My 43,000-word 'Memo to Provost Sedra' answered each and every allegation that had been made in the'Summary'. On 15 July 1994 I had a friend deliver the 'Memo' to the Provost's Office in Toronto, accompanied by a handwritten letter which I had written on the plane and faxed from Ireland. The letter reads:
14 July 1994Dear Provost,After three month's delay and the expense of an outside lawyer, I find myself in exactly the same position as I was on April 15th vis-a-vis the 'Summary' of the Investigation you commissioned into my teaching, publications, and professional conduct.On April 14th or 15th (I am away from my files) my lawyer (Mr. Charles Roach) wrote to your lawyers, requesting the documents necessary to prepare my Response to the 'Summary' of the 'investigation'.
We waited over two months for a reply to this letter. Finally, on 26 June we received a reply but the purpose of which, your lawyer states, is to 'particularize allegations' with reference to the Summary. He makes no reference to the documents I requested. The letter concludes by stating that the 'University needs a response by July 15, 1994, at the very latest.'What, Mr. Provost, am I to do? Send another request for the documents needed for my response. I hereby do precisely that, BUT in compliance with your request communicated to me through your lawyer, I hereby enclose a partial response to the allegations (we have to tidy up this affair some time or other) your office has made against me with the reservation that before a decision is made in my case that I be given an opportunity to prepare a response based on the documents which I, as a Professor in this Institution since 1966, AM ENTITLED TO SEE.P.S. Furthermore, I do not wish to receive any further communications re this matter from intermediaries from outside the University, your lawyer or my lawyer. This is a University matter and must be resolved where it originated: from within the University
by rational men
not by lawyers
hired by them.By this letter, by this action of a response, I hereby move that your 'investigation' of me, or of any other Professor in the University, be conducted where it originated, back where it belongs: The University of Toronto.
On 28 July 1994, while I was in Ireland in the presence of my collaborator on six academic volumes, Professor Lorna Reynolds of the National University of Ireland (the conversation, therefore, was witnessed), a telephone message was communicated to me by my lawyer in Toronto, Charles Roach, saying that he had received two letters from the Provost to the effect that 'the University had dropped all allegations and all charges', but were insisting on a couple of 'face-saving' items which would be easy to comply with (I refer to this conversation in the 'Introduction' to this volume).The reader can imagine Professor Reynolds's and my surprise when, a few days later, I received two letters from the Provost containing a whole set of new allegations PLUS a letter that the Provost's lawyer (the aforementioned Mr. Murray) had sent to my lawyer reiterating some of the old allegations that I had clearly dispensed with in the Memo published above.Although it would delight the reader, the publication of the Provost's and his lawyer's letters would be a violation of copyright, but I publish here my response which quotes the two gentlemen's salient points in the relevant places.7 August 1994Dear Provost,I have just received your two letters of 27 July and I hasten to respond to say that I will comply with your 'Conditions of Return to Work' and your 'Conditions Upon Returning to Work'.In your letters you make several references to a letter from your solicitor to my solicitor on 24 June 1994 and which, you say, contains 'allegations of misconduct' and that my 'response' is sought. In his letter of 27 July from your solicitor to my solicitor, your solicitor states: 'These allegations have not been answered.' I beg to differ. In a 43,000-word Memo from me to you, dated 16 June 1994, I answered all of the allegations made in the 24 June letter: with one exception, all of them were repeated from the Summary of the Report on my Work that you sent to me on 30 March. With all your other duties, I realize that you are, perhaps, dependent on your lawyer or others to read Memos as comprehensive as mine. I suggest you ask your lawyer to read it more carefully and he will find all the answers he seeks. The one allegation not answered in my Memo is dated '11 February 1994' and relates to my picking up letterhead from the English Departmental Secretary. The incident was so inconsequential that it failed to make an impression on my memory, and for that reason I cannot comment on it.
NEW ALLEGATIONS: RESEARCH
Your letters of 27 July contain new allegations with regard to my teaching and scholarship that were, it seems to me, cleared in the Report sent to you by Professor Adamowski in January 1994. You write: 'over the last five years . . . you have failed to demonstrate continuing reasonable competence in your scholarship.' Is this your own conclusion as an electrical engineer or is it the assessment of a scholar reporting to you? I know that your lawyer speaks of my 'failure' to meet my 'academic responsibilities' but he is not qualified to judge. In any case, I fail to see how anybody familiar with my published work, or my work accepted for publication, could reach such a conclusion. Did you know, for example, that the 1,000-page book on The Irish in Canada (edited by me in collaboration with Professor Lorna Reynolds of the National University of Ireland, and published during the five-year period under investigation) has been hailed as the definitive work on the subject during the last 100 years.You possibly do not know either that I have another definitive scholarly edition, Folk Plays of M. J. Molloy, accepted by Smythebooks (Britain) and by the Catholic University of America Press in Washington; since, however, the edition is part of a series, it must wait its turn to be published. I have, of course, published articles and delivered public lectures during the last five years in Canada, the United States, and Ireland, and I have in preparation two other academic books: A Spiritual Biography of AE Russell and Roots of the Irish Literary Renaissance.During the five-year period I have also published five books in my secondary field that, you say, fail 'to qualify as scholarship.' Of the five books, three are primarily books of poetry and do not claim to be works of scholarship. Nevertheless, books of poetry qualify in most English Departments that I know as fulfilling the requirement for publication.The other two books (The New World Order and the Throne of the antiChrist and The New World Order in North America: Mechanism in Place for a Police State) are the result of original research: this has been recognized by scholars in Europe, the United States, Canada, and the Middle East. For example, Dr. Amir Ali Khan of Lorestan University in Iran has done a 7,000-word assessment of these books as scholarly works. Of the first book, Dr. Ali Khan writes:I admire the scholarly genius in Professor O'Driscoll's approach, how precisely he has posited the continuity and interconnections in his argument, his depth of knowledge, his stamina in collecting all the supportive relevant material. The book addresses the whole span of history enabling the reader to face the facts of our present-day upheavals. It is a marvellous, painstaking work. All the
relevant facts and figures have been arranged in sequence with authentic references. Professor O'Driscoll has collected basic truths contributed by authorities and compiled them to form a book. Those facts are not theories or innuendoes to say the least. The 'masterpiece' is a singular work of a unique mind
Of the second book, Dr. Ali Khan writes:A thesis, then, is the collecting of data and on its strength deriving a conclusion that no one else has done. Such a research work is purely academic and it has nothing to do with politics or propaganda of any kind. Professor O'Driscoll collects data and facts to expose the unmistakable plot. From the
viewpoint of academic understanding, the book is a work of scholarship par excellence.
These two books do qualify as scholarship. There can be no question as to the credentials of Dr. Ali Khan: Professor Gerry Bentley of the University of Toronto English Department wrote an Introduction to one of his books some years ago.Even if they are not scholarly works (which I do not concede), there is no stricture that I know of that says an academic cannot write 'non-academic' books. Take Tolkien, for example, a Professor of Anglo-Saxon who spent considerable time writing books for children, books that have become classics. Or Stephen Leacock, Professor of Economics, at McGill University? Or C. S. Lewis! Or Lewis Carroll, a distinguished mathematician, whose contribution to mathematics has been forgotten but whose fame lives on - and rightly so - in his Alice books.Or is the work that I am publishing in my secondary field not being recognized by you as 'scholarship' simply because it addresses contemporary political and social problems? By taking such a stand, is not the University running the risk of becoming an anachronism in a society that is beginning to demand of its intellectuals some understanding or present-day problems?My work during the last five years - six books published, two books in the press, two books in preparation - has been achieved in spite of a continued programme of 'academic harassment'. During this precious sabbatical year, for example, I have been banned from the U of T Library (which has the best collection in my field in North America: indeed, it was l who was instrumental in acquiring a substantial number of the books) and from my books and files in my own office for five whole months.This harassment seems never-ending. You sent me, for example, a 17-page Summary of two Reports in March. I devoted six whole weeks meticulously answering each and every allegation. As stated above, my Memo to you containing the responses is dated 16 June 1994. On 24 June your lawyer sent me the same allegations, some of them dressed up in different prose, and asked me to comment on them again. My response, you will remember, was something in the region of 43,000 words. Was this too long for your lawyer, too short, not enough detail, too much detail? Does he not understand my prose? What?
