Today is the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (see my post above), so it as with some dismay that I read this lead article on this glorious morning, a male teacher at an elite private school in British Columbia, fired for uttering four words that may soon become illegal:  “I am against abortion”. He was describing the distinction between people’s own private sense of morality and the public law, which do not always correspond, something I also do in class, covering Saint Thomas’ unsurpassed analysis of the nature of law in the latter section of the Prima Secundae (I-II, q.90, ff.). One of the (female) students complained that she felt the tremor, yes you guessed it, of a ‘micro aggression’, upon which the poor teacher was given his walking papers. Here is the summary:

For example, he (the former teacher, ed.)  told them (the students, ed.), many people might roll through a stop sign on a deserted country road, deeming it morally acceptable, even if unlawful.

In other words, he said, in a pluralistic democracy, there’s often “a difference between people’s private morality and the law.

“I find abortion to be wrong,” he said, as another illustration of this gap, “but the law is often different from our personal opinions.”

That was it, the teacher said. “It was just a quick exemplar, nothing more. And we moved on.”

A little later, the class had a five-minute break, and when it resumed, several students didn’t return, among them a popular young woman who had gone to an administrator to complain that what the teacher said had “triggered” her such that she felt “unsafe” and that, in any case, he had no right to an opinion on the subject of abortion because he was a man.

Alas, we are in strange times here, wherein someone cannot even mention a wrong opinion in passing, without being vilified.

Although, to be fair to the school, if someone were to mention at a Catholic school that he was ‘pro-abortion’, I would expect and hope that some disciplinary action would be taken, not due to some ‘micro aggression’ to a snowflake student, but rather because such a view would be inconsistent at the most fundamental level with the fullness of truth that Catholicism proclaims.

The school here, I suppose, was maintaining its own sense of identity and mission, which just happens to be muddled, mixed up and misguided, over-coddling their precious students, educated in a hermetically-sealed bubble.  In such schools, private and otherwise, a nation of neo-pagans is being raised, and, as I wrote at the end of one previous article, such a new paganism will be much worse, and more evil, than the old. Getting fired might soon be the least of our problems as these scared little children grow into scared little adults, with all the power of the State on their side.

It seems we just have to set up our own counter culture, and right-thinking parents should vote with their feet and their pocket books, sending their children to schools that will educate them rightly, in the full truth of who Man is, only understood, as John Paul II never tired of proclaiming, in the mystery of Christ.

And the best way to Christ, as so many saints have said, is through His mother.  So pray to Our Lady Immaculate today, and may her reflected light guide us through the darkness of these times.

A blessed solemnity to all!

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!