Andrew P.W. Bennett

The Rev. Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett is Program Director, Faith Communities at Cardus. He is an ordained deacon in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in the Eparchy (Diocese) of Toronto and Eastern Canada.

Bio last updated May 17th, 2023.

Andrew P.W. Bennett

Articles by Andrew P.W. Bennett

  • The Secular Servants of Abstraction

    As Advent leads us to Christmas, Peter Copeland and Fr. Deacon Andrew Bennett map Christian clarity of the common good against secular confusions of equity and equality. Part two of three.

    If equity were instead recognized as it ought to be, as the flourishing of the person in all their beautiful uniqueness and difference; and if equality were conceived as equal inherent dignity, not in wealth, possessions, talents, abilities, or interests, then a hierarchically differentiated society...

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  • The Christian’s Progress

    As Advent moves us toward the promise of Christmas, Peter Copeland and Fr. Deacon Andrew Bennett chart the Christian progressive vision against its static secular form. Part one of three.

    How can one become courageous, loving, kind, and merciful without practice? Instead, we sacrifice the fruits that come from the long pursuit of virtue for fleeting ‘authentic feeling’? How can anyone cultivate the disciplines that make actions into habits, and habits into the virtuous life? How can ...

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  • The Hard Truth About Reconciliation

    Healing wounds inflicted on Indigenous people by Canada and its churches means facing what’s wholly true, not what’s politically appealing, Father Deacon Andrew Bennett writes.

    The abuse is also a clear and ever-present reminder to all Canadian Catholics, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, of how the Church failed to live up to the Gospel and instead aided and abetted an assimilationist policy that will affect First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Canadians for generations Furt...

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  • A Rabbi for the Long Way Home

    Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, program director for Religious Freedom at Cardus, and Hannah Marazzi, former Cardus staff member, celebrate and mourn their dear friend, Rabbi Reuven Bulka.

    Yet to see Rabbi Bulka as simply a kind man whose kindness was active in the community is to fail to see what that kindness was a manifestation of: the divine life He was known to so many as Rabbi Reuven Bulka and his death on June 27 has brought forth both mourning and rejoicing in a life that brou...

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  • London Murders Wound Us All

    The killing of a Muslim family in the southwestern Ontario city demands empathy for the victims, but also renewed commitment to freedom of faith, Father Deacon Andrew Bennett writes.

    Motivated by their faith, Ismaili Civic has corralled the efforts of its volunteers to create partnerships with seventy organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, Kids Help Phone, the United Way, and the Terry Fox Foundation How much room do we make in our hearts and minds for public expressions...

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  • Conversion Therapy Bill Off Target

    The Liberal government’s Bill C-6 aims so wide that it threatens freedom rather than criminalizing abuse, Cardus’ Father Deacon Andrew Bennett argues.

    Genuine pastoral accompaniment is informed by the free will of the person seeking guidance and by the parent, pastor, priest, rabbi, imam, or counselor acting as a guide as the person navigates their beliefs and how they shape their life Let’s remember that our fundamental freedoms are grounded in t...

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  • Le Québec théâtre d’un conflit de symboles

    En ce jour de la Fête nationale, mieux connue sous le nom de Fête de la Saint Jean-Baptiste, les Québécois Maxime Huot Couture et Beryl Wajsman font part au révérend Andrew Bennett, directeur de l’Institut sur la liberté religieuse Cardus, de leurs impressions concernant la loi provinciale adoptée il y a un an en vue de déterminer qui peut porter en public des vêtements religieux et selon quelles modalités ils peuvent être portés.

    Mais la vraie question est de savoir comment l’interdiction du port de symboles religieux imposée à la plupart des fonctionnaires peut promouvoir le bien commun? Si la réponse est qu’elle promeut la laïcité de l’État, d’accord! Mais comment la laïcité de l’État promeut-elle le bien commun? Comment a...

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  • Les défis à venir concernant l’interdiction par le Québec des symboles religieux

    Il y a un an, l’Assemblée nationale du Québec a précipitamment adopté une loi limitant le port de turbans, de hijabs, de croix et d’autres symboles spirituels dans l’espace public. Robert Leckey, doyen de la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill, explique au révérend Andrew Bennett que le combat juridique ne fait que commencer.

    AB: Dans quelle mesure croyez-vous que cela puisse constituer la réponse de gens qui sont culturellement catholiques lorsqu’ils sont placés devant d’autres communautés plus profondément religieuses? Si on parle des Juifs hassidim ou de musulmans ou d’autres groupes qui sont plus visiblement religieu...

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  • Sounding Out Quebec’s Clash of Symbols

    On today’s Fête Nationale, also known as Fête de la St-Jean-Baptiste, Quebecers Maxime Huot Couture and Beryl Wajsman give Rev. Andrew Bennett, director of the Cardus Religious Freedom Institute, their take on province’s one-year-old law controlling how and by whom religious garb can be worn in public.

    Beryl framed it around the role of religion within the public square and how cultural and religious differences should be accommodated within Quebec culture and Quebec society  Are we seeing in Quebec, and generally within Canada, a contraction of the public square for people of faith to not simply ...

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  • Challenges Ahead for Quebec's Ban on Religious Symbols

    One year ago, Quebec's National Assembly hurriedly passed legislation limiting public wearing of turbans, hijabs, crosses and other spiritual markers. Robert Leckey, Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill University tells Cardus’ Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett the legal fight has just begun.  

