DIOCESE OF VICTORIA CLERICAL SEX ABUSE HISTORY NEEDED NOW

Somehow, by the grace of God, I am still a Catholic, but I don’t know why.

Like many confused Catholics who are praying for the victims of clerical sex abuse, I am also thinking very hard about what it means to be a Catholic now that even the Pope seems to be seriously implicated in this horrendous scandal.

I have no interest in the Vatican’s pathetic attempts to somehow divest Pope Benedict XVI from being personally responsible for his own actions or omissions over many years as he climbed the clerical ladder to the top job in Rome.  

That is a cop-out.

Nor am I impressed by those compromised priests like Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who lauded him shamelessly during a solemn Easter Sunday High Mass in Saint Peter’s.

That man was a great defender, like Pope John Paul II, of the notorious Father Marcial Maciel Degolado, founder of the Legion of Christ.

Is it a sin to question the ‘doctrine’ of infallibility?

Is the present Pope a self-loathing homosexual who has sublimated his own predilections?

Was Pope Paul VI  also a homosexual, as the tradionalist website Tradition and Action seems to suggest?

How long has this problem of homosexual pederasty and pedophilia invaded the Vatican and spread throughout the whole of the Church of the People of God, if reports of diabolic possession and widespread corruption of the Vatican clergy are to be believed?

I certainly don’t think there is any evidence whatsoever that any Pope is infallible  on matters of faith and morals, nor on any matter at all, certainly not this one, nor his predecessor, nor Paul VI, for that matter.

That is an exceptional claim of a hubristic nature, un-Christian in its audacity.

The supposed ‘moral authority’ of all three of them has been seriously compromised by what we now know happened on their watch.

They all failed miserably as Popes to lead the people in truth, and I daresay anyone who continues to defend this shameful record of neglect is compromised, and frankly, defending the institution of the papacy in all its decadence, and not really interested in true justice for the suffering victims of these crimes.

If we need a pope at all, we need one who is humble, quick to admit his human frailty and weakness, and yes, his propensity to sin, like all of us; in other words, we need a Christian confessing Pope, not a ‘Roman’ one in deep denial.

No man or woman on this planet is above reproach, including ‘Papa’ Joseph Ratzinger.

He should therefor offer free access to all secret Vatican clerical sex abuse history files to the Italian police, Interpol, the FBI or whichever police agency is most competent to deal with this global problem of abusing priests and the bishops’ cover-up.

He should similarly order all bishops to open their secret  clerical sex abuse history files to local police agencies in every country where the Catholic Church operates, whether that country has a known history of clerical sex abuse or not. 

That would and should include the as-yet unreleased secret files of the history of  clerical sex abuse in the Diocese of Victoria, where I assume that some problems arose that were swept under the rug, as they apparently were almost everywhere else in the Catholic world.

A proper history of the problem of clerical sex and physical abuse of children, teens and women in the Diocese of Victoria has yet to be written.

There are a couple of reasons why this has not yet happened, and they pertain to the politicization of the Diocese’s official newspaper The Diocesan Messenger, and of its dissident monthly counterpart, The Island Catholic News (ICN).

The former is a poorly designed and editorially timid quarterly steeped in the corporatist clericalism of  what can only be called the fascist wing of the Church in Victoria.  

The latter is a self-described ‘independent journal of prophetic Catholicism,’ steeped in socialist rhetoric, that regularly runs ads for the local member of Parliament, a pro-abort career politician in the New Democratic Party, Denise Savoie.

ICN is edited by Patrick Jamieson, who published a ‘popular history’ of the Diocese of Victoria in 1997 entitled Victoria Demers to De Roo: 150  years of Catholic History on Vancouver Island, and a hagiography of his favorite Victoria bishop in 2002, entitled In the Avant Garde: The Prophetic Catholicism of Remi De Roo.

Patrick Jamieson is so enamoured of Remi De Roo, who served as Bishop of Victoria for almost 37 years, between 1962 and 1999, he somehow managed to omit any reference in either book to any clerical sex or physical abuse history in the Diocese during that whole period.

That’s quite a dereliction of duty, if I may say so in all charity, even for a supposed ‘popular historian’ who positions himself as some sort of prophet of the left.

There is no mention of the clerical sex abuse issue at all in the Index of either book, something that I find extremely odd, bearing in mind that De Roo was known to be friendly to dissident, defrocked and married priests during that time, and that this period is generally recognized as the most problematic in terms of gross numbers of abusers identified and then transfered to other locales by the ‘cover up bishops.’ 

Representing the old guard, Monsignor Philip M. Hanley, now apparently demented, had help last year from a committee of loving Catholics who helped him publish his unfinished magnum opus entitled The Early History of the CATHOLIC CHURCH on Vancouver Island, 1843 – 1901.

This book has no Index at all, and I have not yet finished reading it, but the period in question is so distant, that it would be surprising if even veiled references to the problem were to be found in the ancient records, so it is not really relevant here.

