Incremental victories are indeed pro-life victories George Weigel, the noted papal biographer, senior fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Centre and board member of Americans United for Life, addressed a Campaign Life Coalition clergy luncheon in May in Toronto and offered some sage advice: incremental victories are indeed pro-life victories and their importance should not be discounted. He offered this [...]
In a statement on June 27, the Rt. Rev. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, presented a plan for expelling the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the United States from constituent membership in the worldwide Anglican communion. Specifically, Williams suggested that any Anglican church that unilaterally flouts Anglican doctrine should be reduced to the status of [...]
I borrowed $10 from my wife, Ileen, for a Liberal party membership in order to pick the new leader of the federal Liberal party at the convention Nov. 29-Dec. 3 in Montreal. She objected to doing so. She felt all new members should put up their own money. She said that I wasn’t a sincere Liberal. I was just going down there [...]
In recent years, Father Raymond Gravel has been well known in Quebec for his dissident views as a Catholic priest. He differs on abortion, same-sex “marriage,” homosexual priests, married priests, homosexuality, women priests, contraception and many other topics. He is almost a caricature. He is, however, often invited by the Quebec media to comment on church affairs. He is almost an official [...]
On July 13, Jess Dobkin, a Toronto performance artist, presented what was called “the Lactation Station” at Toronto’s OCAD art school. The Canada Council for the Arts granted a sum of $9,000 for this exhibit, which allowed participants to “sample” the breast milk of six different women. The mission statement behind this “piece” was to deal with something that is “taboo” and [...]
On June 29, 2006, at an annual meeting, the British Medical Association (BMA) voted to clearly oppose euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. The margin of the vote was 65 per cent to 35 per cent, a resounding victory. Last year’s annual meeting resulted in the BMA taking a neutral position on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. The 2005 BMA meeting orchestrated a vote on [...]
The worlds of philosophy and humour often intersect so that philosophers can sometimes be mistaken for comedians and vice versa. To the age-old question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” one might not be certain whether to respond with a frown or a smile. A contemporary variant of [...]
George Parkin Grant (1918-1988) is one of the most important Canadian thinkers. His various works are worthy of close study, for persons interested in political philosophy; in Canadian history, politics and culture; and in the philosophical critique of technology and late modernity. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the appearance of George Grant’s last major book, Technology and Justice. This was [...]
On Oct. 16, 2004, an unprecedented number of Nova Scotians voted on whether to allow Sunday shopping. In Halifax, 51 per cent said yes; province-wide, 55 per cent said no. The binding plebiscite made Nova Scotia the only Canadian province to reject Sunday shopping. Small businesses and services with less than 4,000 square feet (270 square metres) of retail space could still [...]
“Gay pride” season has come and gone on and it’s once again time to look at some of the key corporate and public backers of the annual festivities. Pride Toronto was supported by Labatt (a diamond sponsor at $100,000-plus that donates all the beer sold), TD Canada Trust and VIA Rail Canada (platinum sponsors), CTV, Air Canada, Rogers, and Polar Ice Vodka [...]
It was a glorious summer’s day at High Park in Toronto on June 25, as pro-life university students gathered to celebrate life with friends. The University of Toronto Students for Life (UTSFL) club hosted a barbeque for fellow campus pro-lifers and newcomers. All were invited and it proved a great success, as more than 50 people arrived throughout the day. According to [...]
Shortly after announcing that he would be known as Benedict XVI, the new Pope confirmed what some had speculated about his selection of the name: Benedict “represents a fundamental point of reference for the unity of Europe and a strong reminder of the unrenounceable Christian roots of its culture and civilization.” Just before he was proclaimed Pope, Benedict collaborated on a book, [...]
It is to our great shame, as well as to our great loss, that Christopher Dawson is no longer a particularly well-known figure, even within the Christendom he so loved, appreciated and understood. He should, in fact, be placed in the same class and category as such champions as G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and Ronald Knox - a prophet and a scholar, [...]
In this third installment of our critique of Canadian healthcare, we continue our look at specific, individual incidents pointing out the fact that a system that kills more than 100,000 preborn Canadians a year, throws out the classic Hippocratic Oath and is in sympathy with licentious sex education - as well as the liberal distribution of abortifacient “morning-after pills” and other questionable [...]
In the intenational media furor surrounding East Timor’s recent resumption of political unrest, what has often gone unremarked is the fact that the tiny, embattled nation has an overwhelmingly Catholic majority population with deeply conservative social values. East Timor’s Christian social values have been under attack for decades, first from invasion by the Islamic Indonesian state that undertook a project of social [...]