Michael Taube: It’s long been a Christmas tradition in many households, including mine, to read Charles Dickens’ brilliant novella, A Christmas Carol. Interestingly, I read two Christmas stories by Dickens during the festive season. No, it’s not one of his well-known holiday stories like The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth. I’m referring to his superb book intended to be read [...]
From the editor’s desk: In October, Compact published a provocative essay by Helen Andrews titled “The Great Feminization” in which she argued that cancel culture is essentially feminine: “Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field.” The thesis is not Andrews’. She borrowed it from the pseudonymous J. Stone and an essay [...]
Victor Penney: Interim writer Victor Penney, Sporting Life College basketball has lost one of its impressive figures, and no, it wasn’t a lean, mean, dunking machine — it was a five-foot nun in a wheelchair. I’m talking about Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, who died back on Oct. 9 at the tender age of 106. She was a Sister of Charity [...]
Interim Staff On Oct. 6, the British Columbia legislature debated for an hour a motion condemning Association for Reformed Political Action’s (ARPA) “views and policies.” NDP MLA Rohini Arora (Burnaby East) introduced Motion 38, “Views and Policies of Association for Reformed Political Action.” The motion stated, “That this House condemns the intolerant views of the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA), including [...]
Paul Tuns: During a discussion about Bill C-9, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places) in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the committee’s chair, Liberal MP Marc Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs) stated certain Bible verses constituted hatred. Derek Ross, executive director and general counsel of the Christian Legal Fellowship, [...]
Oswald Clark and Paul Tuns: On Nov. 4, Liberal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled the the Liberal government’s 2025 federal budget and after two weeks of kabuki theatre of whether or not enough opposition MPs would cross the floor, vote for the budget, or miss the final vote, it passed on a party-line vote 170-168. With a minority caucus that fell just [...]
Sarah Stilton, Review: Newman and His Critics by Edward Short (Gracewing, $70 pb, 592 pages) Newman and his Contemporaries by Edward Short (Gracewing, $60 pb, 491 pages) Newman and his Family by Edward Short (Gracewing, $60 pb, 427 pages) Early in his career as a columnist, George F. Will said that his views could be known to anyone familiar with the Oxford Movement. I doubt [...]
From Calvinist to Catholic Peter Kreeft (Ignatius, $28.95, 192 pages) These pages review a lot of Peter Kreeft books because Kreeft, a Catholic, writes a lot of books, most of which are easily recommendable to everyone open to faith and reason. At the age of 88, Kreeft has published his autobiography, From Calvinist to Catholic, but it is not a complete autobiography, [...]
Victor Penney: Interim writer Victor Penney, Sporting Life Do you know why we have the stereotype that professional athletes are into gambling, partying hard, and having babies out of wedlock with multiple women? Precedent. I don’t need to point to any specific examples here, but you know I’m right. Let’s face it: Pro-sports is a world that seems to enable [...]
Paul Tuns: According to the Catholic Register, Karina Gould, chair of the House of Commons Committee on Finance, has denied the Carney government has any plans to follow through with a proposal from the committee in 2024 to rescind the charitable tax status of religious organizations by removing the promotion of religion as a valid charitable end. The Register obtained a copy [...]
Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich has been a painful disappointment for pro-lifers. A long-time ally of the since-defrocked abuser, Theodore McCarrick, Cupich has been, at best, a reluctant defender of the unborn. Although he did hail the demise of Roe v. Wade as an opportunity for “a national conversation on protecting human life in the womb,” he criticized a statement made by his brother [...]
Paul Tuns: According to Open Doors, a Christian advocacy group, one in seven Christians worldwide suffer persecution or discrimination due to their religious beliefs. The numbers for 2024 are stark. 380 million Christians suffer persecution or discrimination based on their religious beliefs. 50 countries are rated by Open Doors as having “high,” “very high,” or “extreme” persecution and discrimination – 13 are [...]
November is a solemn month, one which is marked by many memorials. On Remembrance Day, we commemorate not only the conclusion of the Great War, but all of the fallen who made the ultimate sacrifice in the course of Canada’s other military conflicts as well. To this annual anniversary, further occasions to reflect in a similarly somber way have been added. The [...]
Paul Tuns: During the Sept. 16 session of the House of Commons, three Conservative MPs rose to submit petitions from Canadians concerned about the All-Party Finance Committee’s 2024 recommendation to strip all religious and pro-life organizations and institutions of charitable status. In December 2024, the All-Party Finance Committee submitted more than 400 budget recommendations, including Recommendation 429 to amend the Income Tax [...]
Paul Tuns: Just 11 days after Charlie Kirk was killed, his widow Erika Kirk addressed the nationally broadcast memorial service with words of grace: “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life … On the cross, our Savior said: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That young man—that young [...]