It is long past time to write a properly researched and referenced professional history of the problem of the sex and physical abuse of children, teens and women in the Diocese of Victoria, but it should not be written only by the present bishop, but also by both of his living predecessors (bishops Raymond Roussin and Remi De Roo), by the victims, by disinterested lay Catholic canon and civil lawyers, police officers, doctors, therapy councillors and lay historians.

This particular proposed history of the People of God in the Diocese of Victoria, far from being ‘petty gossip,’ as the Pope lamentably suggested such concerns are the other day, would rather help our local Church heal, being part of a type of ‘truth and reconciliation’ process.

Although no statute of limitations should limit this research, practically speaking it should concern itself with the recent period from circa 1950 – 2010. 

Prior to writing this post, I checked at the Diocese of Victoria and Saint Andrew’s Cathedral websites, and was shocked and disappointed to find nothing of relevance to these horrific newstories easily found in all the world’s newspapers.

The silence of the present bishop (Richard Gagnon), the Cathedral Rector Father John Laszczyyk, other priests and their bureaucrats at the Diocese and at the Cathedral with respect to this problem is deafening.

It is also time to open the secret sex and sadistic physical abuse history files, allow the victims, priests, or other sane people with any credible allegations or new information about old or ongoing cases of sexual or sadistic physical abuse by priests, brothers or nuns in the Diocese of Victoria to finally come forward in a public forum to set the record straight.

If need be, those victims should press criminal charges, and those guilty priests or other sexual predators should confess and turn themselves in to the secular authorities.

To finally bring justice to the victims, to properly prosecute predators, and to protect innocent priests, brothers and nuns, the best course of action is to allow the presumption of innocence to be maintained in a secular court , until such time as clear culpability is determined.

The Church should be co-operating with all legitimate secular authorities needing legitimate access to legal or other documents, rather than resorting to scapegoating practices of obfuscation, defence or evasion.

So as to protect the laity from having their parish churches sold off to pay out victims, the Diocese should divest the Bishop of Victoria from his legal title to all properties currently ‘owned’ by him (as ‘corporation sole’), and deed them back to the parishes.

Compensation to victims should be paid by the abuser himself.

If that is not possible because of insolvency, parish councils should help the priest or bishop pay the victims with loans taken out on the equity of parish properties.

Under no circumstances should parishioners lose their parish churches because of the criminal sins of their priests or bishops, as this compounds the injustice already done to the victims by further victimizing innocent parishioners.

Once he has ordered these inventories and forums to be done in every Diocese on the planet, the Pope and all Cardinals who elected him should resign.

They should all make themselves available for interrogation by any and all police agencies that might need to talk to them.

Our prayers will be with them, as they would be extended to any miserable Christian sinner who repents, that the grace of God’s infinite mercy might soften their stiff necks, and help them repent of their foolish pride.

