A rookie Alberta politician is pressing forward with his private member’s conscience rights bill despite controversy and an unrelated tragedy that has inadvertently impeded the bill’s progress. United Conservative Party MLA Dan Williams says that no matter what becomes of Bill 207, he’ll keep fighting for conscience rights’ protection. “I hear that every single day, wherever I go, that this is an [...]
Phil Horgan and Christian Elia present Fr. Tony Van Hee with the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Excellence in Public Life at the annual Catholic Civil Rights League dinner on Nov. 25th, 2019. The Catholic Civil Rights League honoured Fr. Van Hee with the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Excellence in Public Life, presenting him with a plaque at its [...]
Andrew Lawton I’ve seen more doctors in my life than I can count, yet never once have I felt the need to see a gynecologist. And why would I? I don’t think I’m oversharing to say that I lack the parts that any respectable gynecologist would be comfortable working on. So does Jessica Yaniv, the transgender individual who has catapulted [...]
Editor’s Note: Michael Del Grande is a Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee under attack from LGBT activists and their allies. Del Grande, along with Theresa Lubinski, Garry Tanuan, and Nancy Crawford, voted Nov. 7 against adding “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the TCDSB’s code of conduct. He warned the TCDSB was heading down a “slippery slope” by adding terms that endorse [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke At a recent Mass I attended, the deacon indicated in his homily that we are most like Jesus when we fight against social injustices. The examples he gave? That of students participating in the climate strike, those calling for proper preparations for natural disasters, etc. I nearly keeled over the pew right then, because I’m so [...]
Green Party candidate repudiates pro-life position October 1 Mark Vercouteren, Green Party candidate in Chatham-Kent-Leamington, stated he supported abortion after it was reported he had previously indicated he was pro-life in Campaign Life Coalition questionnaires from previous elections, including the 2018 provincial election. He said he “doesn’t remember” signing the questionnaire. Vercouteren issued a statement, “you have my word I would never [...]
Rory Leishman Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt, is a timely new book by Arthur C. Brooks that presents a compelling argument about how all people – left and right, pro-life and “pro-choice” – can best communicate their ideas to friends and fellow citizens about subjects on which they fundamentally disagree. As [...]
Josie Luetke It may just be my impression, but this past Pride Month seemed particularly vociferous. On numerous occasions, socially conservative friends and coworkers dutifully noted: “Pride cometh before the fall.” Now, I mean no offense to them and believe they were just offering a sincere warning, but it’s easy to see how this verse could be recited proudly, as [...]
Law Matters John Carpay In March of 2015, Alberta’s Progressive Conservative government rushed a bill through the legislature in a matter of hours, requiring every school in Alberta to set up a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at a student’s request. Politicians promised the public that GSAs would merely be peer support groups, not political clubs that advocate for an ideology. Four years [...]
Sheila Harding, president of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada said her group was disappointed with the ruling. On May 15, an Ontario appeal court struck a blow against religious freedom, ruling that the right of doctors to conscientiously object to participating in abortion and euthanasia is trumped by their patients’ right to equitable access to health care. [...]
The Scottish philosopher, Edmund Burke, once wrote that manners were more important than laws. Unlike the law, which “touches us but here and there, and now and then” manners are, by contrast, “what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us.” They surround and soften social reality in a way that is “constant, steady,” and “uniform.” Burke’s [...]
I want to tell you a story about a church catching fire. Over 20 years ago, a parish church in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale caught fire and burned down. Holy Family had stood for over ninety years, but by the time the fire was put out nothing was left but the walls. This might have been the end of the story [...]
On April 11 2019, something quite unexpected occurred. After six years of near-total silence, pope emeritus Benedict XVI, published “The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse,” an essay which offers an important supplement to the discourse about what the retired pontiff calls, at the outset, “the current crisis of the faith and of the Church; a crisis experienced throughout the world [...]
Laying Down the Lawton Andrew Lawton "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Those oft-cited, immortal words from the Book of Matthew are in many cases used to extol the virtues of small groups for Christians. They took on a fundamentally different meaning for me as I watched [...]
Barrie deVeber with his wife Iola L.L. (Barrie) deVeber, 1929-2019, MD, professor emeritus in Paediatrics and Oncology at Western University, was one of Canada’s greatest pro-life champions as well as an outstanding medical professor, physician, researcher, and philanthropist. He eminently merited induction as a Companion in the Order of Canada, yet seems never to have been considered for the distinction [...]