Justin the Just

Justin Trudeau at Gay Pride Parade, Vancouver, 2016; Ben Nelms/Reuters

HISTORY shows that when men or women aspire to the leadership of a country, they almost always come with an ideology—and aspire to leave with a legacy. Few are just mere managers. Whether they are Vladimir Lenin, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Donald Trump, Kim Yong-un, or Angela Merkel; whether they are on the left or the right, an atheist or a Christian, brutal or passive—they intend to leave their mark in the history books, for better or worse (always thinking it is “for the better”, of course). Ambition can be a blessing or a curse.

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, is no exception. In this young, bonny leader, we are seeing history repeat itself once again: a strong ideologue has found the perfect conditions to sow, water, and reap his world-view practically all at once. Only a few dictators in the past century have been so “lucky.” Lenin, Hitler, Castro, Chavez… they were handed their nation’s vulnerability on a platter. In Canada’s case, it is the fertile soil of moral relativism cultivated by a mostly silent clergy, morally weak laymen, and sprinkled with the fertilizer of political correctness.

No wonder Trudeau publicly praised “China’s dictatorship” and fawned over Fidel Castro.^[1]cf. Not My Canada, Mr. Trudeau Those men were given the “gift” that Canadians have essentially handed Trudeau: enough passivity to implement their regime. What they eventually accomplished through jackboots and force, Trudeau has done through democracy and a vapid opposition. In just two short years, he has laid the foundation for a totalitarian state in a country that was once “the true north strong and free.” He has forbidden anyone who is pro-life to govern in his party. He has reinforced gay “marriage” and transgenderism as “Canadian values”, using millions of tax dollars for “ideological colonization” abroad. And now he is withholding grants for summer student programs to any employer who doesn’t first sign an “attestation” that they agree with abortion and transgender “rights.”^[2]cf. LifeSiteNews.com This last manoeuver is such a bold affront to the Canadian Charter of Rights and religious freedom, that one could practically hear the collective gasp at Trudeau’s hubris. Over Christmas, hard-working, productive, and faithful Canadians will be exchanging anxious glances as they wonder just how much longer they have before the “thought police” will literally come knocking at the door.

There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime… having a dictatorship where you can do whatever you wanted, that I find quite interesting. —Justin Trudeau, The National Post, Nov. 8th, 2013

TOWARD TOTALITARIANISM

If the notion of “thought police” sounds like an exaggeration, it’s happening as we speak in that very China that Trudeau openly admired. According to the Associated Press…

…thousands — possibly tens of thousands — of people… have been spirited without trial into secretive detention camps for alleged political crimes that range from having extremist thoughts to merely traveling or studying abroad. The mass disappearances, beginning the past year, are part of a sweeping effort by Chinese authorities to use detentions and data-driven surveillance to impose a digital police state… The government has referred to its detention program as “vocational training,” but its main purpose appears to be indoctrination. — “Digital police state shackles Chinese minority”, Gerry Shih; December 17th, 2017; apnews.com

In 1993, speaking to hundreds of thousands of Catholic youth from all over the world—that is, to Trudeau’s generation—Pope John Paul II warned that their freedom was going to come under direct attack, a prophetic word that is being fulfilled before our very eyes:

‘This marvelous world—so loved by the Father that he sent his only Son for its salvation—is the theater of a never-ending battle being waged for our dignity and identity as free, spiritual beings. This struggle parallels the apocalyptic combat described in [Revelation 12]. Death battles against Life: a “culture of death” seeks to impose itself on our desire to live, and live to the full. There are those who reject the light of life, preferring “the fruitless works of darkness” (Eph 5:11). Their harvest is injustice, discrimination, exploitation, deceit, violence. In every age, a measure of their apparent success is the death of the Innocents. In our own century, as at no other time in history, the “culture of death” has assumed a social and institutional form of legality to justify the most horrible crimes against humanity: genocide, “final solutions”, “ethnic cleansings”, and the massive “taking of lives of human beings even before they are born, or before they reach the natural point of death”… Vast sectors of society are confused about what is right and what is wrong, and are at the mercy of those with the power to “create” opinion and impose it on others. —Homily, Cherry Creek State Park Homily, Denver, Colorado, August 15th, 1993; vatican.va

But if history has shown anything, it’s that no matter how powerful or how persuasive the State can be in imposing its opinion on others, if it is not rooted in truth, it always, always collapses. Like a house built on sand. Or like the banks of a river that eventually fail when the flood of light and justice come sweeping through. It will be so again with Trudeau’s regime, even should it, through his successors, last decades. Eventually, truth will prevail.

In this case, the truth is nature itself.

