Common sense
Canadian law permits abortion at any time for any reason during a pregnancy. Despite the Supreme Court’s position that Parliament is entitled to legislate some protections for pre-born children, what has developed instead is de facto government endorsement of an absolute right to choose.
There has to be a better standard
While America entertains itself with the likes of Donald Trump and the presidential primaries, Canada is inching towards what’s bound to be a monumental decision with repercussions on both sides of the border. Euthanasia. State-sponsored suicide. And by inching I mean we’re barrelling towards it at breakneck speed.
Stop the madness
Six years ago, 89-year-old Kay Carter, a terminally ill Vancouver woman, circumvented Canadian law by purchasing a doctor-assisted suicide in Switzerland. Her death prompted a 2011 lawsuit that sought access to assisted suicide for other Canadians who were suffering and near death.
A little girl, a potato and the President
A long-anticipated trip to Ireland, researching ancestors, a poignant story about children playing with a potato, even the name Barack Obama, all eventually led me to pondering the plight of Syrian refugees and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.
- By Robert Brehl
Cardinal steps up opposition to assisted dying
TORONTO - A statement from Cardinal Thomas Collins to be read in the Archdiocese of Toronto’s 225 parishes urges Catholics to oppose a “chilling” parliamentary committee report on assisted suicide that Collins said “should shock us to the core.”
Conscience matters
Governments are usually criticized for political flipflops, but the federal Liberals deserve at least faint praise for hitting the pause button on a daft plan to deny party members a free vote on upcoming assisted suicide legislation.
40 years of Catholic mercy and compassion
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Jesus gave us the Beatitudes to remind us that we are called to show compassion to our brothers and sisters in Christ. The eight Beatitudes, from the Gospel of Matthew, provide an opportunity to reflect on how we live out these values in our daily lives.
A question thousands of years in the asking
Standing recently inside one of the oldest tombs in the world, with about 200,000 tonnes of stone above and around me, strange thoughts manifested in the darkness. The thoughts were not of fear but of perplexity about today’s materialistic, even hedonistic, culture.
- By Robert Brehl
It is genocide
Speaking on Ash Wednesday Cardinal Thomas Collins said the start of Lent was not a day that Christians in Syria could line up for the blessing of ashes. Instead, the ashes in their lives are what remains of the churches and homes they fled at gunpoint.
Compassion for vulnerable, not death
In a presentation made Feb. 3 in Ottawa to the Special Joint Committee on Physician-assisted Dying, Cardinal Thomas Collins, appearing on behalf of the Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience, opposed physician-assisted suicide and urged lawmakers to protect the conscience rights of health-care providers. Here is a text of his submission.
Rare, last resort
There comes a point as flames are consuming a house that a homeowner realizes it’s time to drop the fire extinguisher and grab the family jewels in the sad realization that the battle is lost.