On Saturday, I watched the BBC retrospective on Diana’s death; entitled 7 Days, it chronicles the week of her death in Paris and her funeral at Westminster Abbey. It’s strange to watch it now.
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In those early days of September 1997, it was the self-indulgent who seemed to rule the day, while the self-sacrificing were thought out-of-step. The conduct of the Queen was so roundly criticized that it seemed the monarchy itself was in peril.
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The death of Mother Teresa was my big break, if I might put it that way, into Catholic journalism.
In the summer of 1997, I had written my first few pieces for the National Catholic Register.
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Just as Pope Francis used his visit to Mexico to influence immigration politics across the border in the United States, it would be impossible for the first Latin American pope to ignore the crisis across the border in Venezuela.
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To the bureaucratic mindset, the answer to a stubborn problem is always another bureau. Productivity is lacking? Establish a minister of innovation. Fitness is flagging? A minster for sport.
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Memories of it have now disappeared into the constitutional miasma that shrouded Canadian political life for some thirty years from the 1960s to the 1990s, but the Charlottetown Accord – signed twenty-five years ago this week – bears remembering in our current moment.
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Early this month a new public art installation went up in Calgary, over by the road works on the TransCanada Highway near Canada Olympic Park. It’s called Bowfort Towers, and my first thought upon seeing it was that it was part of the jumble of metal and concrete of the construction itself.
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One of Pope Francis’ closest advisers has given an interpretation of Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) that contributes marginally to understanding both the substance and the style of the apostolic exhortation.
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Twenty-five years after Soviet totalitarianism was thrown on the ash heap of history, with the dissolution of the evil empire itself, the world is witnessing in Venezuela the reprise of a familiar Cold War drama – the courageous cardinal defying a corrupt communist regime.
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The ugliness and violence by racists in Charlottesville over the weekend brought to the fore an issue that is relevant also in Canada. How do we think about the honours given to historic figures, in the light of changed attitudes today?
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Is the work of the National Catholic Register, and its parent apostolate, EWTN, advancing an “ecumenism of hate” in which “Catholic integralists” and “evangelical fundamentalists” seek to subordinate the Gospel to a right-wing political agenda?
Read MoreAfter all this time, many people still widely mistake Trump as being in Washington to govern. Trump is in Washington as the crowning achievement of his lifetime project, which is to be the centre of attention in America’s corrupted culture.
Read MoreThe Holy See declared itself on Friday against the brutal regime of Nicolas Maduro, capping an extraordinary few months of masterful maneuvering by the bishops of Venezuela.
Read MoreStar Wars endures because it is an ancient story about the deepest human dramas – a tale of love, sacrifice and fatherhood on the one hand, and the tragedy of hate, domination and tyranny on the other. It tests which account is a more authentic description of the path to human flourishing.
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Denunciations of the past are easy to make. Building in the present is rather more difficult. If it is possible to demonstrate one’s Indigenous bona fides by denouncing what others did a long time ago, why not opt for that rather than doing something constructive, but arduous, today?
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Trudeau’s remarks in Rolling Stone were not truly incendiary, but they did nicely illustrate that he was willing to employ negative views about Indigenous people to advance his interests.
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Having already had my say on the shortcomings of the Spadaro/Figueroa analysis - and several others more thoroughly dismantling the argument - I would add a remark on the style, rather than the substance, of the essay.
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It is generally agreed that Canada “came of age” — became a real country one might say — in the Great War. During the war, Canadians demonstrated by their bravery in battle and their spirit of sacrifice that they were willing to fight and die not only as members of the British Empire, but as loyal sons of Canada.
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