Light is Right Joe Campbell Church attendance of Britons has been falling for decades. The news is not all negative, however. Church attendance of bats is rising. Bats, it seems, are more committed to Christian churches than Britons are faithful to Christianity. Bats go to church because modernization has reduced their natural habitats. Britons don’t go because modernism has undermined [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman What do Church leaders in Canada think about the legalization of physician-assisted death (PAD)? Not so long ago, the answer was clear. At Christmas in 1996, the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC), a group which includes every major Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant denomination in the country, issued a Statement of Convergence of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide [...]
“There are many paths to God, and one of them is Christianity.” So says Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto on its list of bedrock beliefs. When I attended MCC Toronto a quarter-century ago, it billed itself as “a Christian church with a special ministry to the lesbian and gay community.” Grossly heterodox as it then was, MCC Toronto arguably still lay within [...]
Rev. Brent Hawkes The Rev. Brent Hawkes was charged in December with indecent assault and gross indecency in connection with sexual assaults allegedly committed against a minor in the mid-1970s, when Hawkes worked as a teacher in Nova Scotia. Despite these charges, which were only made public Feb. 1, Hawkes is still scheduled to preside at Sunday services as senior [...]
Bishop Henry says gender guidelines are anti-Catholic. Alberta’s Ministry of Education issued guidelines on Jan. 13 to promote “learning environments that respect diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions” in schools. Alberta schools are required to submit draft policies that reflect the document (Guidelines for Best Practices: Creating Learning Environments that Respect Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Gender [...]
Bishop Henry spoke out against the NDP's government's new 'gender identity' guidelines. An Alberta Catholic school trustee and the chair of a Catholic school board believe that Catholic parents should not have been sent home a strongly worded letter from Calgary Bishop Fred Henry last week that denounced the NDP government’s new “gender identity” guidelines as “totalitarian” and “anti-Catholic.” Edmonton [...]
Fr. Louis Di Rocco (left) and Fr. Alphonse de Valk concelebrate Mass during a ceremony at Campaign Life Coalition's Toronto office marking Fr. de Valk's 50 years as a priest. On Dec. 11 at Campaign Life Coalition office, CLC volunteers, supporters, and friends attended a Mass in celebration and thanksgiving of Fr. Alphonse de Valk’s 50th year of his priesthood. [...]
On Dec. 10, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the B.C. Law Society violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they rejected in advance graduates of Trinity Western University law school. Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson ruled, “The evidence in this case and the relevant precedents conclusively establish that the decision does infringe the petitioners’ Charter right to freedom of religion.” Last [...]
Voices of the Nations has been using city property since 2006 for an annual "multi denominational" event in which it celebrates Christianity through live music and dance. It has been using the Young-Dundas Square without issue for the past five years. The City of Toronto has agreed to hear an appeal from a Christian group after it was banned last [...]
Pope Francis at the Synod. The Interim has not covered the goings-on of the Synod on the Family, which was really two Catholic synods: the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2014, and the Fourteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2015. Pope Francis called the extraordinary synod in 2014 to [...]
They still make Christmas movies, as far as I can tell, but we’re a long way from Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney singing Irving Berlin tunes for a war-weary generation. This Christmas, for instance, we have the very wry Bill Murray spoofing the holiday TV special in A Very Murray Christmas, and The Night Before, a seasonal buddy film where Seth Rogen, [...]
The Christian Heritage Party ran 30 candidates in the federal election, garnering a total of 15,284 votes nationwide, an average of nearly 510 votes in the ridings which the CHP ran. It was the seventh most among the political parties, after the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc Quebecois, Green, and Libertarians. CHP leader Rod Taylor thanked “all our CHP candidates who have given [...]
When earlier this year Catholic Insight announced it would no longer publish a monthly print edition of its magazine after a two-decade run, Campaign Life Coalition national president Jim Hughes, lamented the hole it left in Canada’s Catholic community. He urged LifeSiteNews, whose board he sits on, to take up the mantle and produce a monthly magazine of Catholic news and commentary, [...]
An Ontario court has sided with the province’s lawyers in preventing graduates from Trinity Western University from practicing law in Ontario. Last year, in a 28-21 vote, the Law Society of Upper Canada denied accreditation to the TWU’s new law school scheduled to open next year. TWU then appealed to Ontario’s Divisional Court, which heard arguments for the case (Trinity Western University [...]
Three physicians groups have submitted their concerns to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan about its conscientious objection policy which they say would force some doctors to choose between their livelihood and violating their conscience if the policy is implemented without changes. The Christian Medical and Dental Society, Canadian Physicians for Life, and the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies, [...]