TEACHINGIn your letter of 27 July you acknowledge that 'many students have found your teaching to be effective.' You then cite your lawyer's letter of 24 June: 'Mr. Murray's letter of June 24, 1994 [sic] also sets out a number of further incidents where your conduct has not been professional. A repeat of the unprofessional treatment of students will be viewed seriously and may lead to termination proceedings.'I fail to understand why you should warn me of 'termination' proceedings on the opinion of a man who has no expertise in the academic field - your lawyer - Mr. Murray. As an example of this ignorance, I cite his letter of 27 July:1. He does not Understand the Importance of Primary Documents. Your lawyer continues to deny me access to the documents necessary to prepare my defence. Such documents, he says, 'are not relevant'. 'Access to student assessments and student responses,' he asserts, 'is not necessary to enable Professor O'Driscoll to respond to the specific allegations of misconduct.'Who is he to take such an Olympian view? In law the accuser and his legal advisers are allowed full access to documents that he or they consider necessary. The book of evidence has to be available to both sides in a legal dispute. In refusing me assess to the primary documents, Mr. Murray is deliberately thwarting my rights as a Canadian citizen.Mr. Murray too is acting more like a Dean of Discipline than a legal adviser: 'The full reports provided to the Provost by Professors Adamowski and Boyle are not required in order for Professor O'Driscoll to respond. In any event, the summaries provided by me to Suzie Scott, which your client and you both have, contain the essential elements of the reports. No further production is required.' Summaries, Mr. Murray should know, are not the same as original documents: abstracts or extracts may be biassed in one way or another. In any case, Mr. Murray has himself admitted in a letter to Suzie Scott (9 March 1994) that the Summary he did of the two Reports 'may differ substantially' from the original documents. By his own admission, then, Mr. Murray's summaries are not to be relied on as representing the truth. Why, therefore, should anybody be forced to accept them?If, too, Mr. Murray is so contemptuous of the importance of primary documents in this instance, how can he understand the importance of primary documents in scholarship?
2. Mr. Murray Distorts Words and Facts. Mr. Murray then goes on to cite the Layton case, a disaffected student who criticized not my classroom performance but my writing outside the classroom and whose disaffection is more than counter-balanced by the assessments of some 300 students who have stated that my teaching is not just competent but 'brilliant'.In the Layton case, what was described by Professor Adamowski in May 1993 as a 'serious pedagogical error' in my showing this student forty pages of a 440-page manuscript three weeks prior to publication is distorted and inflated by Mr. Murray in July 1994 (fourteen months later) to an 'unprofessional mistreatment [sic] of students.' We see here the Provost's lawyer insolently making assumptions and distorting the tempered language of the academic so that a 'pedagogical error' in relation to one student has become 'unprofessional mistreatment [sic] of students.'3. Mr. Murray is Illogical. Mr. Murray writes: 'Numerous people in the University of Toronto are afraid of Professor O'Driscoll, believing he might retaliate against them for complaining about him.'
The logic of this sentence escapes me. How can Mr. Murray know that 'numerous people' are afraid of me if they are afraid to complain about me? As well as that I haven't been at the University for sixteen months. How can a person grow fearful of another person in his absence? By the way, how many are 'numerous'?4. Mr. Murray quotes out of Context and presents Inaccurate Interpretations. Mr. Murray writes: 'Professor O'Driscoll, who himself admits that he 'may have a slight drinking problem' seems to deny having such a problem now. Mr. Murray is referring to the following sentence in my June 16 Memo to you, Sir: 'nor do I have a problem with alcohol. It is true that I may have had a slight drinking problem in 1987-8, but this was the result of three distinct causes: the breakdown of my marriage and [dissolution of my] family; the death of my mother while this was happening; and the 'cruel and unusual treatment and punishment' I was experiencing from the University. Once those causes were removed, I did not have any more difficulty in this respect.' One can see that I freely admitted that I may have had a slight drinking problem when I was undergoing great emotional strain in my personal life - in 1987-8. That is a long time ago: I state very clearly that I do not have a drinking problem now. There is no question of my 'seeming to deny' anything.5. Mr. Murray Makes False Distributions. Mr. Murray writes: 'the warning regarding Professor O'Driscoll's failure to meet his academic responsibilities is not based on the content of his work, but rather on scholarly competence.' How can 'content' be separated from scholarly competence? The first duty of a scholar is to choose a subject that he knows falls within his scholarly competence.6. Mr. Murray Objects to the Handwriting of Human Beings. Mr. Murray writes: 'The University does not accept the material sent by Professor O'Driscoll to the Provost by handwritten letter [sic].' The material referred to here is my Memo to the Provost some 80 pages (printed above) concerning the allegations that your Office has made against me, pages that were not merely typewritten but typeset. Is this Memo to be discounted because it was accompanied by a handwritten letter (written, incidentally, on an airplane while I was being transported to Ireland)? What is unacceptable about a handwritten letter accompanying a printed response? The handwriting and the signature of a person is proof of his or her identity as an individual. Does Mr. Murray not know that a great portion of a scholar's research is [...]7. Mr. Murray Refuses to Accept the Evidence of Those Who Are Qualified to Give Evidence. Mr. Murray writes: 'the University does not intend to rely on student assessments and responses.' Does this imply that student evidence is not to be relied upon? What would the students think of this? How otherwise can a Professor be assessed except by the students he is teaching? By a lawyer located on King Street?Evidence to Mr. Murray seems to be of no account. Again and again he cites the evidence of two disaffected students who made complaints, not about my conduct in the classroom but about my writings outside the classroom and about which they are not qualified to judge. If the testimony of the more than 300 students who were in my courses during the five-year period under investigation (I have consistently scored 86% to 90% in the assessment every year) had not been so overwhelmingly in my favour, would Mr. Murray have used those against me, as he has in the case of the disgruntled minority? But since they were in my favour, he will not allow them.Mr. Murray seems to take a literal interpretation of Lewis Carroll's ironic maxim in The Hunting of the Snark: 'what I say three times is right.' May I also say, Mr. Provost, that lawyer's letters are well-known for the crabbed and garbled English that they use. The letter of your lawyer, Mr. Murray, seems a perfect model of such misusage. I am thinking of using parts of it for my students in September as examples as to how not to write English.
SERVICE
With relation to 'Service', you write: 'I see no evidence of service in the last five years.' You obviously are not aware that before I went to live in the country (and there are many Professors from the University of Toronto who do live outside the city) I made an arrangement with the President of St. Michael's College and my Discipline Representative.At that time President McConica and I were particularly close. An adverse judgment had been made against the College by a University Tribunal headed by the distinguished Professor E. R. Alexander of the Faculty of Law, accusing the College and University of 'cruel and unusual treatment and punishment' with relation to me. President McConica was particularly anxious that this not be made public during his tenure as President. I gave him an understanding to this effect. He then went on to arrange a particularly generous assessment of manuscripts and papers that I had given to the College, and this I found useful for tax purposes. When I discussed the implications of my living in the country with regard to University Service, he said that my service for the previous twenty years would equal the service that most academics offer over forty years, and to take it from him that I need not worry about 'University Service' in the future.Surely permission of this kind, once given, cannot be rescinded. If the University wishes now for me to relocate in the that I need not worry about 'University Service' in the future.Surely permission of this kind, once given, cannot be rescinded. If the University wishes now for me to relocate in the city, may I assume that the expenses involved therein will be borne by the University?President McConica knew, but you may not know, Sir, that during my 20 years activity on behalf of the College and University I raised $1.6 million to establish a Programme of Studies in the University that had not been taught here before AND that I presented a dazzling sequence of Festivals involving the leading intellectuals and artists in Europe and North America that drew something in the region of 35,000 people to the University of Toronto campus.I should say too, Provost, that my former service to the University has been ill-rewarded. I was dismissed from the Programme I had been instrumental in founding and for which I had made a unique arrangement with the National University of Ireland and with Universities in Great Britain. Treatment of this kind is hardly designed to encourage further attempts to serve the University. The trouble seems to be that I was too generous with my time and resources in offering my services to the University.One other point should be made here before I move on to the other matters you raised. It relates to my bivouacking on occasion in my office. You write: 'You will not use your office in Elmsley Hall as a temporary residence and will not spend overnight in that office or any other office at St. Michael's College or at the University of Toronto.' Allow me to inform you that it is not within your rights to forbid me about the use of Elmsley Hall, as the title to this building is held not by the University of Toronto but is registered in the name of the Basilian Fathers. Again, before going to live in the country, I sought and secured permission from the Basilian Fathers in question - the Bursar of the Order, Father Norman Iversen, and the Director of Accommodation, Father Frank Mallon - to use my office any night I was either too tired to drive home or the weather was too inclement. If I had not got that permission, I might not have moved outside Toronto. Again I ask: can permission of this kind, once given, be rescinded? If so, then I assume that the University will defray the expenses involved. Incidentally, bivouacking in one's office is common practice for representatives to the European Parliament.
HEALTHI am deeply touched by the University's concern for my health. With all of your other concerns, it is re-assuring to find that the needs of the individual are so carefully considered. I have no reason to believe that I am in anything but the best of health. If I use, I do not misuse or abuse any of the 'substances' you may have in mind.
May I take the liberty, Provost, of making one last point? in a democracy justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.
Robert O'Driscoll
Professor of English & Celtic Studies
P.S. With reference to your prohibition of alcohol, am I to understand that it does not extend to the customary glass of wine at University functions?
