Fr. David Sherry
District Superior of Canada

Dear Reader,

“All good things come to an end” is not universally true. Heaven is a good thing and it will never end. One thing that will is my time in Canada, as I will soon be—God willing—saving souls in my homeland and in another biggish neighbouring island. One thing that I will miss about Canada (in addition to the staunchness of her faithful Catholics and the coldness of her winters) is playing “CBC roulette.” For the uninitiated, “CBC” stands for “Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.” Roulette is a game of chance. This is how you play. On a car journey with a complicit friend, you choose one of five categories: racism, gender, feminism, indigenous issues and climate change. Each person places a small wager on which topic is being discussed, say “feminism,” and then the radio is turned on. The State broadcaster will crackle into action and the winner will be declared. I will always remember my nickel accumulator with Father Bob where I put my money on racism five times in a row. I won enough to buy both of us a very nice coffee with the proceeds. If you live in the United States and you wish to get in on the action, you too can play. NPR roulette is essentially the same as the Canadian version, although you may want to keep the gun control wildcard up your sleeve. Conservative and Talk Radio also have five choices: politics, politics, politics, politics and politics. I exaggerate. There are of course occasional segments on life insurance and gold.

Now, when you talk about something continuously, it is either because you love the thing very much, or because the thing doesn’t work. A man will talk incessantly about his wife either because she is wonderful or because she is terrible; mediocre wives seldom get talked about. For politics, we can probably rule out love; conservatives talk about politics all the time because it never does what they expect it to. To achieve peace, they say, religion must be kept out of politics. I agree, but for 99% of religions. The one exception, the true religion, must not be kept out of politics because it is the only way for politics to achieve its goal which is peace in our time. Just like a man cannot be naturally good for any length of time unless he seek the true God and conform his life to Him, so also nations that refuse to recognize publicly the true God and who spurn indirect subordination to His infallible Church (so they may conform their laws to His) will ultimately perish. For this and to put an end to prison camp pastimes like CBC roulette, the remedy is the same as for all evils, the reign of Jesus Christ in hearts, families and nations. Adieu.