I had never heard of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo before today. Glancing at some of their more outrageous covers, it seems they spared no one: The Pope, Mohammed, political leaders, even Christ Himself, all were fair game in their lampoons. I hesitate to provide a link to these images, for as readers know, […]
There was a recent report from Health Canada that wind turbines prove no harm to health. So sayeth the medical establishment, and could they ever be wrong? A few weeks ago, I was listening to yet-another conversation on the CBC on green energy and the environment, and the interviewee, a rather radical environmentalist, decreed in […]
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 […]
A merry Christmas to all, in these eight or twelve days of Christmas, depending on how one counts them. Of course, as we learn from the story of the Grinch, and of course the Gospel, Christmas is about giving, family time, offering to others a part of ourselves, reflection on the gifts of God in […]
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 […]
This morning, the councillors of the city of London, Ontario decided unanimously to deny funding to their symphony orchestra, which was in dire straits financially. The musicians, twenty nine in total, plus some support staff, had not been paid in recent weeks, apparently, and they needed 300 grand to tide things over for a month […]
Secretary of State John Kerry decried the recent Taliban massacre, crying out that all people of conscience should unite in condemning the acts…And, he is right. He also called them ‘mediaeval’, on which point he was not so right. There are not many cases in the middle ages of women and children being slaugtered, and, […]
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 […]
Newly-elected New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant (who bears a passing resemblance to Aaron Ekhart, who played Two-Face in the second Batman movie, also an attorney who does evil thinking he is doing good) as one of his first acts of office, lifted certain restrictions on abortion in the province (having two doctors certify to 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 […]