Plate 63: Professor Robert O'Driscoll (centre), moments after introducing
Mayor Moore (then chairman of the Canada Council) to his 'idol' Joseph Campbell (right). James Joyce Centenary Festival, January 1982.
http://jacquesclouseau.free-forums.org
In his letter of 27 July 1994, as well as shifting the ground of the allegations from professional conduct to teaching, research, and service to the University, the Provost requested that I secure two medical reports as a 'Condition' of returning to work, that these reports were due on September 1, and that failure to provide the reports would result in suspension without pay.
In terms of medical reports, the Provost had made the following specification in his letter of 27 of July 1994:
1. Prior to September 1, 1994 [sic] you will obtain a medical report from a medical specialist duly qualified to practice medicine in the Province of Ontario which addresses [sic] the following issues:
(a) Whether there is any underlying condition or illness which might affect your ability to perform the duties and responsibilities at the University of Toronto.
(b) Whether you are likely to be a risk to yourself or others in the University community.
(c) Whether treatment is recommended and, if so, the likelihood of success if such treatment is undertaken.
2. Prior to September 1, 1994 [sic] you will obtain a report from a doctor qualified to practice medicine in Ontario or other Ontario health professional who specializes in assessment and treatment of individuals with substance misuse problems which addresses the following issues:
(a) Whether you have a substance misuse problem [sic]
(b) Whether any treatment is recommended [sic]
3. The University will pay the full cost of obtaining such reports and will recommend specialists if requested by you or your lawyer.
I returned to Canada from Ireland on August 16, and between that date and 1 September I had been 'assessed' by four specialists. On the appointed date, therefore - 1 September 1994 - I brought to the Provost's Office two reports, one from Ivan Roma-Guzman, Community Addiction Services, Kensington Clinic, The Toronto Hospital, saying that I had been 'assessed' for 'substance' - i.e. alcohol and drug 'misuse' and that the 'final report will be sent as soon as possible.' The reason, I suspect for the second doctor, is that Dr. Ivan Roma-Guzman is attached to the Toronto Hospital but is from Brazil, and therefore technically does not fill the bill for the Provost's demand that the doctor 'practice medicine in Ontario.' Dr. Roma-Guzman therefore contacted his colleague at the Toronto Hospital, Dr. F. Allodi (who saw me in the afternoon of September 1) before the two of them would send in their 'final report'. But it was Dr. Roma-Guzman who did the drug and alcohol 'assessment'; Dr. Allodi chiefly chatted with me about my two recent books, and was very happy to accept copies which I inscribed for him.
The second report that I submitted to the Provost's Office on September 1 was from the physician and surgeon Dr. P. Sauret:
On August 26,1994, I did a General Assessment at the request of Mr. O'Driscoll.
The results of the Assessment are that Mr. O'Driscoll is in good health and perfectly able to carry on his usual activities. During the examination, I was able to ascertain that his mental processes are normal and his mind well-balanced.
Nevertheless, on September 2, Acting Provost Carolyn Tuohy suspended me from my teaching responsibilities to the students of this Province - and in the process damaged my professional career -not on a matter of substance but on a mere technicality: the fact that, although the
assessments had been completed, all of the reports of the doctors had not reached her by September 1. I publish below my response to the Acting Provost.
Labour Day 1994
Dear Acting Provost Tuohy,
I am glad that you realize, as you state in your letter of September 2, that I am 'cooperating with
the University by attempting to obtain the [medical] reports.' I wish to continue this co-operation until this matter is settled.
The difficulty was that I did not receive the Provost's request for medical certificates until
late in July when I was in Ireland and it was not until I returned on August 16 that I was able to make the appointments with the specialists. On 29 July, my lawyer, Mr. Charles Roach alerted your lawyer, Mr. John Murray, to the possibility that there might be difficulty in meeting the deadline:
Vice-President and Provost Adel Sedra has imposed an unreasonable and unrealistic deadline on Professor O'Driscoll to obtain the two medical reports.
Sedra has required that these reports be available by September 1, 1994, which gives Professor O'Driscoll four weeks notice.
In normal circumstances it would take more than the time imposed to locate and retain a
specialist and then have that specialist do the type of reports requested.
The condition being imposed at the end of July makes the task more difficult. Professor O'Driscoll is out of the country until mid-August. Further, it is difficult to find a specialist who is not on vacation at this time of year.
Professor O'Driscoll will, nevertheless, attempt to obtain the reports, by the specified date.
By September 1, however, I had managed to be assessed by four doctors, the last appointment re 'substance' misuse or abuse being on September 1 itself. The doctor said that it would take him a few days to write up the report; he will then send it on to Dr. Sauret (Dr. Sauret is synthesizing the reports of the various doctors) who will send it on to you.
In suspending me, as you do, as of September 2, 'from duties and responsibilities, including the teaching of classes,' I cannot fail but note that I am being suspended because of a 'technicality,' the fact that I have had the medical assessments done, but that the reports have not yet reached you. Am I correct in assuming that once the reason for the suspension is removed (and you actually receive the reports), the suspension itself will no longer apply?
Does it not strike you, Acting Provost, that the punishment exceeds the crime? Certainly it reminds me of my dismissal from the Celtic Studies Programme which I had founded - in 1987. I challenged the decision. A University Tribunal was set up, chaired by Faculty of Law Professor E. R. Alexander. The Tribunal reported in the autumn of '87:
The penalty imposed as a result of that disciplinary action was excessive. To remove Professor O'Driscoll permanently from the Program was to, again using the analogy of the Charter, inflict 'cruel and unusual treatment and punishment' on him.
You also write: 'l have been in contact with Dr. Allodi.'I s this not rather unusual and irregular for an institutional University of Toronto? Does this not place him in a rather compromising position? l do not have a problem with alcohol nor have I ever taken other 'substances' in my life - so his report can only be in the negative. But the fact that you have been talking to him leaves me rather uneasy.
Can the Acting Provost of a University be 'in contact' with one member of her staff who is assessing another member of the staff without the risk of exercising 'undue influence'? And is not your 'contact' with him bearing rather quick fruit, for already I am being found delinquent in at least one respect: You write: 'He indicated that you had not made him aware of the matters that the University had specified to be addressed in medical reports.' There must be some misunderstanding here because I gave Dr. Allodi ALL of the pertinent material in the Provost's letter that related to the medical reports (I enclose a copy of the material that I gave him).
You also request that l 'inform him [Dr. Allodi] of the particular concerns raised in the letter of June 24,1994 from the University's solicitor to Mr. Charles Roach.' Why should I select one letter from the hundreds - actually I believe it to be thousands - of pages that relate to the Provost's Office 'Investigation' and pass it on to a doctor? If I am to pass him on one document, I must pass them all on: according to the legal system, 'partial disclosure' is not an acceptable form of proceeding.
Why too should one pass on a letter that has no status? I indicated how this was so in my letter to Provost Sedra of 7 August 1994 (incidentally, I have not yet received a reply to this letter). Have you seen it? It reads in part:
This harassment seems never-ending. You sent me, for example, a 17-page Summary of two Reports on my work in March. I devoted six whole weeks meticulously answering each and every allegation. My Memo to you containing the responses is dated 16 June 1994. On 24 June your lawyer sent me the same allegations, some of them dressed up in different prose, and asked me to comment of them again Having done so once, I am reluctant to do so again. My response, you will remember, was something in the region of 43,000 words. Was this too long for your lawyer, too short, not enough detail, too much detail? Does he not understand the prose? What? If I send the 24 June 1994 letter to Dr. Allodi, I would have to send also the Summary (by the University's solicitor) on which it is based AND the two Reports on which the 'Summary' is based, as Mr. Murray, the lawyer, states in a letter to Suzie Scott (Executive Director of the Faculty Association) that his summaries ‘may differ substantially' from the original Reports. I am as a Faculty Member entitled to access to these Reports, but since I have not been able to obtain a copy of the original Reports either through the Faculty Association or the three-month effort of a Toronto lawyer, Mr. Charles Roach, I obviously cannot send them on to anybody. I would too have to include my 43,000-word response to the allegations that have been made against me.
It would have been inappropriate as well as cumbersome to send all of this material to the four doctors involved in the assessment. Are not the doctors responsible for the medical as opposed to the legal components of this operation, in which case the legal aspect does not really concern them? You write:
The Provost did indicate in his letter of July 27, 1994 that failure to provide the reports would result in suspension without pay.... we are not prepared to determine with finality whether the suspension is with or without pay. Should you continue to cooperate in the provision of medical reports needed, including one addressing the matter of substance abuse, the University will consider continuing salary payments throughout the period of suspension.
