2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
More than 10,000 visitors are expected as the Parliament of World Religions opens its doors in Canada’s largest city next week, Convivium contributor Susan Korah reports.
In a city home to two million Catholics where Mass is said in more than 30 languages, it’s an easy guess what Cardinal Thomas Collins will make the centre of his keynote address when the Parliament of World Religions opens in Toronto next week.
“Hos...
Cardus Executive Vice President Ray Pennings says the Quebec government’s planned public service ban on symbols of faith is out of step with growing awareness about the positive presence of religion in the workplace.
Banning Quebec’s frontline civil servants from wearing religious symbols, as premier-designate François Legault intends to do, would be socially regressive. Imposing this kind of flinty and obstinate secularism squashes the very diversity most politicians c...
Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland says next week’s Parliamentary Forum on Religious Freedom might be just the ticket for bringing newly arrived and long-standing Canadians of faith together to safeguard religious freedom
This piece was originally published in The Catholic Register.
The phrases “hot ticket” and “religious freedom forum” appear only infrequently in the same sentence, especially on Parliament Hill where the operative word is secularism...
Cardus Executive Vice-President Ray Pennings challenges social media “experts” disparaging TWU’s volunteer board for altering its Community Covenant. Agree or disagree, with the decision, the members served with honour and sincerity, Pennings argues.
As we’re reminded daily, anger is rarely a helpful basis for opinions. I'll confess, however, that this article arises from my annoyance with the social media habits of some members of the Christian community.
The occasion was last week's Trinity W...
TWU’s abandonment of its mandatory Community Covenant following a Supreme Court loss in June is a serious blow – but nowhere close to the end of the battle for religious freedom in Canada, writes Ottawa lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos.
Yesterday, Trinity Western University announced its decision to make its Community Covenant (which has been the focus of controversy for two decades) voluntary for students. The decision comes after a years-long legal battle surrounding its proposal to open...
Top cabinet ministers from more than 80 countries are in Washington D.C. today planning global action against religious persecution. Rev. Andrew Bennett, Director of the Cardus Religious Freedom Institute, is there and tells Convivium he’s hearing widespread disappointment over Canada’s absentee leadership on the critical issue.
Peter Stockland: Andrew, you’re present at a potentially historic meeting on religious freedom. Can you let Convivium readers know what’s happening? What’s everybody doing there?
Andrew Bennett: This is the first-eve...
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn itself and rule against Trinity Western University was more than just a defeat for the Evangelical Christian school. It attacked the very idea of community, writes Convivium contributor Ryan Topping.
Over the coming months, in churches, in coffee shops, in classrooms, and around kitchen tables, there will be much about which to lament.
There is the Canadian Supreme Court’s brazen disregard for precedent. Fewer than 20 years ago the same body arg...
Trinity Western University has lost its legal battle to have graduates of its proposed law school accredited by law societies in Ontario and B.C.
In two separate decisions released today, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled protection of the public interest and the human rights of LGBT students at the evangelical Christian school outweigh the religious freedoms of TWU. Both decisions were decided b...
Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland argues that freedom itself, not just the subset of religious freedom, is at stake in Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision regarding Trinity Western University.
This Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its ruling in the Trinity Western University case. Until the judgement is made public, of course, no one knows which way the court might swing.
For all who’ve tracked the dispute’s progress throu...
In early May, Cardus hosted launch events in Ottawa for its Religious Freedom Institute. Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, CRFI’s director, spoke with Convivium's Peter Stockland about the kickoff and what’s to come for the new institute.
Peter Stockland: The Cardus Religious Freedom Institute was launched last week with some impressive crowds in the Ottawa office. What was your take-away from those hectic events?
Andrew Bennett: From the first event,...
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.
Federal Conservatives were fussed in the Commons this week about Facebook, firearms, infrastructure, and families. Religious freedom? Ummm, yes, early on. And then, whoops, no, never mind.
To their credit, the Tories stood united while taking a poun...
Convivium’s Editor in Chief Father Raymond de Souza says pressure to tax churches misunderstands the distinction between Heaven and the State.
Jerusalem – Here in the holy city, a combustible dispute over property taxes led to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre being closed in protest for three days this week. The mayor of Jerusalem, without notice or consultation, slapped tax arrears assessments on...
Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi speaks with Emily Way about working out the Gospel at the Samaritan’s Purse emergency field hospitals in Bangladesh and Iraq.
C: You have previously served in a Samaritan’s Purse field hospital near the besieged city of Mosul. Most recently, you’ve returned from serving the displaced Rohingya people in Bangladesh. Fellow DART member David Bock has been quoted as saying, “W...
