The Quebec government’s intention to draft a Charter of Quebec Values was announced last year, but many details of how the charter will impact religious freedom were only leaked to the press in August. Reportedly, the legislation would ban most religious symbols from public institutions, and public employees would not be permitted to wear religious items such as hijabs, kippas, turbans and “ostentatious crucifixes.”
The chemical weapons massacre that killed 1,429 Syrians, mostly civilians, many of them children, was a monstrous act. “Abhorrent and repugnant,” said Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. “A moral obscenity,” said U.S. President Barack Obama.
On the feast of St. Augustine 100 years ago the doors to the Scarborough seminary named in the saint’s honour officially swung open to welcome 51 aspiring priests into this new masterpiece of the Canadian Church.
My eldest child, my daughter, graduated with honours from high school this year and is about to head off to university. By the grace of God, her Catholic faith remains intact. In looking back at her school years, I can honestly say that raising a daughter in this culture is among the most difficult tasks I have ever undertaken.
Egypt’s dance with democracy has become a tragic failure. The optimism of the Arab Spring movement has been lost beneath a flow of blood that may yet carry the nation to all-out civil war.
The Canadian Medical Association refers to its general meeting as “the parliament of Canadian medicine” because the annual assembly is where doctors debate policies and health issues that affect the nation.
It is both proper and gratifying to see the success of World Youth Day in Rio as a massive, marvelous “yes” to Christian faith.
“Who am I to judge?”
Pope Francis is the first pope from Latin America and he ensured South America was the destination for his first foreign trip. So it was no surprise that the Argentine Pope was welcomed to World Youth Day in Brazil by huge, adoring crowds who brought his motorcade to a standstill.
On June 12, in another of the seemingly inexorable movements in the developed world to normalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, Quebec tabled Bill 52, “An act respecting end-of-life care.” Given that only 16-30 per cent of Canadians have access to comprehensive, quality end-of-life care, according to the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, we ought to receive news of efforts to improve care at this crucially important and vulnerable time for dying persons and their loved ones with universal enthusiasm. But what vision of “end-of-life care” is presented here?
On July 5 Pope Francis released his first encyclical, a newsworthy event in itself, but then he knocked himself from the headlines by approving the sainthood causes of two of his renowned predecessors. If the rapid-fire announcements seemed unusual, well, that should come as no surprise from a Pope who keeps doing things his way.