I am deeply grateful for your consideration in this matter. When I did get the Provost's letter of 27 July I wrote to him saying that 'I hasten to respond to say that I will comply with your 'Conditions of Return to Work' and your 'Conditions Upon Returning to Work.' l had all the assessments done by September 1. It would hardly be just to penalize me financially (I have no other income) simply because the doctors involved didn't have time to get their reports into you: doctors have priorities too, priorities that are almost always more pressing than those of the academic. You must forgive me if I consider it arrogant for the University to think it can force other people to fit into its schedule.
I have asked the Faculty Association to check into the legality of suspending my pay when I am in mid-contract as well as to the legality of the continued impounding by the Provost's Office of the books, files, and papers in my office: it has now been over five months since you impounded them, and I need them for my work.
In closing, I should remind you that I have now been 'investigated' by your office for the last seventeen months: first, it was antisemitism, which I was exonerated from; then it was whether I had committed a 'pedagogical error' in showing a student 40 pages of a 440-page book three weeks prior to publication; then it was my 'professional conduct'; now it is my 'medical condition'. If it is not one thing, it is another. When may I expect the 'investigation' to be completed and to be freed from this harassment?
I look forward to hearing from you when you have had an opportunity to study the assessments.
Yours truly,
Robert O'Driscoll,
Professor of English & Celtic Studies
I have received no response to this letter. Nor did I receive any response to my letter to Provost Sedra of 8 August. As of today, 13 September 1994 - and it is now literally only hours before this book is put on the press - I am still suspended. I note with sadness that Acting Provost Tuohy not only spoke with Dr. Allodi on September 2, but wrote him a four-paragraph letter, one of which reads as follows:
I have urged Professor O'Driscoll to make you aware of the matters which we expect to be addressed in your report, as set out in Provost Sedra's letter to him of July 27, 1994. Ihave also urged him to inform you of the particular concerns raised in the letter of June 24,1994 [sic] from the University's solicitor to Charles Roach.
Does this not constitute a further breach of confidentiality, or even of distortion - to suggest to the doctor in question that I am holding something back, when I am not. I had submitted to Dr. Allodi what precisely I was to be tested for [the items listed in the 'Headnote' above]. The reader has by now noted that the 24 June 1994 letter is a decoy, a red herring, merely a repetition of the same allegations that had been answered by my Memo of 16 June. In drawing the doctor's attention to the letter of 24 June the Acting Provost gives the impression that the allegations contained therein have not been answered. I am forced to conclude that the Provost's Office has transcended its authority - in the gravest way - by interfering between doctor and patient.
Nevertheless, the doctors remained true to the integrity of their profession and the reports were sent to Dr. Sauret as soon as they had been written up. The Report of the psychiatrist, Dr. Sanchez, is dated 12 September 1994:
During the evaluation the patient had coherent speech, he was logical, he did not show any flight of ideas, or pressure of thoughts, but he was easily stimulated and became over talkative, giving more details than needed, when asked certain questions. He did not show or report any hallucination or delusions of persecution. His thought processes, memory, concentration, orientation, insight and judgement were normal. The effect was one of slight euphoria. He reported no depression, no suicidal ideas, no death wishes.
I did not detect any psychotic symptoms. I believe that the patient is not dangerous to himself or to others.
The Report was received by Dr. Sauret later in the week, the first week of classes. It was, I decided, useless to go to the Provost with the assessment, as he declared in the Staff Bulletin of mid-September: “he [O'Driscoll] will not be back in the classroom because all of his classes have been reassigned to other instructors," the Provost said, "It would be very unfair to the students to change things in mid-term."
Dr. Allodi's Report is dated 7 September 1994. There is a caveat at the end of the Report, undoubtedly caused by the pressure he was experiencing from the Provost's Office. This is evident in the paragraph that precedes the actual drug and alcohol assessment where we can see the doctor straining between his responsibility to his patient and his loyalty to his employer:
Re: Robert O'Driscoll
DOB: May 3, 1938
Following our conversation [i.e. with Dr. Sauret] last week on the above named, and at your request I saw the above named in my office on September 1, 1994, after he was interviewed by the counsellor of the Kensington Clinic, as you know a community addiction service of which I am Director. The next day, that September 2, 1994, I received a call from the Acting Provost of the University of Toronto, Ms. Carolyn Tuohy. I regret I could not give much information to her since I did not have a signed consent from Professor O'Driscoll allowing me to release information. In fact it was the first time that I knew that the Office of the Provost was involved in this matter or that they were interested in a report from me. All I had in my power was one page given to me by Prof. O'Driscoll with no date, address or letterhead indicating that a ‘medical report should be obtained from a doctor qualified to practice medicine who specializes in assessment and treatment of individuals with substance misuse problems'.
My conclusion from the information that I took from the history and the direct psychiatric examination is that there is no evidence of a problem of alcohol or substance abuse. This, of course, should be qualified because in many cases of people who abuse alcohol or drugs their own statements may not be fully reliable and in this case I have no other source of information. However, it is very probable that this man at the present time is not abusing alcohol or drugs.
The integrity of those four doctors should hearten Canadians, should stand as living testimony that our country is not yet lost. Once more I quote Rolf Rentmeister of Echo Germanica in Toronto:
An individual in communistic society, stepping out of the bounds of their rules, will finally be given over to psychiatric institutions to be 'controlled' through the typical subhuman way which makes psychiatry so famous. Reports from Russians confirm that this was the most loathed punishment a Russian citizen could experience. All other punishments like prison, Siberian labour camps, etc. paled in comparison. In other words, psychiatry is used by a communistic government as the ultimate control agency if an individual steps out of line. In short, the communistic society is basically a slave society. While communism is fighting a losing cause in Russia, what about Canada?
Pinch yourself! We are not living in Russia! We are living in Canada! Pinch yourself again as the horrifying realization gathers to a dark knot in your throat: the same techniques that turned Russia into a slave society are being used in Canada.
For seventeen months - and seventeen months in a Soviet psychiatric prison ward, I was told by a Russian friend Roman Finn, can seem a very long time - I have been subjected to the most gruelling and agonizing 'investigation' in my own country and in a University where I have nurtured my students' minds for twenty-eight years. What kind of an example is this for a University to set before the youth of a nation? Had I been a younger man and less established internationally, I would have been broken. May I say further that the University of Toronto 'lnvestigation' of me transcended my privilege as a teacher, my rights as a citizen, and amounted to nothing else than an attack on my existence as a human being and through me on the integrity of all human beings.
Pain is sometimes necessary for consciousness and certainly for clarity and morality. Consider my pain, but take to your inmost soul Elizabeth's pain, she who suffered in silence ('holding her cards close to her chest'), feeling every nuance of my mental anguish, heroic yet powerless to intervene. The pain is often greater for the one who is watching the effects of pain than for the one who is attempting to diagnose the source of the pain. Consider carefully what you have read in this book, the fruit of our pain in this country of Canada in '94. Cast your mind back to the people who built this nation 'ad mare usque ad mare' - your parents, grandparents, and far far beyond, and then cast your mind forward to the dim coming days and to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren whom we leave to live here. Ask yourself one simple question: has not the time come to investigate the Investigators? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? We will - The PEOPLE:
Did ye think to conquer the people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than man's desire to be free?
We will try it out with you, ye who have harried and held,
Ye who have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!
(Patrick Pearse, The Rebel)
The title of this section of new world order Corruption in Canada is 'Let the Students/Public Decide: Character Assassination at the U of T.' If you have been able to make a judgment, please write to The President, The University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1, with a copy of your letter to either Elizabeth or myself, Alexander Fraser House, Arthur, Ontario NOG 1A0. President Pritchard has not yet shown his hand in this 'Investigation'. When he does, Elizabeth and I are of the hope that justice will be done.
ROBERT O'DRISCOLL: PROFESSIONAL CAREER
Books and Books Edited:
Theatre and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century Ireland. Ed. with Introduction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. London Oxford University Press, 1971.
Yeats and the 1890's. Ed. with Lorna Reynolds. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1971.
Theatre and the Visual Arts: A Centenary Celebration of Jack Yeats and John Synge. Ed. with Lorna Reynolds. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972.
Intruder: A Poem. London: Advent Books, 1972.
Symbolism and Some Implications of the Symbolic Approach: W.B. Yeats During the Eighteen-Nineties. Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1976. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1975.
Yeats and the Theatre. Ed. with Lorna Reynolds. London and Toronto: Macmillan, 1975.
Yeats and the Occult. Edited by George Harper. General Editors: Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds. London and Toronto: Macmillan, 1977.
An Ascendancy of the Heart: Ferguson and the Beginnings of an Irish Literature in English. Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1976. Toronto: Macmillan, 1977.
The Speckled Bird by W.B. Yeats. Ed. William O'Donnell. General Editors: Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.
A Quest Through Europe, Or, The Long Way Round to the Edinburgh Festival. Edinburgh: Demarco, 1980. 238 pages.
