Time for Francis to Bind the Church's Wounds

Nuala Kenny

April 1, 2014

Pope Francis has turned heads with his fresh approach to the papacy. Now it’s time he turned his mind to the structures that fed clerical sex abuse, says Sister Nuala Kenny

Pope Francis must act now and link his insights regarding clericalism to the abuse of power and trust at the heart of the crisis The shocking revelations of the sexual abuse of children and youth by clergy are, as Pope John Paul II said, a "profound contradiction of the teaching and witness of Jesus...

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Quebec's Rigidly Religious Secular Charter

Jason Zuidema

April 1, 2014

The infamous attempt to legislate so-called neutrality is really a religious initiative wrapped in an obscuring veil, argue Jason Zuidema and Harold Ristau

All of these great leaps forward in the history of isolating "religion" from the public sphere will now be crowned with a Charter for the ages — a Charter that ironically enshrines discrimination against a plurality of religious expression into a document that purports to celebrate pluralism By focu...

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Enchantment and God's Green World

Doug Sikkema

April 1, 2014

Doug Sikkema sees Eliot and Milton in the spaces of urban parks and the conviviality of community gardens

In Eliot's time, the metropolis was still a relatively new phenomenon that many were trying to grasp, and one of the recurring observations of the time was that the city was radically reorienting our understanding of the natural world and our interaction with it We might not often think of socks as ...

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Courage, Clarity and Charity

Timothy Cardinal Dolan

April 1, 2014

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York finds the soul, mind and heart of Christ’s Church in the lives of Pope Francis and his predecessors

Now, as Father Raymond said, what I thought I'd do this evening is try to speak for about 25 minutes or so on the last three popes, because I think these giants, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and now our beloved Pope Francis, can teach us a great deal and especially bring home some tried-and-true lesso...

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The Conversation

Margaret Somerville

April 1, 2014

Social conservationist Margaret Somerville considers the distance from Canada to Australia and the earth to the stars

C: My son, who is finishing a PhD in the history of science, can't understand why people think euthanasia is a progressive gesture when, in fact, it's the worst aspect of the neo-liberal agenda MS: One of the things that they've found to be most important in helping people to die peacefully is if th...

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On the Table

Travis D. Smith

April 1, 2014

Travis D. Smith discovers April is the surest month for taxes and tarts

When I hear it alleged that those who contrived and cemented this tradition of confusion did so in order to marginalize Mary Magdalene's significance among the disciples — and by association, all women within the Church — all as a part of the propaganda of patriarchy, I cannot help but regard this a...

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We Work in Beauty

Doug Sikkema

March 28, 2014

It's easy to talk a good game about the need for a liberal arts approach to education and the overlap in various disciplines, but when push comes to shove and we need to solve real problems, "How," as Joustra cheekily asked, "can beauty save the world?" And to save the world is not simply a matter o...

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No Politician Is Above Politics

Ray Pennings

March 27, 2014

He surely doesn't need a civics lesson to remind him that our system is one where voters in ridings elect legislators to a parliament and the executive responsibilities of government fall to the leader of the party that can maintain the confidence of the legislature First, the mayor's comment implie...

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The Other Side of the Economics Coin

Brian Dijkema

March 26, 2014

Economic policy recommendations arise from a) an understanding of how the world works and b) judgments about what makes a good society ...

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What's next: April/May issue of Convivium

Julia Nethersole

March 25, 2014

Find out what's coming up in the next issue of Convivium.

Sikkema writes: "I believe that cities can and should be places that arrest us with mystery and expose us to the miraculous as often as possible" ...

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The Chance to Speak Up

Ray Pennings

March 24, 2014

Did the Minister seriously consider the different nature of a Catholic school in making her decision and was the logical implication that no religious school could ever teach a religiously-based equivalency of this curriculum? Is this indeed the minimal impairment of the freedom of religion rights o...

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Paul Donovan explains the importance of the Loyola Case

Raymond J. de Souza

March 24, 2014

Loyola High School principal Paul Donovan visited Cardus headquarters. Here, he explains the importance of the case that's going before the Supreme Court.

...

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World Down Syndrome Day: Who Are the Least of These?

Doug Sikkema

March 21, 2014

There may be many reasons why this might have been, but I’m convinced (and others were as well) that it had a lot to do with the fact that this class was the only one which had a girl with Down Syndrome fully integrated into their daily routines since they were all five This connects to the second r...

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Part of the Problem with Politics is You

Ray Pennings

March 20, 2014

The sort of castigation that dominated my social media feed last evening regarding the legacies of both Premier Redford and Minister Flaherty reminded me that the problem of contemporary politics is as much a problem of citizenship as it is of leadership Premier Redford is not a witch whose politica...

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Can We Have Subsidiarity Without the Regulation?

Michael Van Pelt

March 14, 2014

Educational institutions and companies manage a dual training system of the theoretical and the practical ...

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