Where the Rubber Hits the Road

Secularism: How the PQ have it all wrong At the recent meeting of the youth wing of the Parti Quebecois, Mme. Pauline Marois announced her government's intention to introduce a ‘Charter of Quebec Values’ intended to enshrine into law the concepts and value around which Quebec will prosper and unite in the 21st century. Prominent among these values is ‘secularism’, a foundational principle of all Western democracies which mandates the separation of church and state. Unfortunately for all concerned, this initiative is rooted in a non-democratic and oppressive understanding of this concept which will serve to weaken the very sense of cultural and political identity that Marois is trying to stimulate. Secularism is founded upon three essential elements: a) freedom of conscience and belief, b) equality of religious choice, and c) the neutrality of public authorities in religious convictions. Nations traditionally express this in two different ways. Canada, as with most Western democra...

"(T)here is a curious blind spot in these various calls for the Church to repent. Secular figures rarely feel a need to disavow their own complicity in crimes, even when many of them, still living to this day, bear no little guilt for atrocities that make the Church’s sins pale by comparison. Take the Inquisition. Beyond question the Church was involved in religious trials that probably led to the deaths of several thousand people over the centuries. Though the process was conducted under a strict legal code, it was wrong to execute people for their beliefs. But as the Polish poet Cszelaw Milosz has reminded us, communism in some of the larger countries killed more people on average per day than the Church killed in centuries . Rare is the Western intellectual who supported communism and repented of that monstrous error." Interesting perspective! On Secular Repentance | Crisis Magazine

A most curious question. Can Quebec’s Church-based curse words survive in a secular age? | News | National Post

Working as I do within the beauty of the Ottawa Valley, I see many cars pass by from “la belle province” emblazoned with the phrase “je me souviens” imprinted on each license plate. These words are a testament to the desire of this francophone people to always “remember” the struggles of “la révolution tranquille” (the Quiet Revolution) which transformed the Quebec society into a modern secular state. Under  vigorous new secular leadership, and faced with a wholesale ecclesiastical retreat from public affairs, the francophone population of the past 50 years, seemingly all at once, turned a deaf ear to the voice of the Quebec Church within their culture. They've chosen instead to consider only the siren cry of the  secularist project and modern consumerism. The church's counsel is no longer welcome in the public square. This sudden shift rendered the Catholic Church  both impotent and irrelevant in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the Quebec population. In just on...

Another tidbit of evidence of this rising tide of hostility to voices of faith. PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT claiming that this is the situation for all Christians. What I am saying is that there is a growth in the number of such incidents within Europe and now beginning in North America. Pope B16 recently said that Christians were the single most persecuted group in the world these days. Given the slaughter that has been occurring in the Middle East, Asia and Africa at the hands of Muslim extremists and the intimidation proffered believers in Europe, it would seem that he stands on solid ground with this assertion. JPII called the 20th century the century of martyrs. B16 is right to point out that the beginning of the 21st has not seen any improvement - if anything, the times are worse now than even a few years ago. "Father, forgive them" Should Christians be worried? Should we be surprised at this ominous trend? If we believe the Bible, the answer is clearly 'no...

The National Post religion blog (The Holy Post) has published an article written by Jackson Doughart, a student of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island and a member of the Canadian Secular Alliance in which he states that B16 misrepresented what 'secularism' actually is. In the comment threads that follow (still the best discussion in the MSM on the subject of religion and life) someone stated that atheists did not have a set of beliefs whereas theists killed people with their beliefs. It got me to thinking. Soon I was typing away at a version of the '10 Commandments' for atheists. It is a pretty rough first draft and I'm most certainly open to suggestions as to how they could be improved. Yet it should serve to provoke an interesting conversation. Let me know what you think. 1. Thou shall not believe in any God beyond natural selection, and personal choice and autonomy 2. Thou shall not permit the spending of any tax revenues on an...

It once was held as gospel that Quebec was one of the most Catholic jurisdiction in the world. The clergy dominated virtually every field of public life, even to instructing the faithful how to vote, under pain of sin (“Le ciel est bleu, l’enfer est rouge”). Then came the cultural transformation known as “la revolution tranquille” and the Church was, in an instant wiped from institutions, government and influence in the public square. In fact, for any idea, policy or moral position to be come from the Church was to automatically cast it in a disparaging light; discarded as out of date and unbefitting modern societies. Through the years, this atheist orientation of sensus fidelium has inexorably moved Quebec from a position of just denying the Church, and the values it embodies, a public role in society, to now attaining its ultimate goal of punitively sanctioning the very expression of all theist voice, but particularly the voice of the Roman Catholic Church.  Now, that wave of “...

In today's National Post you can find an article about a church in Calgary, Alberta that has been stripped of its Charitable Institution status (allowing it to offer tax receipts for donations) because it has publicly spoken out in support of traditional Christian values on marriage, sexuality and life. This is just one more example of a (tragically) growing body of evidence that Christianity is under attack by the state in Canada. This story, along with many of the anti-faith comments that accompany the article should chill the soul of any believer (no matter the creed or church) for it proves just how hostile the Canadian government has become to any organization that speaks in opposition to the social experimentation that has afflicted our country since the 1960's. Despite years of promises from politicians that Churches would be protected in their ministries, the facts prove that politicians and bureaucrats cannot be trusted. I am left to wonder how much longer it will ...

With thanks to CA, I offer this report on the latest addition to the secularist formula as expressed in Quebec with the publication of the " Quebec Policy Against Homophobia ." Whereas I agree that it is right to accept that the State has the right to establish what will be considered legal or "normative" in its own curriculum and policies, it should not infringe on the right of the Church to argue for that which it believes to be moral. Morality is a priori within the very mandate of religion. There should not be subject to the limitations of State, beyond the consensual understandings of what is needed for civic health. To do more is an infringement of the freedom of religious expression. The State cannot tell the church what they may or may not teach as essential tenet of their faith, any more than the Church should have the right to dictate to the State how to manage affairs within its purview. The Church must be granted the right to argue for its understa...

The threads of commentary on the internet is polluted with those who refuse to grant to Muslims the rights of religious freedom, opting instead for a "tit for tat" policy. While I grant that we are in the midst of clash of cultures and convictions, I question both the efficacy and the appropriateness of their strategy in the conduct of this war. In short: I agree with their cause for concern, but I believe that the actual reading of history, as seen through the lens of the historical memory of the church, leads to an understanding of the most effective and proper manner in which cultures have both succeeded and failed in negotiating a peaceful coexistence. Society ignores her advice at its own peril. Let's just for a moment, consider the following. In this Time Magazine article , we gain some perspective with which measure the level of fear and hysteria which is inflamed by those who pretend to be 21st manifestations of Winston Churchill. First we demonize, then we open...

Making Belief More Believable Conference Address Question of Faith in Secular Age By Kirsten K. Evans WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 25, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Can belief be made "more believable" for both seekers and the faithful alike? This is the question Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. episcopal conference, and Charles Taylor, professor of philosophy at McGill and Northwestern Universities and 2007 Templeton Prize Winner, sat down to discuss on the campus of Catholic University of America last Thursday evening. The public forum kicked off a 15-month research project that will re-examine religion and faith in this secular age. Sponsored by Catholic University's Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, the project "Faith in the Secular Age" will be developed in conjunction with the university's Center for the Study of Culture and Values and the Jesuit Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown. Thursday's forum drew...