Gregory Paul Michael Hartnell, Editor

Easter Week 2010

LA ROSA

DEDICATION NOT MEDICATION…by David Burke

+++  An essay on the Plight of the Mentally Afflicted [reprinted, with occasional editing, from the May 2008, Vol. 22, No. 4 of Island Catholic News]  ++  I am legally bound to take a shot at the Eric Martin meds clinic.  Missing this shot means ultimately being arrested.  I’m not sure the meds are the true answer to my problems.  A little more cash from the government would smooth over dire emotional issues.  ++  I’ve had my wars with the psychiatric system.  In the eighties I was so disgusted by my treatment that I fled the country for the States and lived there for three and a half years, happily unmedicated.  We’ve all seen ‘Cuckoo’s Nest.’  Well, part of it is true.  ++  I recall so many brutal lessons learned in Vancouver’s notorious Riverview in the eighties.  I developed a lifelong hatred of the practice of over-medication.  It seemed to me – and I had no way to know that I was right – that to medicate someone, to alter the chemistry of their brain in order to have them love you was a practice that belonged in the Roman Coliseum not the modern hospital.  ++  Being a quiz kid from a way back and potential Rhodes scholar, I long ago realized that my problem was not a chemical imbalance in the brain but a very faulty awareness of the exact ramifications of anti-social behaviour.  ++  All through the sixties and seventies, I was something of a rebel in hair, deportment, speech, drug use, sexual mores and politics and so when I found myself heavily medicated in 1982, behind bars, with no rights, I had to assume that I had not erred on the side of caution and as a deeply religious person, had to renew my bonds with the Saviour and put myself totally in his hands.  ++  Riverview was an absolute nightmare.  A ward with fifteen men scribbling and smoking furiously.  I became a heavy smoker then and there, and began a lifelong battle with the noxious weed, trying to find some humour in smoking two packs a day at times.  The food was terrible.  We had no rights.  We were totally subject to the whims and sarcasms of the overpaid guards and waiting long hours for the effete doctors to put in a mystical appearance.  Sometimes they didn’t show at all but appeared days later, tanned and refreshed, having been on vacation.  ++  It was more than a study in annoyance.  It was a positive ordeal and by then I was already a minor star of the stage, screen and television and all my credits seemed to count for naught.  No one cared what I had done in a previous existence.  I prayed on a daily basis to the good Lord and sometimes my prayers were answered.  I found a little solace in reading and every night prayed for sleep to deliver me to the Paradise I had been promised by the Anglican Church, as the great grandson of the Bishop of British Columbia.  ++ What had I done to deserve such a fate?  Merely broken a large window after seeing some junkies shooting up at a party.  I lost all faith then and there in the significance of the Crown, the efficacy of British Justice and the fairness of the Courts.  I had absolutely no rights, subject to a thirty day assessment to see if I was fit to stand trial.  Mentally, I prepared to leave Canada for good, forsake my family and cut all ties with my friends and artistic support team.  They extracted from us four vials of blood every three days.  We were being used as guinea pigs.  ++  One day the Lord Jesus Christ walked through the wall and placed his hand on my shoulder just as I was frozen immobile reeling from an allergic reaction to the drug haloperidol, invented by the Nazis in 1942.  He said “All will be well, you will live to triumph over these fools.”  ++  There are more rights for mental patients in Britain and the U.S.  Canada lags atrociously behind in the treatment of the different, the wayward, the confused and the enlightened.  Of this I am sure.  And the Province of B. C. has the worst record in Canada.  ++  I got into hot water all through the eighties and nineties.  I just couldn’t get it through my thick skull that I was dealing with a brutal, totalitarian system that cared nothing for gardens, poetry, Shakespeare or magic, that payed itself handsomely for doing next to nothing and vacationed every year in Florida.  ++  Finally, in 2000, the penny dropped.  I lost nearly everything in a housing fiasco and had a good talk with myself and the Saviour over money, rights, property and the figment of artistic recognition.  I’m happier now but my God-given rights are still being violated.  I’m 55 and thinking of spending my golden years in Britain where they elect loonies to high office, not drug them and beat them with rods.  ++  Not to sound like Conrad Black, in Britain I would be eligible for an MBE for deeds accomplished .  It’s a different set of rules.  I love my Canada but it has almost destroyed me and if it weren’t for a poetic gift that needs to be shared and a circle of close friends, I would long ago have departed this planet for good.  ++  [This essay appeared on page 4 of the current issue of ICN with a black and photo of the author taken from a Concerned Citizens' Coalition 2005 campaign poster with the legend: 'VOTE DAVID BURKE, Freelance Cinematographer, Mental Health Advocate, Cultural Policy Advocate, VICTORIA CITY COUNCIL,' designed by 'Goyo de la Rosa.']  +++ 

MONSIGNOR MICHAEL O’CONNELL: Father Mike ‘A Gentle Soul Who Stewarded’ by Gregory Hartnell, Victoria

+++  [Reprinted from the May 2008, Volume 22 No. 4 edition of Island Catholic News, after slight editing from the original]  ++  ’Father Mike,’ as he came to be called, was a gentle soul who stewarded Saint Andrew’s Cathedral as Rector, and also served in many other Diocesan parishes where he was well-loved for his gentle pastoral manner, his sympathetic and empathetic listening skills, his firm but non-judgmental manner in the confessional, and his old-fashioned piety in praying the Mass and serving Eucharist to the People of God.  ++  I first became acquainted with him when attending Mass at the Cathedral church with my family.  His love of Christ and the Church came through brilliantly in his homilies.  His sermons were often thought-provoking, based on his extensive reading of the Holy Scriptures, Church history and contemporary papal documents.  ++  He was aware of topical events, but he was old-fashioned and soft-spoken when addressing contemporary problems, and somehow managed to accommodate his temperament and style of being with the innovations of the Second Vatican Council.  ++  As an altar boy at the Cathedral, I had the privilege of serving him at many Masses, including the old Latin rite.  He was always very patient with the altar boys, and never once do I remember being chastised for making a mistake in serving him at the altar, which I did regularly.  ++  I recall visiting him at the University of Ottawa where he kindly endorsed my application for a Canadian passport.  I wasn’t sure what he was doing there, and remember hoping at the time that he would come back to Victoria, which thankfully he did, to serve for many more years.  ++  Even in his supposed retirement, he continued to hear confessions, to pray Masses, to attend to the dying, such as my own faithfully departed late mother Sheila Mary Margaret Hartnell (nee Turnbull) and her third-born son and my dearly departed brother Adrian Thomas Hartnell, and to generally make himself available as many older priests of his generation such as Father William Hill and Father Andre Dion and others do to this day, filling in the gaps of the mythical priest shortage.  ++  HIs manner in the confessional was non-threatening, and one always left Monsignor after receiving absolution confident that one had made what is popularly called ‘a good confession.’  ++  During some of the long years of the Saint Anne’s Academy saga, he sat at monthly meetings with Tom Loring, Marnie Butler, Pat Jamieson, myself and others on the board of the ‘Island Catholic News.’  There he would often give us laypeople the official or clerical view of local Church matters, including Bishop De Roo’s hands-off policy with respect to the endangered old Catholic convent.  ++  While those positions were sometimes at variance with those of the laypeople, we all managed somehow, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, to remain respectful of each other’s positions.  ++  He was, however, very courageous in that he was one of the few priests in the Diocese who would bother to occasionally send letters to the editor of the local newspapers, especially if there was a need to defend the Church’s position on matters of controversy in the secular world.  I am grateful to acknowledge that he was the only priest that publicly supported the Concerned Citizens when we objected to the attempt to show a pornographic film in the auditorium of Saint Anne’s Academy.  Sister Mary Margaret Cantwell, the historian and archivist of the Sisters of Saint Anne, also wrote a good letter to the papers of the day decrying the proposed screening.  ++  My last talk with Monsignor was a difficult one and for which I must learn to forgive him.  I had read in the ‘Diocesan Messenger’ monthly newspaper, the official publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria, that a few positions on the Diocesan Finance Committee were to become vacant.  Monsignor O’Connell was the appointed man to screen the applicants.  I phoned him up and told him that I was interested in helping the committee.  ++  He proceeded to interrogate me in a manner that I must say I found demeaning and degrading, asking me what made me think that I was qualified.  Frankly, I was shocked by his condescension to me, and he effectively discouraged me from writing a letter to him detailing why they should accept me.  ++  I believe that my main mistake was in telling him beforehand that I had grave misgivings about the way the Diocese was being administered in terms of its finances, citing the disgraceful Lacey land lawsuits and all the rest of the of the scandalous recent history of episcopal waste and bureaucratic obfuscation.  ++  So, in this regard of his closing ranks with the secretive bishops when it came time to be accountable, he was a man with feet of clay, like the rest of us.  I can and do forgive him now, but only by the grace of the Holy Spirit am I able to do so.  ++  May God bless his soul.  +++ 

