Decapitating Statues of Historical Figures

Address snapshot ... Pope Francis

"[Beware] a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the 'cancel culture' invading many circles and public institutions."

"This view of history risks cancelling identity under the guise of defending diversity. [Representing a type of] one-track thinking [taking shape and developing fully as constraining or denial of history; rewriting it in terms of present-day sensibilities]."

"[Some attitudes] leave no room for freedom of expression and are now taking the form of the 'cancel culture'. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity, with the risk of silencing positions."

"As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many people."

"Diplomacy is called to be truly inclusive, not canceling but cherishing the differences and sensibilities that have historically marked various peoples."

"What is needed instead is a recovery of our sense of shared identity as a single human family. [The] alternative can only be growing isolation."

Pope Francis

Cancel culture, the darling methodology of silencing voices that progressives in their culture of 'wokeism' infiltrating all facets of human communication, has many newly emerging critics, none of whom voice concerns from the pulpit of the progressives, but from within society's conservatives and none is more conservative that traditionalists. More neutral sources that speak with indignation of the damning work of the progressives are historians along with individuals and groups who find themselves targeted for their 'controversial' positions, deemed so by progressives whose aim is silencing their critics.

 

A leaflet distributed at the Montreal protest described Sir John A. Macdonald as "a white supremacist who orchestrated the genocide of Indigenous peoples with the creation of the brutal residential schools system"

 

It is hardly surprising that the Catholic Pontiff now sees fit to add his voice to the growing chorus of condemnation of this pernicious, insulting and leftist insularity that rejects reality and history claiming it to reek of colonialism and 'white privilege' while elevating the victimhood issues of 'people of colour' and the socially and gender-deprived in traditional society. At a time when convention with respect to polarizing discrimination has turned in the opposite direction expressing remorse and conciliation.

Woke progressives accept nothing but abject admissions of present-day 'colonialists' that they are guilty of all the sins of their predecessors, presumably by historical inheritance. Unctuous salutations expressed in new language forms of address become compulsory as proof of deserved guilt and condemnation. The wronged will be forever wronged and deserve and expect to be elevated above the descendants of their former tormentors. Demands that society reinvent itself so that exceptional privileges be extended to 'victims' satisfy vengeance-drooling accusers.

 

Damned white society is slowly picking itself up, recalling that dignity must be apportioned to all, even themselves and now question the veracity of claims of victimhood, asking when endless reproaches will come to an end and all people be enabled to live together as individuals no longer divided into groups of 'the guilty' and 'the victims'. The voice of Catholic Christianity speaks from a fear of marginalization, the accumulating loss of faith and worship, the incidentalism of religion, and the relegation of 'Christmas' to mere 'holiday' status. 

 

A statue of Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Va .Credit...@Thicketoftrash, via Associated Press

The re-write of history pivots from Holocaust denial and trivialization of resurgent anti-Semitism as just desserts in a puzzling portrayal of Jews as oriental 'others' while classifying them as part of the subset of 'white privileged' colonialists. Figures of European and North American history with its interminable conflicts and its subjugation of less-'developed' nations, to secure their valuable natural resources, including the enslavement of aboriginals and indiginals, and trading in Black slaves for forced labour is the only history recognized by the woke. Those instrumental in maintaining white supremacy must no longer be regarded as part of history, but trashed.

At the Vatican, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin expressed his concern with a draft European Union communications manual playing with the suggestion of excising the long-venerated term Christmas, and presumably with that, the very Christian religion itself in an increasingly less religious continent. Who best to speak to diplomats assembled at the Vatican, representing 163 nations of the world than a Catholic Pontiff whose authority as god's spokesman on Earth still resonates?

And so, he spoke of historical situations that must logically be viewed and interpreted in the context of their times, not by the standards of the present day, for this is history that must be unadulterated to suit the surly moods of its new critics, and presented as time and tide viewed all  human interactions when and where they occurred and to whom they referred and whose circumstances they affected; not through the lens of today's critics.

Pictured: Pope Francis warned against attempts to cancel culture, decrying 'one-track thinking' which he said attempts to deny or rewrite history according to today's standards