Religious Freedom

Putting the Human Back in Dignity

Rebecca Darwent, with Andrew P.W. Bennett, Aaron Neil

November 5, 2019

In a just-released paper, the Cardus Religious Freedom Institute seeks to kickstart a Canada-wide conversation on the real meaning of human dignity. CRFI’s Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett and researcher Aaron Neil talked with Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent about why it’s urgently needed.

Convivium: Let’s start with the title of this paper, Who Are You? Reaffirming Human Dignity. This isn't the first time, then, that human dignity has been affirmed in the history of the world.

Andrew Bennett:...

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A Dangerous Space for Faith

Daniel Proussalidis

November 4, 2019

Claims that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s Catholic beliefs disqualify him from becoming Canada’s Prime Minister are a dark turn away from tolerance and pluralism, writes Daniel Proussalidis.

The Canadian public square is an increasingly closed space—at least for voices of faith. The 2019 federal election campaign and its aftermath make it abundantly clear that there are new boundaries to what can and cannot be said publicly. Moreover, they’re n...

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Losing Our Faith in Political History

Raymond J. de Souza

October 24, 2019

Convivium’s Father Raymond de Souza rebuts critics of Andrew Scheer for focusing on his religious beliefs while forgetting it was historically outlandish to expect he’d win Election 2019.

About the election, three observations: one about history, another about campaigns, and the third about religion.

First, history matters. Amongst those who desired a Conservative victory, there has been much talk about how Andrew Scheer and his team...

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Are Even Secular Schools Sacred?

Raymond J. de Souza

September 26, 2019

Father Raymond de Souza wonders what spirit moves the public board of education in Brockville, Ontario to block an empty building’s sale to a private religious group.

Who does the government compete with? Is a public school a sacred building? A recent surplus building sale raises those questions.

In Brockville, the local public school board has a sold an elementary school in Wolford that it had closed in 2018. The...

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Honouring Shahbaz Bhatti, Servant of God

Susan Korah

September 9, 2019

Convivium contributor Susan Korah says recognizing the Pakistani martyr by naming a park after him is but a first step in fulfilling the legacy of his fight for religious freedom.

The name Shahbaz Bhatti may be unfamiliar to most Canadians. But Canadian politicians, foreign policy bureaucrats, and the voting public need to pay close attention to the connection between the martyred Pakistani politician’s life’s work, and the millions ...

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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.

People who identify as pro-choice argue that the pro-life position is based on religion rather than reason. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The pro-life position is based first and foremost on natural reason and logic.

Many pro-lifers a...

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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.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to attend the Arete Medical Ethics Summer Seminar at Duke University. It was a five-day course facilitated by Dr. Farr Curlin, a palliative care physician at Duke, and Dr. Christopher Tollefsen, a philosophy professor...

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Is Canada Deaf to Religious Persecution?

Susan Korah

July 30, 2019

In a world awakening to the catastrophe of anti-faith violence, Canada has apparently hit the snooze button on the alarm, reports Convivium contributor Susan Korah.

The Canadian election of October 2019 will clearly not be fought and won on the killing fields of the Middle East or in Uyghur re-education camps in China. But a foreign policy that pays little more than lip service to an important aspect of international h...

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Building Beyond Bill 21

Peter Stockland

June 19, 2019

Quebec’s law banning public displays of religious symbols has affronted advocates of religious freedom across Canada. But Convivium’s Peter Stockland reports on plans by Montreal Catholics to turn the secularist tide and create strong communities of faith.

Quebec’s government has declared the province an aggressively secular society with the passage of Bill 21 banning the wearing of religious clothing and symbols in certain public service workplaces.

Montreal’s E...

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Tiny Taiwan Stands Up to Anti-Faith Tyranny

Susan Korah

June 18, 2019

In a week when Quebec has passed into law its oppressive Bill 21, Convivium contributor Susan Korah argues all eyes in Canada should be on Taiwan’s unfailing support for full religious freedom.

George Leslie Mackay, the legendary Scottish-Canadian missionary who introduced Christianity to Taiwan and founded the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan in the 19th century, would be proud.

The East Asian country, 180 kilometres off the south...

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Faith For Our Future

Peter Stockland, with Aaron Neil, Andrew P.W. Bennett

June 10, 2019

Last week, Cardus Religious Freedom Institute launched its newest project, Faith in the Future. Convivium's Peter Stockland sits down with program director Andrew Bennett and researcher Aaron Neil to discuss the team's aspirations and plans as it kicks off.

Give me a sense of what the launch actually involves or what does it mean? What are we doing to signify the launch?

Andrew Bennett: The launch is really about the official initiation of Faith in the Future. We now ha...

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Conscience Rights and Ethical Wrongs

Peter Stockland

May 28, 2019

More than 1,500 Ontario doctors object to a College edict privileging abortion and MAiD over conscience rights, arguing the order is the moral equivalent of requiring doctors to perform the acts, writes Peter Stockland. The ruling threatens Charter guarantees that every Canadian has the fundamental right think and believe freely.

