In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ preaches upon what seems to be a slight topic: the taking of oaths. He exhorts His listeners “not to swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King”; and, amplifying this point [...]
An Alberta judge has downgraded a second-degree murder conviction to infanticide, and in doing so justified her decision by comparing the mother’s murder of her newborn to abortion. Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Joanne Veit said Katrina Effert of Wetaskiwin should not be judged too harshly because “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected [...]
In an age of instant information, the lack of widely-known facts about abortion is scandalous. To be sure, the mini-industry surrounding the brutal practice of prenatal infanticide is hardly transparent, but the real dearth of clear information about abortion proceeds from the public’s incorrigible lack of curiosity. It is not that such information is unattainable; instead, it is simply unwanted. While corrupt [...]
Make no mistake: the Family Coalition Party is as pro-life as it has ever been. They just want to pursue a new direction. In their new party platform, the words “abortion” and “pro-life” never appear. While one assumes that an opposition to abortion is still a part of their rather full slate of social, economic, and energy policies, we are embarrassed by [...]
In 1957, the French literary critic Roland Barthes published a lively collection of essays on mythologies that circulate in the modern world. From wrestling to red wine, from Citroëns to soap-powders, Barthes identified the unmarked, cultural myths prevalent in post-war France. In his view, myths are not simply ancient stories about philandering gods: they are a common feature of our daily lives. [...]
In the 1980s, pro-life groups intervened in the Morgentaler case, but not the Borowski case. When the Supreme Court brought down the Morgentaler decision on Canada’s abortion law it said the Borowski case on the issue of whether the unborn was a person under the Charter was rendered moot. REAL Women’s Gwen Landolt said it was a mistake to not intervene in [...]
From the election-time boogeyman of the “hidden agenda” to novels like The Handmaid’s Tale, the left-wing of the Canadian imagination preoccupies itself with the production of alarmist prophecies. Self-anointed seers repeat a ritual unmasking of supposed culturally conservative conspiracies, and expose the concealed seeds of a coming Christian despotism. This nightmare scenario is like the paranoid fantasy of a patient who is [...]
It seems that the human rights commission industry has avoided making headlines lately, but that does not mean they are not up to their usual mischief, finding new vistas of wrong-doing to correct. The June 14 Globe and Mail reported that the Ontario Human Rights Commission is reading want ads for housing to determine if landlords and would-be roommates are discriminating in [...]
When President Jomo Kenyatta unceremoniously expelled Fr. Edward Colleton from Kenya in 1971, the Irish Spiritan who had spent the last 30 years living and working in Africa might well have thought his missionary days had come to an end. But Fr. Ted was on the cusp of a new mission. Having come from a place where pregnant woman were honoured and [...]
On May 2, Canadians will go to the polls to elect members of the 41st Parliament and, even now, the mainstream media is shaping the simplified story that will be told about the day’s results. The upcoming election will be taken as some sort of referendum about the incumbent government and, with no more precision than the ancient augurers, a legion of [...]
In recent weeks, a number of scandals have beset Stephen Harper’s minority government. Rumors and reports of misdemeanors and misdeeds – and the election speculations which they spur – are an irresistible combination for the Canadian political press, and journalists have eagerly documented each new discovery in painstaking detail. But, as the media runs in the direction of the latest and loudest [...]
Last May, Bill Siksay, the NDP MP for Burnaby-Douglas, introduced Bill C-389, a private member’s bill that would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include vague concepts such as “gender identity” and “gender expression” in the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination so that supposed offenses against “gender variant individuals” could be punished under Canadian Law. The bill, in other words, [...]
As we report on page three, the Halton Catholic District School Board caved to gay activists and their allies in the media, by rescinding their admirable and principled equity and inclusion policy that respected and upheld Catholic moral teaching on the issue of homosexuality, while respecting the dignity inherent in all human beings. But for gay activists, who are no friends of [...]
A famous quip, attributed to Otto von Bismarck, has it that “politics is the art of the possible.” One often hears it on the lips of pragmatic politicians and savvy strategists, and, as a practical principle, this dictum is a sound and sober counsel for those actively engaged in the messy affairs of politics. In his opening remarks at the Building a [...]
According to the laws of ancient Israel, in addition to the Sabbath observed every seventh year, the people of the Lord were to celebrate a Sabbath of Sabbaths, a Jubilee year: “You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year… It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to [...]