The Celtic Consciousness, edited with Introduction. Dublin: The Dolmen Press. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981. New York: Braziller, 1982. Edinburgh: Canongate, 728 pages. Named by The American Library Association as Outstanding Academic Book of the year in its category for 1982.
Joyce and Dada, edited with Introduction. Dublin: Dolmen, Toronto: Black Brick Press, 1982. 93 pages.
The Untold Story: The Irish In Canada. With Lorna Reynolds, edited with Introduction and contributions. Toronto: Celtic Arts of Canada, 1988. 1083 pages, two volumes.
Nato and the Warsaw Pact Are One (Warsaw and Toronto: Zespol, 1990). An Epic Poem. 64 pages.
The New World Order and the Throne of the antichrist. (Moscow, Washington, and Waterloo: Zespol, Emissary and the Printing Office, 1993. 424 pages. In collaboration with others.
Triad: Armageddon One. Toronto: The Printing Office, 1993.24 pages. Poem.
Atlantis Again: The Story of a Family. Waterloo, Ontario, 1993). 220 pages, in collaboration with others.
The New World Order in North America: Mechanism in Place for a Police State. Toronto: The Printing Office, 1993, 303 pages.
Books in the Press:
The Folk Plays of M. J. Molloy, edited with Introduction and scholarly apparatus. Gerard's Cross, Buckinghamshire: Smythe. Washington: Catholic University of America.
Making It All Visible Again: Unpublished Lectures of W.B. Yeats. Dublin: Cuala Press.
Corruption in Canada. Toronto: Blue Light; Ireland and France: Castelnau. 630 pages, to be released in September 1994.
Books in Preparation:
A Spiritual Biography of AE Russell
The Roots of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Commissioned by an Irish Publisher.
Forty Scholarly Articles and Contributions to:
The The Times Literary Supplement, The University of Toronto Quarterly, Irish University Review, Eire-Ireland, Canadian Journal for Irish Studies, London Art Monthly, Co-op Ireland, The Irish Times, Canadian Forum, Educational Theatre Journal, Sri Aurobindo Journal, Nineteenth-Century Studies, Yeats-Eliot Review, Erin Cara, Educational Encyclopaedia, and others.
Ten scholarly chapters in books published by University of Toronto Press, Clarke Irwin, Gale (United States), Smythe books (Britain), Tubinger (Germany), Graz (Austria), Uppsala (Sweden), etc.
Public Lectures:
Over fifty public lectures at Universities, Conferences and Festivals including Canada (University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, University of Winnipeg, University of Western Ontario, Concordia University, McGill University, St. Mary's University in Halifax, Memorial University of Newfoundland); United States (University of Notre Dame, University of Michigan at Ann Arbour, University of Minnesota, etc.); Great Britain (Queen's University in Belfast, University of Edinburgh); Ireland (several lectures at the National University of Ireland and the National Gallery of Ireland); Austria (Graz University); Germany (Wupertal University); Sweden (Uppsala), and many others.
http://jacquesclouseau.free-forums.org
by Larry Henderson
(London, Ontario)Finally, there is the matter of The University of St. Michael's College, a wheel within a wheel, where I have held my contract for 28 years since 1966. During most of my tenure there, my closest friend was Father John Kelly, c.s.b. He was President of the College between 1958 and 1979 and President of the St. Michael's College Foundation until January of 1986.In January of 1986, at the age of 75 and after 28 years as President of the College and its Foundation, Father Kelly was abruptly removed from the Foundation, the Board of the Toronto School of Theology, and several other Boards. Rather bluntly, he was told to pack his bags, leave the College within two weeks, and go to live in a small isolated house in Bond Head, Ontario. He died a few months later - on 26 September 1986.
Never before, as I indicated earlier in this book, in the 140-year history of the College, had a 'retired' priest been treated in this way. Kelly confessed to me in the last conversation I had with him that it was the only time in his life that he had been tempted to renounce his vows ('but once taken, Bob, always taken'):We once chose another way,
And integral men and women
Are loyal to their vows: other-
Wise the precipice of Lemuria
Looms before us
Yet once more!
(ROD, Triad, Toronto: 1993)In the same conversation Kelly revealed that the University of St. Michael's College had - literally - been sold, 'lock, stock, and barrel' a short time previously.To whom? I didn't know at the time and Kelly knew I perhaps wouldn't understand even if he told me. It is clear from the article below who the buyers were: the forces of the New World Order.
ROD.FIVE AGENDAS FOR CHANGEThere are certain things which members of the Roman Catholic Church are still unwilling to face. One of these is the fragmentation of our religion. This is not something for which the Church itself is to blame, due to its 'intransigence,' its 'backwardness,' or any of the jibes thrown at us today. It is solely due to the disloyalty of our dissidents.There is no single cause for the phenomenon, no one failure which has to be corrected or put right. The dissidents themselves have dismembered the body of Mother Church, each tearing her apart, to make of her something which she is not. There are as many agendas in the Church today as there are people seeking to change her.
It is therefore untrue to say that we are still One, True Church when her own members are working against her, trying to alter her beliefs, remake her rituals, often in different and contradictory ways. It is important for the understanding of our time to realize that this is a demographic revolt, peculiar to the rich, urban populations of North America, Europe, Australia, etc. and not a popular rising against Mother Church.
We need to look, therefore, at some of the many different agendas behind what is now called the Catholic Revolution.
AGENDA 1: THE COMMUNITY CHURCH
One of the most insidious agendas today is something which calls itself the 'Community Church'. This sometimes goes by the name of 'base-communities,' which began in the Third World under Marxist inspiration to help change the often oppressive social system. Many priests and religious were drawn into this work for ideological reasons. I encountered them in Brazil and in Africa and I noticed their independence of view, which paid little or no attention to the religious aspect of their vocation. Some priests did not say their office any more, and the Mass itself had become an occasion for revolutionary harangues.In particular, the writer was struck by a remark by a nun, who said: 'Next, we will take the base communities to Canada.' In fact this is now happening. Social action is the primary expression of religion. There is a concerted attempt to involve laity in ministry and to obliterate the sacerdotal role of the priest. The number of officiating ministers has multiplied, as altar servers, readers, communion ministers, pastoral assistants, etc. In some parishes lay people concelebrate, in others the priest sits idly by while laity conduct the service.
No one who follows this agenda talks about holy days, vigils, or devotions any more. In fact, for them the community sanctifies faith, not the other way round. (A Gallup poll in 1991 says 23 per cent of US Catholics believe the Real Presence only exists because of their personal belief).There is no way that this can be represented as the Catholic Church. The community church is represented by those who advocate it as a 'social network.' Its supporters frequently speak of it as 'fulfilling God's dream of a world healed of poverty, violence and injustice.' These are political ends. Christ did not come into the world to talk of dreams but of salvation.Christ is notably absent from the community church. In fact, He is sometimes referred to as a 'failure' (presumably because He did not succeed in establishing the Kingdom on earth). The community church, therefore, is called upon to do what Christ could not do. 'Christianity must change,' say the Whiteheads, authors of Community of faith, crafting communities today, (1992) ,until it better matches the dream God is dreaming for us.'A fantasy? By no means. All this is now being enacted for us in 'experimental' dioceses like Archbishop Ebacher's Gatineau-Hull, Archbishop McNeil's Edmonton, and Bishop Remi de Roo's Victoria, B.C., and also, in lesser degree, wherever there is a priest who has re-dedicated himself to the community church.
When the priest refuses to go into the sanctuary and stands among the people, these thoughts are present in his mind. When he turns his functions over to the people, he is teaching them to think communally. When he encourages them not to kneel, and gives them baker's bread for communion, and tells them they are priests of the Order of Melchizedek, he is training them for the community church.Is this the future of the Catholic Church? If so, it is also the end of it.AGENDA 2: THE FEMINIST CHURCH
I would like, if possible, to write something about feminism in the Church which is not a rant, but which might throw a more useful light on the subject from historical and cultural points of view.Radical feminism is, of course, an agenda and like all agendas, it has a right to present its case. The case is understandable. Women today demand equality and feel they have a right to do whatever men do (though in one or two instances this is impossible). Hence the demand for women's ordination.But here we come up against something which is more than mere prejudice or out-worn custom. In a world which distrusts the past and even detests it, it is hard to assert any law of nature. Yet biology does impose certain inescapable imperatives upon US.Sex roles have become indeterminate, but no male has borne a child, and no woman has fathered one. Similarly, while some women have been goddesses, monotheism has always revealed God as Father.God begets, woman nurtures the Son. The priest has always represented Christ in the eucharistic act, and that is why he is called 'Father'. The priest distributes the bread of Life, and the 5000 are fed. The pattern is carried out throughout the higher Creation, and indeed, it is imitated in biology, physics, and even psychology. We cannot fail to observe the predominance of the holon among the most complex forms nature presents to us, so that we can safely assume that wherever there is life it must be hierarchically organized.Such is the ancient wisdom of the race, although it may seem, nonsense to those born since 1950.Alfred Koestler, in his book The Ghost in the Machine, writes, 'The Will of God, or the Law of Nature, as the organizing and harmonizing principle of the universe, is one of the most powerful archetypes of human experience ... the most representative in all mythologies.' No wonder it is reflected in our liturgy!These have been Catholic beliefs throughout history and were certainly known to Christ. They were known to the Holy Father when he wrote his recent letter on the ordination of women. We are talking about symbols, but they are the way we apprehend truth. To change the most profound symbols (Jung would call them archetypes) is to change our religion.That is why radical feminism, as an agenda in the Church, is perceived as anti-Catholic. 'l am convinced', wrote Jung, 'that the impoverishment of symbols in our time has a meaning. We are the rightful heirs of Christian symbolism, but we have squandered our heritage.'And that is why the most radical feminists do not really aim at the priesthood. They have set themselves the goal of undoing the very framework of the Church itself. At the Women in the church conference in Washington, DC in 1986 (which was attended by Bishop Remi de Roo of Victoria, BC), a Sister said, 'God is going to change. We women are going to bring an end to God. We will be the end of Him. We will change the world so much, He won't fit in any more.'It is a terrifying agenda. No one could have foreseen, at the end of Vatican II, when the order of the Mass was changed, and people began to receive the eucharist in the hand, with extraordinary ministers giving it out instead of the priest, that all this would lead to words like those of Sister Kolbenschlag, quoted above.
