In Lumen Gentium, one of the key documents of Vatican II, we are told that “They are fully incorporated into the society of the Church who, possessing the spirit of Christ, accept her entire system.” It is therefore somewhat disquieting to find that, while accepting “her entire system,” and presumably being fully incorporated into the universal Church, one can nevertheless be relegated [...]
Even though it in based on a Ph.D. thesis is sociology, and is praised on its back cover by an apostate priest (Gregory Baum), this is an important book. On the basis of 111 interviews which he conducted in the Toronto area in 1985-86, together with other research, Cuneo concludes that Canadian protesters against abortion are not reducible to a single social [...]
Canadians have long lacked serious, in-depth studies of the pro-life movement. Until now, we have only seen books hostile to our principles (Not an Easy Choice by Kathleen McDonnell and The Big Evasion by Anne Collins) which have merely rehashed the pro-abortion party line. Catholics Against the Church by Michael W. Cuneo goes some way in restoring a balance. Cuneo, a sociologist, [...]
Volume 1 Supplement to Number 1 THE INTERIM 1990 February 1990 Something new This month The Interim introduces our new supplement – Insight. To appear quarterly, each issue will deal extensively with a single theme or topic. Our premier issue features three reviews of a single book: Michael Cuneo’s Catholics against the Church: anti-abortion protest in Toronto, 1969-1985. University of Toronto Press, [...]
In the days following the massacre in Montreal which claimed the lives of fourteen young women (December 7, 1989) there has been much discussion concerning the raison d’etre for the murders and how society should respond. The disagreements, however, have often been divisive. There is bitter dispute over whether the rampage should be characterized as an isolated event, or one consistent with [...]
In mid-December 1989, Kevin Lee Kite, 26 charged Father Bruce Ritter, the founder of Covenant House, with sexual and financial misconduct. However, a front-page story in the New York Post revealed that Kite had a history of male prostitution. His father said that Kite had a “history of pathological lying. He tries to hurt everyone who tries to help him.” Before the [...]
AIDS in the Work Place, a school lesson produced by Health and Welfare, Canada for senior students, teaches fifteen erroneous statements in a twenty-minute lesson. B.C. teens who tested positive for the AIDS virus totaled 88 in 1989, nearly double the 45 found in 1988. Deputy health minister Stan Dubas stated, “B.C. teenagers think they’re immune to AIDS.” B.C. teens think that [...]
Jean Pakenham came to The Interim in November 1986 and soon helped it to get on its financial feet. Combining her years of experience in newspaper advertising with her business acumen, Jean organized the paper’s advertising department, making it an indispensable part of The Interim. Her organizational skills and no-nonsense approach are the hallmarks of a modern, female, corporate executive with one [...]
Kids First is a Calgary-based nonprofit national organization lobbying to safe-guard the right and choice of parents to raise their children in a home setting. During the last six months, Kids First has researched and tabled a child-care scheme which it believes is fairer to Canadian families than the federal government’s present and proposed Child Benefits Program Indignant. “What we’ve done is [...]
Members of the Parent/Teacher Association for St. Barbara’s Catholic School in Scarborough, Ontario, meeting in early December 1989, expressed serious misgivings about a sexual abuse prevention program introduced by the Metro (Toronto) Separate School Board (MSSB). The MSSB’s Preventive Education Program (PEP) aims to teach children, as young as possible, what sexual abuse is and how to deal with it. But a [...]
Pro-life posters have been shipped to 192 Roman Catholic elementary schools in Metro for use in the classroom. The 8,000 posters donated by Campaign Life Coalition have been distributed with the whole-hearted endorsement of the Metro Separate School Board (MSSB). Each poster features a large color picture of Mother Teresa holding a child. Underneath is a short biography of Mother Teresa and [...]
Approximately 200 pro-life rescuers and supporters braved frigid temperatures December 29, 1989 to save young lives at the Scott abortuary in Toronto. Pro-abortion demonstrators punched and pummeled the rescuers before police arrived and even afterward. Evidently tipped off before the main force of rescuers arrived, a small, screaming group of pro-abortionists had occupied the steps leading up to the front door. Despite [...]
While post-election media attention focused on East Coast contests, something potentially momentous happened out West. The gay rights movement, supposedly an unstoppable force that would redefine the meaning of the family, was stopped by the voters in three California cities. In Irvine, voters turned down the idea of including “sexual orientation” in the town’s human-rights ordinance. In Concord (a suburb of San [...]
Again and again we have been told that homosexuals are simply decent people who want the same rights as anyone else – the right not to be discriminated against in the search for a job or for an apartment, the right not to be subjected to verbal abuse, and so on. It may well be that on average they are no more [...]
Dignity-USA, an organization of approximately 4500 Catholic homosexuals and lesbians, has formally rejected Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality. The document “Sexual Ethics: Experience, growth, challenge,” was approved in August 1989 at the organization’s twentieth anniversary national convention in San Francisco and published in full in the December 1989 newsletter. The teaching of the Catholic Church is that homosexual activity is sinful and [...]