2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
In a new collection of essays by Father Julián Carrón, reviewer Daniel Freeman finds an enriching approach to evangelization, one born of humility and bearing great hope.
“The encounter with the beauty of Christ that shines through the face of a human being can become an arrow that wounds the soul, and so opens our eyes, allowing us to recognize him. This is what each of us is longing for, and our contemporaries with us....
The advent of digital nomadism, Josh Nadeau writes from experience, opens the door to home becoming pilgrimage, and roots becoming spirit to stretch instead of matter that restrains.
When one speaks of the omnipresent Millennial, a number of well-formed stereotypes come to mind. You have your vinyl-laden cultural connoisseurs, for example, or your selfie mavens (complete with seasonal latte) or experts in ‘90s nostalgia. While it’s ulti...
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.
As a child, I wanted to be famous. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be well known or revered. Rather, I wanted my life to matter. In my limited childhood understanding, fame was the reward for a life that mattered.
These innocent childhood longings...
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.
It would be easiest and most gratifying to call residents of Saint-Apollinaire, Que., nasty, anti-Islamic bigots for saying non to having a Muslim cemetery in town.
It might, for a handful of the tiny fraction of villagers who voted in last Sunday’s ...
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.
Convivium: First of all, what got you connected to Samaritan’s Purse and this opportunity in particular?
Emily Way: I have known about Samaritan’s Purse (SP) for as long as I can remember. My elementary and junior h...
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.
As startling as the idea of transgenderism is to many, even more startling is the totalitarian nature of its claims.
The nature of these claims, though, make sense against the background of modern philosophy, roughly from Descartes to Marx, which re...
For nearly 30 years, Seattle-based Image journal has striven to combine the beauty of art and the mystery of faith without deferring to what founding editor Greg Wolfe calls “any single tribal group in society.” Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi asked him about the motivation and the struggles of such a venture.
Convivium: Founded in 1989, Image began as a work of literary and artistic love, and has endured and indeed flourished across the years to become one of America’s leading literary journals that seeks to bring the intersection of fa...
Father Tim McCauley reflects on questions of human dignity and respect as prompted by ever changing "summer fashions." Do you have a stance, opinion, perspective, or experience that relates to the conversation surrounding modesty? Add your voice to the conversation.
Fashions are not neutral accessories, but forms of self-expression loaded with meaning. Blinded by gender ideology that trumpets the utter sameness in all respects of men and women, our culture ignores the harmful effects of the "barely-there" current summ...
Convivium author Peter Stockland reflects on the mysterious collapse of motels and the spiritual significance that these places of refuge possess.
I learned on my summer vacation something I should have known long ago: that the word “motel” is a compound of “motor” and “hotel.”
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it dates from 1925 when a publication called Hotel Monthly reported that...
Surveying the smoke and clangour of current political (dis)engagement, Ottawa writer Ruth Dick echoes the wisdom of her grandfather’s life-long admonition: Listen to everyone.
Think of the dumbfounded look on the face of the guy who runs out to the corner store for a pack of smokes and comes back to find his house in flames.
From family stories passed down to me, I know my grandfather had every good reason to be that guy’...
Today Convivium publishes an open letter, authored and affirmed at the Faith in Canada 150 Millennial Summit at the Ottawa Offices of Cardus, Canada’s faith based think tank, June 30, 2017.
Dear Canada,
We write to you on the eve of the 150th anniversary of Confederation to affirm the role of faith in the formation of Canada in its past, today, and in future generations to come.
We, delegates of the Faith in Canada 150 Millennial...
Convivium Editor in Chief Father Raymond J. de Souza reflects on the Canada Day celebrations that unfolded in early July.
I had the blessing of spending Canada’s 150th anniversary in Ottawa with my Cardus colleagues for various events that were most inspiring.
It capped off six weeks in which I found myself for unrelated – but Providential? – reasons on Canad...
To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, Providence Renewal Centre in Edmonton has initiated a 150-day prayer challenge. The challenge begins on Saturday, July 1. Read more about how you can get involved.
To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, Providence Renewal Centre in Edmonton has initiated a 150-day prayer challenge. The challenge begins on Satutrday, July 1.
