Bishop as social activist?

Recently the Anglican bishop of Quebec Dennis Drainville posted a powerful rejection of the anti-democratic Harper government. To many this was verboten, but judging from responses on his blog, most thought his personal blast was appropriate and in then prophetic tradition.Drainville says he has always been a social activist.

My own thinking is that it should go with the territory.Anybody standing in a leadesrship position in the church should be a social activist. When you say  “Christian “, it should not be necessary to add “social activist. Since creation is unfinished, Christians must always be “active” in promoting the values of the Kingdom, It should not be necessary to hide this. One longs for bishops like this in the Catholic church, virtually silent on the major issues of the day particularly climate change. The  single most important issue in our lifetime goes virtually unaddressed by so-called leaders like Toronto’s Tom Collins.It is no secret that the cardinal is a pal of  Tory cabinet minister Jason Kenney and shares his right-wing agenda.Catholics looking for leadership here are doomed to disappointment.

Bishop Drainville speaks

As I watch the unfolding of events in Ottawa I see the opposition parties locked into a parliamentary party system which by its present structure has rendered them uncreative and ineffective. The changes in parliament over the last 30 years have diminished the role of Parliament to such a point that it no longer has the capacity to serve the interests of the common good. Parliament rather, has become the opposite of what it was meant to be: the forum wherein the needs and aspirations of all its citizens are expressed and llegitimized through the proposing of policies and legislation and the intentional and rigorous debating of the same with the aim of building up the Body Politic to the common good of all its citizens.

How sad and distressing it is to see the sham, the play acting that presently characterizes the statements and actions of the supposed Government of Canada. (It does not even deserve the name of government ) I thought that I was cynical and had seen too much in my life regarding politics and public posturing, but never in the over 40 years of following parliament have I seen this depth of depravity. In the last 12 months I have seen clearly  the rise of tyrranical policies and the application of such mind and state control that the people of Canada , unless they soon react, will find themselves not only slaves to  a corporate and political domination they never chose but they will experience the extinguishing of any of the hopes and dreams that they once had for a nation firmly based upon the foundations of compassion, justice and peace.

For God’s sake, for all of our sakes, wake-up Canada