Raymond J. de Souza
Father Raymond J. de Souza is a Cardus Senior Fellow, the founding Editor of Convivium, chaplain at Newman House (the Roman Catholic centre at Queen's University), and a parish priest, in addition to writing for the National Post and The Catholic Register.
Bio last updated January 12th, 2022.
Articles by Raymond J. de Souza
Humanae Vitae at 50
By Raymond J. de Souza
July 27, 2018
Convivium editor-in-chief Father Raymond de Souza recounts the fury that greeted the Catholic Church’s historic teaching document condemning contraception.
In 2018, has the culture of sexual liberalism and promiscuity, of which contraception is the sine qua non, been good for women? Paul VI warned that one consequence of widespread contraception would be a decreasing regard for the dignity of women on the part of men But in 1968, the idea that Pope Paul VI would reaffirm the traditional Christian teaching on the immorality of contraception was an outrage Fifty years ago this week, on July 25 1968, Pope Paul VI published his encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) on the morally licit means of family planning
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Sounding the Trump of Silence
Raymond J. de Souza
July 19, 2018
In her refreshing reticence around, beside and behind Donald Trump, Father Raymond de Souza writes admiringly, Queen Elizabeth again demonstrated the noble art of saying nothing perfectly.
“For many of us here in Great Britain, the supreme moment of President Donald Trump’s visit came when he attempted to inspect a parade alongside our Queen Unlike the press conferences with the clueless Theresa May or the cunning Vladimir Putin, where they had to work out what they might say after th...
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Poland's Perception Problems
Raymond J. de Souza
July 12, 2018
This summer, Convivium Editor-in-Chief Fr. Raymond de Souza's itinerary includes a visit to Auschwitz. Fr. de Souza reflects on how Auschwitz respects and honours vast memories through its exhibitions. On the other hand, he writes, the Polish government is approaching the practice of memory in a different fashion.
The main buildings at Auschwitz tell the story of the camp itself, how it began as a concentration camp for Polish resisters to the Nazi occupation; the most famous of which was Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan priest who was killed in August 1941 Earlier this year, Poland’s governing Law and ...
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Saintly Youth
Raymond J. de Souza
July 6, 2018
Although young saints are usually martyrs, two admirable teenagers, each marked by a struggle with cancer, advanced a step closer to sainthood yesterday. Saints come in all ages and conditions of life and circumstances, Father Raymond J. de Souza tells us. Let us learn from their venerable examples for it is never too early to become holy.
Both Alexia and Carlo are unusual in that young saints are usually martyrs Once the human judgement being is complete, before a candidate can be declared a saint, evidence of miracles worked through the intercession of the candidate – another exhaustive process – is required Alexia and her family, f...
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The Charter Circle Game
Raymond J. de Souza
June 21, 2018
Some argue the Supreme Court left the Charter a wreck and a tangle with last week’s Trinity Western decision. But our Editor in Chief Father Raymond de Souza has a former Justice tell him it’s all part of making equality Canada’s concentric centre.
But there is the qualifying, limiting language of Section 1: “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society Yet LeBel, fresh off t...
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Solzhenitsyn’s Kick Against The Pricks
Raymond J. de Souza
June 14, 2018
As global soccer fans tune in to the sport’s World Cup in Moscow, Editor-in-Chief Father Raymond de Souza salutes the 40th anniversary of the great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s earth-shaking commencement speech at Harvard University.
Given the suffering he had endured in the Soviet Union, many in the audience expected that the writer’s address would be a stern rebuke to Communist totalitarianism, combined with a paean to Western liberty and democracy Solzhenitsyn made no apology at all for communism, but thought that while addre...
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The G7’s C Team
Raymond J. de Souza
June 7, 2018
Leaders of the G7 countries meeting this week in Quebec aren’t in crisis, observes Convivium Editor-in-Chief Father Raymond de Souza. They are the crisis.
Just as Ontario has the highest level of debt of any sub-sovereign level of government in the world, and faces a suite of leaders completely inadequate to the task at hand, so the international order is fraying, being stressed by centrifugal forces, and the G7 gang is not equal to the challenge Demo...
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Popping A Cork For Abortion?
Raymond J. de Souza
June 1, 2018
Convivium Editor-in-Chief Father Raymond de Souza asks how aborting babies has gone from being a rare individual choice to international cause for breaking out the bubbly.
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Fire at the Royal Wedding
Raymond J. de Souza
May 24, 2018
Episcopalian Bishop Michael Curry sizzled with his red-hot histrionics at the recent Royal Wedding, but fizzled when it came to preaching the Gospel message of Divine Love, writes Editor in Chief Father Raymond de Souza.
Bishop Curry, oddly enough, did not speak about marriage at all, much less how it was the path by which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would share life with others, and help each other toward eternal life in heaven There is no doubt that some of the gathered great and good regarded Bishop Curry as m...
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Tom Wolfe: A Journalist in Full
Raymond J. de Souza
May 17, 2018
Convivium Editor-in-Chief Father Raymond de Souza bids goodbye to a unique writer who used his reporter’s natural curiosity to illuminate our vanities with a bonfire’s light.
The fashionable media and literary class were quite happy for Wolfe to satirize Wall Street and huckster activists, but they found his lacerating of the elite university campus as a place of faux-learning and crude rutting hit too close to home Wolfe of course was accurate in what he reported; now u...
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A Toast to Monsieur Macron
Raymond J. de Souza
May 11, 2018
Ending a week that saw the launch of the Cardus Religious Freedom Institute and hosting of the National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa, Father Raymond de Souza notes the French president seems a better friend of faith in common life than Canada’s own prime minister.
