In vibrant orange letters, a fashion store on Vancouver’s trendy Robson Street tried to attract shoppers with the words “Stop blending in.” Apparently, its clothing line lifts buyers from the near uniformity of today’s fashions into another realm that makes a personal statement.

The Catholic Church teaches that the selection by cardinals of a new pope is guided by the Holy Spirit. Despite this teaching, many pundits (including some Catholics who should know better) prepared lists of favourites, debated frontrunners, discussed the pros and cons of each and sometimes even proposed odds.

Liberals in the Church never warmed to the papacy of Benedict XVI.

I sometimes think God is trying to get my attention in the strangest places. For instance, I’ve sensed his presence a number of times while in line at a check-out counter.

On hearing of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, my first thought was of some lines from the Tennyson poem “Morte D’Arthur,” which my father often quoted in unanticipated circumstances:

Trusting in God, as Henri Nouwen observed, is not an expression of powerlessness but rather a disposition of humility that is the beginning of spiritual life. A well-grounded Christian, Nouwen said, is deeply in love with Jesus, ready to follow Him wherever they are guided and trusting that with Jesus will come life in abundance.

As a young teacher two decades ago I attended a conference where a packed room of educators was told that during our careers we would witness learning environments in which students would employ personal communication devices. It sounded like something out of Star Trek, as probable as warp drive.

I can still remember where I was when I received the call that the Supreme Court of Canada had struck down our abortion law. That call stopped the baking, stopped the family chatter, stopped me in my tracks. I could not believe the court would abandon Canada’s little ones.

The abandonment began in 1969 with the expansion of our abortion provisions, finally completing the severing of all protection for these children with the Supreme Court decision in the Morgentaler case on Jan. 28, 1988. It has been stated that even with our valiant attempts we have not been able to engage the whole of this country in a debate. That, I suppose is true. However, we have neither won nor have we lost.

What we have done is constantly and consistently raised our voices against the slaughter, continued to prick the conscience of this great nation, be a thorn in the side of her politicians and a challenge to the medical profession and pro-abortion advocates.

Canada’s doctors appear content to confirm the belief in the public eye that children before birth are a part of their mothers, like a toe or a fingernail. Rather than doing no harm their moral and ethical cowardice places women and their offspring into abortion harm’s way.

Our voice has been there from the start expressed by the wonderful people from Hamilton, Burlington, London, Ottawa and Toronto who presented to the House and Welfare Committee during 1967 and 1968. Displayed in the petition and letter-writing campaigns that have been non-stop over the years. Our concern has been voiced within the hundreds of briefs written and presented at all government levels over the years. We are active in the many pregnancy support services and homes that have developed. We are heard in the media campaigns carried out all across Canada and are noticeable in the annual marches which occur at the provincial and national level. Our voice is nowhere more present than in the hearts of those who volunteer and work for pro-life groups from one end of this country to another, day in and day out. The presidents and boards, their staff and volunteers, all committed to changing our culture to one where children before birth will be protected and women unexpectedly pregnant will know that they are supported and they do not have to kill their children.

This country has travelled so far — the wrong way. Fragile lives at every stage are forfeited because they are unwanted, face challenges or are sick and dying. Canada’s answer to these situations is to kill — but the words we use protect the public from the truth. We terminate pregnancy, not kill the baby. We conduct pre-natal genetic testing and terminate the pregnancy, not lethally discriminate against those who are different. We induce labour of children with genetic anomalies cutting short the duration of their little lives and some we just neglect until they die. We create, quality control, discard, freeze and lethally research on the tiniest of human beings and call it reproductive technology.

Those with disabilities do not always receive the care that those with able-bodies do. Those facing terminal illness or suffering may soon be sanctioned to have themselves killed or provided assistance in killing themselves. The public will hear “aid in dying” and other such euphemisms, but euthanasia and assisted suicide it will be. When did killing the vulnerable become a Canadian ethic?

Talk to many people who have received negative prenatal diagnosis and it appears the medical profession believes death is better than disability. When did we become so hard-hearted and have no room for those who are different and just need our compassionate help — not the right to be killed? This is the legacy of 1969, compounded by the Supreme Court travesty of justice in 1988.

Our voice will continue to shout out a challenge. Our efforts will provide support and options. Our activities will remind Canadians that we really are all created equal before and under the law until they get it and stop the killing.

(Jeffs is executive director of Alliance for Life Ontario.)

Late last year the National Post commissioned a survey on religious attitudes of Canadians. It will surprise no one that church attendance, both Protestant and Catholic, is dropping. What was surprising was how Canadians self-reported their attitude to religion.

Of those answering the survey, 65 per cent consider themselves “spiritual,” 50 per cent consider themselves “religious” yet 66 per cent said they believe in God. What to make of this?

First, contemporary mis-education has prevented many people from thinking clearly. If you believe in God, you are by definition “religious.” The Oxford English Reference Dictionary defines religion as belief in a personal God “…entitled to obedience and worship.” So to say that someone believes in God but is not religious is to utter an oxymoron.

As for the 15 per cent who consider themselves spiritual (“concerned with sacred or religious things”) but not religious, well, they truly are remarkable human beings. They are like a self-described gourmand who never eats, or someone who professes to love travel but does not leave home, or a lover of theatre who has never seen a play that he enjoyed.
Of course, one might be spiritual and not go to church; that is possible. I suppose one might even be a Protestant Christian and never go to church. But one cannot be a Roman Catholic and refrain from attending church.

