Colby Cosh: After Morgentaler, CM, will the silence of the lambs continue?

"This is rather harsh but perhaps he has a point"

On Friday I made a rather late contribution to the debate over Henry Morgentalers receipt of membership in the Order of Canada, concluding with an implicit challenge to the sincerity of pro-lifers:

The Order... has over 3,000 living members, few of whom can have been chosen after meeting some pro-choice litmus test. It ought to represent the spectrum of opinion well. But so far weve heard of just one gentleman, Fr. Lucien Larré, who is indignant enough to actually turn in his medal. Lets see whether any of these other accomplished individuals care more about what were endlessly told is the "taking of human life" than they do about that adorable little metal snowflake in the drawer.

At the time of this writing, the observed Outrage Quotient remains one angry clergyman divided by 3,000-plus living members of the Order. Not what Id call "widespread", despite the fact that various stories on the controversy use this adjective and others like it unblinkingly. But something occurred to me after the piece appeared: perhaps I had made the denominator in this equation unfairly large? After all, isnt the Order of Canada positively crawling with priests, nuns, and career papists of various sorts? Do any of these people besides Fr. Larré care about established principles of their faith enough to make a meaningful protest?

The Governor-Generals website makes it impossible, to be sure, to make an exhaustive survey of Catholics in holy orders who have been accepted into our leading secular one. But plenty of names stand out, like those of Jesuit Father and leading ecumenist Irénée Beaubien; youth minister Fr. Tommy McKillop; Oblate missionary Fr. Yvon Levaque; and relief-organizing Bishop Emeritus Jean-Guy Couture. Better-represented still, perhaps, are the nuns: bioethicist Sister Nuala Kenny, substance-abuse expert Sr. Margaret Smith, nursing educator Sr. Margaret Vickers, choir leader Sr. Kathrine Bellamy, shelter organizer Sr. Susan Moran, and missionary Sr. Lenore Gibb. The Order also contains a tremendous number of important Catholic laymen, like St. Michaels College president Richard Alway and distinguished Catholic journalist Janet Somerville. Former senator and Order officer Douglas Roche, ever ready to make his voice heard at deafening volume on disarmament issues, received a Papal Medal personally from the hand of the late John Paul II. And be sure to reserve bonus points for yourself if you remembered that a renowned pro-life dabbler in Anglican theology, Elizabeth May, is also a officer of the Order.

Of course these people have not had much time to make a decision about whether its suitable for them to hobnob with the monster Morgentaler, and many are doubtless in their dotage. On the other hand, this list is the tip of the iceberg; Ive left out "devout" Catholic laymen of local or strictly secular renown, and we havent even gotten around to talking about the evangelical Protestants. The point is that there are more than enough supposedly believing members, officers, and companions of the Order to mount a very strong, non-symbolic defence to Morgentalers appointment.

The choice they are presented with, given the premises of most organized Christian denominations, should not be particularly difficult. No violence is required; no physical peril need be tempted. Dissenting members dont even have to be impolite about resigning from the Order; surely all of them have a copy of its Constitution, which painstakingly outlines the procedure. (Perhaps it might help if they consider it a dilation-and-extraction of ones lingering attachment to worldly trinkets.) No one expects martyrdom: all that their God asks is for a minor downgrade in social standing, and perhaps a risk of having some muck splashed on them by a journalist or two. As an atheist Im thrilled that, so far, His imagined power to compel has proven so feeble.