Perhaps while in France, Trudeau had occasion to talk with French President Emmanuel Macron about the place of faith in our common life Last month, Justin Trudeau became the first Canadian prime minister to address the French National Assembly, celebrating Canada and France’s historic friendship and...
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Marking Time With Meaning
Raymond J. de Souza
May 3, 2018
Against the ephemera of a “trending” time, Father Raymond de Souza contrasts the enduring calendar of holy days.
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Wrong Way Charlie
Raymond J. de Souza
April 19, 2018
New Democrat MP Charlie Angus’ bid to embarrass Pope Francis into apologizing – yet again – for Canada’s residential schools is wrong, wrong, and monstrously wrong, writes Convivium Editor-in-Chief Father Raymond de Souza.
Angus pronounced himself unsatisfied and therefore wants a resolution of the House of Commons that would demand Catholic bishops invite Pope Francis to appear in Canada and offer contrition He wants Canada’s Catholic bishops to invite Pope Francis to visit Canada to apologize for the role of the Cat...
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Jesus And Humboldt
Raymond J. de Souza
April 12, 2018
Father Raymond de Souza, Convivium’s editor in chief, says a pastor’s unadorned call to Christ was crucial following this week’s horrific bus crash in Saskatchewan.
So I admired greatly the words of Pastor Sean Brandow of the Humboldt Bible Church and chaplain for the Broncos hockey team Pastor Brandow and Coach Haugan remind us, though, that what is needed more than anything is to hear from God, to encounter Jesus ...
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Preach It, Reverend King!
Raymond J. de Souza
April 5, 2018
Father Raymond de Souza, Convivium’s editor in chief, reflects on the influence of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on North America, and on his own call to priestly life.
President Obama had a MLK quotation woven into the rug he designed for the Oval Office: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice Later, during an academic fair in high school, I would make a presentation on MLK and the civil rights movement, about which I had studied a gre...
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Cardinal Sarah, Friendship and Law
Raymond J. de Souza
March 29, 2018
Convivium editor in chief Father Raymond J. de Souza returns to Cardinal Sarah's address from earlier this month to examine how the law of love can shape our Holy Week.
Cardinal Sarah invited us to think about the connection between friendship with Christ and obeying His commands Cardinal Sarah explains how such a conception of friendship can be applied to God, with the differences noted: At the heart of those five chapters, we find some of the most consoling words...
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Cardinal Sarah, Man of Prayer
Raymond J. de Souza
March 22, 2018
Hosting Robert Cardinal Sarah last week, Convivium Editor in Chief Father Raymond de Souza found himself face to face with one of the great Christian lives of our day, and alongside the exemplification of prayerful disposition.
Last week I had the great honour of hosting Cardinal Robert Sarah, one of the Vatican’s most senior officials, in Kingston and Wolfe Island How improbable that a boy from a remote Guinean village, whose parents were counted among the first Christians of his land, would take senior positions in the t...
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Martyrs, Saints and Oscar Romero
Raymond J. de Souza
March 14, 2018
In El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero, soon to be made a Catholic saint, Father Raymond de Souza finds a model Christian martyr of the 20th century.
Archbishop Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated in 1984, will be soon canonized a Catholic saint During the civil war in El Salvador, Archbishop Romero spoke courageously against human rights abuses by government forces, and stood boldly in solidarity with the poor The n...
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The Peterson Protests
Raymond J. de Souza
March 12, 2018
Father Raymond de Souza was at a speech given by Jordan Peterson, perusing the foreword to the best-selling author’s latest book, when the mob erupted outside the hall at Queen’s University in Kingston.
And Doidge opens with the Biblical story of the Ten Commandments, suitable enough for a book about rules After all, God didn’t give Moses “The Ten Suggestions,” he gave Commandments; and if I’m a free agent, my first reaction to commands might just be that nobody, not even God, tells me what to do, ...
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God Must Be Tax Free
Raymond J. de Souza
March 1, 2018
Convivium’s Editor in Chief Father Raymond de Souza says pressure to tax churches misunderstands the distinction between Heaven and the State.
The mayor of Jerusalem, without notice or consultation, slapped tax arrears assessments on church properties not used for worship, including the vast number of guest houses that welcome pilgrims visiting the holy sites And the Church, which belongs to God before it belongs to the natural order, does...
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Dust, Bones and the Promise of Life
Raymond J. de Souza
February 14, 2018
Father Raymond de Souza finds in the rare coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day a message for the heart in the midst of ashes.
And the promise of life is what leads to Adam to proclaim his wife “Eve”, for the Lord God has promised to grant the gift of life; the dust shall live again Like Adam in Eden who, when warned about the reign of death, clings to the promise of life, so too we join the queue for our ashes, to count ou...
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Zen Is Now
Raymond J. de Souza
February 9, 2018
At a Cardus-Convivium event five years ago, China’s Cardinal Joseph Zen warned sharply of dangers to the Catholic Church in courting the Communist regime. Fresh events, Father Raymond de Souza notes, show the Cardinal was prescient as he was pointed.
It’s been nearly 70 years since the People’s Republic of China made the Catholic Church in China illegal, broke off diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and erected the “Patriotic” Church, which permits Catholic practice but under the supervision of the state bureaucracy and independent of the “f...
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Calling For True Pluralism
Raymond J. de Souza, with Andrew P.W. Bennett, Don Hutchinson
February 2, 2018
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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The Justice of Unfairness
Raymond J. de Souza
February 1, 2018
Accusations of sexual misconduct might lead to seemingly unfair consequences but justice must err on the side of victims, Father Raymond de Souza argues.
That leaves the employer, or professional association, or political party, or entertainment studio, or nonprofit association, or hockey team, or church, in the position of having to evaluate the credibility of the accusation, conduct an investigation and render a judgement Other times the report is ...