AGENDA 3: THE ONE-WORLD CHURCH
'One world' has been a perennial shibboleth on the political scene through most of the 20th century. People old enough to recall the 1930s will remember Clarence Streit and his one-world campaign, which filled public halls all over the West. The only trouble was that it made no impression on Hitler.One worldism worked its simplistic appeal in the 1960s so long as it seemed the appropriate answer to war - the trouble then was that it meant one-world under communism to the Kremlin.Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, a new twist has been given to the perennial dream - the Churches have taken it up. Nothing new about this: peacemaking is the Gospel way, and ecumenism is one of the new directions of Vatican II.But now it has acquired a new meaning - literally, the overthrow of God. One world to many people means one God (or no God), equality of belief (or no belif), and an end to all theological disputes. The politically correct view.This probably appeals to most people as a satisfactory outcome to our human story, at the end of the 20th century. It is a philosophy for people who don't know much about religion, and for whom religion is something you make up for yourself.The surprising thing, which occupies us here, is that it appeals to a great many churchmen, specifically Roman Catholic. Among the great names we could mention are: Cardinal Bernardin, Cardinal Glemp, Cardinal Etchegaray, Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and his many clerical followers, Fr. Gustavo Guiterex, the father of liberation theology, virtually the whole school of Maryknoll theology, and, quite possible, your own pastor.None of this means that they are all extreme cases, yet many are. They do not hide it. Cardinal Bernardin sponsored the World Parliament of Religions in 1993, together with the Catholic Theological Union, and the Centre for the Study of Values, De Paul University, Chicago. (Funding also included the World Bank, the U. N. Development Program, UNESCO, etc.). It is worth mentioning that the Southern Baptist Conference and the Eastern Orthodox Church walked out.We have to ask: what is in it for Catholics? I invite you to consider several quotations. Cardinal Glemp, of Poland, told Fideleter magazine (Nov./Dec. 1992) 'The Church does not have a monopoly on saving man. Many religions can do that. There are no false religions. All religions have truth. (I am indebted to John Cotter's book Syncretism, Angelus Books, 38 Jill's Ct. Barrie, On., L4M 4L7, for this and other quotes on this subject.).The father of this philosophy in the Church is, of course, Fr. Teilhard de Chardin. A monitum against his writings is still in effect. Nevertheless, his influence among churchman is enormous. He has said: 'The Age of the Nation is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the Earth.' This accurately reflects the views of many bishops, clergy and religious. The fact that he participated in a hoax which backfired (the Pitdown Man) to prove evolution has not diminished his influence.Many more have been influenced by Fr. Thomas Merton, who developed a strongly pro-communist and pro-world government stand before he died in 1968, while attending a 'Spiritual Summit' conference in India. He told the Conference: 'We are already one. What we have to do is to rediscover our original unity.'When the charismatic leaders of the Catholic world play down the Gospel call ('No man comes to the Father but through Me') we are in trouble. None of the Church leaders mentioned here (with the exception of Fr. Teihard) has been censured for what he has said. It has become more important to show a Catholic openness to One World than to maintain the original message of the Saviour. Faithful Catholics must expect trouble, therefore. We must expect persecution. We must expect the Cross. Few are those who are willing to endure it.
AGENDA 4: THE NEW AGE CHURCH
One of the most aggressively pushed agendas in the Church today is the New Age. This does not appear overtly, and a casual churchgoer might never notice it. But the undercurrent is alive with it.A good place to look is the book rack at the back of the church. Pamphlets on 'Chakras, or spiritual energy centres,' 'Crystals and Meditation,' 'Channelling yourself,' notices for 'Centering prayer' in the parish hall, not to mention retreats with 'Journaling, guided meditation, and visualization,' etc.Harmless? you say. But it has taken over whole convents, retreat houses, schools, etc. It is the start of a new religion, and Catholic premises and leadership are being used for it. And since Catholicism is the predominant religion in North America, it represents millions of people, reciting mantras and performing yoga in the House of God.How did this ever get started? When changes began after Vatican II, the idea of change itself had great appeal - and not least among the clergy and religious. We did not want to think we're a rigid and unimaginative people. But where did it stop? It didn't.Worse, we were infected by a spirit of rebellion against authority, a mood which seized all of society and has not yet run its course. Not to put too strong a word on it, we learned to hate the past - and the past included Jesus Christ.In fact, it was Father Matthew Fox, the guru of the New Age, who said himself, 'Beware the gods of the past.' So we began worshipping the future, in which we were all to be gods.Ever seeking a new thing, as St. Paul says, we turned our eyes to the East, we experimented with mind-bending techniques, we told ourselves all power in heaven and earth was ours, and a great deal more nonsense.And then the most extraordinary thing happened. Big Business took up the New Age. Companies like Procter and Gambel, Ford, Polaroid, signed up New Age consultants, and began to compel their employees to undergo New Age practises, like T.M. (the Transcendental Meditation) and encounter sessions. It become fashionable.Harmless? Yet there is a devil in it somewhere. First of all, what has become of Jesus Christ? The New Age has no use for Him, His divinity, His message, His sacrifice. The emphasis is all on spirit worship and primitive religion.At this summer's Catholic Religious Education Conference in Los Angeles, a male liturgical dancer wore a mini-loin cloth, with nothing on underneath - and this at a Mass! Protests were heard, and Cardinal Mahony's own newspaper, Tidings, called the protesters 'dissidents'!Unfortunately, the National Catholic Education Association has been a fountainhead of New Age propaganda. Sister Judith Bisignano told the convention, 'Children are an oppressed minority and certainly Catholic schools have the ability and the freedom to be leaders of the New Age model.'Teachers seem to have a particular affinity for the New Age. Laura McArthur, the late head of Toronto Right to Life, once told me that a well known Toronto teacher had given her son a copy of Fr. Fox's book, A Musical, Mystical Bear. That is as far as New Age religion goes.Of course, books like that show how thin, how threadbare the whole New Age philosophy is. I once asked a grocer what was really in cream cheese. He said, 'It's cheese for people who don't like cheese!' That's New Age. Religion for people who don't like religion.AGENDA 5: THE PERMISSIVE CHURCH
The most seductive of all agendas, however, is that of the Permissive Church. People have been indoctrinated into the concept of their 'rights'. The most common phrase today is 'I have a right.' Especially a 'right to happiness'.How true is this? The great Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis, said this sounds as odd as saying 'everyone has a right to good luck!' 'We depend for a very great deal of our happiness on circumstances outside our control.'If we put happiness first - our own happiness - we are pretty sure to make a lot of other people miserable. Ye this is what a permissive society means. Now it has been accommodated in North America by the Church that follows the permissive agenda. The first move in this direction was made by the Canadian bishops who made Humanae Vitae (not a new teaching) a permissive document, since they said it need not be followed if your conscience was against it. Soon everyone decided to follow their conscience in pretty well everything.The theologians were quick to agree that the right to happiness was a deeper insight into our faith. 'Godliness,' the late Fr. André Guindon told us, 'is not so much concerned with sexual matters as it is with liking and loving others'. According to this theory the practice of adultery, homosexuality or promiscuity should not be regarded as sinful. But those who have adopted the permissive agenda evidently believe that Scripture has to be re-interpreted, or 'inculturated,' in order to suit our modern perceptions. And, if pressed they can call on Scripture scholars to state that the Word of God is not God's word at all. The Lord of the Universe is not the God of hangups and no-nos, they say.Sin, therefore, has been removed from the agenda of the permissive society, or at least transferred to other matters, such as offenses against social justice and the environment. Thus reordering the universe, which has always shown us that everything in life has to be paid for, has turned the Catholic Church (or those who follow this agenda) into one of the main agents of permissiveness.How else are we to characterize the most obsessive emphasis placed on sex education? 'Young people are going to have sex anyway, says the Sister in charge of sex education,'so we may as well tell them how to have safe sex,' meaning condoms. Some courses, like the New Creation series, are written by people who actively encourage pre-marital sex.How can this happen in a Catholic school? The answer has to be that educators do not fight sexual promiscuity, they believe in it! Don't say it's not happening. Just this summer, in the diocese of Rochester, NY, a seminar on homosexuality was held at Holy Name Church, at which it claimed that early Christians celebrated homosexual marriages. And in nearby Toronto, workshops in St. Bonaventure Church, attended by teachers and parents, heard the homosexual lifestyle called good, normal and legal. (The meetings were held under the auspices of the Toronto Metro Separate School Board).Thus we see the Catholic school system pushing the permissive agenda to the point of proselytizing an immoral way of life - at least immoral in any sense that Catholicism has ever held.The result is that much of the Church in North America has abandoned the Decalogue (most of the commandments are nonos) in favour of a secular philosophy which fits more agreeably with the prevailing culture. It is possible that this is acceptable to a number of Catholics. That is why Catholics contracept, abort, and divorce at approximately the same rate as non-Catholics . But never before has the Church taught sinfulness.And this is why I believe the permissive agenda is the most dangerous of all the agendas in the Church today.
