Choking on O Canada.

Last month I had lunch with a friend I haven't seen in a few years. Working our way along an ever-widening spiral, we first got caught up on our personal lives, talked about books we've been reading and music we've been listening to, and then moved on to larger social and political affairs. My friend and I very quickly established that - particularly in light of the government's halfhearted and myopically naive responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11 - we have never been more embarrassed to call ourselves Canadians.

This wasn't a partisan thing. It was hard to imagine that any of the other parties, were they able to form a government, would suddenly lead us in a markedly less humiliating direction. But with no plausible alternative in sight, the long-standing and still unpurgeable entrenchment of the backbone-deficient Liberals as ruling party definitely contributed to our despair.

The news that day, and some particularly lacerating editorial cartoons, were concerned with the on-again, off-again debacle regarding 1,000 Canadian Princess Patricia soldiers who were being kept on perpetual 48-hour standby (eventually extended to a week) before being shipped over to Afghanistan to do their bit in the war against terrorism. Evincing the sort of Alice In Wonderland logic which has become the trademark of our federal government, Prime Minister Chretien and Defence Minister Eggleton simply weren't ready to commit any Canadian soldiers to that conflict until they could be assured there wouldn't actually be any conflict for our soldiers to engage in.

"How can you respect a country that takes a position as shameless and gutless as that?" my friend asked. He told me he hated feeling this way about the country where he's lived all his life. It bothered him to harbour such exasperation about a place he knew he fundamentally loved but which has been bent so badly out of shape by a couple of decades' worth of politically correct tinkering that he scarcely recognizes it anymore.

"I'll meet that and raise you ten," I said, by way of introducing the lousy nationalistic epiphany which I had endured a few weeks previously on Remembrance Day. I'd gone out to the 11 a.m. ceremony at our city's cenotaph in a corner of our downtown park. All that had been fine, even better than usual. I've been attending that service faithfully for the last ten years and this month's crowd was the largest I've ever seen; no doubt owing to the attack of precisely two months earlier and the passions and anxieties it aroused in all of us. You could see the old vets were both surprised and touched by the turnout.

My crisis came later that day at Sunday evening Mass when the choir director announced our service would conclude not with a hymn, but a rendition of our national anthem. Fortunately I happened to be situated on a back pew with a seat right next to the aisle and thus didn't disturb that many people. As the entire congregation stood up to commence singing, I simply turned into the aisle and walked directly out of church. It would be a lie to say my action was involuntary, but there was something almost equally impulsive and surprising--to me--about my exit.

Unlocking my bike outside, I was trembling with the strength of my feelings even though I didn't fully understand them. Over the course of my ride home, I pretty well sorted them out and they went something like this:

They take prayer out of our schools and gut the history and English curricula of any lingering traces of positive Judeo-Christian influence. They set up kangaroo-court human rights tribunals which unfailingly punish politicians and citizens who refuse to perjure their Christian conscience by promoting gay rights. They publicly fund a national TV network which mocks the religious tenets held by Stockwell Day, yet never questions the pro-abortion Catholicism of Jean Chretien or Joe Clark. They forbid clergy to mention Jesus Christ or offer Christian prayers at a memorial service following the SwissAir crash off Peggy's Cove. They hold a post-September 11 "memorial event" on Parliament Hill which attracts 100,000 Canadians, and again ban any expression of Christian faith. Just before Remembrance Day, they instruct military chaplains to not use the terms Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or Jesus Christ in public prayers and services.

And now the national anthem was dragged into a house of Christian worship and they expected me to sing along?

No dice.

Herman Goodden writes from London, Ontario. We welcome him to Catholic Insight as a new columnist. He will appear every other month.