Joanna Alphonso: Experts from around the world gathered in Rome’s LUMSA University (Libera Universita Maria SS. Assunta—a private Catholic university) April 5-6, 2024, to discuss the issues surrounding surrogacy. This major discussion started on March 3, 2023 with the Casablanca Declaration. More than 100 experts gathered from 75 countries in Casablanca, Morocco, to form a document calling for a global abolishment of [...]
By J.M. Glover: World Down Syndrome Day: One mother’s story Ten years ago, Natalie Wood, a British pregnant mom, was faced with the diagnosis that her unborn baby had Down Syndrome. Her husband, and medical professionals, pressured her to get an abortion, going so far as to book her into an abortion facility. She says that she was shocked that everyone around [...]
Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen (Post Hill Press, $29, 205 pages) Paul Tuns, Review: David Bahnsen is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of a wealth management company and a committed Christian, and he brings a wealth of knowledge from both perspectives to Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, a brief and highly readable book about the importance of work. Bahnsen condemns [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements The idea of a “God-shaped hole” that came into existence roughly during the Enlightenment and grew with the retreat of religion is mistakenly attributed to the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. The truth is that nobody really knows where the phrase came from, but it has taken on a life of its own, becoming [...]
The exchange always sounds quite reasonable. In so many different spheres of modern life, we are called upon to make concessions and sacrifices for the sake of larger conflicts, to give things up for the “greater good.” The environmentalism of previous generations, for example, introduced us to the concept of recycling. Now, for the sake of the climate, we are asked not [...]
Interim Staff: For the past two years, students at the Halton Catholic District School Board, just west of Toronto, comprised of the cities of Burlington, Oakville, and Halton Hills, have prayed the Lord’s Prayer each morning due to an initiative of trustee Helena Karabela. Karabela, who represents Oakville, told supporters through email in late January that students across the board have prayed [...]
Paul Tuns: The Archdiocese of Montreal is suing the Quebec government because the government is unwilling to provide a euthanasia exemption for St. Raphael Palliative Care Home. In late 2023, the St. Raphael Palliative Care Home and Day Centre signed an agreement with the archdiocese guaranteeing that St Raphael’s would provide palliative end-of-life care but would never commit euthanasia. In June 2023, [...]
Interim Staff The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee Mike Del Grande, granting him leave to appeal a lower court ruling that rejected his constitutional and administrative law arguments to overturn the board’s sanctions against him for speaking out against the LGBTQ ideology in Catholic schools. In 2020, Del Grande spoke against adding “gender [...]
Paul Tuns: Last month, Blacklock’s Reporter revealed that both the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) and Canadian Centre for Christian Charities expressed concerns to the House of Commons human resources committee that the Department of Employment and Social Development continues to discriminate against faith-based employers applying to the summer job grants program. In 2016, the Trudeau government mandated that employers sign an [...]
Paul Tuns: Following pressure to not change its medical standards that would severely restrict the conscience rights of doctors, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) backed down from a proposal to require doctors to make an “effective referral.” Currently, doctors and nurses are not required to participate in or be complicit in abortion, euthanasia, birth control, or so-called gender-affirming [...]
Paul Tuns: During his annual address to diplomats in January, Pope Francis called surrogacy “a grave violation of the dignity of the women and the child” as he called for global ban on the practice of surrogacy. Pope Francis said a child’s life should not be “suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking" and called on the global community “to prohibit [...]
Interim Staff: David Anthony Hogg, who served as a trustee with the Metropolitan Toronto Separate Catholic School Board, in the 1990s, died Dec. 13 at the age of 94. Hogg, then a director with the Federation of Catholic Parent-Teacher Associations of Ontario, was elected trustee in 1991 – along with Peter Johnson and Michael Del Grande -- with the support of Campaign [...]
Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn James Walvin (University of California Press, $30, 197 pages) The origin story of the hymn “Amazing Grace” is well-known: John Newton, the captain of a 18th century English slave ship, had a dramatic conversion after surviving a story which led him to become an abolitionist and pastor, with “Amazing Grace” written as a [...]
Paul Tuns On Nov. 30, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement reiterating the Church’s unequivocal moral teaching against euthanasia and assisted-suicide, reminding Catholic health care facilities that they cannot be complicit in so-called Medical Assistance in Dying. The statement, “On the Non-Permissibility of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide within Canadian Health Organizations with a Catholic Identity,” noted that “Catholic dioceses [...]
Paul Tuns The Vatican has once again muddied the waters of Catholic moral teaching with the release of Fiducia Supplicans – On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings, which was widely reported on the front pages of newspaper and the leads of many news broadcasts as the Roman Catholic Church officially sanctioning the blessing of same-sex unions. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of [...]