People throughout the city, province and across Canada are invited to pray, sing, or read a ps...
In the past two weeks, Ottawa lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos has argued the case for conscience rights of doctors, and won a major freedom of information legal battle over publicizing statistics about abortion. Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland sat down with him to discuss the cases.
Convivium: You’ve just argued for Ontario doctors conscience rights, and were part of the group that forced Ontario to release statistics on abortion. How are the issues linked?
Albertos Polizogopoulos: Both have to ...
Editor in Chief Father Raymond J. de Souza reports on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's recent visit to the Vatican, delivering an insightful reflection on judgement, truth, and values.
Three weeks ago, Justin Trudeau knelt in the Sistine Chapel before The Last Judgement, Michelangelo’s depiction of the Risen Christ returning in awesome glory to render final judgement upon the saints and the damned. It is both sobering and salutar...
Convivium contributor Alan Hustak reports from Montreal on the construction plans slated for the mass grave of 6,000 Irish who died in the mid-19th century of famine.
A battle is brewing in Montreal that mixes faith, history and politics, and could pit the city Irish community against Hydro Quebec, Mayor Denis Coderre and even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Each year, on the last Sunday of May, hundreds of Montrea...
Publisher Peter Stockland offers a compelling defence of how faith is inextricably tied to his identity and vocation as a journalist, thereby illuminating the public sphere and his place in it.
In a recent iPolitics column, veteran journalist Paul Adams argues persuasively that reporters should definitely pay attention to new Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s Christian faith.
However, Adams insists such reporting should be well informed a...
Cardus Senior Researcher Peter Jon Mitchell reflects on modern western society's discomfort with death and grief and the role that memory, faith, and religious communities can serve in the experience of public mourning.
There’s an old story sometimes shared during eulogies about an elderly women planning her funeral.
“Burry me with a fork,” she tells her minister.
“Yes, but may I ask why?” he inquires.
She explains that as a child, when the dishes were...
Analyzing data from the Cardus Education Survey, program director Beth Green fills Convivium readers in on the “distinct, positive advantages” of religious schools in Quebec. Find the link to the original research in the article.
Analyzing data from the Cardus Education Survey, program director Beth Green fills Convivium readers in on the “distinct, positive advantages” of religious schools in Quebec. The full report is available here...
Photographer Hayley Lockrem captures the essence of Canadian communities of faith, standing side by side, facing the future in faith and friendship.
Theologian C.S. Lewis speaks of the power of friendship in his book The Four Loves, describing the posture of friends as being "...side by side, absorbed in some common interest." The power of photographer Hayley Lockrem's photograph lies in her ab...
In this final text from the Cardus’ What Makes a Good City forum, Andrew Bennett for reviving the spirit of urbi et orbi – the city and the world – by which religious traditions have made beauty and comfort integral to our urban lives.
June 1, on certain Church calendars, is the commemoration of St. Justin Martyr, also known as Justin the Philosopher.
St. Justin Martyr lived at the beginning of the second century. He was a Roman citizen, a patrician, well schooled in rhetoric, in p...
In the second of our series from Cardus’ What Makes A Good City forum, Andrea Mrozek ponders the intersection of the hotel-style condo and the empty playground in her own neighbourhood.
There's a condo development down the street from me in my urban Ottawa community. It’s about four kilometers from Parliament Hill. When they were selling those units, they advertised them as hotel style living. For those of you who may travel quite a bit fo...
As Canadians get set to revel in urban summer life, Convivium showcases remarks from the What Makes A Good City forum held last Thursday at Cardus Ottawa. Today, Milton Friesen examines the complexities that give the city the aura of a living organism.
There is no city building for dummies. If you see that title, don't buy it. There's nothing simple or reducible if we are serious about cities. If it's simplified, packaged, essentialized, walk on by. As Hilary Putnam famously said, any theory that fits in ...
Photographer Linda Couture reveals the beauty of dawn in its promise of new beginning and the surprise of colour that awaits all those willing to seek it.
Dawn is always a spectacle of colors and surprises for one’s eyes. It gives time to think of the day that seems to be holding still yet is already beginning to pass; of the people we will meet that we know and love – or that we’ve never met before; of the m...