Pastor Artur Pawlowski and members of his flock march at the head of the Calgary Stampede Parade on Friday. Below: Pastor Pawlowski with Alberta Solicitor-General Jonathan Denis. Below that: Pastor Pawlowski with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. All photos grabbed from Facebook pages belonging to Pastor Pawlowski or his Calgary Street Ministries.
Artur Pawlowski, Calgary’s most turbulent priest, managed to march with his eccentrically dressed supporters right at the front of the 100th anniversary Stampede Parade on Friday.
This should be news, because the normally omnipotent Calgary Stampede Board didn’t particularly want Pastor Pawlowski to be there – in fact, last year they tried to get a court injunction to prevent him and his flock from protesting along the parade route.
Don’t expect to see or hear much coverage of this oddity, however, because the Calgary media have an unwritten policy of never saying anything even mildly controversial about the Stampede when its gates are open to paying customers. Publicly speaking ill of the Stampede is considered sacrilege in what used to be known as Cowtown, even if that means journalists must take with good grace the obvious disdain of Parade Marshal Ian Tyson.
Alert readers will recall Pastor Pawlowski, the noisy street preacher who has been accused of breaking Calgary bylaws more than 70 times over the past few years, as the man who prompted a particularly intemperate Sun News Network commentator to call Mayor Naheed Nenshi an “anti-Christian bigot” when city police stopped the preacher from conducting a private religious ceremony inside city hall. Never mind that Mr. Nenshi had nothing to do with police being called to that particular disturbance back in December 2011.
At the Stampede Parade on Friday, Pastor Pawlowski and members of his Calgary Street Ministries appear to have showed up moments before start time with their Canadian and Israeli flags. The Calgary Police let them join the fun, right at the front so it could be said they weren’t technically part of the event. Perhaps the officers didn’t want to be called the “boys with the billy clubs” again, or anti-Christian bigots, an accusation that is thrown around with cheerful abandon in the Alberta of 2012.
This sets an interesting precedent for other unauthorized groups that may want to join future Stampede parades, but never mind that just now.
A little way back down the parade route along with Premier Alison Redford and Mayor Nenshi came one of Pastor Pawlowski’s apparent supporters, Alberta Solicitor-General and Justice Minister Jonathan Denis. It’s not clear how Mr. Denis felt as the province’s chief law enforcement officer about Pastor Pawlowski’s unauthorized presence at the head of the parade.
But notwithstanding the pastor’s frequent problems with the law – mostly tickets for noise bylaw violations when conducting services in public – Mr. Denis, the MLA for Calgary-Acadia, was not inclined to ignore Mr. Pawlowski’s support during last spring’s tight-fought provincial election.
Just before the election, Pastor Pawlowski delivered a little succor to Mr. Denis’s Progressive Conservative party, which was being strongly challenged by the far-right Wildrose Party led by Danielle Smith, who casts herself as a defender of Christian values.
According to an account by Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid, Pastor Pawlowski spotted a photo of Ms. Smith at a Hindu ceremony, where she was clad in traditional Indian garb and said to be asking for blessings from the gods. “The pastor erupted,” Mr. Braid wrote just before the election. “Smith will not have his vote, he wrote, because she ‘crossed the line from being tolerant of other people and their beliefs to actively participating in their idolatrous practices.’”
Not long after the election, the Solicitor General wrote the pastor a letter thanking him for organizing a June 17 event called the Calgary March for Jesus.
“March for Jesus is an opportunity for believers to publically (sic) profess their faith in Jesus Christ, give him glory, and make known what he has done for us,” Mr. Denis wrote under Solicitor-General Department letterhead on June 20. “As a supporter of the March for Jesus, I thank you and all the organizers who made this event a success.”
It remains to be seen if Mr. Denis will write another letter to Pastor Pawlowski thanking him for his contribution to this year’s Stampede Parade.
This post also appears on Rabble.ca.
I’m not really all that interested in the Stampede, or its parade, but this story got me thinking: in most large cities, one needs to apply for a parade permit before one can march down the middle of a city street, holding up traffic, disrupting cross-street traffic flow, etc. Would it not then follow, if the law were logical (an unsupported assumption, admittedly), that the applicant for a parade permit should have some control over who can and cannot participate in the parade? Paster P was not a party to the application for the parade permit, so he ought not to have the right to piggyback on it (alliteration unintentional and unavoidable). The Charter of Rights has a limitations clause: “…subject to those reasonable limits that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. I would submit that barring unauthorized participants from a parade, when the parade organizers had to apply for a permit to hold the event, falls into that category.
Excuse me but what has Jesus a spanish name pronounced properly as hay-zuess ever done for me? He did not even get me the mail? But a rabble rousing bunch claim they know him personally?
And they murder doctors that allow abortions, why? Was hey-zzuess in the womb in every woman requesting one? And they were saving the second coming….
I see from following your post’s links that Danielle Smith has called you an anti-Christian bigot. Do you think the Wildrose leader will think this post is further evidence of that tendency, that the frequency of your outbursts now elevates you to the level of anti-Christian spigot, or will she make an exception because Pastor Pawlowski so obviously supported the Enemy during the election? I have to say that despite the pastor’s opinion she was “actively participating in idolatrous practices,” I thought Danielle’s pink sari that day was extremely fetching.
Pastor Pawlowski has trouble leaving unto Caesar, or leaving unto city bylaws. He’s right quick to point out that Danielle Smith chose to pander to a heresy not his own. Not cool, Danielle, not cool.
This may set a precedent, but at least we were not treated to a photo of Calgary police wrestling King Richard to the ground. Actually, that would be awesome.
Holy cow! For a second there I thought the Taliban had seized control of Calgary. Oh well, if present demographic trends continue, it won’t be too long before the Sons of Islam or some other Jihadist group straight out of Lawrence of Arabia will be leading the Stampede parade. Although he adopts an expression of Christianity I don’t agree with (an old Testament militaristic metaphor as opposed to a Jesus as hippie, peace, love and don’t cast the first stone approach), I will miss Mr. P.
Who cares about a bloody parade and who cares about christian wack-jobs pushing their beliefs on whatever fool will listen or follow?
It is wrong to carry and Israeli flag in a Canadian parade. What have they ever contributed to the Stampede or Canada?????
notice how a camera person is at everything he goes to? And you are a shame to christian’s street church. get off our city hall..people come because you give food..nobody likes you..notice how there’s not one single good thing written pawlowski. has you even gone to school to be a “priest”/ordained?
why are our mla’s/mps and city council allowing city hall to be shamed with his circus.. city hall, calgary is disappointed we have to see this eyesore on the street by the heart of calgary.. I’l atest that he’s interfering with my right to religion. Thanks calgary police/bylaw for making him distinctly not a part of our annual (100th at that) pride!