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
Why are things funny? Humour has eluded philosophers, and even more so scientists – and we are living in an increasingly humourless world, with jokes verboten, and everything reduced to a literalistic present tense. Late-night ‘comedians’ no longer tell ‘jokes’ – so I have heard – but instead offer boilerplate social commentary, a mirror held[…]
According to a recent poll, eighty-six percent of Catholics in Canada are in support of allowing Canadians with a grievous and irremediable illness to make advance requests for assisted suicide.[1] At the moment Bill C-7 is attempting to make assisted suicide available to those suffering from mental illness. This should be shocking, yet in our[…]
Some Saints are privileged to extend to us their patronage with particular efficacy in certain needs, but not in others; but our holy patron St. Joseph has the power to assist us in all cases, in every necessity, in every undertaking. (Saint Thomas Aquinas, +1274)
He created them male and female; and blessed them: and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. Genesis 5, v 2. Last month, the Democratic Party’s Equality Act passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 224-206. According to CNN, the Act is merely an amendment to the 1964 Civil[…]
On the head of religion alone I am condemned, and for that I would willingly and joyfully pour forth even a hundred lives. Snatch away that one which I have from me, and make no delay about it, but my religion you will never snatch away from me ! (Saint John Ogilvie, +1615)
Yes, I know it may be pro forma, but we should do our own due diligence, by writing to our Members of Parliament – or all of them – to protest the expansion of euthanasia, not least to the very vulnerable mentally ill, currently before the Parliament in Bill C-7. They plan to vote this[…]
A married woman must, when called upon, quit her devotions to God at the altar to find him in her household affairs (Saint Frances of Rome, +1440)
Some years ago I wrote rather a long winded play, Shaw vs Chesterton, an imaginary debate between two great friends, G.K. Chesterton and Bernard Shaw, with Hilaire Belloc moderating. I portrayed Chesterton and Shaw arguing their opposing views by way of passages lifted from their published works. Someone was actually kind enough to stage this[…]
Lord, Your thorns are my roses and Your suffering my paradise. (Saint John of God,+1550)
A reader wrote in recently: As a companion to the biography of Robert Southwell, another little book nicely rounds out the philosophical underpinnings of that period, called The Elizabethan World Picture, by EMW Tillyard. In it, Tillyard uses examples from all the great Elizabethan writers to explore medieval (and of course classical) concepts of How The[…]