THE NATURE OF THINGS

The other day, with a sly grin written across his face, my fourteen year old stated: “Dad, I want to identify as an eighteen year old—so I can drink.” He was kidding. But I played along.

“Here’s the problem, sonny boy. Even though you feel you’re eighteen years old, biologically, you are fourteen. There is nothing in the world that can change that; it’s biologically impossible.” I glanced at my seventeen year old who knew where this was going. I couldn’t resist the teaching opportunity. “So too, even if you identify as a woman, your biology tells you that you are a man. There is nothing that can change that, no matter how you feel.” Or is there?

There is a “news” story circulating of an Iranian woman who wanted to look like Angelina Jolie. Reportedly, after several surgeries and thousands of dollars, this poor woman now barely resembles a human being. She is no more Jolie than she was before her first surgery. While the story is now disputed (Photoshop?), there are other documented individuals who have spent a fortune trying to become “Ken” and “Barbie”, Elvis, or someone else through multiple surgeries.

So too, many a boy or girl, man or woman, has employed the knife of a surgeon in order to “change” their sex. But at the end of the day, their cut, stitched, and essentially maimed bodies do not change a biological reality: they remain either a male or a female—the chromosome is beyond the knife.

Thus arises the question of ethics, particularly of technology and advancement. Even if man can make a nuclear bomb, should he? Even if we can alter the weather, should we? Even if we can make robots that work a hundred times faster and more efficiently than a person, should we? Even though we can genetically modify our food, should we? Even though we can clone human beings, should we? And even if we can re-work the plumbing of an individual to resemble the opposite sex, should we?

The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Easter Vigil Homily, April 7th, 2012

The “risk” is that when we lose sight of our objective humanity, of who we are and who we aren’t, then that vacuum is inevitably filled with those ready and willing to redefine it. Enter Justin the Just, defender of minorities and all oppressed (minus Christians) with his sweeping dictates to make everyone and everything equal. This, no doubt, is his desired legacy. However, any law that loses sight of the inviolable dignity of every human being is, by definition, an unjust law.

…civil law cannot contradict right reason without losing its binding force on conscience. Every humanly-created law is legitimate insofar as it is consistent with the natural moral law, recognized by right reason, and insofar as it respects the inalienable rights of every person. —Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons; 6.

And thus, Trudeau, and the dictators he admires, are simply repeating the tragedy of history all over again, but in his case, in the name of “human rights.” However, any unjust right assigned to one human being automatically infringes on the just rights of another.

The process which once led to discovering the idea of “human rights”—rights inherent in every person and prior to any Constitution and State legislation—is today marked by a surprising contradiction… the original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people—even if it is the majority. This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the “right” ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Evangelium Vitae, “The Gospel of Life”, n. 18, 20

When it comes to the unborn, medical science presents an inescapable truth: from the moment of conception, there is a unique, self-contained, living human being in its mother. The only difference at that point between the embryo, and you and me, is that it is younger. All the circumstantial difficulties, feelings, and the like do not change the reality of that living being.

Likewise, when it comes to “gender ideology”, biology tells us that circumstantial difficulties, feelings, and the like cannot change the reality confirmed by medical science, and above all, thousands of years of wisdom and experience.

The complementarity of man and woman, summit of divine creation, is being questioned by the so-called gender ideology, in the name of a more free and just society. The differences between man and woman are not for opposition or subordination, but for communion and generation, always in the “image and likeness” of God. —POPE FRANCIS, address to Puerto Rican Bishops, Vatican City, June 08, 2015

There are those, of course, who do struggle with their sexual identity, and these will only increase as the State mandates that teachers must now say to little boys and girls that they’re not necessarily boys and girls. And they will believe it—just as little children readily believed that Jews were sub-human in Germany, or that blacks were less human in America, or that the unborn are not human at all—just a “blob of flesh.”

The horrors of the manipulation of education that we experienced in the great genocidal dictatorships of the twentieth century have not disappeared; they have retained a current relevance under various guises and proposals and, with the pretense of modernity, push children and young people to walk on the dictatorial path of “only one form of thought”… —POPE FRANCIS, message to members of BICE (International Catholic Child Bureau); Vatican Radio, April 11th, 2014

But Francis also said that we must distinguish between those who genuinely struggle, and those who have a clear ideological agenda to silence opposition. To the former in particular, we must be the face of Christ, with the two eyes of love and truth:

…men and women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however “objectively disordered” and homosexual practices are “sins gravely contrary to chastity.” —Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons; n. 4; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 3, 2003

But so are “heterosexual” inclinations toward adultery, premarital sex, and masturbation. All are called to live within the natural moral law because only “the truth will set you free.”

