Four months after its health care policy for refugee claimants was ruled unconstitutional, Ottawa has grudgingly relented to a judge’s order and returned many — but not all — benefits to the needy people it had previously abandoned. We say grudgingly because the immigration minister remains determined to continue a court battle in defence of a policy that a federal court has already — and quite rightly — denounced as “cruel and unusual.”
So often we hear and read about the lives of the rich, powerful and famous. Celebrity seems to rule our culture.
But reflection on the lives of the ordinary, the everyday, the taken-for-granted, is often far more illuminating. If we look beyond the glitz we can see the real stars, the real world, and answers to some of the real questions.
Imagine for a moment that you have no home.
What would you do for meals today? Where would you shower? Where would you sleep? If you have children, how would you provide for them?
The controversies surrounding the recent extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family have often put me in mind of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the greatest Catholic churchman of the 19th century. Newman wrote eloquently on an extraordinary range of topics, but the arguments around the Synod compel us to look at Newman’s work regarding the evolution of doctrine.
There is nothing novel in a Pope rejecting the death penalty, but in typical style Pope Francis went a step further recently by also denouncing life sentences.
After the attack on Parliament by a lone gunman the instinctive temptation is to respond aggressively. First, to respond politically by supporting new laws that empower police and security officers at the expense of some civil liberties. Second, to respond socially by waffling on Canadian principles that uphold tolerance and respect for all citizens of all backgrounds.
One of the world’s wisest voices was not heard during the synod fortnight in Rome. His time to speak publicly is definitively past, but it behooves the Church to listen now to what he said then.
Pope Francis sought a “sincere and open” discussion among Church leaders attending the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family. Well, he got it. And then some.
The year-long celebration of the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of Quebec reached into the Vatican on Oct. 12 with a papal Mass to honour Canada’s two newest saints.
The world has waited almost 50 years for the day, but is it on the horizon?
New Democrat MP Paul Dewar flushed with surprise when asked whether, as someone raised Catholic, he considers Canada’s involvement in the bombing of ISIL terrorists to qualify as a just war.