Issues, ethics, memory
By Dennis Gruending Sociologist Reginald Bibby is probably Canada's closest observer of religious trends. He has been polling on religious practices and attitudes since 1975 and has placed the numbers into context in several books beginning with Fragmented Gods in 1987. Bibby has just released another book called Beyond the Gods and Back, and he... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending A year ago I wrote stories about the Conservative government's ham-handed bullying of the Canadian ecumenical social justice group KAIROS. The story is now in the news again in a way that would be comic if it were not so nasty. It provides yet another glimpse into the ideologically driven spitefulness of... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending The much-anticipated Munk Centre debate in Toronto between former Prime Minister Tony Blair and writer Christopher Hitchens has come and gone. A sell out crowd of about 2600 people paid up to $500 each to sit in plush seats at Roy Thomson Hall and hear the two debate whether religion is a... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to debate acerbic writer Christopher Hitchens at the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto on whether religion is a force for good or evil. Blair, of course, is the former three-term Labour prime minister who stunned most everyone by converting to Roman Catholicism... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending I return to Saskatchewan every summer to visit friends and relatives and usually I drop in at St. Peter's Abbey near Humboldt. I attended boarding school there in the 1960s and I retain a respect and fondness for the Benedictine monks. I spent several hours on my 2008 visit with Father Andrew... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending When Pope Benedict XVI pays a visit to England and Scotland on September 16-19, poster advertisements taken out on London buses will say "Pope Benedict - Ordain Women Now!" Father Stephen Wang, the dean of studies at London's main seminary for Catholic priests, published a semi-official defence against that request in a... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending I travelled with my family in India in 2008 and my most useful guide was the writing of a Scot named William Dalrymple. This past spring we travelled in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan and found that Dalrymple has done it again in his book From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending France's National Assembly recently approved a bill that would make it illegal to wear in public garments such as the niqab or burqa, which incorporate a full-face veil. Similar laws are in force or being contemplated in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. Supporters of the legislation say that veils are a... Continue Reading →
Note: Joe Gunn is executive director of Citizens for Public Justice, an Ottawa-based ecumenical group advocating for social justice. He has worked for churches and church organizations, mainly Catholics, in Canada and Latin America, and he was director for the Social Affairs office of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB). In March 2010, he... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending It's been a bad month for Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic hierarchy, and by extension a bad month for Catholics in general. The church has been rocked by more allegations, many of them now proven, regarding past sexual assaults by priests on young boys and adolescents, and by news of subsequent... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 