2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
For Anne Leahy, Canada's ambassador to the Holy See, World Youth Day 2002 was a true "we event".
Even though the Toronto World Youth Day was the 17th such event for its official convener, the Holy See, it was a first for Canadian organizers Notice the "we": I considered World Youth Day more than just a Church event, and government officials who worked very hard on this for over two years came t...
Mel Lastman, then Mayor of Toronto, remembers World Youth Day, his encounters with Pope John Paul II, and how a Catholic priest tried to bless the ham—in Hebrew!
With young people coming from all over the world, we wanted to show them what a wonderful city Toronto is, and how well it works as a city because it is made up of people from all over the world I kept hearing about Youth Day bringing young people from all over the world into Toronto Afterwards, whe...
In the blackness of a southern Ontario summer storm, Brian Dijkema sees the light of Christ.
For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you ...
Journalist Lorna Dueck looks back at how Toronto's World Youth Day changed her "echo chamber".
Many months after the fuss was all over, I sought out Father Thomas Rosica, the National Director of Toronto World Youth Day, for a visit As we visited, he told me a story of getting a mysterious phone call after World Youth Day from Gaetano Gagliano, an 86-year-old business icon who invited Father ...
Ten years ago, in July 2002, World Youth Day national director Father Tom Rosica and his young staff welcomed the world to Toronto. The guest of honour was no less than Pope John Paul II, who presided over what would be the last World Youth Day of his lifetime. For six days, an estimated 850,000 young Christians from all over the globe sang, prayed and celebrated their faith in public.
I was minding my business as chaplain of the University of Toronto, head of the Newman Centre, teaching scripture, and in December of 1998 it was recommended to me by a group of bishops to let my name stand as one of the candidates for World Youth Day Ftr: Some of my senior people on staff who had b...
Convivium is not an expressly political magazine in the narrow sense of process, strategizing and marketing that has come to define what we think of as politics. But it most definitely does concern itself with the polis—the city—with that shared space where the common life of citizens is lived out.
That is why we need faith in common life, and also why we need to engage in political life to express our faith that common life is possible But I have spent my adult life covering politics as a journalist and writing opinion columns about political issues ...
MP Garnett Genuis sees Convivium as the chance to disagree engagingly.
It is not just the proliferation of different publications but also the increasing social fragmentation of people with different world views that makes meaningful dialogue about the important social and moral issues we face more and more difficult ...
Our editor-in-chief looks at leisure, literature, and the PM's painted birthday suit.
Deplorable, to be sure, but why was this even a news story, let alone a minor sensation? If some unknown fan in a bar made a racist remark, would that be a story for the sports page, let alone the front page? That sports fans say stupid and bigoted things is not news and is not cause, in the usual c...
What would our governance, our conversations, our work—our civilization—look like if above us, in each institution and context in which we live and work, was a sign that said, "In a thousand years, it will all be lost"? Perhaps, what needs saying, despite Mendelhson's sobering recognition that much ...
For the time being, much of Canadian business and trade flows south Whatever you make of Mitchell Sharp's Third Option, we're back at it again, but this time for very different reasons ...
There was a time when our understanding of love and its various dimensions could be best described by three Greek words that are commonly translated as "love" I contend that almost every use of that word in the dozen or so stories I read regarding these narcissism ceremonies is a misuse ...
Even those of us who remain people of faith have become habituated to turning that faith to text, liturgy, preaching, understanding the Word through words, that is, through theology "I don't want the people who work at the museum imposing their stories on me ...
Not everyone will be an NHL all-star, and thank God for that ...
We are not told if Bezalel put his craftsmanship to work in helping build the golden calf or not, but we do know that whatever his role, God, in his sovereignty, would call and equip him, lead him to repentance, and fill him with His grace Fifteen minutes isn't a lot of time but the Exodus 31 accoun...
Peter Stockland's excellent blog this week reminds us that "we are called to engage in the political life of our country not to win but to witness ...