Our local MP, Peter Milliken, recently became the longest-serving Speaker in the history of the House of Commons. Wednesday night in Ottawa there was a big party at which he was feted, sponsored oddly enough by a lobbying firm. Eight-and-a-half years is not that long really, given that many MPs marinate leisurely in the House for twice that time. Indeed, Milliken himself has been the MP for Kingston and the Islands since 1988, before I first arrived at Queen’s. The students who started university this year were not born when Milliken defeated Conservative Cabinet minister Flora Mac-Donald. Given that the latter had nary a conservative bone in her body, the election of the former was a change in party but not in principle. Continue reading →

The decision announced in Rome yesterday to create structures to allow Anglicans to convert to Catholicism in a corporate way, while retaining many of their Anglican traditions, is a major historical development. And, as is usually the case with something truly historic in the Catholic Church, it is a retrieval of something centuries old. Continue reading →

Parents often complain that kids grow up too fast these days. But many parents, it seems, aren’t growing up at all. From middle-aged women dressing like high-school fashion victims to daddy’s X-Box addiction, modern adults are reverting to childish habits en masse. In this series, the National Post comment pages probe this annoying phenomenon.  In today’s installment, Father Raymond J. de Souza considers how old is too old to become an adult. Continue reading →

Regarding the distressing news about the child pornography charges brought against Bishop Raymond Lahey, former bishop of Antigonish, one cannot improve upon the letter Archbishop Anthony Mancini sent to the faithful of Nova Scotia and read in all parishes last Sunday. Continue reading →