In museums, libraries, galleries, and concert halls, one can watch a similar drama unfold. An incipient style—of a period, of an artist—begins uncertainly, but it promises something more, an as-yet-unachieved maturity. Eventually, as the career of a style progresses, something permanent and distinctive is added to the sum-total of cultural achievements. One need only think of the qualities conjured by eponymous adjectives—like [...]
Heterosexual students happier, healthier than LGBQ+ students The U.S. Centres for Disease Control has completed and released its annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey. High school students were grouped into heterosexual and LGBQ+ categories. (Subsequent assessments will include transgender students.) Here are a few of the disturbing results. Among heterosexual students, 22 per cent experienced poor mental health, in contrast to 52 per [...]
Presbyterians rarity among mainline Protestant churches to oppose euthanasia James Schadenberg, Special to The Interim: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has written about situations where Canadian churches are promoting euthanasia (MAiD) such as when Churchill Park United Church in Winnipeg Man., hosted the euthanasia death of an 86-year-old woman in March 2022. Recently, EPC sponsored a petition against a pro-euthanasia prayer promoted by the United [...]
The last canticle of Dante’s Divine Comedy begins with the poet taking stock of his unprecedented enterprise. Thus far, his imaginative journey has taken him, like the epic heroes of old, to the depths of the underworld. But, unlike them, he does not return to the world. Instead, he passes through the realm of forsaken souls to ascend the purgatorial terraces of [...]
Religious Liberty and the American Founding: Natural Rights and the Original Meaning of the First Amendment Religion Classes Vincent Philip Muñoz (University of Chicago Press, $41 pb, 334 pages) Notre Dame professor of law Vincent Philip Muñoz thoroughly examines the original meaning of the religion clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as understood through the debates at America’s founding, [...]
From the editor's desk: The Interim editor, Paul Tuns In January, something extraordinary happened: a National Hockey League hockey player, Philadelphia Flyer’s defenseman Ivan Provorov, took to the pre-game practice wearing his regular jersey. It launched hundreds of columns in both the sports pages and editorial pages and conversations on radio about the so-called homophobia problem in hockey. Provorov declined [...]
Brain-dead women as ‘baby machines’ We have learned that a German molecular biologist, Hashem Al-Ghaili, is developing Ectolife, transparent artificial wombs where babies will be conceived and “housed” until birth, while their parents can look on as spectators. He said the technology could be used to reverse declining birth rates in countries such as Bulgar, Japan, and South Korea. LifeSiteNews reports that [...]
John Carpay: Since early 2020, the majority of religious leaders around the world have supported lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccination passports, and other coercive measures that violated the freedom, prosperity, and well-being of millions of citizens. As just one prominent example, in August of 2021 Pope Francis and other bishops praised the new Covid vaccine as “safe and effective.” Vatican City pressured all [...]
Rory Leishman: Pope Benedict XVI was not just one of the leading Christian theologians of his era. He also had remarkable prophetic insight. In a brilliant lecture broadcast on the radio in 1969, he foresaw that the then-still relatively strong and theologically coherent Catholic Church was heading toward a catastrophic decline. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger predicted: “As the number of its adherents diminishes, [...]
Editor’s Note: It is with a heavy heart that The Interim reports on the laicization of Frank Pavone and the fallout from the announcement in December. But as the pro-life paper of record, we have a duty to factually report about the events that transpired before and after the announcement of the laicization of a major international pro-life figure. Paul Tuns: On [...]
JOHN CARPAY: Since early 2020, the majority of religious leaders around the world have supported lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccination passports, and other coercive measures that violated the freedom, prosperity, and well-being of millions of citizens. As just one prominent example, in August of 2021 Pope Francis and other bishops praised the new Covid vaccine as “safe and effective.” Vatican City pressured all [...]
Interim Staff In a late-January interview with the Associated Press in January, Pope Francis said that homosexuality should not be criminalized. Meanwhile, on Feb. 9, the governing body of the Church of England voted to bless same-sex couples while leaving unchanged the Church’s definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. Pope Francis told AP reporters on Jan. 25, that, [...]
Paul Tuns: Pope emeritus Benedict XVI died on Dec. 31 at the Vatican, and while most legacy media coverage focused on his history-making retirement in 2013, only eight years into his pontificate, and his role in the liturgical conflicts within the Catholic Church after Vatican II, he also left a legacy calling for universal respect and protection of human life. As an [...]
Interim Staff: Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) trustee Mike Del Grande lost an Ontario Superior Court decision in his petition to quash sanctions imposed on him by the majority of the elected school board for using rhetoric supposedly “offensive” to LGBTQ activists and students in his defense of Catholic sexual and gender teaching. In 2019 and 2020, Del Grande opposed a [...]
Rory Leishman It is astonishing that even today so many prominent advocates of legalized abortion still think the point at which human life begins is a matter of philosophical debate and religious dogma rather than settled science. In an article entitled “Atheists and the Pro-Life Movement,” Mary FioRito of the Ethics and Public Policy Center cites the example of Justice Sonia Sotomayor [...]