CONCLUSION
It is important to stress that the agendas mentioned here are not freakish side issues on the Catholic scene. For millions of Catholics they are the issues, either singly or together. Even more important, they have, either singly or together, seduced many of our Catholic leaders, our Catholic teachers, our Catholic press.We have become an agenda people, that is to say, we are obsessed by our agendas, and nothing else seems to matter to us. Our agendas have become our religion.None of these agendas mentioned here have anything to do with religion. Community church people care less about sacramental religion than they do about running the Church themselves.These agendas are, in fact, sub-cultures which have found a home in the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, many priests and bishops have entertained them, confusing the people and leading to the loss of souls. They have welcomed the non-religious, and driven out the faithful.The common factor in all these agendas is the total absence of sacramental religion. There is no mention of the saving of souls, the reparation for sins, the attainment of heaven. Have we ceased to believe in these things? If so, we do not have a Church, we have a collection of special interests, using the name of the Church to promote themselves. This cannot continue. The fact that some shreds of religious practice are still employed to support our agendas does not justify anything. Without genuine religious belief, we are on our own.Faith means faith in the supernatural. Think of Nathaniel under the fig tree. Think of the Temple built in three days. The Pope continues to preach the whole Deposit of Faith, but are Catholics listening? If they listened, they would know that the Holy Father is leading a new age of evangelism. There is no time left for agendas, and that is 'Christ Jesus, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.'The above article was first published in Challenge: A Magazine of Catholic News and Opinion (Toronto, September 1994).
"Think not that I am come to bring peace on eafth: I come not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. And he that taketh up not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." -Jesus Christ, Matthew 10:34-38'you cannot silence my thoughts. I learned them from Jesus Christ, who made a terrible joy, and sent it to overturn governments 'W.B. Yeats, Where There is Nothing.http://jacquesclouseau.free-forums.org
by
Grant R. Jeffrey
(Mississauga, Ontario)
In a fascinating revelation, Archbishop Runcie of the Church of England told Time magazine (16 October 1989) that he had given a special ring to the Roman Pontiff. He explained that this ring was 'an engagement ring' between him and Pope John Paul II as a promise of the coming union between the Church of
Plate 67: Siobhan McKenna, Irish actress, praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Irish, Radio Telefis Eireann photograph.England and the Church of Rome. These ecumenical groups have often complained that the only real obstacle to their religious union was the resistance of the evangelical conservative Christians. Once these Christians are removed supernaturally by the Rapture, there will be little resistance from any other group to this proposed union. Ultimately this false world religion will involve an alliance of the Roman Orthodox Churches, various Protestant groups, and the New Age cult groups. Virtually all religiously-minded people will enthusiastically join this false church in a tremendous alliance with the new political leader of the New World Order, the AntiChrist.
The prophet John saw this future satanically inspired alliance of religion and politics as symbolized by Babylon, 'Mother of Harlots'. As John prophetically looked down the centuries he saw this worldwide religious system supporting the AntiChrist and the ten nations of his kingdom in their rise to power: 'I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABONHNATIONS OF THE EARTH.' Revelation 17:3-5.Note that John saw the end-time false religious system 'sitting upon a scarlet beast'. This indicates that the religious system will initially be lifted up and honoured by the Antichrist's political allies. However, John reveals that this last day religious system will be characterized by apostasy and blasphemy. She will be known for her vast riches, yet her true secret nature is indicated by the prophet's words, 'abominations and filthiness of her fornication.' The Bible often uses the imagery of sexual unfaithfulness to signify spiritual apostasy. This false church will wallow in sensuality and will express the materialistic spirit of these last days. It will be known as 'Mystery, Babylon the Great' because it will secretly embody the Babylonian religious mysteries that have characterized every man-made religion and cult since man's rebellion at the Tower of Babel.The above has been taken from Grant R. Jeffrey, Prince of Darkness: Antichrist and the New World Order (Toronto, 1994).http://jacquesclouseau.free-forums.org
by Professor Robert O'Driscoll
The following summary is based on The Terrors of the Year Two Thousand, an extraordinary, prophetic essay written in 1948 by one of the most renowned of twentieth-century philosophers, Etienne Gilson, who was the founder in the nineteen thirties of the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies. The essay was reprinted in 1984 by Father John Kelly, University of St. Michael's College, to celebrate the occasion of Gilson's birth a hundred years ago. To facilitate the flow of the summary, I have used Gilson's words freely, not always surrounding them with quotation marks. This article was published in Sri Aurobindo's Journal of India's Resurgence (Pondicherry, India, July 1985). If we trace back the history of humanity, we will find no upheaval comparable to that of the twentieth century. Europe has been ravaged by wars that have known no parallel, savagely wiping out two generations with a hatred as fierce and ingenious as only man is capable of conceiving for man. Science has wrested from matter the secret of its destruction, nuclear fission being not only the most intimate revelation of the nature of the physical world but at the same time the freeing of the most powerful agent of destruction that man has ever had at his disposal. Research in biology has been pushed forward entirely independent of all divine or human intention, and even though its discoveries are shrouded in secrecy, genetic engineering seems capable of determining the sexes, of turning out 'males and females at will,' of selecting and producing human beings 'adapted to various functions as do breeders with dogs or horses or cattle.' In this new society that is being built, of which mindless destruction is a necessary prelude or parallel, a society which will know how to give itself the slaves and even the reproducers it needs, what will become of the dignity and liberty of the human person? In this context, as Etienne Gilson puts it,'the most daring prophecies of H.G. Wells appear tame, for in The Island of Dr. Moreau they were still working to transform wild brutes into men.' In the future society made possible by genetic engineering, 'it is men whom they will be transforming into brutes - to use them to foster the end of humanity thenceforth unworthy of the name.'
The arrogant creation of this new society, paralleled by the annihilation of all values, is a mere premise, however, to a more blasphemous proposition: that man can usurp the position in the cosmos traditionally assigned to God. Up to very recent times man had thought nothing, said nothing, done nothing that did not draw its inspiration from the certitude that there existed a God or Gods. But if the totality of the human past depended on the certitude that God exists, the totality of its future seems to depend on the contrary certitude, that God does not exist. 'Antichrist,' Gilson writes, 'is not among us, he is in us. It is man himself, usurping unlimited, creative power and proceeding to the certain annihilating of that which is, in order to clear the way for the problematic creation of what will be,' the monstrous idol made with our own hands to our own image and likeness.
Already, some of the main movements in twentieth-century art and philosophy have prepared the ground. The French syrnbolist Mallarmé wanted to construct an art 'which would have the value of a preternatural creation and which would be able to enter into rivalry with the world of created things to the point of supplanting it totally.' To abolish existing creation in order to create another was, too, the ambition of authentic surrealism which André Breton defined as 'something dictated by thought, released from all control of reason, divorced from all aesthetic or moral preoccupations.' The most simple surrealist act, Breton points out, 'consists in this: to go down into the streets, pistol in hand, and shoot at random, for all you are worth, into the crowd.' Why not, Gilson asks, for the massacre of values is a necessary step in the creation of values that are really new: in this reversal of perspectives, good and evil are interchanged: 'every means becomes good,' Breton advocates, 'when employed to destroy the ideas of family, native land, religion.'
