Rev. Andrew Bennett offers timely wisdom that, as Paschal people, we can find hope even in the distressing report by think tank Cardus on Canada’s shocking loss of religious faith.

For much of the past 50 years the received wisdom has been that religious observance and belief is relentlessly declining in Canada. The secularization theory is that as a society progresses by becoming more educated and affluent, the ties to traditional religious belief inevitably decline. 

OTTAWA -- An effort to have the courts overturn Quebec’s controversial Bill 21 has failed, even though a provincial court did rule that some aspects of the law that infringe on language rights must be scrapped by the government.

The old saw says nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being hanged in the morning. I can personally attest that having a child living in a country of double beheadings runs a very close second.

OTTAWA -- Lawyers challenging Bill 21, Quebec’s so-called secularism law, are arguing that because the law disproportionately targets women the provincial government cannot use the notwithstanding clause to shield it from any challenge.

MUNICH -- In a newly published biography, Retired Pope Benedict XVI said the Catholic Church is threatened by a "worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanist ideologies." He cited same-sex marriage, abortion and the "creation of humans in the laboratory" as examples.

We need not sit sipping Lysol lemonade and Clorox cocktails in the left field bleachers with Donald Trump to insist that recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is too important to be left exclusively to politicians and health care technocrats.

QUEBEC CITY -- Complaining that current courses place “too much emphasis on religion,” Quebec is set to eliminate its Ethics and Religious Culture curriculum, according to the province’s education minister.

Church attendance is waning and religious non-affiliation is waxing. That’s hardly news. Observe the empty pews.

My daughter, skyping from her home in Switzerland, remarked how quiet it was.  Very little traffic about, she said — all shops shut.

QUEBEC CITY – In the province of Quebec, one of the most secular societies in the world, debates around Christmas carols are not so much about faith and religion as they are about culture. A choir and sacred music specialist believes these carols remain beloved because people especially preserve the emotion associated with them.

OTTAWA – A proposed law by Quebec’s new government that would ban religious symbols is a clear violation of fundamental rights, said Montreal’s archbishop and Canada’s former Ambassador of Religious Freedom.

EDMONTON – In military terms, “covering your six o’clock” means watching someone’s back while they’re in combat. For retired lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire, his Catholic faith is how he covers his six o’clock. 

OTTAWA – There is little difference between the views of Canadian Catholics and the general population when it comes to abortion, conscience rights and the Canada Summer Jobs attestation, according to a poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus.

Calls for reinvigorating religious public life within our seeming secular monoculture have traditionally relied heavily on morally grounded arguments.