MOUNT SAINT MARY HOSPITAL CRISIS by Anne Ray, Island Catholic News, February 2008

+++  Mount Saint Mary Hospital and other long-term care facilities have been much in the news recently.  My mother resides there.  ++  Mount Saint Mary Hospital is owned and operated by the Marie Esther Society (Sisters of St. Ann) and is a  not-for-profit charitable organization with a governing Board.  The Hospital is of particular interest to Catholics, although the issue of long-term care in general is a concern to those of us who already have family members in care, or who realize that we, or someone close to us, may one day need to be a resident of such a long-term care facility.  ++  Currently two parallel campaigns are under way – the first is to protest Vancouver Island Health Authority’s (VIHA) funding cuts which affect the operational (or resident care) side of Mount St. Mary Hospital.  The second campaign, conducted by the Mount St. Mary Foundation, is to raise funds for resident activities, pastoral care, music therapy, volunteer recruitment, and staff and  volunteer education in palliative care and practical nursing.  ++  Letters and articles in the local press have focused on operational cuts proposed by VIHA.  Last summer Mount Saint Mary’s had a shortfall of $1,100,000 in  operational funding; and over the next three years the budget is to be reduced by $900,000.  Cuts to facilities which fall in line with the new model of care of 3.24 hours of care per resident are also planned at Kiwanis Pavilion and Broadmead Lodge long-term care facilities.  ++  STAFF REDUCTION  ++  Last year Mount Saint Mary Hospital was forced to let go 22 staff on the operational side, seriously impacting the quality of care as witnessed by a letter signed by seven practicing doctors at Mount Saint Mary.  Their letter decried the decreasing standard of care at the Hospital and stated that any budget cuts would be intolerable for residents.  ++  If further cuts are made, without question more staff will be cut in the future: an estimated 20 positions.  Reducing staffing levels in an already overstretched situation will cause elderly and frail residents to suffer further loss of comfort and dignity; as a result we could see an increase in illness and possibly premature death in some cases.  ++  VIHA’s response to date has been to deny that the proposed funding model will be detrimental to residents’ care, and also to deny that in a hospital which has already lost essential staff and is expecting further cuts (to comply with the model of 3.24 hours of care per resident) the safety, as well as the quality, of residents’ care will be affected.  ++  To obtain more information about the campaign protesting the cuts or to be involved in the protest contact campaign chair Jinx Barber – email: savesaintmarys@gmail.com.  ++  PETER AND PAUL  ++  I believe that ultimately the decision about operational funding levels should be guided by the citizens of British Columbia, who have expressed their wishes through numerous letters to the local media.  The recommendations of doctors and health professionals should carry more weight than ‘targeted care hours per resident numbers’ produced by VIHA.  ++  Standards in other care factilities should be raised if needed, but robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the way to go.  If revenue needs to be increased for standards to be maintained, the government needs to let the public know that.  Money certainly seems to be available for cost overruns for the Vancouver Convention Centre and other projects.  ++  The second campaign relates to the programs supported by the Mount Saint Mary Foundation, which are a vital part of residents’ spiritual and psychological well-being.  The goal of the Foundation is to have residents live every day to the fullest extent possible.  When this happens residents suffer less stress and are less vulnerable to depression.  To support the Foundation programs, the long-term goal is to raise $5,000,000 over 5 years to fund programs during that period and to create an Endowment Fund, which would be self-sustaining in the future.  ++  This campaign is being supported by the Catholic Bishop of Victoria and will be promoted in local parishes in the near future.  Already $1,000,000 has been raised in pledges and donations.  ++  More details about programs and the fundraising campaign and how to donate can be found at the Foundation website: www.msmfoundation.ca/.  Questions about the campaign can be directed to Mandy Parker, Executive Director, email address: MParker@msmfoundation.ca.  +++   