Convivium returns to the testimonies of Convivium’s editor-in-chief and two regular contributors whose statements were highlighted in this week's Commons Heritage Committee report on a motion to combat religious discrimination.
When the Commons Heritage Committee handed down its report this week on a motion to combat religious discrimination, including Islamophobia, Convivium’s editor-in-chief and two regular contributors were among the witnesses whose testimony was highl...
Today, we release the third piece in our series of Policy Options articles that have emerged as a response to our Spirited Citizenship: Care, Conflict, and Virtue round table in Ottawa last month, convened in partnership with the Angus Reid Institute to mark Canada’s Sesquicentennial.
(Pictured: Dr. Janet Epp Buckingham, Trinity Western University Laurentian Leadership Centre)
An inflammatory statement by Canad...
Follow along as we feature a series of articles published in Policy Options that have emerged as a response to the Spirited Citizenship: Care, Conflict, and Virtue round table, an initiative convened by Cardus and the Angus Reid Institute to mark Canada's Sesquicentennial.
"The era when churches and religious leaders held sway over public policy in Canada has come to an end," says Angus Reid, head of the Angus Reid Institute, and Shachi Kurl, Angus Reid Institute's executive director.
...
The fate of Trinity Western University’s proposed law school now lies in the hands of nine Supreme Court of Canada justices. As Convivium publisher Peter Stockland explains, the justices will render their decision in the wake of a clash between paradoxical arguments.
Sitting in the Supreme Court of Canada following the Trinity Western University hearing has been like watching a box of paradoxes spilled across the room.
The most pressing paradox of all is the sense that here, in the citadel of the Canadian justice...
Tomorrow’s Supreme Court of Canada’s hearing on Trinity Western University should engage all Canadians confronted by the State’s chipping away at fundamental Charter rights, warns alumnus Evan Menzies.
Off Metcalfe Street and MacLaren in Ottawa, sits the century old J.R. Booth mansion which now houses the Laurentian Leadership Centre. It runs and operates an internship program for Trinity Western, the private Christ...
On Nov. 30, Trinity Western University will argue in the Supreme Court of Canada for its right to operate a law school from evangelical Christian principles. Recently, the school’s President Bob Kuhn advised a Commons’ committee studying Islamophobia to look at the systemic discrimination suffered by TWU if they want to see anti-religious bigotry in action.
Trinity Western University is the largest faith-based University in Canada. I am privileged to serve as the President of this Christian university, which has a student population of more than 4000 students. It has ser...
Convivium has previously published testimony to the House of Commons Heritage Committee on M-103, a motion to address religious intolerance and racism. Today, we present remarks to the committee from Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, who cautions Canada’s reputation as a welcoming land hangs in the balance between rooting out genuine hatred and leaving free space to criticize religious ideologies.
We are a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization, representing more than 150,000 Jewish Canadians affiliated through local Federations across the country.
We are committed to working with government and all like-minded groups to ensure Canada...
Former Canadian Ambassador Anne Leahy finds Robert Joustra’s new book a compelling call for greater religious literacy among Canadians, particularly our diplomats.
Robert Joustra's short and dense book, The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom: Why Foreign Policy Needs Political Theology, flows from his doctoral dissertation at the University of Bath in 2013. It focuses on a field of application, foreign ...
A decree on diversity from Ontario’s law society must not force lawyers to choose between practice and faith, warns Convivium contributor Don Hutchinson.
Thirty-six years ago, negotiations between Canada’s federal and provincial governments about the patriation of Canada’s constitution followed on the heels of a close referendum over the potential separation of Quebec. It was Ontario’s Bill Davis who led a g...
Convivum editor in chief, Father Raymond J. de Souza shares his testimony to The House of Commons Committee on Canadian Heritage on M-103.
OTTAWA – Islamophobia is certainly a bad thing. There are no good phobias, are there?
In March, the House of Commons passed M-103, known as the “Islamophobia” motion, which called for the government to “condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic...
As Ottawa heads into one of the last Pride weekends of the summer in Canada, Convivium publisher Peter Stockland interviews Daniel Jonas, an Israeli LGBT activist trying to balance contemporary interpretations of human rights and identity with his devout commitment to the timeless truths of Orthodox Judaism.
Daniel Jonas is the chairperson of Havruta, a religious community that works for tolerance of LGBT people in Orthodox society in Israel. When he recently visited Ottawa and Montreal for meetings with local politicians, LGBT activists, and rabbis from a ...