God Promises More

Peter Stockland with Wally Buono

July 31, 2017

Wally Buono defines success in the Canadian Football League. He is the winningest head coach in league history. He has won five Grey Cups as a coach, two more as a player. But the current head coach, general manager and vice-president of football operations for the B.C. Lions is also a devout Christian who says true success is God changing your heart. 

I wasn't a church goer at that time, and then through certain things that occurred I started to look at the relationship with Christ slightly different and I started to see it as a more personal relationship C: The heart of the Christian faith is the recognition that human beings are capable of nail...

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Robert Thompson’s House of Faith

Lloyd Mackey

July 28, 2017

Robert Norman Thompson was part of a cross-partisan group of Canadian leaders that made a 1960s era “House of minorities” almost accidentally effective in its pursuit of far-reaching social and economic legislation. Indeed, many people, around the time of Canada’s 1967 Centennial referred to Thompson as “Mr. Canada”.

Judi Johnston Vankevich, a Langley, BC, based author, speaker, ethics advisor, frequent consultant on matters of faith, politics, education and family issues, and Executive Director of Canadian Centre for Manners & Civility, holds a bachelor of arts in Business Administration and Political Science f...

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Start the Revolution Without Me

Peter Stockland

July 28, 2017

Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts features a summer exhibition, Revolution, paying tribute to the 1960s. Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland drops by and finds the only thing missing is the whole truth about that often dangerously demented decade. Did they forget how to spell Charlie Manson's name?

Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts is a major institution in Canada’s only real city, which is why its summer Revolution exhibit is such a serious let down So what do we do? How does one of Canada’s finest art institutions in its only real city respond? It Photoshops him out of history, then drags and d...

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A Love Louder Than Noise

Marlena Loughheed

July 27, 2017

The New York Times and National Post recently discovered the "trend" of young women entering religious orders to become nuns. Marlena Loughheed didn't need to read the news. She listened to her heart, and shares with Convivium why she answered the call to consecrated life.

My life is an embarrassment of riches, yet I still find myself asking bigger questions: What is the appropriate outlet for my life and my love? How am I called to attain Heaven for myself and those around me? How can I best use my gifts to bring Christ to the world? In His great mercy and personal l...

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Stories Yet To Tell

Keith Dow

July 26, 2017

"There is a story of faith in Canada that we see and hear, and a story of faith in Canada that words cannot express. Mystery and revelation trace their way through every account given of the divine. Opacity and transparency similarly dance through each of our own life-stories: the words, and the bodies, upon which we are written."

Faith in Canada would be an impoverished faith if it were not for these untold stories, just as Canada would be an impoverished nation if not for its story of faith There is a story of faith in Canada that we see and hear, and a story of faith in Canada that words cannot express ...

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A Ban on Muslim Cemeteries is an Attack on us All

Peter Stockland

July 26, 2017

Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland reflects on the impact that the vote against the creation of a Muslim cemetery in Saint-Apollinaire, Quebec has on all Canadian citizens. 

As my colleague Andrew Bennett, Canada’s first and last ambassador for religious freedom, puts it so eloquently: the freedoms of religion and conscience are and must be the first freedoms to which all others are bound Only digging deep into the truth underlying the ugliness will bring us face to fac...

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O When the Saint Came Marching In

Neil MacCarthy

July 25, 2017

It’s been 15 years this week since a saint came marching on to Canadian soil. On July 23, 2002, then Pope John Paul II arrived in Toronto for World Youth Day celebrations. We pray that many more saints are following in his footsteps, inspiring others through their example and witness.

At World Youth Day 2000 in Rome, Pope John Paul II challenged us to be the saints of the new millennium In the words of the late Saint John Paul II at his homily during the final Mass of World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto: ...

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The Kingdom In A War Zone

Hannah Marazzi with Emily Way

July 25, 2017

Canadian nurse Emily Way recently returned from Iraq where she worked in a Samaritan’s Purse field hospital near the besieged city of Mosul. She discussed with Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi the impact on faith of treating the wounded and fallen in one of the world’s most brutal war zones.

How did you see the intersection of faith in the work and language employed by Samaritan’s Purse staff while in the field hospital? By medical staff, admin staff, chaplains, and the many people back home who have been warriors of prayer for the hospital We were under very high stress, in a very dang...

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Transcending Connection

Ruth Dick

July 25, 2017

Many moments of transcendence are found in the every day. Ottawa photographer Ruth Dick pays homage to a transcendent connection on the streets of Montreal with her camera lens. 

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Physically Metaphysical

Joe Mroz

July 24, 2017

What ideology underpins our modern ways of thinking? What impact does that have in human flourishing? Fr. Joe Mroz examines the relationship between the way we think and the philosophy that brought us here.

The nature of these claims, though, make sense against the background of modern philosophy, roughly from Descartes to Marx, which rejects the notion that we can have real knowledge of "the world as it is" ...

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Revisiting 'I Kissed Dating Goodbye'

Hannah Marazzi, with Joshua Harris, Jessica Van Der Wyngaard

July 21, 2017

Author Joshua Harris influenced how a generation of young Christians approached relationships. He and filmmaker Jessica Van Der Wyngaard talk to Convivium's Hannah Marazzi about their new documentary on whether Harris was too hasty in bidding dating adieu.

Josh said, "You know, maybe my book has something to do with how people are engaging with these issues today and the struggles that some people have In the 17 years since it was first published, people wrote letters, books, and statements on the Internet that were critical of my book We've encounter...

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Albert B. Simpson

Darrel Reid

July 21, 2017

When A. B. Simpson died, a Christian Herald writer wrote: “His epitaph is written in the hearts of countless multitudes at home and abroad … no one in this age had done more effectual, self-denying service for Christ and His Gospel than [Simpson].” Of the denomination Simpson founded, the Globe observed that “the Christian and Missionary Alliance stands as a monument of his devotion to God’s purpose for him … Eternity alone will show the full results of his earthly ministry.”.

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Brush Strokes of Worship

Marcia Lee Laycock

July 20, 2017

"Emily Carr’s work depicts that struggle, that striving to faith, that longing to comprehend that which is unknown yet deeply sensed. The first quote visitors to the Vancouver Art Gallery saw as they entered the exhibit was 'Art is Worship.'"

Emily Carr saw the divine in the deep dark forests of British Columbia and in the work of others, especially some members of the Group of Seven who welcomed her as one of their own As I wandered in the gallery that day, I was not only stirred by how Emily Carr drew us to the Divine through her work,...

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Accounting for Khadr

Peter Stockland

July 20, 2017

Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland argues Canadians deserve better from the Khadr case than sketches of fact becoming caricatures of truth.

It does mean there remain a myriad of questions that journalists, and the Conservative official opposition, must start asking so Canadians have the whole Khadr story, not just selective parts that suit preferred images of good and evil It’s applicable to Khadr because, harsh as this might seem, the ...

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The Future of Canada’s Day

Raymond J. de Souza

July 19, 2017

Indigenous accusations of genocide made our 150th birthday a day of repentance with sporadic fireworks, says Father Raymond J. de Souza. That's not good for Canada. It's even worse for Aboriginal Canadians.

The whole “shove it down your throat” approach to Canada Day might have been a tad off-putting, so The Globe followed Saganash with a July 2 column by Matthew Coon Come, grand chief of the Cree Nation near James Bay, Quebec, arguing that the “tide is turning on Canada’s relationship with Indigenous ...

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