MARGARET PATRICIA HARRIS 1923-2007 by Patrick Jamieson, Island Catholic News, February 2008, Vol 22, No 1

+++  ICN FEB 2008:  MOURNING MARGARET: ONE YEAR ON…One year after the death of his dear mother Margaret Patricia Harris (1923-2007), ICN Founding Editor and former Concerned Citizens’ Coalition  candidate Patrick Jamieson writes about the mourning process in these excerpts from the original longer piece printed in the latest February 2008 number of the Island Catholic News in a full page article, on page three.  The article is accompanied by a black and white photo of the author’s late mother with his father James Jamieson, with the accompanying caption: ‘Margaret and Jim Jamieson circa 1951 in Edmonton.  At that point they had two sons with four more children to follow in the decade of the 50s.’  +++  It will be a year February 8th since my mother died and seems time to remember a few more significant aspects of her personality, life and dynamics in our collective family.  ++  We are all having a very difficult time, I would say, in integrating her physical disappearance.  ++  My sister Christine and I wrote tributes and eulogies a year ago at the time of the death which were printed in Island Catholic News.  ++  Mourning, it seems to me, requires self-conscious processing if we are to truly grow through it.  If we are to reap the benefits mourning grants to us as a grace.  ++  Too often the funeral itself is seen as a sour imposition upon family and friends and perhaps should be done without.  As Christians and Catholics my family feel they have no real choice.  It is spiritually too important to say goodbye properly and start the process of living beyond.  ++  The funeral and the year following were a critically important period of growth for those left behind, a gift just as much as the ones granted when she was alive.  ++  For my mother was someone who in her being granted gifts by her mere presence.  It was always a pleasure as a youth to introduce my close friends to her, knowing her charm would work on them.  I enjoyed watching how they reacted as it would reveal something about them, their character.  ++  She was hospitable and graceful in her loving way.  Personally what I miss most is just being able to sit in her presence and connect.  Chat about the day.  Bring her up to date on what is going on in the community, with the newspaper and often within the petty world of politics within the Catholic church.  That connection was a metaphysical compass bearing which gave meaning and direction to the deeper regions of my life.  ++ II.  She went to Saint Anne’s Academy, graduating in 1940, so her roots were in the region, although she travelled away with my father’s military postings until 1977 when they could return upon retirement to help care for her mother who lived on the Island from 1920, coming from Northern England at Darlington, a Quaker town.  ++  My father, after sixty-five years of married life together, it must be said, misses her the most acutely.  Although some of her children are close behind.  She was one of those people with a sort of personality that insinuates itself deeply and permanently into your psyche.  She was not to be denied.  In a good sense, as they say.  ++  My father, I would say, has had a very hard time filling in the gap.  He still lives in their condominium apartment but finds it haunted.  Wanting to move out of its confines but realizing it is much too soon.  Their apartment represents physically what we have left of her in a way.  A sort of permanent shrine, none of her children wish to see it sold yet.  ++  Christmas was interesting that way.  The feelings from the years when she constructed and reconstructed the traditions that had grown up through the years.  Because we were a rootless military family sort of group; Vancouver, Edmonton,  Whitehorse, Ottawa and Oromocto, New Brunswick as well as Chilliwack, Winnipeg and finally Victoria all added their dimensions.  It always seemed like it would go on forever with her mystically at the helm.  ++  My father has kept up his refugee work but with an obvious lessening of intensity at age 86.  But of course he realizes that it is all largely a distraction from this gaping maw at the centre of our collective life created by her passing.  His challenge, and ours, is to symbolically let her go again and again over these next few years.  ++  Just before my mother passed, a great grandson, Jamie, was born who she was able to hold two months before her death.  Now within the year of her passing a great granddaughter, Poppy, is born in Winnipeg and my father looks forward to meeting her soon.  ++  My sister, Rita, who lives in Winnipeg has drawn the connection already in her visiting with the baby and feels it helps in some small if concrete way.  The tangible experience of healing through mourning.  ++  … IV.  My mother’s creativity was how she created a whole phenomenal universe for her family.  Physically and emotionally.  It was a power she took for granted yet tempered with an alluring charm and graciousness.  She  rarely had to threaten.  He method of discipline was largely that of charm.  One never wished to disappoint her or go against her best values.  It lent itself to great difficulty when it was time to leave the emotional security of the family nest.  ++  She could be fiercely aggressive and highly articulate in defending and explaining her values, particularly in the earlier years when it was key to our earliest and permanent formation.  ++  This whole way of life she wove, converged at a central point in the values and spiritual principles that guided us out through its cone at the end and into weaving similar patterns in our own lives, ones that we had all but unconsciously learned.  ++  As my sister wrote in her eulogy, such a richly symbolic figure when she dies leave a huge gap.  The temptation is to try to fill that gap with another person, frenzied activity or some other false substitution.  ++  But as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: “Nothing can make up for the absence of someone we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a kind of substitute: we must simply hold out and see it through.  This sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us.  It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap: he doesn’t fill it, but on the contrary He keeps it empty and so helps us keep alive our communion with each other.”  +++ 

