Dear Cardinal Collins,
I wrote to you twice last year, and I am still awaiting your reply. I presume you are far too busy with your accountants, lawyers, and moneybags propping up the "Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation for the Diocese of Toronto" (listed with Bloomberg as a "Consumer Services" sub-industry).
Since I do not expect you to reply, I have decided (once again) to compose an "Open Letter" to you, in the hopes that it will eventually reach you and your auxiliary bishops. I must say at the outset that over the past year this crisis has blown the cover off the Church in Toronto as the Mystical Body of Christ to really being a human services provider and registered "charity" under the corporate structure of a "Consumer Services" industry, where money and tax law is the driving consideration. God indeed does write straight with crooked lines.
With the imminent closure of our churches - as I write on April 16th - you must decide what you want to be: the nominal head of a corporate business and obedient underling to Caesar, or the local bishop of the Catholic Church. You must decide if obeying God is more important than obeying man. You must decide if Mass is more important than liquor store, beer stores, pot shops, and dare I say it - abortion "clinics". By this afternoon we will know if Premier Doug Ford has again "ordered" places of worship closed, and you have acquiesced, proclaiming it is for the "common good", and for the protection of our "brothers and sisters". Just like you boarded up every church last March even in the tiniest hamlets far north of the city. We were not even allowed in for private prayer.
Surely it disturbs you, Your Eminence that whilst you pontificate about the "common good", you are silent about the ongoing "essential service" of the slaughter of the unborn in the wombs of their mothers? Are you also not in the least concerned that this coming Monday hundreds of thousands of Catholics will get up without a job, but the local abortion clinic will remain open? And if it does disturb you: why are you silent? And what of the explosion of mental health issues, the suicides, the substance abuse, the psychological abuse of our children in Catholic schools being told to wear masks when the medical evidence is clear that they do not need to do so.
Why do you remain silent? Are you be told to keep quiet by your handlers? Are they advising obeisance to Caesar for filthy lucre? Has the Catholic Church been prostituted for 30 pieces of silver?
Another thing: you have yet to apologize to us for your disgraceful silence (recommended to you by your accountants, lawyers, and moneybags?) when the churches were boarded up at Christmas. I ask you again: would you please apologize to Catholics for denying us the right to attend Mass? We await your apology.
Finally, please do not DARE to ask for any more money. Are you not aware of how much Catholics are suffering from lost employment, the ruination of their small businesses? You seemed to be only concerned with the well paid staff in your "Consumer Service" corporation. Instead of taking millions from Caesar for your "employees", and then topping it up with parish donations, will you take immediate steps to provide monies for faithful, practicing Catholics who will - once again - be loosing their jobs, being forced to close their small businesses?
Perhaps you should be selling off some of your enormous real estate empire? Or cashing in on bonds and stocks? I noticed that in 2018 your corporation listed "charitable activities/programs" running just over 154 million. Can you supply us with a detailed account of how much money in 2020 went to Catholics who lost jobs? Can you provide us with details for emergency funding for unemployed Catholics in 2021? Let us not forget the "common good" you speak so much about.
Within a few hours we will once again know if our churches are to be closed, our Catholic families and friends decimated with indiscriminate lock downs. We will also know once again where and with whom you stand.
Will you stand up? Will you tell Premier Ford: "the churches remain open because the public worship of God at Mass is not only essential, it is more than essential. It is necessary and commanded of us". Will you tell the Premier that if he is serious about this virus, that he should immediately close the liquor and beer stores, the pot shops, and certainly the abortion mills? Will you do that Your Eminence? Will you have the courage?
Cardinal Collins, you have in your Office two portraits for fighters for the Faith: St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. What would they do? Do you believe that St. John would meekly board up his churches and impose a de facto interdict on the Mass? That he would allow dissident priests to shutter their churches for months on end so that the faithful cannot adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament? Do you believe that your lay handlers are following in the footsteps of St. Thomas? Or are they following the treacherous Richard Rich who betrayed the Church and his friend, driven by lust for money and power?
CARDINAL COLLINS!
KEEP THE CHURCHES OPEN!
DO NOT IMPOSE ANOTHER INTERDICT ON THE MASS
Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More, pray for us.
All ye holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us.
Amen! Amen! Amen! Thank you for another excellent letter. Sending a copy to my Bishop. God bless you!
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