Good That Comes From Nazareth

Jeff Lockert

March 24, 2018

Visiting the site that was home of Mary, the Mother of God, Convivium contributor Jeff Lockert, president of Catholic Christian Outreach, meditates on the difference that Incarnational leadership can make to the world

And it is a profoundly incarnational approach because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us without ceasing to be Divine – God became human – in the person of Jesus So during Mass, at that moment when the priest elevated the bread and the wine and prayed the prayer of consecration, I was complete...

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Post-Truth Possibilities

Peter Menzies

March 23, 2018

Reflecting on a paper he wrote almost 10 years ago ago as a Senior Fellow for Cardus, veteran Canadian journalist Peter Menzies concludes that trust is adrift on a sea of lies but, hey, it’s still better to light a candle than curse the dark.  

Ten years ago, writing a Senior Fellows paper for Cardus that forecast the dissolution of trust, common ground and, unstated but inferred, the intelligence media would require for their survival, I quoted Orville Schell, dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s journalism school, from an a...

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Letting Up On Religious Freedom?

Peter Stockland

March 22, 2018

Conservative MPs took one as a team fighting the government’s “values test” in the Canada Summer Jobs debacle. Then the Tories seemed to forget why continuing the fight still matters, writes Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland.

Yet what, if anything, gets lost when the run of day issues crowd out a government act that converges against freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and, especially, freedom of religion? An interesting answer to that comes from Carl Hétu, who was in the public gallery for Monday night’s vote on th...

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Cardinal Sarah, Man of Prayer

Raymond J. de Souza

March 22, 2018

Hosting Robert Cardinal Sarah last week, Convivium Editor in Chief Father Raymond de Souza found himself face to face with one of the great Christian lives of our day, and alongside the exemplification of prayerful disposition.

Last week I had the great honour of hosting Cardinal Robert Sarah, one of the Vatican’s most senior officials, in Kingston and Wolfe Island How improbable that a boy from a remote Guinean village, whose parents were counted among the first Christians of his land, would take senior positions in the t...

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Hands That Craft The Cross

John Terpstra

March 21, 2018

Poet and cabinetmaker John Terpstra reflects on the Lenten experience of hand making a Cross for the church where he worships, and writing a cycle of poems on Christ’s journey to Calvary.

For isn’t the wooden Cross of our Christian faith a result of what we as humans have done? And where would I find such a tree? In a place where trees are cultivated, that is, a garden, an orchard If I were suffering like Jesus in the garden in the first poem (though my suffering was not over my own ...

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Daycare Demands Diversity

Andrea Mrozek with Steven Lehrer

March 20, 2018

In conversation with Cardus Family program director Andrea Mrozek, Queen’s University economist Steven Lehrer says hard data debunks the political appeal of universal, uniform daycare

I got interested in universal child care when Michael Baker came to Queen’s and presented his joint work with Kevin Milligan and Jon Gruber, which found that the Quebec childcare program, the access to universal, subsidized child care there, led to declines in a host of child developmental outcomes ...

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Leaving Behind Leftover Christian Clichés

Josh Nadeau

March 19, 2018

Convivium critic Josh Nadeau says The Leftovers TV series marks the return of Christian faith as a subject for mainstream cultural exploration, and even fascination.

Over the course of three seasons each character staggers through crises of faith and doubt, and questions of God’s existence, or how to deal with one’s powerlessness in the face of the inexplicable, are addressed with dignity, integrity and courage Left Behind, along with other famous Christian fran...

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Seriously Celebrating St. Patrick

Brittany Beacham

March 16, 2018

Convivium writer Brittany Beacham serves notice that St. Patrick of Ireland was a slave-shepherd who became one of history’s great missionaries out the deepest love for God. Green beer just doesn’t do him justice.

Patrick said “… even if I wished to leave them and go to Britain---and how I would have loved to go to my country and my parents, and also to Gaul in order to visit the brethren and to see the face of the saints of my Lord! God knows it! That I much desired it; but I am bound by the Spirit, who give...

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The Name That Dares To Speak Its Love

Erik deLange

March 16, 2018

In the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name, Convivium movie reviewer Erik deLange finds a complement to the deep longing of every human heart: to love and be loved by God.

It’s has been a long, perfectly paced, lackadaisical epic of summer love and loss in Italy, and now Elio’s beloved Oliver has now chosen instead to get married So am I suggesting that this film about gay lovers be considered a Christian film? Perhaps one could suggest instead that it would be better...

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A Fresh Twist of Godspell

Rachel Feddema

March 15, 2018

Convivium’s Rachel DeBruyn went to an Ottawa production of Godspell expecting to experience Jesus. She did, but not before being challenged with the very contemporary questions of the Gospel.

Traditionally, the show opens with the ensemble in disarray until, one song in, Jesus brings them together and their journey begins They split their time between engaging a world riddled with disheartening news and hard questions—and portraying on stage what is ultimately a story of hope And I knew ...

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Martyrs, Saints and Oscar Romero

Raymond J. de Souza

March 14, 2018

In El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero, soon to be made a Catholic saint, Father Raymond de Souza finds a model Christian martyr of the 20th century.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated in 1984, will be soon canonized a Catholic saint During the civil war in El Salvador, Archbishop Romero spoke courageously against human rights abuses by government forces, and stood boldly in solidarity with the poor The n...

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A 21 Psalm Salute

Breanne Valerie

March 13, 2018

When Breanne Valerie first agreed to experience what it might mean to live according to the Rule of St. Benedict in the twenty-first century, she didn't anticipate that she might be faced with the daunting task of reading approximately 21 Psalms a day. Discover how her encounter with the Psalms became a treasured practice. 

In the same way, when we read his charge that anything less than 21 Psalms a day is extreme indolence and lack of devotion, we are to adapt the practice in our context, just as Benedict did to his Benedict urges the monastics to live a life of complete devotion to God in a way that changes the way t...

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The Path of Silent Recollection

Gavin Miller

March 13, 2018

Toronto writer Gavin C. Miller notices how the power of silence creates a meeting of minds between intimidating Roman Catholic Cardinal Robert Sarah and Buddhist-oriented interior designer Jeremy Vandermeij.

And perhaps, if Jeremy Vandermeij and Cardinal Sarah are any indication, the way of silent recollection may in the end be the path out of the frenzied polarization and enmity that threaten our civilisation and the planet Vandermeij’s article led me to check out Robert Cardinal Sarah’s book, The Powe...

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The Peterson Protests

Raymond J. de Souza

March 12, 2018

Father Raymond de Souza was at a speech given by Jordan Peterson, perusing the foreword to the best-selling author’s latest book, when the mob erupted outside the hall at Queen’s University in Kingston.

And Doidge opens with the Biblical story of the Ten Commandments, suitable enough for a book about rules After all, God didn’t give Moses “The Ten Suggestions,” he gave Commandments; and if I’m a free agent, my first reaction to commands might just be that nobody, not even God, tells me what to do, ...

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To Tell the Truth

Peter Stockland

March 9, 2018

This week’s legal decision over telling children about the Easter Bunny may seem like mere whimsy. In reality, Convivium’s Peter Stockland writes, it’s about barring the State from forcing us to lie.

Whatever fueled the placement worker’s conduct overall – and by extension the enabling behaviour of the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society – Justice Goodman found the effect was serious violation of the Baars’ Charter rights to religious freedom and freedom of expression Much of the media coverage of t...

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