Ryan Williams Edtior’s Note:Earlier this year, Dr. Keith Cassidy retired as president of the Seat of Wisdom College (SWC) in Barry’s Bay, Ont. Dr. Ryan Williams, a former academic dean at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, NY, and associate dean at St. Joseph’s Seminary for the Archdiocese of New York, is the new president of SWC. Second-year [...]
Abby Johnson (left) talks with the actress Ashley Bratcher who played Johnson in Unplanned, on the set of the movie. When Unplanned, the story of abortion-worker-turned-pro-life-activist Abby Johnson,premiered in March in the U.S., Canadians were left wondering when they would be allowed to see the movie. Some pro-lifers organized boycotts and petitions of theatre chains that refused to bring the [...]
Today education is of great importance in western societies and debates frequently arise as to how to solve various problems in public or post-secondary schools. Seldom though, does the fundamental question get asked: what is the purpose of education? The answer: to lead one to Truth and Beauty. That is why a classical liberal arts formation is so needed, to fulfill the [...]
Josie Luetke It may just be my impression, but this past Pride Month seemed particularly vociferous. On numerous occasions, socially conservative friends and coworkers dutifully noted: “Pride cometh before the fall.” Now, I mean no offense to them and believe they were just offering a sincere warning, but it’s easy to see how this verse could be recited proudly, as [...]
Law Matters John Carpay In March of 2015, Alberta’s Progressive Conservative government rushed a bill through the legislature in a matter of hours, requiring every school in Alberta to set up a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at a student’s request. Politicians promised the public that GSAs would merely be peer support groups, not political clubs that advocate for an ideology. Four years [...]
HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl arrived for streaming at a crucial moment for the company, just as the hangover from the end of Game of Throneswas starting to ebb. They needed a hit, and they got it with a five-hour story about the 1986 explosion at a nuclear power plant in the Soviet Ukraine. “Chernobyl is a thorough historical analysis,” wrote Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic, [...]
Laying Down the Lawton Never doubt a group of politicians’ ability to find a cure that’s worse than the problem it is attempting to solve. This is truer than ever when it comes to the government’s efforts to curb online hate. Wishing to combat bigotry is a noble endeavour, but it isn’t the role of the state. Certainly not at [...]
Sheila Harding, president of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada said her group was disappointed with the ruling. On May 15, an Ontario appeal court struck a blow against religious freedom, ruling that the right of doctors to conscientiously object to participating in abortion and euthanasia is trumped by their patients’ right to equitable access to health care. [...]
The Scottish philosopher, Edmund Burke, once wrote that manners were more important than laws. Unlike the law, which “touches us but here and there, and now and then” manners are, by contrast, “what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us.” They surround and soften social reality in a way that is “constant, steady,” and “uniform.” Burke’s [...]
I want to tell you a story about a church catching fire. Over 20 years ago, a parish church in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale caught fire and burned down. Holy Family had stood for over ninety years, but by the time the fire was put out nothing was left but the walls. This might have been the end of the story [...]
On April 11 2019, something quite unexpected occurred. After six years of near-total silence, pope emeritus Benedict XVI, published “The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse,” an essay which offers an important supplement to the discourse about what the retired pontiff calls, at the outset, “the current crisis of the faith and of the Church; a crisis experienced throughout the world [...]
Laying Down the Lawton Andrew Lawton "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Those oft-cited, immortal words from the Book of Matthew are in many cases used to extol the virtues of small groups for Christians. They took on a fundamentally different meaning for me as I watched [...]
Jason Kenney In 2015, the Alberta NDP under Rachel Notley surprised the province and the country when it won a majority of seats in the Alberta election, mostly because the right-of-center voter was divided between the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties. After the Conservative Party of Canada lost the federal election five months later, former immigration minister Jason Kenney turned [...]
Law Matters John Carpay Jason Kenney, Alberta’s new Premier, stated on election night that “parents know better than politicians what is best for their kids.” His United Conservative Party platform repeatedly referred to “Alberta’s successful tradition of school choice” and “the primary role of parents in choosing how their children are taught.” The UCP platform promises to repeal Bill 24, [...]
John Carpay Since 1982, judges have ruled in dozens of cases where a government, or a governmental authority, has violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Charter”). Section 2 of the Charter sets out the fundamental freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, conscience and religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication. [...]