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 [...]
Eleven of Ontario’s 29 English Catholic school boards explicitly acknowledged June as “Pride Month,” even though “Pride” events are known for celebrating homosexuality, transsexualism, and other sexually deviant behaviors. The Catholic boards acknowledged “Pride Month” in the context of assurances that Catholic schools are inclusive and welcoming to all and often used the tagline: “We are all wonderfully made,” with an illustration [...]
Law Matters John Carpay In April, Ontario Premier Doug Ford denounced people who were protesting against the lockdown as “absolutely irresponsible, selfish, reckless, law-breaking yahoos.” In Alberta, lone protester Cody Haller was arrested and dragged out of the Alberta legislature grounds by sheriffs on May 11 and slapped with a $1200 ticket. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is representing [...]
"Separation of church and state!” “Canada is a secular country!” “We can’t let religion dictate policy!” I’m sure we’ve all heard variations of these, if not the phrases verbatim, at various points in our lives. Indeed, the mere suggestion that a course of action may have a moral element seems to trigger knee-jerk reactions along these veins. There’s some truth to them, [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell Looking distraught, my friend Bidwell confessed that he misses Mass on Sundays. “Occasionally?” I asked. “Repeatedly,” he replied. “Well, don’t confess it to me,” I said. ”Confess it to your pastor.” “Oh,” Bidwell said, “he and the bishop are well aware that I and many others in the parish miss Sunday Mass.” “I thought you [...]
Father Alphonse de Valk Fr. Alphonse Anthony Maria de Valk, a Basilian priest for 55 years, passed away peacefully April 16 at the palliative care unit of the Scarborough General Hospital in Toronto at the age of 88 after a battle with pneumonia. Fr. de Valk was born March 27, 1932, in Rotterdam, Netherlands to Martien de Valk and Christina [...]
Fr. Alphonse de Valk On Easter Sunday of 1932, Alphonse Anthony Maria de Valk was born in the Netherlands. What used to be known as Christendom had just endured one World War and would soon suffer another. After living through that ordeal, the young de Valk took the path of so many Europeans after the war in emigrating to North [...]
Fr. Alphonse de Valk, RIP Fr. Alponse de Valk died April 16. He was a Catholic priest, historian, teacher, and leader, Read the tribute to Fr. de Valk from Interim editor Paul Tuns on the occasion of his retirement as editor of Catholic Insight. The Interim will have an obituary in the May edition of the paper. Fr. de Valk honoured at [...]
Yukon looks to join provinces, cities outlawing the procedure Ann Gillies speaking at a Campaign Life Coalition clergy luncheon in February warning that bans on conversion therapy threatens religious freedom and parental rights. On March 6, Justice Minister David Lametti tabled a bill to make it a crime to outlaw conversion therapy for minors to help them overcome same-sex extraction [...]
Canadian abortionists respond to covid-19 On March 18, Global Newsreported on how various work environments were impacted by the coronavirus; one was a Toronto abortuary. Jane Gerster reported on the “seemingly never-ending list of cancellations and closures,” noting that “The situation changes almost hourly.” She sought out human interest stories on how the widespread closure “is already changing people’s lives nationwide,” including [...]
Amusements Three years ago I was asked to write about HBO’s The Young Pope, which was expected to be a sucker punch attack on the Catholic Church and the papacy. It turned out to be a startling but surreal story that sympathized with a youthful and charismatic new pontiff who planned to reverse the Church back past the liberalizations of [...]
Rory Leishman National Affairs For a striking illustration of the moral and spiritual degradation that afflicts so many ostensibly Christian universities in North America, consider the contrasting reactions to the screening of the excellent pro-life movie Unplannedat Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and King’s University College at Western University in London, Ontario. Given that both Benedictine College and King’s [...]
Editor’s Note:On Feb. 25, Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, released a statement on the introduction of Bill C-7:An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying). The Interim reprints the statement in full. The federal government has introduced new legislation expanding the eligibility criteria for euthanasia. The inaccurate term, medical assistance in dying (MAiD), is currently used to describe [...]
Law Matters John Carpay In AB v. CD,the BC Court of Appeal ruled that a female-born minor who wants to become a man can continue taking puberty blockers and testosterone against the objections of the child’s father. I wonder about the conversations that transgender adults may one day have with the judges who authorized them as children to pursue irreversible [...]
The film The Two Popes stars Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI and Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Jorge Marlo Bergoglio (later Pope Frances). You don’t expect to see religion being treated with respect or insight in popular media these days. For religious people that attitude might be paranoia, though it’s helpful to recall the old maxim that you might be [...]