Alms for Oblivion – Everything Costs Money by DAVID BURKE, ISLAND CATHOLIC NEWS, February, 2008, Vol 22 No 1, Guest Editorial

+++  I write out of sheer desperation.  Some people write for pleasure, enjoy the process and make money; I’ve made a little while struggling on the disability pension for the past twenty frustrating quasi-suicidal years and when I think back to when I read all of Proust – au recherche de temps grande fondu – I  think that man really had the real ticket, in spite of a lack of humour, and perhaps I love my electric typewriter more than any member of the opposite hex.  Everything costs money.  ++  The structure I impose on myself to avoid insanity is a dubious one but it works.  Commodity – the bias of the world according to Shakespeare – my refuge and bane.  The price of everthing.  While we all know that welfare is a death sentence, sometimes there are small victories that make the whole thing worthwhile, but the thirty-nine thousand dollar Jag-dream awaits.  One day I will write for money.  One day I will date J. K. Rowlings and the Queen of England.  One day.  We live forever on the never never back in my hometown.  ++  Tomorrow is cheque day and the poor of B. C. can breathe easy for a second, with Christmas coming and the sun always shining on Welfare Wednesday.  Beating the system is a full-time occupation and every government office should employ a small core of system beaters, just to be on the safe side.  When every farthing counts every penny looms large.  When every penny has signficance a twenty spot is still a windfall, even though it can hardly buy anything et al.  ++  I retired from acting because there was no money in it, sold a few paintings and reinvented myself as a writer of small chapbooks.  A meagre war.  A war of attrition.  George Orwell and his downs and outs very much became a god to me.  I thought of changing my name to Eric Blair.  Ordinary milk I cut in half, which makes a tolerable cup of coffee, with extra brown sugar stolen from Starbucks.  Toilet paper I buy in single rolls.  I use dishsoap for my laundry and buy tea candles in bulk.  Every now and then I buy two bottles of wine and have a welfare party.  This is as good as it gets.  ++  It’s a crying shame and grievous sin when money means everything, yet underneath the gay camaraderie, the joking, the drinks, the winks, the watching videos and making frantic love is the ticking of the clock of money, for those where time is money and money is time and finally one is driven to church to say please sir, I’d like a little more….time.  ++  So we all reap alms for oblivion.  For it is to the church that we must ultimately turn when times get rough, and times have been so very rough over these last twenty long years.  ++  I’m in constant pain and constant prayer mode.  Poverty is depression and anger is depression in another form, but I can’t market my anger, and so must subdue it, allay it, deploy it and finally satirize it, before the past twenty-seven years become a cross which I bear, from which I learn nothing, bearing only bitter fruit.  ++  Sure I wear clothes with stains on them.  I’m proud of the stains… to me a badge of honour and an indication that I never sold out or sold myself short.  The alms for oblivion take many forms and exactly what was the oblivion Shakespeare spoke of and the great sized monster of ingratitude.  How grateful should we be for our blessings and how willing to move to where the grass is greener and the bananas riper and the lotuses faster and sleeker???  ++  A cup of coffee is heaven, salmon and mayo a benefice and a donut with filling the high life; a day without a touthache is a good day and the evidence of hot water for a bath is the evidence of a God, who art not David Bowie.  ++  Many times I have been suicidal – tobacco-related illness and the ghosts of George Orwell and Beckett hover close by and assure there will be tailor mades in heaven.  Finally I have my superb books to sustain me in moments of smoker’s cough.  The pages crack open.  I enter and escape.  One day I shall not return.  And then the bus pass will not be so important.  The window is open… The field is clear for jumping.  But upwards with wings or downwards in smoke is anyone’s guess, and then the many many I have helped with their little lives are going to have to fend for themselves, as I make my way towards the podium.  +++ 

JURIANA: DAVID JURE, David Burke, John David Burke @ Concerned Citizens’ Coalition Weblog @ goyodelarosa.wordpress.com

+++  Island Catholic News is one of the very few publications in Victoria besides LA ROSA that has the courage to publish the work of DAVID JURE.  A Special Section is set aside here in the Blogroll of the Concerned Citizens’ Coalition WE BLOG site for this genius  GLOBAL ARTIST OF ARTS under the heading ‘JURIANA.’  It will pertain to anything written by or about DAVID JURE, JOHN DAVID BURKE, or DAVID BURKE.  The following link takes one to the Island Catholic News website.  David has a piece entitled ‘Alms for Oblivion – Everything Costs Money,’ in the current February number of ICN, which will be reprinted here as a new posting, and added to the website blogroll…if possible!  ++  http://www.islandnet.com/~icn/  +++

Print Culture in Victoria Began on Franciscan Press from California by Gregory Paul Hartnell, Victoria

