Readers Speak Out: September 25, 2022
Distinctly Indigenous
Beyond apologies and reparations, the Canadian Catholic Church needs to make fundamental changes to its relations with Indigenous peoples. After almost 400 years, the Church has produced only a tiny number of Indigenous clergy. The main reason is the requirement of clerical celibacy that goes against the fundamental Indigenous values of family and kin relationships.
Editorial: Power of presence
The commonplace complaint that the Church exists in a post-Christian society tends to misplace the common sense fact that the Church emerged from, and transformed, pre-Christian society.
Why the Church won’t change 'Humanae Vitae'
Perhaps you’ve heard some recent rumours and rumblings from Rome about the possibility of the Catholic Church reconsidering, re-looking at, revamping, re-working or redacting Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), the 1968 encyclical by Pope Paul VI on contraception (synopsis: the document says “no” to contraception).
Breaking habit of dressing for excess
Owning less has been a necessity and a goal as we downsized our home with our last move. And last fall, I took up the wooland.com challenge to wear the same dress for 100 days in a row. I was intrigued (as a knitter) by the prospect of wearing wool, exhausted by the choices in my closet every morning, and challenged by the impact fashion has on the environment.
We have to hit the brakes on division
There is a wonderful cartoon that shows a driving instructor testing his young charge.
Canada needs political prophets of unity, virtue
The aspect of the proposed Alberta sovereignty act which most gives me pause is not the legal chaos into which it will throw this province if enacted — although that is worrisome enough — but the spirit of division which it seeks to codify in law.
- By Glen Argan
Clergy must join march against MAiD madness
We are about to turn a corner into madness. In March of next year, the mentally ill will be eligible for euthanasia.
The wounded who heal broken hearts
At lunchtime on a beautiful summer’s day many years ago, I walked downtown in the heart of Toronto. A makeshift stage had been set up, and a woman was singing one of my favourite songs from the world of musicals, “On My Own” from Les Miserables, about romantic rejection and hopelessness. But there was something wrong. It took me a little while to figure out what the problem was, but gradually it dawned on me. She had no passion! Technically, she hit every note perfectly, yet it was as though she had never felt the pain of loneliness. There was no conviction that she had ever in her lifetime experienced being on her own, deserted, and heartbroken.
Turning social doctrine into society transformed
On Sept. 17, a virtual event will launch a new Canada-wide chapter of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice (CAPP) Foundation, established in 1993 by St. John Paul II.
Letter from the Editor
To all subscribers and even occasional readers of The Catholic Register: This is a call from us to hear from you.
Editorial: We need to talk
This week, our magazine Penance and Progress that commemorates and explores Pope Francis’ penitential pilgrimage to Canada is off the press.