The Vagrant Catholic Blog

The other day I was afforded an opportunity to vocally express my thoughts about pandemic response and the protest downtown. Doing so was quite difficult because despite having written on those topics extensively, it’s different to have auditory words take form. The word “difficult” is certainly prominent, and is the only word I could think of when I was speaking to describe how I was feeling. I suppose “frustration” is another, with “upset” and “resigned” being present as well. People know me based on what they see, they don’t know what’s going on “under the hood”. There’s an unawareness of how difficult it is to communicate effectively, both verbal and written. And there’s a general unawareness of how the actions and words of others impact folks like me.

Sometimes I ask myself; what would they have me do?

Stay at home? I have been, yes. More than most people. However, what people fail to take into account is my wife and child need to leave the home. In particular the school situation presents some awkwardness for a few different reasons. So then, what should I be doing? Separate myself from my wife and son? That certainly doesn’t seem ideal for several reasons, including the logistical and financial impact that would have on our family. Yet it seems as if that the consensus that serval people have now is that it’s something that I simply need to “deal with”. It’s a “me” problem that does not concern them.

At least that’s how things come across.

It used to be we received news at our front doorstep in paper format. Through the broadcast waves of the radio before going to sleep. Eventually families would gather around the television to consume the news during the evening after dinner. What those have in common is there was a time period before one interacted with others outside the home. You had time to process, you had time to digest. Because of that, stories could take time to develop, as people were accustomed to a certain “speed” of sorts.

Something occurred a couple of decades ago; the rise of the information superhighway. It started with things like Wikipedia and message boards and only grew from there. What were once seen as status symbols are now ubiquitous; it’s more rare to see someone without a cellular phone, and even more unfathomable to consider that someone would not have an Internet connection.

If one holds the belief that life begins at conception, celebrating the ban on abortion Texas abortion via a “heartbeat legislation” is understandable. After all, it’s the belief that vulnerable human beings are having their lives saved, and we’re talking about a literal beating human heart.

It’s should also be noted that it is reasonable for people to have concerns with how this law has been implemented, the content of the law, how the law will be executed, and who pushed it through – with all of those being views that could be held by both pro-life and pro-choice individuals (with the latter understandably having other, larger concerns).

Those concerns do not disqualify one’s “pro-life creds”, nor does it mean that the concerned individuals care less about unborn children. Likewise it shouldn’t be assumed that those who support the law don’t have similar concerns and/or are actively helping people in need.

The above said, the reality is the pro-life movement is no longer what some think it is – or perhaps it never was. The movement has become largely anti-abortion, with that being the “preeminent issue” – with the word “preeminent” actually meaning “only”. Which is awkward, when you consider those within the movement are insistent with rejecting several concepts that could reduce the demand of abortion. Or, in some cases, they have attitudes which will actively INCREASE the demand for abortion – like rejecting affordable Medicare, maternity leave, vocational training for youngbloods, universal basic income, the list goes on. The actions and language of several high-profile pro-lifers (Abby Johnson, +Strickland, LifeSiteNews, Father Frank Pavone) and their followers has bothered a few people the last while. These individuals have caused harm and continue to do so – and you can’t ask for others to ignore them. In fact, after spending more time thinking about things, I believe one of the biggest takeaways is just how “lost” the current “pro-life movement” is.

On the surface, “vengeance” seems like a great idea. Many people gain some form of primal satisfaction when someone “gets what coming to them” (I’m certainly not immune to this). There’s an issue, however, is when one savors that satisfaction and develops a thirst for it.

The benefit of typing, and writing as a whole, is the ability to formulate thoughts in a methodical fashion. You can take your time and measure your words in a thoughtful and appropriate fashion. Yet, at the time of myself writing this, I find myself struggling to retain my composure over some news I came across hours earlier.

In England, there has been some dark discoveries found of late pertaining to Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notices. Specifically, the charity Mencap has said they received reports in January 2021 from people with learning disabilities who were told they would not be resuscitated if they fell ill with COVID19.

I’d like to take some moments to discuss the nature of COVID19 vaccines, and how it interacts with the theological and philosophical concept “cooperation with evil”.

Several sites (such as Science Magazine specifically say the cell line used in the development of the vaccine are from an elective abortion that was performed decades ago. There was no specific harvesting of unborn children then, and there’s no specific harvesting of unborn children now related to the COVID19 vaccine. I welcome any reputable citations others may have that points towards the harvesting of unborn children for the COVID19 vaccines, however you’d think someone would’ve presented this at some point in the last several months.

I’ve spent the last several months working on this, and I’m finally able to share it.

To understand Pope Francis, we need to examine the role the consecrated life has om the entire Catholic Church. Specifically, how the spirituality of the five “Religious Orders” shapes the Church as a whole (from the Pope to the laity), and how this had specifically impacted not just this papacy, but recent ones as well.

This particular topic has become rather important to me, so I elected to invest a considerable amount of time to write this lengthy post.

It’d be nice if I could say I always understood, but that’d be lying. It’d also be lying if I said in the past I didn’t actively take up many of the counter-arguments that are prevalent within in the online sphere. Over time, fortunately, there was a change to my mindset, my words, and my actions

In Ottawa Ontario Canada, the Salvation Army have just had approval from Ottawa’s City Council to move from their current location to 333 Montreal Road, in the Vanier area. The Salvation Army said that according to their research, they have many “clients” in the area, and as a result will be able to help more people than they can in their current location. They’re also going to put their money where their mouth is, spending fifty (50) million dollars for the new facility.

For some additional context to this, Vanier has a certain “reputation” in the city. Some buildings look run down, there’s questionable businesses like payday loans centres. The area has been described by many within the city as “sketchy”. As a result, residents of Ottawa (including those in Vanier proper) have voiced some concerns regarding the homeless shelter. During a conversation I recently had, they mentioned four concerns/comments regarding the building of the homeless shelter:

1) Concerns about “the population it brings” (ie; more homeless people migrating to Vanier).
2) Shelters “entrench” homelessness.
3) The quality of life in the area will go down.
4) Only through economics and revenue generation can we fight homelessness. Instead of spending fifty million on a shelter, the money should be used towards grants so people can startup businesses.

For the first point, I mentioned something in my last post about this, but I want to discuss it in more detail. Primarily because it’s personal; I was once homeless myself, and this first point and what it entails is something I know about.

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