+++  A Special Historical Edition of the Times Colonist newspaper, the monopoly daily, commemorates 150 years and contains an interesting article on one of the very first of the printing presses used in the colonial city, which could be of interest to all Christians in the area, and particularly to the Catholics, as it was bought from the old mission church run by the Franciscans at San Luis Rey, in California.  ++  It was bought, according to the article, by Bishop Modeste Demers, first Catholic Bishop of Victoria, who used it to produce one of Victoria’s earliest publications.  How early?  The Times Colonist article is unclear about this point.  ++  Laurette Agnew wrote in French about this printing press and the French language and other publications that were printed on it in the book ‘Presence Francophone a Victoria, C. B. 1843 – 1987,’ which I have in my library.  Accoring to Agnew, it was Victoria’s fourth earliest publication, a French publication that was supposed to come out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  ++  ’Le Courrier de la Nouvelle Caledonie’ was typeset and edited by ‘a French nobleman’ by the name of Count Paul de Garro (or De Garo), and later sold by Bishop Demers to the ‘Colonist”s founder, the celebrated Amor de Cosmos.  ++  Laurette Agnew maintains that the ‘Courrier’ [press] was not only used to produce a French language publication, but that it was of French origin, something about which the anonymous Times Colonist article says nothing.  ++  ’Ce journal fut publie les lundi, mercredi et vendredi de chaque semaine, il comprenait une edition hebdomadaire pour les mines dont le premier  parut le 11 spetembre 1858.  ++   ‘Ce journal se disait catholique et aurait ete imprime sur une presse importee de France qui appartenait a Mgr. Modeste Demers’ (‘Presence Francophone a Victoria, C. B. 1843-1987, Laurette Agnew, p. 21).  ++  It would stand to reason that the press would have been of French or Quebecois origin, in order to have the type for the few French language editions of the ‘Courrier’ that were actually printed.  The silence of the ‘T-C’ on this point speaks of a kind of historical amnesia that persists from the English colonial period with respect to all things Catholic and French in origin, from my point of view.  ++  In his history of the Roman Catholic Church on Vancouver Island, Patrick Jamieson also writes about this old press under the heading: FIRST CATHOLIC PRESS.  ’Edith Down relates a curious yet revealing saga of a printing press that Demers brought to the region, apparently the first such one “on which he intended to print a paper in the French language.”  ++  ’When the press came into the possession of the Bishop in 1856, it was already 100 years old.  Originally, it had been donated by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith to the American missions and Bishop Demers procured it through the Franciscan Fathers of San Luis Rey, California.  ++  ’A political refugee from France, Count Paul De Garo, arrived in Victoria in time to be of some assistance to Bishop Demers in handling the press.  He had some experience in typography, so with the old hand-press, he edited the French paper ‘Le Courrier.’  It was not a successful venture and its issues appeared only between September and December 1858…’  ++  Jamieson remarks that the historian of the Sisters of St. Ann’s ‘reportage is a study in ironic understatement about this man who must be considered the first Catholic editor in the diocese’ (Victoria: Demers to De Roo, Patrick Jamieson, 1997).  ++  In her groundbreaking study on my ancestor William Hartnell (‘Don Guillermo Arnell’), the Californian historian Susanna Bryant Dakin wrote of the demise of these Franciscan mission churches along the old Camino Real: ‘Don Guillermo with his assistant went from San Diego to San Luis Rey, following the line of the ocean’s edge.  For twenty leagues or more, they rode continuously over softly rolling hills turning a golden brown in the summer sun.  Finally they turned inland to the beautiful site of San Luis Rey, set back on an eminence a league from the seashore.  ++   ‘Here they came on a scene of utter desolation.  In the short time since Father Peyri’s departure, a plague of grasshoppers had completed the destruction started by human beings.  Says Hartnell:  ”The vineyards in general are in a very sad state.”  His inventory of what formerly had been the second richest establishment in California is pitifully small, showing for instance, that where thousands of cattle once roamed the pasture lands, now only sixty-four yoke of oxen and thirty-four head of breeding cattle are left.  According to the administrator, Don Pio Pico, most of the Indians have run away, a few to live in the nearby Pueblo de las Flores.’ (Susanna Bryant Dakin, The Lives of William Hartnell, page 221).  +++   This article was originally printed at LibraryThing, at the following link:  http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=26790  ++  It was also printed in the February number of Island Catholic News, a copy of which I found yesterday at Wellburn’s on Cook Street while shopping in the evening with my dear wife Dawn.  The ICN article has a few problems of editing, some of which I have attempted to correct here.  I apologize to French readers that I am not properly equiped to do French accentuation.  Any errors in that regard here or in the ICN article, which appears on page 8, Volume 22, Number 1 of Island Catholic News, are solely my own responsibility, and I apologize here for them.  +++ 

New colour art by GREGORY HARTNELL (alias: ‘Goyo de la Rosa’), ICN Island Catholic News, January 2008, Volume 21 No 12

