I received a rather critical email in response to my last post on the Conservative capitulation, so thought I should clarify my, and hopefully your own, thoughts: As I wrote, there may be nothing wrong with capitulation or compromise. Sometimes, they are necessary to achieve a greater good, or avoid a greater evil. When […]
To capitulate derives from the Latin root capis, capitis, ‘head’, and literally means to cease to resist an opponent by drawing up terms under ‘headings’ or ‘chapters’. So any mutual agreement is a kind of capitulation, as many of you who are married may attest. Hence, the term is connected with that of compromise, where […]
Today is the feast of Saint Philip Neri (+1595), the second Apostle of Rome, and the founder of the Oratory, whose houses are now found throughout the world (Bd. John Henry Newman brought the Oratory to England). As you may know from my brief biography, I lived and studied at the Toronto Oratory, and owe […]
Last week, I was walking through Ottawa, and what greeted me on the vast lawn in front of the Parliament buildings was a sight to behold: Hundreds of raised posteriors in various tight-fitting spandex doing yoga exercises, to the voice of an unseen young woman on a remote microphone. I was quite literally flabbergasted, and […]
Today commemorates Saint Brendan, the sixth century Irish monk, the ‘Navigator’, whose main claim to fame is a supposed seven year trans-Atlantic voyage in a boat made of animal-hides upon which he and sixteen others embarked, with the discovery of North America many centuries before the time Cabot. Many considered his journey pious legend, a […]
Today, the feast of Saint Matthias, paradoxically marks the sombre anniversary of the legalization of abortion in Canada, under Trudeau Sr., in 1969. Omnibus Bill C-150, officially the Criminal Law Amendment Act , also brought into law gun control, contraception, homosexuality, drunk driving (with the 0.08 level), gambling and cruelty to animals. I find it […]
Quebec is back in the news, this time with a report of its death-spiral of a birth rate. It seems Quebec women by and large do not want to have children, or at least not more than 1.6, on average, per woman. This is well, well, below the requisite 2.1 just to maintain a stable […]
This Thursday is the 17th annual March for Life, commemorating Trudeau Sr.’s to demonstrate our commitment to life in a visible, public way. People debate about the value of such demonstrations, especially as they are comically, one might say conspiratorially, under-represented in the media. CBC, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star: What March? Oh, […]
By the time you read this, London (the one in England) will have elected a new mayor. The residents did not have much of a choice: A Muslim, raised in Britain, of Pakistani lineage, or a multi-millionaire playboy kicked out of Eton for smoking pot. Not a surprise, that London would eventually end up with […]
Today is the memorial of one of the most heroic bishops in the history of the Church, the late, great Saint Athanasius (+373), a foundational Eastern Doctor, along with Basil, Gregory Nazianzen and Ambrose. He was the hero of Bd. John Henry Cardinal Newman, who wrote erudite and engaging essays on Athanasius and his battle […]