Thus, liberated by atheism, having become gods without asking for it, the masses of ordinary men do not know what to do with their divinity, for they find neither within them nor without themselves anything on which to rely. 'We have neither behind us nor before us,' Jean-Paul Sartre writes, 'any justification or excuse. We are alone, without excuse. This is what I would express in saying that man is condemned to be free ... man, without any support and without any help, is condemned at each moment to invent man.' This is the existentialist diagnosis of the condition of twentieth-century man, abandoned to himself, eternally condemned, like Sisyphus, to create himself in the permanent anguish of his own nothingness.
A new madness, however, seizes the soul, a temptation at first, then a vague consent to something which germinates in the deepest core of his decimated being, a consent and, ironic though it may seem, a desire for slavery, as the demolition of the earlier part of the twentieth century prepares the way at the end for the proliferation of cults and communities, to which the human individual is prepared to surrender his liberty, or, in balder terms, to sell his soul. With growing impatience, Gilson writes, men await 'the arrival of the master who will impose on them all forms of slavery, starting with the worst and most degrading of all - that of the mind! Blessed be he who will deliver us from ourselves! Alone under a heaven henceforth empty, man offers to whoever is willing to take it, this futile liberty which he does not know how to use. He is ready for all dictators, leaders of these human herds who follow them as guides and who are all finally conducted by them to the same place - the abattoir.'
II
To counter this spiral towards the abyss, Gilson advocates one simple proposition, as true now as it always was: the acceptance of a divine principle beyond ourselves, the recognition on all sides, 'within as well as without, of a single and self-same light which enlightens the understanding and regulates things, for the spirit which is found in them reconstructs them in the mind according to the order of the same creative intelligibility.' This harmony of spirit and matter, of thought and reality, Einstein describes, 'as the most incomprehensible of mysteries.' It does not astonish Gilson the philosopher, for he knows its source, 'that same God Whose pure existence is at the origin of all reality as well as of knowledge.'
http://jacquesclouseau.free-forums.org
BEYOND A WORLD STATE: BELOVED EE
rod to ee (5.11.91), holograph:'l had somehow climbed up to the dark woof of the world. Found the canvas torn. Gingerly moved along the scaffolding, invisible. Climbed through the hole. Got out. To confront a ring of alien men in all black uniforms, dark in appearance and intent, with cocked extra-terrestrial guns.They are given an order to fire. Silent. They understand. Before they do, my full form emerges from the tearing in the canvas, and last my desiul hand. But the hand is not free. it is holding another hand and on and on and all the remnants of the human race - those who had still retained their humanity, homo sapiens not Darwin type - passes out through that opening and onwards into the heavens they have earned.Elizabeth, give me your hand! Place it on the tiller? You must steer the ship. I must remain the deep-sea diver, gathering in the darkest of darkness the nuggets of light you need to guide our interstellar ship - towards[...]rod: The principle on which the new world order was founded on earth is no longer operative, the Big Bang and the projection of an ever-expanding universe. Did you get a chance to look at today's New York Times (5. l.'93). May I read: 'the universe is not open, meaning it is destined to expand forever, but closed. In a closed universe, the gravitational force of its matter is enough to match or exceed the outward force of expansion. Most of the universe is composed of invisible material of an unknown kind. Analysis of the data indicated that the mass of that "dark matter" might be as much as 25 times greater than that of ordinary matter, the elemental stuff of visible stars, planets and people. It's the first time there is evidence of enough dark matter to support the idea that the universe is closed."'Cosmologists have contemplated two alternatives to a closed universe. If there is not much mass, the universe might be open and keep on expanding, diminishing into infinity; or with considerably more mass, the universe might be dragged to a halt and then collapse, in what is described as the Big Crunch.' The short and the tall of all this is is that the principle on which the concept of a new world order is based is no longer operative.
ee: I was on SUN,
You were on MOON.
A signal flashed:
Meeting on EARTH!
rod:JUPITER, EARTH, VULCAN, SUN. Science fact
Not science fiction:
Blocked the path
'Tween four and five,
Jupiter and Earth.
Our choice:
Back two or forward
Three?
Are we only specks
Of dust?
Most of us went back to SUN,
Focolare! Reconnaissance to Vulcan,
Seven! SAMURI! We'll meet again
Though we're only specks of dust!
ee: So this, according to the esoteric tradition that has been hidden from man, is the sequence of planets where man has been and will be.
rod: On SATURN, where you and I met, the basis of the physical body, the most developed part of man (look at the intricacy of the ear or the loins) was laid down. On SUN the heart was infused into the physical organism, and on MOON the mind. On EARTH man is given the opportunity to steer his or her ship with the rudder of a cosmic consciousness and an individual conscience, or else yield up that responsibility to somebody else - a church leader, a marriage partner, a WORLD DICTATOR, or somebody else - whatever.There are three distinct spheres of the human soul: sentient, intellectual, and consciousness soul.Sentient soul has to do with 'sensation', the phenomena of the corporeal world revealing itself to the soul and making an 'impression' on man's inner world, arousing an experience of pleasure or displeasure, sympathy or antipathy. What is retained in the soul in response to the stimuli of the external world becomes a mental image independent of the external impression. This is retained by the process of 'memory' which links the perceptions of the past to the perceptions of the present.The world of the spirit reveals itself to the soul through the 'intuition' of the consciousness soul. This is translated by the soul into the wish to realize it: it becomes a deed, an 'action' with the help of the body as an instrument.The 'intellect' stands mid-way in the soul between sentient and consciousness soul: of itself, it is neither good nor bad. Since, however, we live in a visible universe, the intellect has a tendency to use its capacities to make man more secure in his earthly life rather than to mediate between the visible world and the invisible realms of truth, beauty, and goodness. The intellect has a tendency to abstract from experience, to apply what is true of one instance to the category which subsumes the instance, for although the brain is the organ of living thought, it contains also a tendency towards ossification: thoughts that have crystallized into belief or dogma tend to take over the intellectual life, preventing fresh thought. Thinking becomes an affair of the head, severed from the life of the heart and the spirit; as it ossifies, the feelings detach themselves, and intellect, divorced from spirit on the one hand and feeling on the other, attempts to grasp reality in finite, quantifiable terms, explaining every imaginable phenomenon in the universe, including the biological and the psychological, as mechanical models, viewing the world as a giant machine and man himself merely as a highly complex mechanisms product of heredity and environment, a complicated protoplasmic mechanism engineered into existence by genetic codes and DNA helixes and, by the mechanics of stimulus and response, adapted to the world around' (Alan P. Cottrell, Goethe's View of evil, p. 283). Indeed, material science has made its tremendous advance by treating the world almost exclusively as if it were dead matter, by assuming that everything can be weighed, measured, calculated.This leads man into a sub-natural world hidden below the threshold of sense perception. The order that technology recreates is not a picture of the world in which man is immediately living, but a picture of the world below man: in the painting of this picture, in the casting of himself as detached observer, man has begun to eliminate himself from an active role in earth evolution. The human 'will' is subverted, even enslaved, for with the mechanical models that the intellect projects and the information it gathers a tendency develops to have the information itself dictate the decision, thus eliminating the human being from the process.REASON, therefore, is given to man on MOON, is turned to blasphemy by man on EARTH: There 'his wars on God begin.' The choice on EARTH - I quote Gilson again - but it needs to be repeated several times to be fully understood:
antichrist
antibuddha
antimohammed
'is not among us, he is in us. It is man himself, usurping unlimited creative power and proceeding to the certain annihilation of that which is, in order to clear the way for the problematic creation of what will be,' the monstrous idol made by our own hands and to our own image and likeness.
ee: Those who are bent on destroying JUPITER are bent on destroying EARTH.
rod: 'The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth' - Revelation 11:18
ee: 'Then there will be great distress such as, until now, since the world began, there never had been, nor ever will be again. And if that time had not been shortened, no one would have survived, but shortened that time shall be' - Matthew 24:22.
EE begins her lament over EARTH.
ee: fin is terre fin again firm again firm egan
Finnegans Wake!
Japanese
French for
for reason'
'end'
Irish
for
'of'
Japanese
for
'coffin'
E Q U A L S
The double-ended coffin of reason!
rod: On EARTH, however, something else is stirring. Did not the fifteenth-century mystic Joachim de Flora say: 'the Kingdom of the Father has passed, the Kingdom of the Son is passing, the Kingdom of the Spirit is at hand?' The choice on EARTH is either to apply endlessly what man knows and is capable of discovering or of surrendering to the spirit that turns the atmosphere to gold rather than red - Jupiter, the Temple of Love, man's next esoteric home.
ee: There is a holy and an unholy fire, the fire that ignites the atmosphere as Tesla saw, and the fire of love that arcs like archangels over the chasm of all that divides us.
rod: tu es petros et super hanc
petram edificabo ecclesia meam: in you I found our Church of Lovehttp://jacquesclouseau.free-forums.org
