Earl Amyotte passed away peacefully Feb. 2 at the age of 74 with family by his side at Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor. Affectionately known as “Earl the Pearl” to his pro-life colleagues, he frequently described himself as one who was meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. For nearly three decades, he was a leading Canadian pro-life activist [...]
Pat Boone is a descendent of the legendary U.S. pioneer Daniel Boone. He has been a top-selling recording artist, the star of his own hit TV series, a movie star, a Broadway headliner and a best-selling author in a career that has spanned half a century. During the classic rock and roll era of the 1950s, he sold more records than any [...]
The late John Muggeridge once told me of the time he met Evelyn Waugh. “I was sitting with my father and celebrating the fact that I’d just received my commission in the army. I was rather proud. He immediately deflated me with some rude comment about the status of my regiment. But I didn’t mind. He was so gifted, so clever and [...]
One of the few bright lights on the Canadian media landscape has gone out. Larry Henderson passed away in his sleep at the age of 89 in London, Ont. Although remembered in the mainstream media mostly for being the first regular anchor of CBC TV’s national newscast from 1954 to 1959, he is regarded in Canada’s pro-life community as a pillar of [...]
When Malcolm Muggeridge died in 1990, it can be said without any fear of hyperbole that one of the most sparkling minds and souls of contemporary Christianity and the pro-life movement had been taken from us. The body died, but the achievements live on, mostly in books such as Jesus, The Man Who Lives, Paul, Envoy Extraordinary, volumes of autobiography, biographies of Mother [...]
When Jim Hughes, Campaign Life Coalition president, hired Ann Liptok 27 years ago as his secretary in the first small, cramped CLC office in downtown Toronto, he was puzzled. When he asked her why she didn’t get a job closer to her faraway suburban home in Mississauga, she quietly replied, “I want to work for this cause. It’s very dear to my [...]
Juergen Severloh is a pioneer in Canada’s pregnancy crisis centre movement. The German immigrant will be 50 years old this March, having spent over half his life as one of Manitoba’s most well-known pro-life activists. Juergen’s interest in pro-life activism evolved from his conversion experience four years earlier. “I became a Christian at the University of Manitoba in 1976,” he told The [...]
Peter Naglik, a long-time political party activist and devout Catholic, was killed in the early hours of Sept. 29 at the age of 39 in a single-vehicle accident en route to his home, near Ottawa. The resident of Russell, Ont. was driving his 1995 Chrysler Concorde when he lost control of the vehicle. The car flipped onto its roof and smashed into [...]
Upon my return from a recent vacation in Ireland, I received the sad news of the death of my most valued friend, the Rev. Ken Campbell. I think most pro-life people in Toronto are aware that I am a Catholic priest and Ken was a Baptist minister. But on one vital issue, we were totally at one and that is the pro-life [...]
“When our three girls were adolescents, we moved to a small farm with no cable TV, gave them each a pig to raise, taught them to run a tractor and began an organic market garden.” Thus began a fascinating interview with popular Interim writer Doreen Beagan. Doreen hails from Prince Edward Island, where she was the oldest of nine children born to [...]
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 [...]
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 September 1986, I was completing my biography of the great British author Gilbert Keith Chesterton. He had died 50 years earlier and various supporters and devotees of his work had organized a conference around the man at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. I was fortunate enough to be invited over from my home in England to deliver a [...]
All saints are extraordinary, but St. John Vianney, known as “The Cure of Ars,” was most extraordinary. He was born at Dardilly, near Lyons, France. His father was a farmer and John spent most of his youth herding cattle and feeding pigs. He received virtually no education and joined the French Army, but deserted in 1809. The only thing he wanted to [...]
Heather Stilwell is a name known to many right to life activists in Canada. “I’ve been in the right to life movement since 1978, just shy of 30 years,” states the public school board trustee from Surrey, BC. “One of the girls at my church got me signed up with the Vancouver Hospital Board. One thing led to another and we ended [...]