Canadian Christendom – Lessons for America, by Charles A. Coulombe

Sacred love of the throne and the altar,
Fill our hearts with your immortal breath!
Among the foreign races,
Our guide is the law:
Let us know how to be a people of brothers,
Under the yoke of faith.
And repeat, like our fathers,
The battle cry: “For Christ and King!”
—Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier, “O Canada.”

At this writing I am touring through the Canadian Province of Alberta, a place where I had only been once before – passing through on the passenger train called The Canadian, during which I stayed for two nights at Jasper.  Of course, much has happened since the last time I set foot in the Dominion of Canada in 2016.  Trump was elected the first time; COVID erupted, and Justin Trudeau behaved like a dictator; Queen Elizabeth II died, and was succeeded by her son, King Charles III; Trump was re-elected in 2024, and ordered little Justin to step down; Trump declared that Canada should be the 51^st State, and so handed the Canadian election to the Liberals – as he had handed the Australian election to that country’s Labour Party.  Amongst other things, for decades the Liberals at both Provincial and Dominion levels had resisted having Royals open their legislatures.  But so frightened was the new Liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney, at Trump’s posturings that he asked the country’s new King, Charles III, to remind everyone of Canada’s actual governance by opening Parliament.

Although this welcome bit of civics was quickly forgotten, it underlined one of the few obvious ways in which the United States and Canada are hugely different: we are a republic, and they are a Monarchy.  Yet our republic and their Monarchy have shared roots, as do our respective Churches and cultures.  The difference arises from our revolution, which in turn left its mark not only on our two nations – creating them as they are – but also on the Bahamas, Sierra Leone, and above all, the United Kingdom. …