is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century. Follow him on Twitter @Furedibyte
“When the news of the massacre reached Rome, the exultation among the clergy knew no bounds. The cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the messenger with a thousand crowns; the cannon of St. Angelo thundered forth a joyous salute; and bells rang out from every steeple; bonfires turned night into day; and Gregory XIII, attended by the cardinals and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, went in long procession to the church of St. Louis, where the cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te Deum …. A medal was struck to commemorate the massacre, and in the Vatican may still be seen three frescoes of Vasari, describing the attack upon the admiral, the king in council plotting the massacre, and the massacre itself. Gregory sent Charles the Golden Rose; and four months after the massacre, … he listened complacently to the sermon of a French priest, … who spoke of ‘that day so full of happiness and joy, when the most holy father received the news, and went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis.'”—Henry White, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, ch. 14, par. 34.
The same master spirit that urged on the St. Bartholomew Massacre led also in the scenes of the Revolution. Jesus Christ was declared to be an impostor, and the rallying cry of the French infidels was, “Crush the Wretch,” meaning Christ. Heaven-daring blasphemy and abominable wickedness went hand in hand, and the basest of men, the most abandoned monsters of cruelty and vice, were most highly exalted. In all this, supreme homage was paid to Satan; while Christ, in His characteristics of truth, purity, and unselfish love, was crucified.
“The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” The atheistical power that ruled in France during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, did wage such a war against God and His holy word as the world had never witnessed. The worship of the Deity was abolished by the National Assembly. Bibles were collected and publicly burned with every possible manifestation of scorn. The law of God was trampled underfoot. The institutions of the Bible were abolished. The weekly rest day was set aside, and in its stead every tenth day was devoted to reveling and blasphemy. Baptism and the Communion were prohibited. And announcements posted conspicuously over the burial places declared death to be an eternal sleep.
The fear of God was said to be so far from the beginning of wisdom that it was the beginning of folly. All religious worship was prohibited, except that of liberty and the country. The “constitutional bishop of Paris was brought forward to play the principal part in the most impudent and scandalous farce ever acted in the face of a national representation…. He was brought forward in full procession, to declare to the Convention that the religion which he had taught so many years was, in every respect, a piece of priestcraft, which had no foundation either in history or sacred truth. He disowned, in solemn and explicit terms, the existence of the Deity to whose worship he had been consecrated, and devoted himself in future to the homage of liberty, equality, virtue, and morality. He then laid on the table his episcopal decorations, and received a fraternal embrace from the president of the Convention. Several apostate priests followed the example of this prelate.”—Scott, vol. 1, ch. 17. GC 272.2 – GC 274.1
When the anthropologist Sarah Beaulieu reported that she had found 215 unmarked graves near Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia last year, the story caused a sensation. A wave of hysteria engulfed the Canadian media and political landscape. But eight months later, mystery surrounds the case, as not a single body has been found – and it is unclear if there are any plans for excavation.
What Beaulieu’s ground-penetrating radar scan found were 215 areas that showed soil disturbances such as tree roots, metal and stones – but not bodies. One bone and a tooth were discovered, but she acknowledged at the time that without conducting a proper forensic investigation no “definitive” conclusions could be drawn. Nevertheless, the media and the political class were quick to characterise what had been found as mass graves.
Soon it was claimed that Kamloops Indian Residential School was implicated in an act of genocide against First Nation People. Some moral crusaders presented the discovery as integral to the colonisation of Canada by Europeans. From their perspective, the history of Canada is a story of systematic genocide against the native population. The Catholic Church, which ran Kamloops and other residential schools for First Nation children, became the target of media hostility.
The narrative of mass murder was legitimised by the behaviour of the Canadian political class. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to Beaulieu’s claim by describing it as a “dark and shameful chapter” in the nation’s history.
The news that remains were found at the former Kamloops residential school breaks my heart – it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history. I am thinking about everyone affected by this distressing news. We are here for you. https://t.co/ZUfDRyAfET
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 28, 2021
On 30 May last year, the Canadian Government lowered the flag on its buildings to half mast. It also created a new holiday to honour “missing children” and survivors of residential schools.
As alarmist stories of genocidal behaviour escalated, 65 churches were set on fire and vandalised. The desecration of these places of worship were accepted as fully justified protest. Both Trudeau and Gerald Butts, a political consultant and former principal secretary to the prime minister, described the anti-Christian violence as “understandable”.
Throughout Canada, statues of the nation’s historical figures were attacked. In Montreal, the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, was overturned, his detached bronze head symbolically rolling on the ground. The statue of Queen Victoria in front of the Manitoba Legislature was knocked down. Numerous other statues were defaced and vandalised in an orgy of violence directed at Canada’s historical legacy.
Soon numerous other unsubstantiated claims were made about the discovery of other unmarked graves near residential schools. The historian Professor Jacques Rouillard was one of the few academics who sought to expose the lack of evidence behind the Kamloops story that had sparked the hysteria. He criticised media outlets for further hyping things up “by alleging that the bodies of 215 children had been found, adding that ‘thousands’ of children had ‘gone missing’ from residential schools and that parents had not been informed.”
Those who pointed out that not one body had been found in Kamloops were even denounced as genocide deniers. Writing in The Toronto Star, K.J. McCusker stated that the call for bodies “of residential schoolchildren is nothing more than a racist rant bordering on genocide denial”. And he added that “what happened in residential schools is not about the evidence. This kind of trolling is part of genocide, as are the actual crimes”. From this perspective, not only is evidence unimportant, the very demand for it is integral to the furthering of genocide.
The cavalier use of the term “genocide” to describe an as-yet unsubstantiated claim about an unmarked mass grave is disturbing. The hysterical tone adopted by those who are so free with the term speaks to the moral disintegration of public life in Canada. But it isn’t confined to the use of “genocide”. The behaviour of Catholic Residential Schools was also likened to a Holocaust. In a statement that implicitly insults the genuine victims of the Holocaust, one commentator wrote, “It is hard and painful for me to say that the discovery of the graves of the children in Kamloops may be Canada’s Holocaust moment”.
There is something terrifying about the casual manner with which the memory of the Holocaust is opportunistically plundered to make a point about the discovery of a soil disturbance. To make matters worse, the authority of academic historians has been exploited to legitimate the use of the term “genocide”. In the wake of Kamloops, a statement issued by the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) stated that the “history of violence against indigenous peoples fully warrants the use of the word ‘genocide’.”
READ MORE
Canada agrees to ‘historic reparations’ for 200,000 indigenous children
In response, a group of historians wrote an open letter criticising the statement in which they admonished the CHA for purporting to “promote a single ‘consensus’ history of Canada,” and adding, “with this coercive tactic, the CHA Council is acting as an activist organization and not as a professional body of scholars.”
But the reality is there has been little concerted effort to counter the alarmist campaign designed to rewrite Canada’s past as a protracted era of genocide. Public figures who ought to know better have become accomplices of the campaign to shame the country’s past. Instead of countering the outburst of anti-Catholic sentiment, leaders of the Church opted for the policy of appeasement.
When Trudeau demanded that the Pope come to Canada and apologise in person, many church leaders nodded in agreement. Father Raymond de Souza was one of the few religious figures who spoke against the grovelling Canadian bishops and pointed out that some of his colleagues had forgotten the meaning of the word sacrilege.
The history of mass hysteria and of witch hunts has shown that unless it is countered, society will fall prey to moral corruption and decay. Looking at Canada and the behaviour of its political leaders and cultural elite, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it has become a nation that has lost its way.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Adventist Angels Watchman Radio 