After a rash of “very poor” judgments in recent years, John Carpay was “happily surprised” the Federal Court of Canada ruled on Jan. 23 that Justin Trudeau’s government was not justified in using the Emergencies Act against the Freedom Convoy protest in 2022.

Word of a “Freedom Convoy” first reached my ears while I was still far away in Rome. Weeks later, much ink has been spilled, arrests have been made, a $306-million class-action lawsuit is underway, the federal Emergencies Act was invoked for the first time and Angus-Reid published poll results with the headline, “Three-in-four Canadians tell convoy protesters, Go Home Now.” What is a Catholic to think?

More than 130 years ago, in a foundational encyclical of Catholic social teaching, Pope Leo XIII warned against “crafty agitators” within the political class bent on dividing society for pernicious ends.

Perhaps the oldest strategy of war is: “Divide and conquer”— which can take many forms. Physically divide a land mass into north and south. Encourage a portion of a country to secede. Partition. Physical divisions create smaller spaces and populations to overtake, can leave families separated and citizens stranded. But the most insidious division is spiritual, psychological, social. If planned from without and then wormed into a once-harmonious (even if not homogenous) group, division can be made to feel organic and even righteous through… you guessed it: fear-mongering.

The Freedom Convoy ensnarling the nations’s capital has led to the cancellation of Masses in churches near downtown Ottawa.

A true mob is terrible to witness, much less get stuck in. Something happens when humans are pressed together in fear and anger: a feral scent is emitted, an emboldening and anxious spirit. Once unleashed, it crashes over and draws down all in its wake.