Just in Time Books on Justin

Ray Pennings

September 3, 2019

Cardus Executive Vice President Ray Pennings finds two pre-election books leave open the question of whether Justin Trudeau is a flawed ideologue or a well-intentioned prime minister in training.  

Is Prime Minister Trudeau an idealist, conscious of the privilege into which he was born and eager to give back to Canada, shaping it towards his own progressive ideals? In that case, the missteps of his government, while frustrating, are likely to be considered forgivable by progressive Canadians a...

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Religion Or Reason?

Richard Bastien

August 30, 2019

If opposition to abortion is rooted in natural law instead of religious belief, one should be able to show that such opposition existed in societies devoid of Christian influence. The evidence is overwhelming, writes Richard Bastien. 

In the fifth century before the Christian era, the Greek physician Hippocrates encased the condemnation of abortion into the Hippocratic Oath which, until it was abandoned by most medical schools in the 1970s, compelled all doctors to take every means at their disposal to protect the life of the unb...

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Restoring Rational Meaning to Medicine

Samantha Rossi

August 30, 2019

U of T medical student Samantha Rossi makes the case for returning medicine to its roots as a ministry of healing, rather than an industry where doctors must check their consciences at the examining room door.

Curlin and Tollefsen exposed us to The Way of Medicine as an alternative to the Provider of Services Model and applied it to topics ranging from the beginning of life, reproductive health, the end of life and conscience in medical practice This glorification of autonomy has led to what Curlin and To...

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A Labour Day Warning About Populists Rising

Peter Stockland

August 30, 2019

Canada’s labour policies are leaving millions behind and risk Trump-style revenge politics spilling over the border, warns a new Macdonald-Laurier Institute study.

That’s why, Speer also cautions from a purely secular think tank perspective, it’s worrisome that an increasing portion of our robust economy and rising incomes are, in reality, driven by government transfers, not real work for earned wages What better time to drive that point home than during a fed...

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The Climate’s Royal Treatment

Raymond J. de Souza

August 29, 2019

Editor-In-Chief Fr. Raymond de Souza looks to Prince Harry and Meaghan Markle’s decision to have a maximum of two children for the sake of the planet.

Still, given that his own brother has three children, would not common courtesy alone demand that he refrain from publicly characterizing that choice as irresponsible? Even because of the climate? Is it not simply bad manners to say, more or less, that it would have been better if Prince Louis, the ...

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Love Lives Through Sacrifice

Michael Gonari

August 28, 2019

The story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a priest who gave his life for another prisoner in Auschwitz, inspires us to integrate faith and action, writes contributor Michael Gonari.

The revised picture of public faith I hope to leave you with is the story of Kolbe What comes to your mind when someone mentions public faith or religious freedom? You may picture an eccentric preacher, an individual approaching you on the street with a small booklet when you are in a rush, or perha...

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Pretenders to the Devil’s Throne

John Robson

August 28, 2019

John Robson argues the vanity of Ottawa’s recent Satanic mass wasn’t just that it mocked Catholicism. It’s that the assembled Devil worshipers didn’t sincerely believe there’s a Devil.

And at any rate Rebecca Atkinson in Convivium described the scene with human charity: “A crowd of an estimated 200 people spilled onto the sidewalks of a downtown street in Ottawa’s Byward Market to counter Canada’s allegedly first satanic black mass occurring inside a bar on the opposite side ...

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Hong Kong’s Fall Is No Arab Spring

Robert Joustra

August 27, 2019

Redeemer University College’s Robert Joustra sees protests and violence in Hong Kong as a desperate attempt to fend off autocracy, not the attempt to implant democracy that characterized geopolitical risings a decade ago.

This was the driving question of Henry Kissinger’s serious and important book On China: Can China moderate its rise and accommodate itself to a world order it did not design, and can the world, especially the United States, accommodate itself, its rules, and its order, to the rise of Chinese power? ...

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Alpha: More Than a Video Series

Shaila Visser

August 27, 2019

Shaila Visser, national director for Alpha Canada, offers Convivium readers a way to bring themselves, their families and friends into a deeper conversation with Christ. 

Invitation to Alpha is not simply an invitation to hear about God, but an invitation to encounter Him in the community of His church – to experience His love, welcome and presence, while hearing His gracious good news A 2017 Angus Reid Study conducted in partnership with Faith In Canada 150 showed o...

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The WEIRD Pull of Social Polarization

Josh Nadeau

August 26, 2019

Convivium contributor Josh Nadeau continues his series of occasional essays on how our Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic culture can overcome its built-in tension between freedom and safety.

Due to major social, political and infrastructural development, more people were finding their needs met in ways that allowed them to detach from rigid group structures and pursue avenues of self-expression and realization Third, be aware that forming groups or communities sometimes comes at a great...

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Flinging Mud at the Marriage Debate

Peter Stockland

August 23, 2019

Publisher Peter Stockland argues the “revelation” that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer opposed same-sex marriage is more than a mere political dirty trick. It muddies democracy itself by denying all sides of the debate their place in history and memory.

But arguably, Scheer’s contention in his speech that the existential continuum of marriage could never include same-sex marriage was a mere channeling of the Supreme Court decision By the time Andrew Scheer gave his speech in 2005, those activists had not yet succeeded in changing his mind, or the m...

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Astrophysics and The Society of Jesus

Hannah Marazzi with Adam Hincks

August 23, 2019

Fr. Adam Hincks, SJ, is one of 22 newly ordained priests to The Society of Jesus community. Convivium's Hannah Marazzi sits down with him to discuss his background in science and the journey that brought him to become a Jesuit priest.

When I first started discerning this, I was doing a doctorate in physics at Princeton University and I really enjoyed the studies and the work I was doing there, but I felt as though this wasn't my particular calling for the rest of my life First, it gave me a rich view of the world, having grown up...

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Iceland’s Slippery Slope on Climate Change

Raymond J. de Souza

August 22, 2019

Father Raymond de Souza tempers this week’s dust-up over Elections Canada limiting partisan climate debate with the reminder that elsewhere only anti-warmers are welcome.

The recent fracas about what Elections Canada considers “partisan” speech in regard to climate change got me thinking about Iceland and how advocates talk – or don’t talk – about the changing climate Peter Stockland rehearsed the controversy recently here, namely that Elections Canada has determined...

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What We Owe the Victims of ISIS

Susan Korah

August 21, 2019

The Yazidi people of the Middle East deserve justice and respect, not just sympathy or pity, for fighting so valiantly with the West, writes Convivium contributor Susan Korah.

With the added lustre of support from Amal Clooney, the glamorous, brilliantly articulate international human rights lawyer (who has taken on the cause of Yazidi women victims of human trafficking) and her own Nobel prize win, Murad has an undeniable star quality, Clarfield said They include a progr...

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Don't Say the E-Word

Peter Stockland

August 20, 2019

Looking to the new Elections Canada rules that require jumping through hoops just to debate climate change, as well as a Convivium run-in with trying to advertise a story on Facebook, Peter Stockland questions how far our democratic babysitting has gone.

My friend, former colleague and Convivium contributor Peter Menzies writes on Troy Media today that the uproar over Elections Canada and climate change must be seen as well-intentioned rules being administered at peak persnickety A clear sign of what’s coming is the blow-back that erupted this week ...

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