    AB: How much do you think that might be a response from people who are culturally Catholic looking at these other communities that are more deeply religious? If we speak about Hasidic Jews, if we talk about Muslims or others who were more visibly religious in the province, is there maybe a sense amo...

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  • Dignity That Illuminates Community

    Convivium Editor Peter Stockland talks with Rev. Deacon Andrew Bennett, director of the Cardus Religious Freedom Institute, about regaining the light of shared humanity in this time of pandemic and racial protest.

    But we also have to recognize that as a human community, we fail a lot of the time to recognize the dignity of all people PS: Where will those new voices of community come from in a time when we all seem so fragmented from each other? Black Lives Matter no longer trusts that the communities outside ...

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  • Corona of Thorns

    The model of Christ’s solitary suffering on the Cross can bring us through COVID-19  isolation to renewed love of community, writes Cardus' Andrew Bennett.

    To live a solitary life, to eschew regular human contact to grow in holiness through strict asceticism and unceasing prayer requires a level of kenosis, of self-emptying of which few of us are capable or for that matter called to embrace I have always desired and lived a communal life, and even as a...

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  • Speaking the Truth in Love

    In the life of late Polish priest, Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko, Cardus’ Andrew Bennett finds a rigorous dedication to truth and religious freedom.

    Jerzy had begun to offer on the last Sunday of each month ‘Masses for the Fatherland’ during which he would preach sermons on human dignity, human freedom, and on solidarity which for him signified the struggle by the Polish people to restore human dignity The election of Karol Wojtyla, Cardinal Arc...

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  • Putting the Human Back in Dignity

    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.

    How human dignity relates to religious freedom, how it relates to other fundamental freedoms, so we can seek to build again this common life, and see how public faith and the freedom to live out that public faith is so fundamental to building up that life But what role does human dignity have? How d...

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  • The Truth No State Can Abolish

    In an address to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops this week, Fr. Deacon Andrew Bennett says that true religious freedom for Christians is the unyielding proclamation of Christ.

    This is a fallacy on the one hand because it denies the historical reality of the religious life of human beings, which from time immemorial has been lived in the public square These martyrs and confessors are faithful women and men who stand for truth in the face of falsehood and who champion human...

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  • Faith For Our Future

    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.

    I think it points to an opportunity to advance the broader mandate of what we're doing at the institute, to re-present to people the importance of public faith and the importance of religious freedom and what better way to do that then through these young leaders of faith who want to live that out I...

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  • Encountering Online Hatred

    Andrew Bennett, director of the Cardus Institute for Religious Freedom, told the House of Commons Standing Committee and Human Rights today legal sanctions to combat “diabolical” internet hatred must be matched by a social “climate of encounter” based on every Canadian’s inherent dignity as a child of God.

    So, what then is at the root of online hate? How do we attack the source of this hate while at the same time employing sufficient measures through the criminal justice system to thwart it? In our Internet age, we are seeing the breakdown of genuine human community where we are less and less in each ...

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  • In Veritate Vincit

    Today's stunning resignation of Treasury Board President Jane Philpott over the SNC Lavalin scandal – the second cabinet resignation from the same portfolio in less than  two months – proves truth will out even in politics. And as Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett argues, it also proves there can only be one truth no matter how many political tales are being told.  

    To be sure it is a very different case from Russian-occupied Ukraine, but the fundamental issue is the same: what is truth? For two weeks the Prime Minister, the Clerk of the Privy Council, and other senior officials have maintained publicly, often with the most obscurantist language, that nothing u...

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  • Keeping Interfaith Conversation Honest

    Fr. Dcn. Andrew Bennett, director of the Cardus Institute for Religious Freedom, and Chris Stackaruk, co-founder of Neighborly Faith, examine the way ignorance of religious traditions risks hostile division while the wrong kind of understanding feeds the error that all believers are fundamentally the same.

    That's a real tragedy, because it alienates people of real traditional faith who say, "I do not want to live in a lowest common denominator sort of association with people of difference, where we say, 'We're all human all the time And what I found was that not a lot of work was being done to help la...

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  • Welcome to Year Zero

    By removing a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, the City of Victoria has gone down the perilous path of erasing history rather than learning from it, Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett argues. What next? Renaming Montreal’s Trudeau airport because the former PM formally called for assimilation of Indigenous Canadians?

    In the interest of righting a genuine and grave historic wrong – the suffering of our Indigenous peoples ­– the historical hubris of our present Canadian age is distorting history yet again We must and openly and publicly discuss their failures, but also their great achievements: the Canadian Pacifi...

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  • Canada Missing in Action on Religious Freedom

    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.

    They’ve invited various countries to represent themselves at the foreign minister level for an intensive couple of days of conversation about how we do more than just talk about defending religious freedom They have embedded in the statute different mechanisms within the State Department, and there'...

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  • Religion, Freedom, Citizenship

    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.

    AB: We're here to speak on behalf of, and to support in whatever way we can, all faith communities, and people of no particular religious faith who desire to speak in the public square about what they believe, to live out that public freedom What I saw here in Ottawa was just a tremendous sense of e...

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  • Calling For True Pluralism

    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.

    Father Raymond de Souza as well as Cardus Law program director Andrew Bennett and Ottawa writer Don Hutchinson were all cited in the report, which produced 30 recommendations for the government, the last one being the designation of a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia to mark th...

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