Michael Taube: There are many reasons to enjoy the Christmas season. Beautiful trees with tinsel and ornaments. Colourful lights inside and outside our homes. Presents wrapped for family and friends. Movies and television shows for the young - and young at heart. Music and carols heard on the streets and inside churches. And, of course, families, food and faith. Christmas [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements The Christmas schedule this year on Netflix is the usual avalanche of undistinguished, largely low-star-power romantic comedies with titles like The Merry Gentlemen, Meet Me Next Christmas, and Hot Frosty. Sticking out amidst the rom-coms, evergreen holiday films, and fireplace videos is Mary, a film that tells the story of the Virgin Mary [...]
What does Christmas mean for us today, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Four? The decade in which we find ourselves began with a pandemic, and has, since then, seen the rise of significant global turmoil, economic turbulence, and social tensions; in the lather of the last American election—and with a Canadian federal election on the horizon—we can easily [...]
Joanna Alphonso: A year after a Canadian Armed Forces directive discouraging prayers from being part of any formal military Remembrance Day ceremonies was rescinded, many such services still eschewed prayer. Brigadier-General Guy Bélisle, Chaplain General for the Canadian Armed Forces, issued a directive in October 2023 discouraging prayer at Remembrance Day memorial services. “While the dimension of prayer may occupy a significant [...]
Let me start this month by introducing a new columnist, Victor Penney. His “Sporting Life” column (on page 8 this month) will look at the intersection of the world of sports and life/faith/family issues. It is a bit of an experiment but I think you might enjoy the lighter side of these serious issues (although it might not always be so light). [...]
Josie Luetke: Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey Pro-lifers are normally preoccupied with the challenge of making other people pro-life. We aren’t as focused on keeping the ones we already have … we shouldn’t have to be, right? However, multiple times now, I’ve been posed the question: Why do people not stay pro-life? Many stalwarts in the movement have been [...]
According to the 2024 report by Open Doors, an advocacy group, at least 365 million Christians worldwide suffer persecution and discrimination because they believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. At least 5000 Christians were killed for their beliefs last year. Many Christian congregations designate either Nov. 3 or Nov. 10 as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture by Aaron Renn (Zondervan, $33.50, 247 pages) Aaron Renn is a fellow at American Reformer and former research fellow at the right-of-centre Manhattan Institute for Public Policy. You might be familiar with his work if you are regularly reader of First Things, his subscription newsletter or his Substack. His [...]
Interim Staff: On Sept. 24, Pastor Derek Reimer was acquitted of charges related to his drag queen story time protest in Calgary. Reimer, pastor of Mission 7 Ministries, was charged with causing a disturbance and mischief for protesting the “Reading with Royalty” event marketed for children at the Seton Public Library in February 2023. He was removed from the premises by police. [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Hockey Priest: Father David Bauer and the Spirit of the Canadian Game by Matt Hoven (Catholic University of America, $38.95 pb, 339 pages) Fr. David Bauer was born in Waterloo, Ont., in 1924 and would later attend St. Michael’s College School in Toronto, which was run by the Basilian Fathers. He joined their religious community and coached the St. Michael’s [...]
Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will Robert M. Sapolsky (Penguin Press, $48, 511 pages) Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford and the author of the bestselling Behave. In Determined he delves into the scientific case against free will by explaining both the science of the brain and the epigenetic influences on how the brain [...]
Tim Walz’s deadly record on life Tim Walz is the vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in the upcoming national elections. As governor of Minnesota, Walz was the first in the country to enact state pro-abortion legislation after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and sent the issue of abortion back to the states. Abortion was already legal in Minnesota through [...]
Gideon Spevak: In June 2022, Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly introduced the Aid and Support After Pregnancy (ASAP) program to offer financial and material support to pregnancy care centres and other pregnancy support organizations in the United States and Canada. This program was introduced by the Knights of Columbus after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson that overturned Roe v. [...]
Rory Leishman: According to the latest, most reliable information on COVID 19 vaccines, are they ethical? Have they really been a safe and effective means of drastically reducing hospitalizations and deaths due to the COVID-19 virus? Consider, first, the ongoing controversy over the ethics of the Moderna and Pfizer-BionTech mRNA vaccines. Some well-meaning, but misguided, pro-lifers maintain that no one in good [...]
Interim Staff: Last year, the nation-wide Million Person March for Children drew an estimated 1.5 million Canadians to demonstrate for parental rights and in an interview with LifeSiteNews, Muslim pro-family activist Kamel El-Cheikh, head of Hands Off Our Kids, said his group has quadrupled in size in the months leading up to the second Million Person March. Hands off Our Children is [...]