A week has passed since the Supreme Court’s unanimous 9-0 decision to strike down the laws prohibiting what is euphemistically called ‘physician assisted suicide’. In a nutshell, the Court has decided the current law prohibiting physicians to commit what really amounts to murder is ‘unconstitutional’. That is, the current proscriptive law violates the 1982 Charter’s […]
It was just reported in the news that the two alleged gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo massacre have been killed by police, after a standoff with a hostage in a printing shop. The hostage has survived, but three others were killed in another hostage-taking at a kosher market; all of the gunmen have gone to […]
Besides Sundays, there are two other holy days of obligation in the Catholic Church in Canada. In the universal Catholic Church, there are, in fact, ten such days on which Catholic must attend Mass, but in Canada, for various pastoral reasons (one may presume), the bishops have reduced them to two (sometimes transferring other days […]
I try, in some small way, and not, I must admit, very well, to resist the celebration of Christmas before Christmas. I know this is a weathered lament, but one that merits restating: We prepare for Christ in the season of Advent, and we celebrate his arrival with Christmas. The zeitgeist of the age, outside […]
A word must be said about the killing of children, and innocents in general, in light of the events of the past couple of days, the hostage-taking in Sydney, resulting in 3 deaths, including the gunman, and the massacre at a military school in Pakistan, where over 140 died, most of them children at the […]
On the morning of February 11, 1858, a young French peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, saw a luminous vision in a grotto in southern France, beginning a series of ‘visions’ of what the Catholic Church now believes was the Virgin Mary. When asked her name by Bernadette, the Lady replied in French patois, Que soy Immaculatou […]
Evil loves to wear a mask. Both Jason Voorhees, fictional character of the endless Friday the 13th movie series infamy and the (unfortunately real) head-hacking members of ISIL both generally cover up when doing their dirty deeds. Both hearken back to the ‘headsmen’ of old, who chopped off heads for the State wearing long black […]
The ‘canary in a coal mine’ was a primitive technology used before the age of sensors: The bird can sense the presence of noxious gases far earlier than humans; thus, when the canary starts to gag, it’s time to run for the top. The canary, being more sensitive, is the first to go. Illnesses […]
Brittany Maynard took her own life on November 2nd; one might almost say ‘appropriately’, as it was the commemoration of All Soul’s in the Christian religion, but, then, there is nothing really appropriate about suicide, whether assisted or not. You may recall that Mrs. Maynard, a young and beautiful newlywed, whose story, incarnated by the […]
So we have had, apparently, our first terrorist attacks on Canadian soil since the rise of ISIS/ISIL. Two Canadian soldiers run down in a parking lot, and another shot while standing guard at the Canadian War Memorial, while holding his unloaded rifle (as policy dictated). Two soldiers murdered, both by young men who […]