Imagine being a feminist physician unshakeable in your conviction that girls and women must be protected from patriarchal oppression.

Now picture being asked to assist with a sex-selection abortion because daddy doesn’t want a female child and mothe...

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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.

Have we lost all sense of proportion when it comes to our fundamental rights in Canada? Two recent cases suggest we have – both involving the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which allows legislatures to temporarily bypass certa...

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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.

Absolutely nothing in Quebec’s Bill 21 would directly impact me if I were a public servant in Quebec, as I have been elsewhere. The Bill prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by those in the pay of the province, including a variety of public servants, ...

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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.

Polarization, despite having become a major buzzword in recent years, can be a tricky thing to study. This isn’t due to a lack of attention: concerned essays appear almost weekly in major journals, sites and magazines.

Analyzing, decrying or justify...

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Running Religious Freedom Out Of Quebec

Peter Stockland

May 7, 2019

Quebec’s secularism bill is a governmental attempt to coerce the religiosity out of public workers, writes publisher Peter Stockland.

Today’s legislative hearings on outlawing the wearing of religious clothing or symbols by specific Quebec public servants could easily be dismissed as proverbial lipstick on a pig.

In fact, they’re worse, much worse, than a skin-deep brush with porci...

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Better News for Canadian Jews

Rabbi Reuven Bulka

April 17, 2019

As Passover arrives, an Environics survey shows Canada’s Jewish community is faring much better than its U.S. counterpart in number of ways. But as Ottawa’s Rabbi Reuven Bulka cautions, doing better doesn’t automatically mean doing well.

It is somewhat ironic that I react to the recent released survey of the 2018 study of Canadian Jewry, carried out by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with the University of Toronto and York University.

The irony is that t...

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Crucifixes, Kippahs, and Quebec’s Bill 21

Don Hutchinson

March 29, 2019

Constitutional lawyer and legal commentator Don Hutchinson says it’s “unthinkable” the Quebec government would override Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom to proclaim a State-sponsored doctrine of secularism.

Rather than repeal bad legislation passed by the previous government, the government of Quebec has introduced ...

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No Retreat on Advancement of Religion

Daniel Proussalidis

March 25, 2019

The Canadian Council of Christian Charities has warned Parliament that undermining tax exemptions of religious institutions will severely hamper the country’s giving sector, Daniel Proussalidis reports.

Hardline secular activists in the United Kingdom are pushing for the elimination of the advancement of religion as a charitable purpose. The National Secular Society claimed earlier in March, “Promoting religion is not inherently a public benefit and can so...

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Freedom Beyond Choice

Aaron Neil

March 19, 2019

The political left and right both advocate for free choice as society’s ultimate good. Doing so, argues Cardus Researcher Aaron Neil, neglects the imperative of choosing the highest good that is God.

Freedom is understood today as the power and capacity to choose. In contemporary culture, a choice is permissible as long as it does not inhibit the choices of others. Choice is always good, and the only bad thing a person can do is take away someone’s abil...

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The Beam of Christian Schooling

Barry Bussey

March 15, 2019

Attacking faith-based institutions for upholding codes of conduct ignores the Charter, violates the spirit of pluralism, and risks undermining religious freedom, argues lawyer Barry Bussey.

CBC News “Go Public” ran a story recently about the “dark secret” of religious schools. Initially, the story got a lot of attention, but was then swept away as the SNC-Lavalin scandal took on new life with Minister Jane Philpott’s resignation from the feder...

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Doing Right By Asia Bibi

Don Hutchinson

February 6, 2019

While the Trudeau government has given Canadian Christians little reason to cheer, writes Convivium contributor Don Hutchinson, it deserves praise for its effort to save the persecuted Pakistani woman condemned to death for blasphemy against Islam.

“The time is always ripe to do right.” The phrase oft used by Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired readers of his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and was last publicly voiced by him in a March 31, 1968 Sunday sermon, delivered at the Natio...

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Beneath the Summer Jobs Controversy

Peter Stockland

December 6, 2018

Promised changes to the embattled summer student employment program won't resolve the deep divide separating Canadians of faith from the Liberal government's “true believers” in radical secular autonomy, Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett tells Convivium’s Peter Stockland.

While faith-based and pro-life groups scrambled today to decode changes to the federal government's hot button student jobs program, Canada’s former ambassador for religious freedom warns against accepting it as mere election year peace making.

“I th...

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Getting Religious Freedom Right

Ray Pennings

November 26, 2018

Cardus Executive Vice-President Ray Pennings says polling data done for the think tank by the Angus Reid Institute suggests many Canadians suffer amnesia about the centrality of religious freedom in the Charter of Rights.

It’s a safe bet that Asia Bibi – a Christian woman recently acquitted of blasphemy charges in Pakistan, but still facing mob violence – would say religious freedom makes Canada a better country. Indeed, it’s because Canada enjoys religious freedom that this...

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