The Province of Ontario is in a near-complete shutdown of life, not quite what it was a year ago, but not far off. In the now-abandoned system of regional colours for control areas due to SARS-CoV-2, the grey area, which was most of the Archdiocese of Toronto, there was limited to ten persons at religious services. This was the case from late November when the limit was thirty percent. Toronto's Cardinal Thomas Collins determined that Mass for ten persons was "just not worth it." Not a quote from His Eminence but from those around him. This blog made available, after it was provided by the source who uploaded it, a video of a webinar where Collins threatened any priest that he would "shut you down," for non-compliance. The link follows.
Archdiocese of Toronto Webinar - Friday November 13, 2020 (rumble.com)
In the middle of Lent, Collins finally found enough gumption to have his Most Excellent Liason and Communications Minion, the Excellent Mister Neil "I'm handling it, I'm the liaison" MacCarthy organize a letter-writing campaign to the Ontario Government of Doug Ford and all Members of the Provincial Parliament. My sources indicate over 14,000 letters were received and Ford increased attendance from ten persons to fifteen percent which was returned to ten persons again, as of last week. One would think that maybe the team of Collins and MacCarthy should have done this five months sooner. However, once again Collins has doubled down and cancelled Holy Mass completely, requesting, not ordering, pastors to open churches for private prayer and offering up instead a drive-by, in and out service of Holy Communion on Sundays. To organize Mass for the priest and nine others is, well, you know, "just not worth it."
The logic of this is inane. In fact, I am incorrect, there is simply no logic, it is the opposite and completely, illogical.
Let us look at this one example. A priest could open the church for nine parishioners. He could offer, with them, a rosary for reparation and calling down the Blessed Mother to smite these hirelings with a motherly slap who have cancelled the Mass, but he could not then offer Holy Mass with these same people present. He could have a Holy Hour but could not end it with Holy Mass. Have you ever heard anything so illogical? So utterly stupid?
Not everyone can have Holy Mass so nobody can. That's the view of Tom Collins.
This is akin to saying that we should have let everyone die on RMS Titanic because there were not enough lifeboats for all of them. It's just not fair that 706 of the 2,203 passengers and crew survived. No, that was not fair, we should have let them all die because there were not enough lifeboats.
Yet, Thomas Collins believes we have a lifeboat, but it's not the Holy Mass.
On more than one occasion, dressed in episcopal and liturgical finery from the Ambo or Cathedra at St. Michael's Cathedral, Thomas Collins has bullied Catholics to bow down and take a jab of an experimental genetic injection that is not a protein vaccine, but a genetic therapy tested or containing the stem cells of an aborted baby. Yeah, I know, "remove cooperation with evil." Blah, blah, blah. It is an injection that he says is an "act of charity" and "common sense" and for the "common good" yet is only for personal gain because it does not stop the spread. Priests have been moved up on the priority list and many are bragging that they have had the jab. Collins, MacCarthy and the boys have received tens of millions of taxpayer dollars since the start of this pandemic to bail them out as long as they toe the line. Shouldn't the priest be sacrificing himself to be behind his people, not running to get out in front for the "cure?" Isn't the shepherd to protect the flock? Last Sunday's (EF lectionary) Gospel of the Good Shepherd and the hirelings rings clear again.
Filthy Lucre, indeed.
St. Damian Molaki would think much differently than our Cardinal named after a popular gin cocktail as would St. Maximillian Kolbe and our own, Bishop Michael Power. So did Father Thomas Rousell Davids Byles of Leeds, Yorkshire. He was an English priest on his way to New York City to preside over the marriage of his brother. Father Byles is no doubt a Saint in Heaven today. He stayed at his post on RMS Titanic, twice refusing the vaccine, I mean, the lifeboat. Rather, Father Byles went down with the ship and spent his last hours and minutes in this world preparing those he ministered to for the next. Father Byles is a hero and a sadly, non-declared, Saint of God and a true Shepherd. The same cannot be said of our Cardinal and those who would shut down the Holy Mass and sacraments rather than make it work within the draconian controls and take up the fight in court or directly through public protest. A true Shepherd would have defied Doug Ford last Friday and said, "No, just as the people will not accept arbitrary police powers, we will not accept the arbitrary non-percentage limit on our religious rites!"
That is what a true Shepherd would have done, not a hireling taking Caesar's coins.