Of course, the argument is that those with gender-bending tendencies feel that it is “natural” to them to identify with one of the 7o genders or so (and counting). But if we are to base law on what we “feel” is natural, then the law must also respect those whose innate nature is to be repulsed by same-sex attraction—the default of the human species; it must respect that nature itself dictates the propagation of the species is precisely through the union of a man and a woman, and them alone. But today, we have Justin Trudeau essentially damning billions of humans before him who have simply followed their biological makeup and natural instincts, and thus, who insist that the building blocks of society cannot be tampered with: ie. marriage between a man and woman.

Coercion is only the first tool of the totalitarian.

In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished… —POPE BENEDICT XIV, Light of the World, A Conversation with Peter Seewald, p. 53

OUR TOTALITARIAN TIMES

There are two movies that come to mind that are a parable of our times. In the film series The Hunger Games, the ruling class has created an alter reality where the lines between right and wrong, male and female, and good and evil are obscured.

The New Age which is dawning will be peopled by perfect, androgynous beings who are totally in command of the cosmic laws of nature. In this scenario, Christianity has to be eliminated and give way to a global religion and a new world order. —Jesus Christ, The Bearer of the Water of Life, n. 4, Pontifical Councils for Culture and Inter-religious Dialogue

And then, in the movie Inception, the wife of the main character is convinced that the only real world is the one in her head, and that she must commit suicide in order to actually enter reality. It does not matter what her husband tells her, she is convinced she knows the truth that will set her free. But her “truth”—unhinged from logic—becomes her undoing. So it is in our times, especially in Trudeau’s Canada.

…an abstract, negative religion is being made into a tyrannical standard that everyone must follow. That is then seemingly freedom—for the sole reason that it is liberation from the previous situation. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Light of the World, A Conversation with Peter Seewald, p. 52

But as Benedict said elsewhere: “Christians of this time… with love for Christ, for his words and for the Truth… cannot stoop to compromises. The Truth is Truth; there are no compromises. “^[3]cf. General Audience, August 29th, 2012; vatican.va

COURAGE!

In that regard, I hope those of you in Canada, Australia, Britain, and other countries where this new religion is being imposed, will find courage in John Paul II’s closing remarks to the youth at that World Youth Day in 1993:

Do not be afraid to go out on the streets and into public places, like the first Apostles who preached Christ and the Good News of salvation in the squares of cities, towns and villages. This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops. Do not be afraid to break out of comfortable and routine modes of living, in order to take up the challenge of making Christ known in the modern “metropolis”. It is you who must “go out into the byroads” and invite everyone you meet to the banquet which God has prepared for his people. The Gospel must not be kept hidden because of fear or indifference. It was never meant to be hidden away in private. It has to be put on a stand so that people may see its light and give praise to our heavenly Father. —Homily, Cherry Creek State Park Homily, Denver, Colorado, August 15th, 1993; vatican.va

This courage, however, is not so much a feeling we muster but a grace we avail ourselves to. “Prayer” says Pope Benedict, “is not time wasted, it does not take away time from our activities, even apostolic activities, but exactly the opposite is true: only if we are able to have a faithful, constant and trusting life of prayer will God himself give us the ability and strength to live happily and serenely, to surmount difficulties and to witness courageously to him.”^[4]cf. General Audience, August 29th, 2012; vatican.va

That—and we should have absolute confidence in the Truth, which we must propose again and again, “even when policies of States and the majority of public opinion moves in the opposite direction. Truth, indeed, draws strength from itself and not from the amount of consent it arouses”: ^[5]POPE BENEDICT XIV, Vatican, March 20, 2006

With her long tradition of respect for the right relationship between faith and reason, the Church has a critical role to play in countering cultural currents which, on the basis of an extreme individualism, seek to promote notions of freedom detached from moral truth. Our tradition does not speak from blind faith, but from a rational perspective which links our commitment to building an authentically just, humane and prosperous society to our ultimate assurance that the cosmos is possessed of an inner logic accessible to human reasoning. The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a “language” which enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being, and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral teaching as a message not of constraint but of liberation, and as the basis for building a secure future. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Address to the Bishops of the United States of America, Ad Limina, January 19th, 2012; vatican.va

I wish to invite young people to open their hearts to the Gospel and become Christ’s witnesses; if necessary, His martyr-witnesses, at the threshold of the Third Millennium. —ST. JOHN PAUL II to the youth, Spain, 1989

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1	cf. Not My Canada, Mr. Trudeau
↑2	cf. LifeSiteNews.com
↑3	cf. General Audience, August 29th, 2012; vatican.va
↑4	cf. General Audience, August 29th, 2012; vatican.va
↑5	POPE BENEDICT XIV, Vatican, March 20, 2006