Right Royal Good Riddance

Raymond J. de Souza

January 9, 2020

Bombshell abdications in Britain’s Royal Family affirm its members are the primary problem within the family, Father Raymond de Souza contends.

Harry intends to keep the inheritance that his royal life delivered to him, and Meghan could presumably go back to acting Actually, the royal family will not simply survive the departure of Harry and Meghan; it will be better off without them Trouble was coming for Harry and Meghan when the latter f...

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A New Resolution

Trevor Anzai

January 8, 2020

A worthier goal than trying to chase after material or physical New Year's resolutions is the seeking out of God’s fulfillment to our hearts’ desires, writes Trevor Anzai.  

Do you not think that the patient who received a successful heart transplant would look at life with a new purpose, seeing how they have a second chance to live? Jesus is the true surgeon of our heart Through a relationship with Jesus Christ, we may experience an adventure of life to the full There ...

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The Cultural Mousetrap of Cats

Peter Stockland

January 7, 2020

The less-than-purrfect Cats movie presents an underlying problem with the way in which our entertainment industry claws at art and replaces it with something in-fur-ior. 

But the real agony of Cats is unravelling the yarn’s deepest mystery: Why on earth am I here in the first place? The movie itself brashly seeks to suck completely dry what Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘80s stage version has milked for decades from Eliot's original book ...

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Private Generosity for Public Good

Matthew Lau

January 3, 2020

Canadians’ charitable donations as percentage of their income are at a 20-year low. Substituting government services in place of charitable gifts is not a worthy trend, writes contributor Matthew Lau.

If people really thought the government was more effective than charitable organizations at reducing poverty and improving social welfare then instead of donating to charity, they would donate to the government by deliberately remitting to the Canada Revenue Agency more than the taxes they are requi...

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Phone Home

Steve Paikin, and Arthur Brooks, David Brooks, Anne Snyder

January 2, 2020

Questions and Answers

In early December, as the second decade of the 21st century closed, Cardus hosted a panel discussion in Toronto hosted by TV Ontario’s Steve Paikin and featuring New York Times columnist David Brooks, Anne Snyder, editor of Convivium’s sister publication Comment, and Arthur Brooks, founder of the Am...

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Righting The Polarization Express

Steve Paikin, and Arthur Brooks, David Brooks, Anne Snyder

December 31, 2019

What is the antidote to political polarization?

In early December, as the second decade of the 21st century closed, Cardus hosted a panel discussion in Toronto hosted by TV Ontario’s Steve Paikin and featuring New York Times columnist David Brooks, Anne Snyder, editor of Convivium’s sister publication Comment, and Arthur Brooks, founder of the Am...

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Riding Out The Polarization Express

Steve Paikin, and Arthur Brooks, David Brooks, Anne Snyder

December 31, 2019

The Startup Your Life Project

Steve Paikin: Arthur, I've talked to a lot of people in Canada who do not understand how God-fearing religious people in the United States can be so utterly supportive of a man who pays porn stars to keep their secrets; who has cheated on every wife he's got, who does not lead the life of a spiritua...

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The Polarization Express

Steve Paikin, and Arthur Brooks, David Brooks, Anne Snyder

December 30, 2019

How did we get into the tunnel, and can anything light our way out? 

Steve Paikin: Do you see any way out of the polarization that infects so much of the world today, particularly in the city in which you live right now, Washington D.C In early December, as the second decade of the 21st century closed, Cardus hosted a panel discussion in Toronto hosted by TV Ontario’...

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Drawing To The House

Joseph McDaniel

December 30, 2019

All sports are distinctly liturgical, writes Catholic seminarian Joseph McDaniel, but the particular physics-defying practice of curling calls us to hurry hard to God.

Like many good things in the life of a young teenager, it was a ritual I assumed would always be there: the bus ride to the winter club, warming up to the inspiring sound of ABBA, stepping out onto the ice, sliding out from the hack, the coin tosses, the exchanges of “good curling” and handshakes… W...

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Skywalker’s Biblical Beginnings

Evan Menzies

December 27, 2019

In wake of the finale of the massive Star Wars trilogy, Evan Menzies traces the origin of the saga to the pages of the Old and New Testaments.

And finally, we enter part three of the great story, the last battle between good and evil, between the Jedi and the Sith The great battle, symbolically being fought in the galactic conflict of the Clone Wars, is really about the conflict in Anakin Skywalker between good and evil In the final confli...

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Two Popes: One Doctrine

Alan Hustak

December 27, 2019

Alan Hustak finds the new Netflix movie on the papacies of Francis and Benedict XVI tries too hard to exploit their differences via disingenuous disregard for their unity.

Smoke rising from a snuffed candle, a symbol that a religious sacrifice has been acceptable to God, foreshadows a not too subtle theme in The Two Popes, the two-hour absorbing Netflix movie that imagines the relationship between Pope Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Jesuit who replaced hi...

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Christmas Comes to the Farm

Bill Los

December 24, 2019

Bill Los offers a reflection from his farm, where he contemplates Christmas in the stillness of listening to the animals and reflects on what might be learnt in the stables.

The only Christmas tradition these animals in the old barn will get is one light bulb on for the whole night and the CBC radio with all its Christmas music, poems and stories Tomorrow, early on Christmas morning, when all is still dark, my wife and I will walk this winding path through the snow, amo...

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Shrouded From Chaos

Mirjana Villeneuve

December 24, 2019

Looking back on a trip to Bethlehem that evoked peace and solace, Mirjana Villeneuve seeks to walk alongside the Holy Family approaching the manger this Christmas. 

As we left the Church of the Nativity, back through the crowd and the curtained, tiny door, I carried with me a renewed peace was hit with late-winter freezing rain and the cutting winds off the lake, I found myself standing in the courtyard outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem among a gr...

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Miracle on the Gaza Strip

Susan Korah

December 23, 2019

Thanks to activist groups, 50 Palestinian Christians will join family in the West Bank for Christmas. In the fraught area where Christ was born, that is a small miracle, Susan Korah writes.

The Israeli government, citing reasons of national security, has imposed severe travel restrictions on residents of the Gaza Strip, a narrow strip of land on the Mediterranean coast, controlled by Hamas and separated by 115 km from the West Bank,  also considered to be part of the Palestinian Territ...

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When God Gives Himself to Us

Rebecca Darwent

December 20, 2019

The secret Santa truth is that, for many, Christmas can be more painful than joyful. But true joy, Rebecca Darwent writes, is creating an interior place for the Child to be born anew.

Maybe it’s because we see reflections of ourselves in others that I’ve been seeing this trend (last Christmas was, for me, not great), but it’s difficult to ignore this very real and raw effort of so many dear to me, who are admitting surrender to the consumerist, Hallmark, perfectly magical Christm...

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