Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
A while back I attended a funeral for a non-practicing Catholic. A spiritual-but-not-religious person led a short, non-denominational service replete with twangy songs about “hay-ven,” celebration, honour, and priceless legacy. Finally the deceased’s life was recounted in soothing tones to a sleepy crowd. I got up halfway through the ten-minute service and left the room[…]
In all the debates that are going on in the world, there is, perhaps, none that are so relative as that which surrounds abortion, and each January brings that argument into the spotlight. Science tells us that life begins at conception, and yet, if someone wants an unborn child, then it is a baby, a[…]
Fanny Price, the heroine in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, makes a striking comment one evening while waiting for a carriage. She says the time between dinner and the carriage passed in a “quick succession of busy nothings.” Even though Fanny was only remarking on the passing of a few short hours, I think the line[…]
I wore braces for about four years, after which I immediately had oral surgery to cut the fibres behind my front teeth to prevent them from being pulled out of alignment again. That’s how terrible my teeth were. My orthodontist told me that the procedure would be pretty simple—the oral surgeon would freeze my gums,[…]
At the close of a year online magazines will often post lists of Hollywood’s best and brightest who have married, divorced, reproduced, dated, or broken up over the past year. This year was no different and I found myself scrolling through pictures of seventy-odd marriages that happened in 2013. I got halfway through when I[…]
Highlight of the week: All Hipsters Eventually Become Catholic by Edmund Mitchell “The new hipster loves going to daily Mass at his parish, where the pews are filled with no one under the age of 50. He did it before it was cool.” Of note: “Aaron” (video) A wonderful pro-life short film. Alice von Hildebrand[…]
I travelled back to Calgary for my Christmas holidays, and one of the most entertaining elements of my two weeks there was spending time with my younger siblings. John and I, in particular, spent a lot of time together. He is the four-year-old baby of ten children, and walks into every room firm in the[…]
When a publisher telephones and asks for a new book, written quickly, there is only one response: a high- pitched, only partly controlled “yes.” That the publisher is Random House, who has published my last two books so well and successfully, only emphasizes the experience. I agreed, I wrote it, they and I are pleased[…]
The Catholic blogosphere hit Bottum recently, and hit it very hard indeed—the Bottum in question being Jody, a Catholic journalist and former editor of the highly regarded First Things. He wrote a long article in the little-read Commonweal magazine outlining why he had changed his mind on the subject of same-sex marriage. While I have[…]
There I was in late July, driving to work at 7:30 am, content and peaceful after a weekend with friends in their rural Ontario farm home. Life was good. And then it wasn’t. I turned on the radio as a form of pre-TV show research, and heard that two thousand years of Catholic teaching had[…]
