Father Raymond J. de Souza

To great popular culture fanfare, the Sex and the City movie opens tomorrow. I don’t expect that I shall see it, so I thought I might offer a comment beforehand. Indeed, I rather missed the entire television series, but for a rather extraordinary confluence of events. (more…)

Now we know what Quebec Premier Jean Charest was doing during the delay in making the Bouchard-Taylor Report public. He was searching for a way to prevent the report from being dead-on-arrival, which is what would have happened had headlines read: “Crucifixes out, hijab in.” Charest accomplished that with his speedy unanimous resolution to keep the crucifix in the National Assembly — quite a feat, given that a mere 18 months ago, then-leader of the opposition, Andre Boisclair, was calling for its removal. (more…)

This has not been a good week for children in the mother of parliaments.  In a series of votes at Westminster, Britain’s House of Commons passed by large margins provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would allow the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos; would permit genetic screening of embryos to select so-called “saviour siblings”; and would remove the obligation to consider the role of fathers in artificial reproduction. (more…)

The usual manner of leaving the Catholic Church is to drift away, without making any public pronouncement of it.  So it is noteworthy when it happens, and more so if one does it in order to conform with the constitution of Canada. (more…)

Why should Christians care about Israel? Amid the National Post’s extensive coverage of Israel’s 60th anniversary, it is a question worth asking.

In particular, it was a question I had to think seriously about a few years ago when I was invited to join the board of directors of the Canada-Israel Committee, the branch of organized Jewry in Canada that defends the cause of Israel, works to enhance Canada-Israel relations and promotes Israel in Canadian public opinion. Before accepting, I wanted be sure that there were theological reasons for joining. I did accept, for three reasons which I think answer the broader question of why Christians ought to care about Israel. (more…)