Rory Leishman In a pastoral letter issued on May 1, the Archbishop of San Francisco, Cardinal Salvatore Cordileone, has spelled out with admirable clarity why no faithful Christian cleric should allow a politician who aids and abets in committing the evils of abortion to take part in Holy Communion. Having earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in [...]
Rory Leishman In a pastoral letter issued on May 1, the Archbishop of San Francisco, Cardinal Salvatore Cordileone, has spelled out with admirable clarity why no faithful Christian cleric should allow a politician who aids and abets in committing the evils of abortion to take part in Holy Communion. Having earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in [...]
Interim Staff After convincing every public school board in Ontario to fly the rainbow pride flag -- the universal emblem of LGBTQ+ rights -- on board and school properties, gay activists focused their attention on the publicly funded Catholic school boards. After the separate boards in Waterloo and Thunder Bay voted earlier this year to begin flying the pride flag in June, [...]
Ken Boessenkool argues on The Line, here, that “(i)f the Grace Life (sic) (Church) leaders want to truly make (sic) their case, they should be charged.” A Canadian Reformed Calvinist,[1] Boessenkool deems GraceLife Church’s holding packed Sunday services in Spruce Grove, Alberta, as civil disobedience. He implies they are unwilling to “accept the consequences of their actions,” including trial and imprisonment. He [...]
BY JOHN CARPAY Interim writer, John Carpay, Law Matters What drives some religious leaders to ignore the harm and suffering that lockdowns are inflicting on their congregations, and on all of society? We are now 10 months into the daily and ongoing violation of our human rights and fundamental freedoms. Depending on what province you live in, it’s illegal to [...]
Lianne Laurence Special to The Interim The Canadian bishops’ international aid organization, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, has admitted that it never stopped funding 52 partner groups under investigation for flouting Catholic social doctrine and moral teaching, despite telling the bishops it had imposed a moratorium on financing these suspect organizations. “It is not true that Development and Peace partners [...]
Interim writer, Andrew Lawton, Laying Down the Lawton By Andrew Lawton Just as every business is essential if you rely on it to feed your family, church is essential if you rely on it to feed your soul. These are not radical, or even novel, ideas, yet they remain controversial in the face of lawmakers seeking to shut things – [...]
What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense Sherif Gergis, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George (Encounter, $24, 136 pages) In 2013, Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George co-wrote a brief book, What is Marriage. Last year, the book was re-released and rightly so. Although the book was originally released during the height of the same-sex "marriage" debate [...]
By Paul Tuns In late October, the news media was in a frenzy that the Catholic Church had apparently changed its doctrine on same-sex sexual relationships after the producer of a new documentary on Pope Francis released clips of his forthcoming film. Evgeny Afineevsky, screenwriter for Francisco, a documentary about Pope Francis, in a segment from his documentary suggested that the Pope [...]
The Christian scriptures abound in “hard sayings,” statements which are difficult to interpret—or difficult to implement. Who, for example, finds it easy to enact the exhortations of Sermon on the Mount to “love one’s enemies” or “turn the other cheek” (Lk 6:27–28)? One of the hardest sayings in Scripture, however, is not about our actions but about God’s. In the book of [...]
By Paul Tuns Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World by Tara Isabella Burton (PublicAffairs, $35, 320 pages). We are told, by pundits and polling data, that fewer people are practicing any religion in the West, and the secularization of America is happening at an ever-quickening pace. Recent surveys show that “religious Nones” — those who do not adhere to any [...]
By Josie Luetke Shortly after I became involved in the pro-life movement, I became cognizant of the push by mostly younger members to secularize its branding, even though we were all Christian. Green as I was and enamored with the clarity of the science of when life begins and the simplicity of the philosophical arguments against abortion, I was sympathetic. Pro-life could [...]
Politics is about service, to God and our fellow man An early memory of party politics dates to July 8th 1974 as my dad drove our car on the crude track out of the rustic setting of jack pine-covered sand dunes near Grande Prairie, Alberta, at the conclusion of a week of church camp. I recall my dismay at the radio news [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Should morally enlightened judges strike down any statute that sanctions pornography, abortion, or euthanasia? The late, great Antonin Scalia did not think so. As a devout Catholic, he clearly understood that pornography, abortion, and euthanasia are unmitigated evils, yet as one of the most learned judges ever to serve on the Supreme Court of the United [...]
Commentary St. Jerome’s University, in Waterloo, Ont., and purportedly a Catholic institution, has decided to fly the LGBTQ flag on its campus to celebrate “Pride” month. Interim President Scott Kline, whose term began on July 1, 2019, defended the action as a way of sending the message that “all are welcome in this place.” The immediate reaction to the move has shown [...]