Convivium Magazine

The Art of the Home

Brittany Beacham

May 24, 2019

Homemaking is setting up our homes to be places that are restful, where we can be refueled and renewed. Hospitality is inviting others into that, writes Brittany Beacham.

My desire is that our home be a safe place: a place that restores us, that simultaneously softens our hearts and puts iron in our veins for whatever the next challenge is My desire is that our home be the place we come to, battered and bruised, to be held close and stitched back together ...

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Charter Freedoms and Digital Hate

Peter Menzies

May 23, 2019

Canada has a proud legal history of combating hate, Convivium contributor Peter Menzies notes, but he warns this week’s Digital Charter walks a precarious line between vigilance and suppression.

It is in this light that Canada, which has spoken firmly in defence of net neutrality, this week launched its Digital Charter outlining what social media should be and threatening financial consequences if the companies operating those platforms fail to live up to the government’s moral standards Fi...

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Crossed Standard

Raymond J. de Souza

May 23, 2019

Not being a regular runner, Father Raymond de Souza admits he does not know the perfect Planck’s Constant needed for someone in Paris to run five kilometres along the Seine in under 20 minutes. But the race, he says, is not to the swift. It is to the Cross.

“The standard kilogram has been the mass of a lump of metal sitting nestled under a series of bell jars, in a vault in a suburb of Paris,” the May 18 issue of The Economist reports Indeed, for the Christian, the good news is that we have a standard against which to measure, a divine standard that al...

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An Endless Song

Alan Hustak

May 22, 2019

Derek Harrison has spent much of his life devoted to various leadership roles and at the age of 95, he’s still going strong, playing the organ for more than 60 years in his church in small town Saskatchewan.

Yet shortly after Harrison became the organist, the priest of the day, described as someone who saw himself as both England’s and God’s representative, decided to have a pipe organ installed Now, for the first time in 135 years, St John’s will be without its own parish priest His feet on the pedals,...

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Stigma and Shame

Barry Bussey

May 22, 2019

When Ontario’s Court of Appeal trampled conscience rights for medical professionals last week, it grievously wounded the entire body of religious believers across Canada, argues lawyer Barry Bussey.

The Court was not interested in evidence that the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada presented clearly revealing there were less invasive ways to accommodate religious conscience while still meeting the College’s stated objective of providing patients with “equitable access … to health c...

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A Case for Religious Freedom

Ray Pennings

May 21, 2019

Canadians, including journalists, have forgotten how vitally connected religious freedom is to other constitutionally-protected freedoms, writes Ray Pennings, executive vice-president at Cardus.

In other words, the media don’t see Quebec’s violation of religious freedom for what it is because many Canadians don’t either Sadly, the difference in the volume of media coverage in these two cases seems also to mirror Canadians’ waning understanding of religious freedom ...

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An Unexpected History

Alan Hustak

May 17, 2019

An Islamic school stands on the same grounds where a rich history of religious education once took place in a small town in Saskatchewan. Alan Hustak explores the origins and stories of those who have passed through the walls of the old school.

Undeterred, a headstrong Oblate priest, Joseph Redinger, who had worked unsuccessfully with the Ursulines to establish a convent in Grayson, persuaded the their German superiors to allow three nuns, Mother Clementia Graffelderm, Mother Luitgardis Kratochwill and Sister Thekla Bonus, to follow him t...

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The Shortfalls of Quebec’s Bill 21

Ruth Dick

May 17, 2019

As legislation banning religious symbols in public sector workplaces leaves committee and heads for passage in the National Assembly, Ottawa writer Ruth Dick dissects it on feminist, philosophic, legal, and religious neutrality grounds.

I believe in the separation of the State from religion, in the religious neutrality of the State, and, to echo the language of the bill: I “attach importance to the equality of women By banning personal religious expression in State employees the bill contrives to make such practice of a piece with ...

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By Virtue of Being Tiger

Raymond J. de Souza

May 16, 2019

More than winning another Major championship, Father Raymond de Souza writes, Tiger Woods needs to gain the reward of being redeemed as a truly virtuous man.

And with Tiger Woods winning the Masters last month, the sports world will be all-Tiger all-the-time for the next four days But then virtue is its own reward, is it not? That’s the prize the Tiger really needs and, independent of the number of majors won, is the one his fans ought to hope that he, a...

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The Prairies and a Theology of Brokenness

Hannah Marazzi with Steve Bell

May 16, 2019

Canadian musician Steve Bell sits down with Convivium's Hannah Marazzi to talk about his sources of inspiration and the geography found beyond physical parameters.

In a sense you are both a performer committed to producing excellent music and at the same time serve as a guide that has welcomed Canadians into worship for many years You have had a 25 year solo career, won two JUNO awards, four Western Canadian Music awards and have performed for over half a mill...

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A Skeptical Eye on the Science Guy

Peter Stockland

May 15, 2019

If Donald Trump alleged he ate a million ice cream cones, fact-checkers everywhere would have a field day investigating the statement. But when it comes to claims of environmental issues of global proportions, no one seems to bat an eye, writes Peter Stockland.

Asking that, oh, a UN report prophesying imminent global extinction of a million species be subjected to genuine skepticism is not, then, to summarily dismiss it as bunk Much more simply, it’s to point to the fact that the figure 1,000,000, whether we’re talking species or ice cream cones, is a rela...

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Saving Asia Bibi

Chris Guly

May 15, 2019

Ottawa writer Christopher Guly retraces the steps that brought the Pakistani mother of five to safe haven in Canada, including Cardus’ own Andrew Bennett’s efforts to raise awareness of her persecution.

In March 2014, just over a year after he became Canada’s first and so far only ambassador for religious freedom, Bennett visited Islamabad and raised Bibi’s case with Pakistani government officials The assassination of Bhatti, who had just visited Canada in February 2011 and met with former Conserva...

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What's In A Name?

Valerie Michailovich

May 14, 2019

An internet search of a person's name will tell you much about them and who they are, but in the Jewish faith, G-d's way of identifying with people goes far beyond a name.

In fact, the irony is that we, as Jewish people, since the times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, have built a sincere, meaningful, rich and trusting relationship with G-d without needing to fully know or understand G-d’s one true name When G-d appeared before Moses in a form of a burning Bush, Moses ex...

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Pluralism and the Blue Plate Special

Josh Nadeau

May 13, 2019

Weekly media teeth-gnashing over deepening political polarization is finally turning up good news, writes Josh Nadeau. A path back to true pluralism leads through small local institutions such as places called Judy's Diner.

How can we identify the small-scale institutions that strengthen civil society against polarization? How can we provide spaces for genuine contact between people with opposing political views? And can we achieve this before both disappear in the midst of a future cultural crisis? And this, perhaps, ...

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Unplanned Speaks the Unspeakable

Rebecca Darwent

May 10, 2019

After a week where she watched a film that takes viewers inside the U.S. abortion industry, then observed the annual March for Life on Parliament Hill, Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent says Canadians must be allowed to debate the “choice” being made.

The film does not apologize for its themes or any of the explicit material that shows the ins and outs of life at an abortion clinic I felt as though I was inside an abortion clinic and, in some ways, could almost reconcile what I saw: women trying to help other women, give them a choice and a solut...

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