Unfortunately for Canadian anti-vaxxers, it takes time and a certain amount of ingenuity to establish a new religion, which has considerably complicated the task of getting religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine requirements. This factoid came to mind during Alberta’s daily COVID-19 update yesterday, when Alberta Health Services President and CEO
Continue readingTag: Roman Catholic Church
Views from the Beltline: The Vatican’s Lady Problem
The Vatican just doesn’t seem able to get past its misogyny. Once again it is debating whether or not to allow women some role in the Church hierarchy. The Pope has created a commission of experts to examine whether women can be deacons, the bottom rung of the ecclesiastical ladder.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: First reading of Bill 207 reveals zero UCP votes for women’s reproductive rights
Here are two important statistics about the United Conservative Party’s Bill 207, the Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers) Protection Act, which was introduced in the Alberta Legislature yesterday … Just a minute, you say, Bill 207 is a private member’s bill, brought forward by Peace River UCP MLA Dan Williams,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The ‘Chicago Principles’ are code for the right of the powerful and privileged to shout down everyone else
“Free speech in universities” is nowadays a rallying cry for the snowflakes of the extremist right, who can dish it out but can’t take it. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that pushing post-secondary institutions to enforce the Chicago Statement on Free Expression, an ingenious manifesto that uses “free
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Left by the pope with a choice between glory to God and death to the carbon tax, what will Jason do?
Turns out you really can’t serve God and Mammon! Who knew? Tout le monde Conservative Alberta was reeling over the weekend at Friday’s news from Rome that Pope Francis, leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, has declared global warming to be a real thing and putting a price on carbon to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Your tax dollars at work: Looks like public funding for religious schools likely helped today’s large anti-abortion march
Taxpayers’ contributions to publicly funded parochial schools appeared to be hard at work today in Edmonton as a throng of students from religious high schools throughout the province marched through the capital city’s downtown in opposition to women’s reproductive rights. The annual anti-abortion March for Life sponsored by the Roman
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Harper’s Paris speech to Mojahedin-e Khalq: No laws were broken; appropriate interests were served; get over it!
Many readers would be offended if someone were to suggest the Roman Catholic Church was a former terrorist organization with cult-like attributes. Still, wouldn’t terrorism be a fair description of the Inquisition, the brutal effort to root out heresy carried out from the 12th to the early 19th centuries by
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In subversive move, Edmonton school board chair calls for optional Catholic programs in public schools
PHOTOS: Edmonton Public School Board Chair Michael Janz. Below: CBC evening drive show host Portia Clark, and the logos of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association and Edmonton Public Schools. In a brilliantly subversive move, Michael Janz, chair of the Edmonton Public School Board, has publicly wondered in a blog
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fred Henry, departing Catholic bishop, held strong pro-labour stance in addition to controversial social conservative views
PHOTOS: Frederick Henry during his 19 years as Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Calgary. (Screen shot from a diocese video.) Below: Two scenes from the picket line at the Calgary Herald during the 1999-2000 strike. In the first, striker Murdoch Macleod and others bravely face down a truck
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Women as answer to the priest problem
Father Brendan Hoban, a co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, is concerned about the state of the Church in his native Ireland. Very concerned indeed. He describes priests in Ireland as “little more than a ceremonial presence on the sidelines of life” and as a “lost tribe.” He laments
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Women as answer to the priest problem
Father Brendan Hoban, a co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, is concerned about the state of the Church in his native Ireland. Very concerned indeed. He describes priests in Ireland as “little more than a ceremonial presence on the sidelines of life” and as a “lost tribe.” He laments
Continue readingAlberta Politics: St. Albert Catholic school board has spent more than $367,000 to defend firing of transgender teacher
PHOTOS: Transgender teacher Jan Buterman (Metro Newspapers photo). Below: Duncan Kinney of Progress Alberta, the former Pope Benedict, and David Keohane, Superintendent of Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools. ST. ALBERT, Alberta The St. Albert Catholic…
Continue readingPope Francis and the moral imperative of dealing with global warming
It’s no surprise that Pope Francis only gave PM Stephen Harper 10 minutes for his interview earlier this month. And no surprise he looked constipated in his photo op with the Prime Minister. Ten minutes with Harper would freeze the bowels of anyone concerned about global warming, and, unlike the
Continue readingWill Republicans keep invoking God if the Pope keeps pissing on their philosophy?
American politicians are particularly prone to invoking their Christian faith as a guide to their political beliefs. Although members of both major parties freely trot out scripture at the drop of a writ, conservative Republicans are especially inclined to pepper their appeals with references to their faith, God and Jesus.
Continue readingDid he really say that?
How does he get this stuff out of his mouth? Pope Francis, I mean. In a recent audience in St. Peter’s Square, he declared that couples who choose not to have children are “selfish.” He went on to pontificate that, “A society with a greedy generation, that doesn’t want to
Continue readingThe pope’s diminished freedom of speech
Did the pope just display an iota of sympathy for the zealots who massacred Charlie Hebdo staff? In response to a question about the attack, he replied, “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.” The pontiff justified his position by stating that
Continue readingSister Simone for pope
What you may ask is a non-Catholic, indeed a non-Christian, doing recommending someone for pope. Well, it’s partly tongue-in-cheek, of course, even if American Sister Simone Campbell might very well make a better pope than anyone else around, including Francis himself. I am quite aware that the Catholic Church, immersed
Continue readingFrank’s 10 happiness tips
Pope Francis may still be immersed in a certain amount of traditional Catholic misogyny, but he is nonetheless a breath of fresh air for the church, and for that matter, Christianity. In a recent interview he offered 10 tips to achieve happiness. The tips are worth repeating not only because
Continue readingThou shalt not have an economy of exclusion and inequality
I am no fan of the Roman Catholic Church, nor can I avoid cringing at some of Pope Francis’s views, particularly on women, but occasionally I do have to applaud the old boy. Such was the case with his recent apostolic exhortation when he criticized the world economic system, referring
Continue readingYou’re making progress, Francis
After two doctrinaire popes, it’s a pleasure to have one who puts mercy ahead of dogma as Pope Francis did this week. In an interview with La Civilta Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit magazine, he criticized an emphasis on abortion, gay marriage and contraceptives at the expense of more important matters.
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