Readers Speak Out: June 6, 2021

Rights violated

June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. Recently, the Toronto Catholic District School Board passed a motion to fly the rainbow flag and celebrate Pride month in June. We believe the vote was wrong on moral and legal grounds.

Section 93 of the Canadian Constitution guarantees the right of Catholics to run their schools according to their faith. The vote violated this right.

Moreover, the vote was taken by nominally Catholic trustees, elected to represent Catholic ratepayers who then voted for an agenda contrary to Catholic teaching. They take an oath of office to defend, not defy, Catholic teaching. Parents enrol their children in Catholic schools expecting the education they receive develops critical thinkers and builders in the context of Catholic teaching, learning and faith development.

It is the legal right of Catholics in Ontario to impart these values without being subjected to accusations of bigotry and hatred by woke politicians or activists. Section 29 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms reaffirms the denominational right Catholics have to separate schools. The trustees’ job is to defend those rights, not to sell them out or give them away.

Their vote on May 6 was an unethical and illegal rejection of their duties to maintain our children’s rights to receive a true Catholic education.

Lou and Michelle Iacobelli,

Toronto

Unfair burden

Re: Borders an opportunity to encounter the other: Pope (May 16):

It is indeed commendable to champion the cause of the migrants and refugees. It is surely heart-wrenching to hear the stories of hardships, difficulties and deaths they have to go through to escape places they came from.

However, in this article, Ben Muller said: “Migration is not the crisis” because  “mobility is part of the human experience.” And to say: “The crisis is the border itself, not the people who find themselves at the border” lacks objective analysis of the whole situation. These migrations are not isolated cases but mass migrations. He is placing the full burden on the concluding end of their journey, on the country of border entry. What about the accountability of countries of origin of migration? Do their governments have no responsibilities to their citizens?

Everyone is aware of the pressures on the governments of transit and destination countries. We do not sense the same pressure on countries of origin over causes of migrations, or how their government can encourage their citizens to stay. 

Rufino Ty,

Brampton, Ont.

Honest answer

The pandemic seems to have affected many of us in different ways — some are depressed, stressed, climbing walls, become more violent, frustrated and it goes on and on. On the other hand, many have answers for it, but no one knows THE answer.

I am 92. When I look over my life, I have never experienced any type of virus or plague that has crippled the entire planet the way this coronavirus has. So in my humble thoughts I feel that each human has to change. What most people think is “progress” is really uncaring, selfishness, materialism, greed, injustice, abuse, exploitation, corruptness, hate, crime, etc.

Perhaps each of us can look into a mirror and be honest and brave to admit to ourselves who we really are. We can strive to come a “better people” — really try to love our neighbour as Jesus taught us.

Joyce de Gannes,

Don Mills, Ont.