LOSS OF INNOCENCE

$83 million may be small change in the over-all OHIP budget but it’s surely worth saving.
The global briefing has details of services no longer to be covered by OHIP. They sound pretty sensible. I find it refreshing to find government reacting to the obvious. Doing what needs to be done. It’s what I expect from The Honourable Christine Elliott, Minister of Health. It should be regarded as politically astute. We will soon see how the Toronto Star uses it to beat up on Doug Ford.

I stopped reading the Star a long time ago. After the Globe and Mail lowered their standards to compete with the Toronto Sun, I gave up that newspaper as well. Time was I couldn’t start my
day until I’d read the Globe, minus the Sports section. The same carrier delivered it for years
by 6 am. Until he left to go to university I imagine.  I never did read Conrad Black’s publication.

I missed the newspapers twice a day. Like I missed being a practising Catholic. Now with social media,excerpts from the newspapers come my way regularly. I never will stop being a Catholic. Everything I am is guided by my faith.

Blog writing was not a feature when I stopped “practising”. I’m not sure I would have confided my
reasons but certain episodes are still stark.

An Aurora youth received a car on a birthday. . He already had his driver’s licence. On the next
Friday evening he drove out of St John’s Sideroad straight on to Yonge Street, and into the path
of a Greyhound bus. Three friends were in the car with him and an opened case of beer. More likely he was simply unfamiliar with the intersection.

He was killed and he wasn’t the only one. They were everybody’s kids.

At the funeral Mass, the parish priest announced the boy was in purgatory, an intermediary
place of punishment by fire for sins committed in one’s lifetime.

Grieving parents in the front pews were possibly hoping for solace but more likely still in a fog
of disbelief.

Mentally, I reeled.

Years later, after his retirement, a new church was built. A parish council was elected.
They made a video of the Holy Family. In Catholic terms, Joseph, Mary and Child, born of
the Virgin. Midnight Mass was a ritual I could not surrender. The Christmas Miracle,
the quietness of the hour, the stars in the sky, all served to hold me enraptured.

The Church was beautiful, the congregation open and ready for a heartfelt, lyrical sermon
to suit the occasion.

The priest sat behind the altar, hands folded in his lap and the congregation watched a video made by the Parish Council. He wasn’t even watching it with us.

I can watch a video at home. I could probably watch Midnight Mass in a Cathedral in Rome on
VISION TV. It’s not my preference. I’ve been robbed.

That priest left the Parish eventually, under a cloud.

The congregation lost another new priest...his parish was taken from him because he used funds as directed by their donor. No amount of petitioning changed the minds of Chancellory in Toronto. They lost a priest. A young man grew who grew up in Newmarket and was loved by his congregation.

Women are not the only ones shortchanged by Institution Church.

Nor are politicians the last ones who do not understand  the limits to power and authority.