Reducing Catholicism
Dean Del Mastro, a Member of Parliament from the Canadian province of Ontario, recently identified how “outrageous” it was for fellow parliamentarian, Justin Trudeau, to be invited by an Ontario Catholic School Board to speak to approximately 300 students.
Musing on Facebook, Mr. Del Mastro, the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada, inquired as to whether “there any tenets of the Catholic faith that Justin [Trudeau] supports?”
I wonder what motivates this question. Have Mr. Del Mastro and Mr. Trudeau conversed about what the Church teaches about Christ or the sacraments, for example? Have they discussed Christ’s presence in the Eucharist or in the Church? Going out on a limb, I wouldn’t think they have.
Canadian Comedian Rick Mercer had responded to the issue with the following tweet: “Dean Del Mastro is clearly having some sort of nervous breakdown.” He later corrected himself: “I take back what I said. Dean Del Mastro is simply an idiot. Unless he’s been misquoted.”
At the very least, Mr. Del Mastro’s words indicate that he has bought into a certain vision of Catholicism being peddled. In such a vision, a person’s proper positioning on questions relating to access to abortion, or treatment of gay and lesbian persons, exhausts what it means it means to be a Catholic. Statements like “are there any tenets of the Catholic faith that [person being attacked] supports?” indicates such a reduction of Catholicism, at the very least, in practice.
Mr. Del Mastro, a confirmed Catholic who attends Calvary Pentecostal Church, would do well to leave the faith-policing aside, and serve more appropriately those who have elected him. Even if the School Board which invited Mr. Trudeau does fall within Mr. Del Mastro’s domain, evaluating the catholicity of others does not.
K.
Kelly Wilson is a Seminarian for the Archdiocese of Winnipeg. Besides Vox Nova, he blogs at Musings.
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I wonder how mp Delcastro’s Pentecostal church feels about abortion. Catholics and the overweight are the only pc objects for public derision in this world. And Penticostals if you are an American liberal.
J. Pickett, I don’t know what the views are of his Pentecostal Church, however I know that MP Del Mastro has a reputation for being anti-abortion. I think Del Mastro is frustrated by the extent to which he perceives Trudeau’s position on freedom of choice as not being informed by the MP’s Catholicism, or by Catholic Church’s interest, in general, with the developing fetus. MP Del Mastro wonders why a different Catholic person, he cites the Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, has not been called in instead.
Considering Mr. Del Mastro’s own variation on Catholicism, it does seem a bit out of line to be challenging another’s possible variation on the same theme. Or is it Mr. Trudeau’s politics that knocks him off “the team”?
Your observation is noted, Anne, regarding Mr. Del Mastro’s own variation on Catholicism, and it is a variation that has invited the response of the Vicar General of the Diocese of Peterborough. As for politics, Del Mastro is a member of the governing Conservative party, and Trudeau is a member of the Liberal party (his father is the famed former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau). I am not sure as to what really motivated the critque, however…