+++  Island Catholic News’ February number is in production now, according to my good friend Patrick Jamieson, founding editor, and former Concerned Citizens’ Coalition candidate, and should be hot off the press in a few days.  I aimed to attend an ICN board meeting recently but missed getting into Pat’s controlled entrance apartment building by coming late, so don’t know what they have planned for February, aside from an article I wrote about the first printing press used by Bishop Demers and Catholic editor Paul de Garro to produce ‘Le Courrier de la Nouvelle Caledonie’ and the ‘Colonist’, some of Victoria’s earliest publications.  +++   The current print number of Island Catholic News (ICN website: http://www.islandnet.com/~icn/) which is very likely still available in a box in the atrium outside the downtown library and perhaps still may be found at Sorensens’s Books on Cook Street near Fort, contains full colour art work by ‘Goyo de la Rosa,’ as I sometimes call myself.  +++   Page one opens with a large (24.3 cm. x 29.3 cm. or 9 5/8 in. x 11 9/16 in.) full colour reproduction of a digital photo taken by Wordworks’ Louise Beinhaur of my painting ‘Our Lady of the Light of Vietnam,’ which is one that I started in the late nineties and only finished just before Christmas.  The caption below the painting says that it is ‘by Gregory Hartnell, acrylic gesso polymer on stretched canvas, 1999-2007.  Based on an old Catalan Romanesque fresco, it glorifies the Prince of Peace and recalls the damage done to the Vietnamese Church by imperial wars.  Let us pray for world peace.’  +++   On page three another one of my paintings is reproduced in black and white in the centre of the top of the page where it cannot be missed.  Below, it carries the caption: ‘Sacred Quatrefoil of Imperfect Hearts, by Gregory Hartnell, acrylic gesso polymer on stretched canvas, 1999-2007.  A Christian psychedelic mandala, with four different sized free-form hearts centering  on a mirror-like host, for meditation on the Real Presence of the Cosmic Christ with us now.’   +++   In the upper right hand corner of page 5, ICN has placed another of my paintings, reproduced in black and white, and used here as a decorative element or space filler as had been done with the previous mandala, with no illustrative connection between them and adjacent elements.  The caption below the vertical rectangle says: ‘Holy Green Cross of Palma (Homage to Gaudi and Jack Wise), by Gregory Hartnell, acrylic gesso polymer on stretched canvas, 1999-2007.  Another Christian psychedelic mandala honouring the great Catalan mystic maestro of Modernismo and the late Pacifican Buddhist mandala master.’   +++   A centre spread in full colour has artwork by a number of artists who were involved in the Development and Peace Art Show at Saint Patrick’s Church recently, including Hamish Tucker, Cathy Thompson, John Hillian and myself.   +++   My two pieces, arranged in the lower half of page 7, are both vertical rectangles, one of which actually was not shown in the D & P show, but which is part of the mandala series.  It carried the caption: ‘Above: Holy Martyrs’ Heartblood of Marrakech (Meditation Franciscaine), Gregory Hartnell, acrylic gesso polymer on stretched canvas, 1999-2007.  The blood red centre of this Christian mandala recalls Christ’s salvific sacrifice and honours 13th century Franciscan martyrs in Maroc.’  +++   To the right of the mandala is a vertical rectangular photo of a detail from a square painting of Saint Francis of Assisi.  This painting was prominently displayed at the show and the caption says: ‘Right: St. Francis stigmata, Gregory Hartnell, acrylic.  This painting was purchased by the Franciscan Friary, Joan Crescent.’  +++  Another piece from this show, one entitled ‘Cherub’ by Char Bell, is a monochrome orange acrylic painting of a cherub which was not so successfully reproduced on the smaller of the tabloid’s one-page covers. Three charming watercolours of pears by Laurie Ladmore, wife of painter David Ladmore, are also reproduced in this number of ICN, to advertise an artwork show they held at their studio apartment just before Christmas.  +++  It should be noted that ICN is a very good outlet for artists to have their artwork reproduced at no charge for black and white and for reasonable prices for full colour.  Other artists that have had their work reproduced in colour or black and white over the years include David Ladmore, Anna Mah, Imre Szekeley, Linda Darby, and many others.  We have a link to the ICN website (http://www.icn@islandnet.com/~icn/)  listed here in the tags at our CCC Weblog and in the blogroll to the right under the title: ‘Island Catholic News.’  +++

E. CATHERINE MORONEY: The Chief who Danced, a short note by Gregory Hartnell (‘Goyo’)

+++  Here is a thin curiosity of an illustrated chapbook about the Salish people of southwest British Columbia by a retired Sister of Saint Ann. I remember meeting Sister Catherine at Island Catholic News board meetings in the early 90s, and was always impressed with her keen attention to detail, humilty and wisdom.  The two colour (black and red) illustrations by Art Harrigan are unusual for the way they attempt to fuse traditional Salish native design motifs with Western style caricature.   I imported this item from our Librarything account over here to the Concerned Citizens’ Coalition Weblog @ WordPress, goyodelarosa.wordpress,com/ where it should now be found under ‘Chief…’ or ‘Moroney.’    It is a short review I wrote of it for our CCC Library catalogue @ LibraryThing:  http://www.librarything.com/work/4655700     +++