) that is Catholic into the mix? Some Gregorian chant would be worthwhile – and this is the problem. Exclusion of Catholic ritual, inclusion of heathen rituals. Overseen by some condescending “Facilitator” (hello Mr. Orwell), this is plain indoctrination that can only confuse impressionable Catholic youth. Is this what modern missionary work has become? A complete 180. Pathetic.

XV. The most telling evidence pointing to a near-total breakdown at Scarboro Missions are two articles just published in its magazine, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Vatican II. One was written by excommunicated priest, Marxist and Canadian heresiarch Gregory Baum: “…openness to dialogue came to an end soon after the Council. In 1968 Paul VI published the encyclical Humanae Vitae condemning all forms of artificial birth control without an antecedent dialogue with the bishops and their people… Empirical research has shown that most church-going Catholics do not follow the papal teaching on sexual ethics”.[11] What Greg doesn’t say is that he was a principal enabler of the 1968 issuance of the Winnipeg Statement by the Canadian bishops, which effectively gave permission for Canadian Catholics to contracept despite Humanae Vitae. His partner in crime was “certified Enneagram teacher” Remi de Roo, former bishop of Victoria, BC, author of the other article.[12]

XVI. The more you read and evaluate the humbug going on at Scarboro Missions, the more you come to realize that it isn’t so much the welcoming and assimilation of other religions into Catholicism that’s in play. This is surface appearance. Instead, SFM’s ecumenical syncretism – a Politically Correct inversion of traditional missionary work – becomes an excuse for dissent, quiet and subtle, functioning in the subsurface, so as to omit or accommodate a flat-out rejection of the Church’s more stringent, particularized teachings, or simply to justify moral laxity in one’s personal life. So the Inspector’s advice to Canadian Catholics would be to hold off on donations to Scarboro Missions pending some major overhaul of its inner workings. The organization is infected with Modernism and there’s just too much dissent going on over there.

NOTES / REFERENCES

1. For some history see the article, S.A. Missick, “Mar Thoma: The Apostolic Foundation of the Assyrian Church and the Christians of St. Thomas in India”, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, 2000, vol. XIV, no. 2, pp. 33-61.

2. cf. “Weed out Christianity, says Hindu BJP nationalist leader”, Asia News/PIME, August 19, 2010; “BJP backed Karnataka’s anti-Christian strife”, The Times of India, April 6, 2011; N. Carvalho, “Karnataka, 20 Christians in prayer assaulted and humiliated, accused of proselytizing”, Asia News/PIME, January 25, 2012.

3. This quotation and the remainder in this post (including photographs/images) were extracted from the Scarboro Missions website, unless stated otherwise.

4. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (Toronto: Thomas Allen & Son Limited, 1977), p. 575.

5. A good place to start is B. Ye’or, trans. M. Kochan, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996).

6. Corroborated by this news item posted at the SFM website in February 2012: “Understanding Islam – Tuesdays 7 to 9 pm, February 7-28, 2012: Clearly, Islam is an important religious and social phenomenon in our globalized world. But what do Muslims actually believe and practice? In this four-evening educational series at Scarboro Missions, important Muslim leaders and Islamic scholars will provide you with a basic introduction to Islam. The program will focus on the Prophet Muhammad, the origins of Islam, the Holy Qur’an, the Five Pillars and Islam as a way of life”.

7. See M. Swan, “D&P reeling after government imposes 65 per cent funding cut”, Catholic Register, March 23, 2012. Subnote that Scarboro Missions member Fr. Robert Smith, cooperating with Development + Peace during its start-up, was also part of the group that formed the heretical Catholic New Times. CNT became defunct in 2006. Cf. M. Hathaway and Fr. G. Curry, “Expressing Solidarity, Scarboro Missions’ commitment to Justice and Peace”, Scarboro Missions Magazine, February 1995.

8. Support/facilitation of abortion by UNICEF: J.H. Westen, “Parents Warned Against Giving to UNICEF this Halloween – UNICEF Still Promoting Abortion”, LifeSite News, October 30, 2007. Amnesty International: “Amnesty International Canada’s consultations regarding sexual and reproductive rights – May 2007″, Public Statement issued on June 14, 2007. OXFAM: S Block, “Oxfam and Sojourners gang up to save the world”, Spero News, July 21, 2009. KAIROS: A. de Valk, “Catholics should stop funding KAIROS”, Catholic Insight, January 2010, vol. XVIII, no. 1, p. 3.

9. J. Chittister, “A glimpse of oneness for a change”, National Catholic Reporter, November 26, 2008.

10. Cf. C.A. Jones and J.D. Ryan, Encyclopedia of Hinduism (New York: Facts on Files Incorporated, 2007), p. 308.

11. G. Baum, “Vatican II, The Church in dialogue”, Scarboro Missions Magazine, January/February 2012.

12. R. de Roo, “Vatican II, Reflections of a Council Father”, Scarboro Missions Magazine, January/February 2012. You can read all about Baum’s and De Roo’s involvement with the Winnipeg Statement in V. Foy, “Tragedy at Winnipeg: The Canadian Catholic Bishops’ Statement on Humanae vitae”, Challenge, vol. 14, 1988.