to our Canadian national life, in a word, to make the Church of Canada assume the proper responsibility which Catholic solidarity imposes on all her children in regard to this new factor of Catholicity in our country, . . . this is the Ruthenian problem as it presents itself to us with its various aspects and critical issues.  Problems of the moral and religious order are of a very complex nature.  Principles remain but circumstances change with the fancies of imagination, the impulse of passion, the whims of the will.  This explains how, in the great and everlasting war between right and wrong, truth and error, the line of battle is ever shifting, the methods of attack ever changing.  Various therefore have been the phases of the problem under discussion.  But, we presume, they may all be related to two periods:  the period of settlement and the period of assimilation.

The Period of Settlement

When a few years ago our shores were heavily invaded by the rising tide of an intense immigration from the British Isles and Continental Europe, the Church had to face conditions heretofore unknown.  Without doubt, the most complex in its elements, the most serious in its consequences, was the Ruthenian issue.  It was a case of providing for the spiritual wants of over a quarter of a million souls.  The dearth of priests, the difference of rite, the difficulty of language, and the great number of Ruthenians, created for the Church an almost insurmountable barrier which nothing short of a miracle could otherthrow [Transcriber’s note:  overthrow?].  This sudden and large influx of Catholics belonging to the Greek rite, into a Country where the Latin Church alone prevailed, constitutes a fact that has never been seen before in the history of the Church.  Thousands and thousands of these Greek Catholics were scattered through the prairies; roaming flocks without shepherds, a prey to ravening wolves.  Heresy, schism, atheism, socialism and anarchy openly joined hands to rob these poor people of the only treasure they had brought with them from the old-land,—­their Catholic Faith.  Presbyterian ministers were seen to celebrate among them “bogus masses”; schismatic emissaries tried to bribe them with “Moscovite money”; fake bishops were imposing sacrilegious hands on out-laws and perverts; traitors from among their ranks, like Judas, bartered away their faith for a few pieces of silver; a subsidized press,—­“The Canadian Farmer” and “The Ranok”—­was ever at work, playing on their patriotism and exploiting their racial feelings, to cover with ridicule their faith and pious traditions.  The public school became in the hands of the enemy the most powerful weapon.  Government itself, through its various officials, often went out of its way to thwart the efforts of our missionaries.