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Stories about the death of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus:
Religion's great communicator dead at 72
Influential religious thinker born in Ontario
National Post, January 9
Model of Christian discipline mourned
Father Richard John Neuhaus died yesterday -- America's leading religious commentator; Lutheran convert to Catholicism who became a dominant figure in Catholic intellectual life; civil rights activist, Vietnam war protester and pro-life champion; author of landmark books arguing for religious pluralism against secular fundamentalism; pioneer in Christian-Jewish dialogue; interlocutor of popes and presidents; and impresario of the journal, First Things, which readers would read back to front so as to get right to his back pages survey of matters weighty and whimsical.
Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post, January 9
It is finished
Since the death of Father Richard John Neuhaus last Thursday, and my tribute to him published in the Post the day after, many readers have been kind enough to get in touch with me, passing on their condolences upon the death of my spiritual father and mentor. It has been a tough week, and I shed more tears these past days of his wake, funeral and burial than I have in many years. I am grateful to all who have been praying for Father Richard's soul, and the prayers too for those many of us who are mourning him.
Father Raymond J.De Souza, National Post, January 15
Earlier: Neuhaus promotes Catholic and evangelical unity
Stories about Israel, Islam and the West:
Secret hearing for 'jihadist'
A secret deportation hearing will be held Friday morning in Texas as the U.S. government attempts to send a jihadist with ties to Canada to an undisclosed country. Officials are refusing to say anything about the case.
Globe and Mail, January 8
Jewish group claims pro-Gaza protests have violated Canadian laws
Canada's largest Jewish advocacy group will ask police to investigate whether hate laws were broken during recent rallies held in cities across Canada to condemn Israel's attacks on Gaza - an allegation roundly dismissed Tuesday by the group's Arab counterpart.
Canadian Press, January 13
Rallies incited hatred, says Jewish group
Police should investigate potentially criminal behaviour at several rallies held across Canada to protest the ongoing violence in Gaza because they incited hatred and violence, the Canadian Jewish Congress said yesterday. Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the group, said his members have been upset by slogans, signs and shouting at demonstrations in Calgary, Montreal and Toronto following Israel's offensive on Hamas that began on Dec. 27.
National Post, January 14
Anti-Semitic remarks at Canadian rallies should be condemned: Jewish groups
Protesters at rallies in Toronto and Montreal condemning Israel's military actions in Gaza engaged in anti-Semitic rhetoric so vile that the organizers of those demonstrations must unequivocally denounce the remarks, prominent Canadian Jewish groups said Wednesday. The Canadian Jewish Congress, along with a representative from the Canada-Israel Committee, held a news conference to show video clips and photographs of the rallies that they said should "shock all Canadians."
Canadian Press, January 14
'The Jews are our dogs' chant 'peace' protesters
On Saturday in Montreal a thousand or more protestors marched downtown chanting 'The Jews are our dogs,' and cheering not one, but two, banned Islamist terrorist groups -- Hamas and Hezbollah -- in the company of labour leaders and politicians. It didn't make front-page news. It didn't make back-page news. In Canada, this is, it seems, not news.
Kevin Libin, Full Comment, National Post, January 14
In Israel: doubt
Regarding the war in Gaza, Israelis are united, resolute, determined, righteous -- and profoundly uncertain. One expects that during a war the nation will rally around and support the troops in battle and the government that sent them. Yet there is something more than that going on in Israel. There is a settled judgment that years of rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel proper simply cannot go on, and that the Israeli state has been tardy in discharging its primary duty of defending the security of its citizens.
Father Raymond J.De Souza, National Post, January 14
Earlier: Stories about Jews and Judaism
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Stories about life issues:
If doctors who won't kill are 'wicked,' the world is sick
Talk about Orwellian. A woman described as a "leading expert in ethics" has declared that doctors who refuse to kill their patients are "genuinely wicked." I'm not making this up. Mary Warnock, a British baroness told the Northern Ireland Forum for Ethics in Medicine and Healthcare this past Monday, that doctors who refuse to break their Hippocratic oath are evil.
Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald, January 10
My money, my choice
When Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge, new leader of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, suggested there are more laws protecting organ transplants in Canada than fetuses, he gave the abortion debate shock therapy. One predictable outcome was disdain, and a call to focus on important things, namely the economy, in these uncertain times. Yet there is an economic angle to the abortion debate. In Canada today, abortion is available and publicly funded at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason. That's our tax dollars providing free and timely elective surgery, in spite of the waiting lists and chronic resource shortages that plague our health care system in many other areas. Based on abortion statistics and the cost of the procedure in clinics and hospitals, that translates into $90-million a year, as a conservative estimate.
Rebecca Walberg, National Post, January 13
Earlier: Stories about abortion and other life issues
Stories about Doug Todd's musings on renaming "British Columbia":
What to do with the "British" in "British Columbia"?
The people of Oregon are changing the design of their old flag. Maybe "British Columbians" should change their name. "British Columbia" doesn't quite work for me. Does it for you? I'm used to it of course. But it still rankles when I have to say it to non-Canadians. We are so far from being culturally beholden to our "British"ness that it's not funny. And I have British roots, being a third generation British Columbian with ancestors from England, Ireland and Wales.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, January 8
What's in changing name, "British Columbia"?
Residents of this province would learn a great deal about who they are, and who they are becoming, if they debated changing the name, "British Columbia." The response to my recent posting was explosive, and culturally revealing.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, January 15
Other stories from the past week:
Why worry? Be atheist
One of the great pleasures in driving across America is the endless frightscape of religious billboards, which remind you that, at the end of life's journey -- and possibly on the very highway you're travelling -- awaits either a fiery pit where Muskrat Love plays on an endless loop or a sun-soaked meadow where angels sing and the strawberry daiquiris never run dry. "Give Satan an inch and he'll be your ruler," warned a billboard outside one U.S. church I once passed, while another recommended itself as "a going church for a coming Lord." The best, though, simply showed a sky dark with thunderclouds, above the words "Don't make me come down there."
Elizabeth Renzetti, Globe and Mail, January 9
On the road, looking for Jack Kerouac
Two priests prepare to follow dissolute author's American journey
Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun, January 10
Why they bottomed out on 'bottoms up!'
As Jessica Warner observes in The Day George Bush Stopped Drinking: Why Abstinence Matters to the Religious Right, Bush has never referred to himself as a recovering alcoholic. In fact, she says, he has avoided such language, saying instead: "I had too much to drink one night, and the next day I didn't have any." The greatest failing he publicly admits to is intemperance--a far less loaded word than those employed by the abstinence movements that Warner, a research scientist at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, chronicles in her book.
Christine Sismondo, National Post, January 10
Healing the battered economy means going beyond the 'self'
'What's in it for me?' is not an attitude that will work in the times we face
Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun, January 10
Farewell to strict ethos
From the beginning, St. John's was a religiously inspired battle against inexorably shifting social mores. That fight is lost. "That tradition in education was pretty anachronistic when it started," says Mr. Maunder, who has been researching a book about the school. Even by the comparatively stiff 1950s, a group of active Winnipeg Anglicans, including Mr. Byfield (a graduate of Ontario's Lakefield College School) and educator Frank Wiens, were alarmed at the direction of public education. "In those days, you could see the direction of public school education was directly alien to the Christian faith in the sense that it was predicated on the notion that there wasn't any right or wrong," Mr. Byfield says. It also believed you could make boys behave without physical coercion. "It's possible with some boys," he says. "But with most, it's not."
National Post, January 12
How do YOU define divinity?
Many intelligent people say it's bad to get into debates about the definition of God. But I think it's healthy. And even fun.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, January 12
Missionary faces alleged attackers at rape trial
A Canadian missionary who was attacked in Kenya last summer said her detailed court testimony about the violent sexual assault has helped her heal. Nine men appeared in a Kenyan court this week, charged with the brutal attack on Eloise Bergen and her husband John during a home invasion on July 9.
CanWest News Service, January 15
Earlier: Stories about the missionary couple attacked in Kenya
January 15/2009
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