Catholic Church turns away pro-life conference,

Citing security concerns.  No, not on Mars.  In Montreal.  Montreal's largest Catholic Church,  St-Joseph's Oratory, which attracts more than 2 million visitors yearly, had eagerly embraced a budding pro-life movement in Quebec, and promised the participation of  Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, Msgr. Adam Exner, and Msgr. Jude Saint-Antoine, all heavy hitters in the Canadian Catholic hierarchy.  Other speakers were to include Rabbi Reuven Bulka (writer), Bruce Clemenger (Evangelical Fellowship of Canada), and Stockwell Day (Conservative Asshat of Canada), for what shaped up to be a truly ecumenical anti-abortion conference in Canada.

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The conference was for November 17-19, and the Catholic Church refused access to the Church at the last minute.  They cite security concerns, but the very low participation level and strong public opposition were more likely reasons.  The Oratory can accommodate several thousand people, and the organizers had difficulty finding an alternate venue in Montreal that could accommodate a paltry 250 attendees.  They did eventually find an Evangelical Protestant Church in northern Montreal today, and they held a mini-conference without the heavy-hitter Catholic speakers.  Mr. Asshat   did show up, though.

So the Catholic Church backs out of a pro-life conference because of fears of a public backlash?  Yes, people matter.  The Church, and I swear this is true, put a note on the door claiming threats from pro-choice and homosexual activists forced the cancellation, but even ProLifeBlogs.com quote Montreal police as saying

While there has been a movement to oppose the pro-life conference by pro-choice and homosexual activists, (...) the police could offer adequate protection.

 They go on to criticize the Church's cowardice in the face of public opinion.  Notice there is no mention of threats by the police, only opposition, and indeed the demonstrators today were polite, eloquent and civic-minded.  There is no doubt which side of the issue Quebeckers support, despite the overwhelming dominance of the Catholic Church in the Quebec religious scene.  Just how Catholic were Quebeckers 50 years ago?  Back in 1949, the local (French) Catholic clergy could and did organize a worker's strike in the (Anglo-run) Asbestos mine (in Asbestos, Quebec), clashing violently with the powers-that-be and nearly collapsing the Quebec government.  This momentous event was the opening shot of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, resulting in the secularization of our society and the adoption of strongly socialist democratic values.   In a sense, a grass-roots movement from within the Church itself contributed to the overthrow of the Church from its privileged position of absolute overlord of the Quebecois.  Present-day attitudes are that the Catholic Church is an integral, valuable part of the Quebeckers' cultural heritage, but the Church holds no sway in our politics, nor in our society's values.

The demonstrators today may have argued pro-choice, but the real issue is the migration of American agendas north of the border.  The Conservative Party of Canada (gee, I hope I got the name right, I'm not sure what they're calling themselves this week) has come to include a significant number of American wing-nutter types in some areas of Canada, through a complicated series of mergers with a party that was once considered a lunatic fringe in Canada (The Refoooooooooorm Party of Canada). This is how we got Mr. Asshat, the onetime lay Pentecostal preacher and now Memeber of Parliament.  So even in what was historically the most anti-abortion and religious Province in Canada, the Catholic Church will no longer publicly support pro-lifers because of their association with American politics and wing-nuts.

Makes me proud to live here.  Hate is not welcome in Montreal.