Recent convulsions that wreaked havoc across North
America suggest the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse cut a wide swath of
chaos through urban society. Canada’s one-time underpinning of honesty
and integrity based on Christian values yielded to a sordid all-consuming
rapacity; even some formerly solid rural communities were glanced.
Few now deny that society is mortally sick, starting
with government. There’s the gross misappropriation of public money to
secure votes and ridings, some would call it theft, inexcusable gross
patronage such as the appointment of a federal Cabinet minister as
ambassador to Denmark but only when his financial skullduggery and utter
disregard for cherished family virtues became publicly known.
Further, God’s role in our way of life is abruptly
discarded at major functions whether funerals, national celebrations or
solemn ceremonies. It seems Canada’s social agenda has been turned
upside down, and Ontario’s new Eves’ leadership set a parallel course,
with approving nods at same-sex "marriage" and playing tacky
games on the Hydro issue. Where’s the honour and struggle for nobility
that once was expected from political leaders?
When it comes to business ethics, the financial press
displays indifference even though our own homegrown disasters likely rival
America’s WorldCom and Enron scandals. There was the shameless Bre-X
gold rip-off and now Nortel where its stock plummeted from the $140 range
to under $2.
Strangely the media, so far, have not excoriated or
hounded Nortel’s former president who walked away with a plump $100
million in stock options plus a multi-million bonus supposedly based on
great profits the year before reality took over. Cooking the books is no
longer the stuff of great investigative reporting?
Are our beady-eyed star reporters not moved when tens
of thousands of pensioners were reduced to near-penury because their
pension funds had major investments in Nortel? Perhaps bedroom antics,
salacious gropings of the famous or condom convolutions make more
responsible news copy, at least to them. In essence, does not the public
have the right to know?
Some of our churches, traditionally the defender of
women and children, also have embraced the spirit of our age. A U.S.
Christian Ministry Resources national study contends that sex-crime
scandals, contrary to media assumptions, are more common in non-Catholic
than in Catholic churches. A majority of alleged child abusers are
volunteer workers who seek positions where they have access to children.
It seems religious leaders pursue a do-nothing policy because they fear
charges of homophobia – the forbidden H word — and loss of popularity.
When I was in the air force any inaction contrary to the military’s
good was labelled LMF – lack of moral fibre. Do today’s clergy have
different standards? Do they not know the hymn, Lift High the Cross? This
applies not only to child abuse but political abuse, media abuse,
corporate abuse and religious abuse. Unless we make a firm stand against
society’s so-called norms, the Four Horsemen will prevail.
