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Candlelight vigils will be held in numerous cities in wake of the terrorist attack at a Quebec mosque.<\/p>\nCandlelight vigils will be held in numerous cities in wake of the terrorist attack at a Quebec mosque.<\/p>\n
As Theodore Dalrymple put it<\/a> about a prior attack:<\/p>\n A moment used to be defined as the amount of time between a Mexico City traffic light turning green and the sound of the first car horn, but now it might be defined as the period between a terrorist attack in a Western city and the first public appearance of a candle.\u00a0 Every terrorist attack, including the latest one in Berlin, is immediately followed by the public exhibition of lighted candles.\u00a0 It is almost as if the population keeps a store of them ready to hand for this very purpose.<\/p>\n [\u2026..]<\/p>\n The candles, then, are a manifestation of modern paganism, a striving for transcendence without any real belief in it.\u00a0 They are also a somewhat self-congratulatory symbol of our own peaceable temperament: the violent are not great candle-lighters.\u00a0 We cannot, for example, imagine Genghis Khan lighting many candles for the souls of the departed (not that we really believe in souls).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I think Dalrymple is correct when he says the candles signify a striving for transcendence without any real belief in it<\/em>. It is only fitting, then, that Anglican bishops and lesser clergy will be well represented in Quebec, London (Ontario), Halifax, Edmonton, Toronto, Hamilton and, no doubt, many other locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Candlelight vigils will be held in numerous cities in wake of the terrorist attack at a Quebec mosque. As Theodore Dalrymple put it about a prior attack: A moment used to be defined as the amount of time between a … Continue reading