id="id00146">These various obstacles, geographical (distance and climate), ethnical (race and language), religious (absence of Catholic tradition and surroundings), are the ever open crevices through which a tremendous leakage has been draining the vitality of the Church in Western Canada. So the call of the West is like the frantic S.O.S. on the high seas, that snaps from the masts of a ship in danger. It is the cry of thousands of Catholics sinking into the sea of unbelief and irreligion. In the wreckage there is still a gleam of hope. Great numbers yet cling to a remnant of the old faith of their fathers; it will keep them afloat until helping hands come to their rescue.

The Call of the Church in the West is a call of distress. Has the
Church in the East heard it? What is its response?

The Response of the East

Has the Church at large in the East heard the call of the West? Has that cry of distress gone through the ranks of our Catholics like the shrill blast of the bugle call? Has it awakened our Catholics from their torpid lethargy and quickened their sense of responsibility? Has the call been answered, or has it gone out like a cry in the wilderness, lost in the noise of our busy world, stifled by the clamour of other voices, smothered under other diocesan and parochial claims?

In the Church of Canada there have always been generous and noble souls for whom the missions of the West have had a mysterious attraction. Who can read without emotion of the heroic deeds of the first Jesuits who followed the explorers and courreurs-des-bois in their perilous adventures? What tribute of admiration and gratitude do we not owe to the Oblate missionaries who lived and died with the wandering children of the plains, who have kept the fires of Faith burning, from the banks of the Red River to the Pacific Coast, from the winding shores of the Missouri and Mississippi to the everlasting snows of the Arctic. Their lives of heroism furnish a bright splash on the rather drab and bleak landscape of what was known as the Northwest Territories. The Church of Canada will ever remain indebted to these noble pioneers of the cross, apostolic bishops and priests of the first hour; their saintly lives are forever emblazoned on the pages of Canadian history; the western trails murmur their names in gratitude and the children of the prairie still bless their memory by the dying fires of their camps.

Indeed the Province of Quebec for years sent her money to help the struggling schools of Manitoba. The Catholic Church of Canada has pledged itself in the Plenary Council of Quebec to help the Ruthenian cause; the Catholic Church Extension Society of late years is enlisting the sympathies of Eastern Catholics for our Western missions. With the help of their motherhouses our various sisterhoods have dotted the West with convents, schools, hospitals and charitable institutions. We all recognize the beauty and the heroism of their Catholic charity and apostolic zeal. Notwithstanding these noble efforts, can we safely state that the Church of Eastern Canada, as a whole, is deeply interested in the Catholic welfare of the West? Have we kept pace with the changing conditions the last decade has brought throughout our Western Canada? No. And this is our national sin. The Church as a whole, has not awakened to its responsibility. As individuals, as parishes, as dioceses, Catholics here and there have nobly done their duty. As a body, as a living Church of Canada, we have failed to help the struggling West as we should have done. We have not thrown all the energies of our great living, organizing Church into this missionary work. The Catholics of our Eastern Provinces are not yet united in one great, generous effort to protect and spread the Kingdom of God in their own fair Dominion. The call of the Church in the West has not been heard.

Never has the importance of the West loomed up before the public mind as it has since the beginning of the war. To realize this you have only to remark its growing influence in our political life. It cannot be otherwise; the possibilities of the West are so great and so numerous. Immense virgin prairies are still waiting for the plough. After the war, during the period of reconstruction, necessarily so pregnant of great events, the producing powers of our agricultural West will be tremendous. This is, therefore, a trying period for the Church in the West. Beyond the waving wheat of the prairie we should contemplate the ripening harvest of souls. Like a growing youth, the Church in Western Canada needs more than ever, help and support from the Mother Church of the East. This assistance in the present stage of the Western Church is a pressing duty of conscience, not only for the individual Catholic, but particularly for the Church as a whole, in Eastern Canada.

This duty is a duty of the hour, a duty most serious, most imperative. How can it be accomplished? By the united action of the Eastern dioceses of Canada.

Each diocese is a constituted unity in itself, but not for itself alone. Like each particular organism in the human system, it exists for the benefit of the whole. The Catholicity of the Church implies this idea of solidarity whereby the strong help the weak and the rich come to the rescue of the poor. Never, perhaps, has the Church suffered so much from the wasting of energies. The torrent, if not directed, spends its energy on itself; turned into the mill race, every drop counts.

One of the great lessons the war has given to the world is the absolute necessity of centralized effort and the advisability of central organization rather than multiplying organizations. We are living in an age of efficiency through co-operation.

Fas est ab hoste doceri.—The lesson coming from our separated brethren should strike home. One has to go West to see the feverish activities of the different denominations in that new field. Ask the mission organizers of the various non-Catholic bodies how much money comes from the East to support the struggling Protestant churches of the West; visit their immense printing establishments which are producing and distributing the literature you will find on the table of the lonely Western settler; study these organizations which are supplying field secretaries, teachers, social workers to our foreign Catholic settlements, then you will begin to understand this word of Pius X.: "The strength of the enemy lies in the apathy of the good." The mass of evidence, which can be had by the simple reading of the non-Catholic missionary reports, as to their activities in Western Canada, is nothing short of staggering. What examples! What lessons! Should they not turn our apathetic Catholics into enthusiastic apostles, stir them into watchfulness and action? And what could we not do with more unity of action?

Two conditions make united action possible—uniform plan and authoritative leadership. It would be rather preposterous on our part to attempt to formulate what we could call a plan of campaign for our Western apostles. We wish only to submit a few suggestions which may help to group our scattered energies and bring rescue to the Church, particularly in the unorganized districts of Western Canada.

To readjust our methods to conditions as we find them means efficiency with the least waste of energy. Therefore, we claim that a "survey" of membership and conditions of the Catholic Church in unorganized districts is an absolute necessity. It is the only logical basis for true knowledge of conditions and for development. This "survey" will bring us into immediate contact with the fallen-away Catholics. As it is now, are we not too often waiting for the fallen-away to come to us?