That’s because the catechism teaches that there is no salvation outside the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (published in 1994) expresses the point this way: “All salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His body.” Again, none can be saved “who knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse to enter it or to remain in it.”

Catholics have an obligation to attend Mass. One may attend Mass outside the physical structure of a church, but only a priest may consecrate the elements of bread and wine. For a Catholic to say that he is spiritual but not religious is what Dr. Johnson once called “nonsense on stilts.”

The priest who brought me into the Catholic Church never referred to the “obligation” to attend Mass. It was always, he insisted a privilege. And with him presiding, it always was. He prepared carefully for each service. His homilies were strengthening and he threw himself into every activity in the church with gusto. To my chagrin, I have discovered that this is not always the case.

Of course, I understand that one does not attend Mass because of the priest but rather for the opportunity to receive the sacraments. Still, it is difficult to be in a suitably receptive frame of mind to receive the sacraments when one is fuming inwardly at all that has gone on up to that point. Perhaps I am only now discovering the reality of what Flannery O’Connor meant when she wrote that one may suffer more from the Church than for the Church.

If the new statistics accurately portray Canadians’ religious attitude, what hope is there for the Church? Well, Pope Benedict XVI recognizes the problem; indeed he wrote extensively about this even before the year 2005 when he became Pope. He has called repeatedly for a “New Evangelization” with three components: (1) deepened personal faith; (2) renewed Bible study; (3) proclamation of the Gospel.

The Pope has said that it is the duty of every Catholic to proclaim the good news “with the same enthusiasm as the early Church” and he has taught that “the Gospel is not the exclusive property of those who received it, but it is a gift to share, good news to report to all.”

In this respect, buried in the statistics, is one nugget which allows for hope: 15 per cent of Canadian youth report that they are more committed to the faith than were their parents. Here is the potential spearhead of a new evangelization that can rescue the Church from the doldrums.

The new evangelization will not happen in parishes where the message is distorted, or where the priest is only going through the motions, or where the congregation trudge off content at having satisfied their obligation. But the message of hope from Pope Benedict XVI is that it can — and will — happen nevertheless.

Catholic social teaching holds anniversaries in high regard. Witness the many conferences and papers written in 2012 to comment on the 50th anniversary of Vatican II.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) used to release annual Labour Day statements on social themes, while the Quebec bishops chose May 1 for their annual releases. When I worked in a diocesan social action office, we would anxiously await these letters and organize church basement gatherings and discussion circles among Catholics hungry for sustenance in social ministries.

These tracts, however, were often received without much fuss in our parishes and garnered only polite commentary in minor media. But that wasn’t the case 30 years ago this month, when the bishops released a bombshell reflection that resonated with the Canadian public like never before.

“No other Church document in Canadian history ever created an equivalent reaction,” opined Bishop Remi De Roo in the CCCB’s 1999 unofficial history of the bishops’ social thought.

The document, called “Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis,” was released early in 1983 and became a front-page story. Within the first week, 18 editorials debated its contents (11 in favour, six opposed), 16 public affairs programs on radio dissected it, and 23 columnists wrote commentaries. The statement received international coverage in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time and Newsweek. In the days before fax and electronic mail, over 200,000 copies were sold and the text was eventually translated into seven languages. (You cannot find the CCCB history or the statements themselves on the CCCB’s web site, but Ethical Reflections is available on the Internet.)

The document, published at a time of high unemployment and inflation, urged people to place the needs of the poor and oppressed ahead of the financial ambitions of the rich.

It called for government policies that would place worker rights ahead of profit and would invite marginalized groups to participate in political and economic systems that were excluding them.

Ethical Reflections was not a radical departure from the previous teaching of the bishops, but it was released at a specific moment in understandable moral language that echoed the social and economic angst of that time. The final lines of the statement inspire me to this day: “As Christians, we are called to become involved in struggles for economic justice and to participate in building a new society based on Gospel values.”

With 1.5 million Canadians out of work at the time, and government policy more focused on defeating inflation than unemployment, Ethical Reflections explicitly highlighted two fundamental Catholic social principles: “the preferential option for the poor” and “the value and dignity of labour.” Tony Clarke, a CCCB staffer at the time (and one of the authors of Ethical Reflections) recounted a poignant anecdote: A west coast friend called Clarke to say that he was greeted that morning on the dock by a group of unemployed workers who yelled out: “Have you heard the news? The bishops are on our side!”

Another major explanation for the incredible media buzz the statement generated was that many prominent Canadians publicly disagreed with the message, among them Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter, businessman Conrad Black and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

That brings us to 2013. Last month, Radio Ville-Marie reported that in September 2011, a draft of a pastoral letter focusing on the global financial crisis which began in October 2008 was rejected for publication by the CCCB. Montreal’s Catholic station suggested that the letter, prepared by the bishops of the Commission for Justice and Peace, was shelved (according to the CCCB Executive) because it would have “little impact,” given that it was “obscure” and “old news.”

Papal encyclicals often begin with recognition of the writing that has been inherited from predecessor statements. After 1891’s Rerum Novarum, important documents like Quadragesimo Anno, Octogesima Adveniens and Centesimus Annus recognize and deepen the social thought that preceded them.

One hopes that Catholic colleges and universities will commemorate, debate and deepen the message of Ethical Reflections on the 30th anniversary of its publication.

More importantly, will the Catholic hierarchy and laypeople take up the challenge to make Catholic social thought — and action — come alive today?