Issues, ethics, memory
By Dennis Gruending I reported earlier in December that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) had cut off all funding to the ecumenical justice group KAIROS. I speculated that likely it happened because KAIROS was challenging the government’s support for rapid development in the heavily polluting oil sands in Western Canada. But alert readers raised... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending In October, I attended a fund raising dinner and auction at an Ottawa church to support development of a legal clinic to assist women in eastern Congo. In some of their stories, captured on a brief video, the women describe how they had been gang raped and brutalized by young men who... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending Although I have attended Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Memorial in Ottawa in the past, I decided this year to support a smaller event whose theme was peace and reconciliation rather than war. On November 10th, I was one of about 300 people who heard an agonizingly sad but ultimately... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending The Canadian Catholic aid agency Development and Peace (D&P) has come under attack recently from right wing Catholics in English Canada and the United States. The allegations, frequently repeated, became something of a feeding frenzy beginning in March. The claim is that D&P provides money to non-government organizations in Mexico that condone... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending My wife Martha and I spent two weeks recently in Italy, where we paid several visits to St. Peter’s Square and Basilica, the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel. There were crowds throughout the day but I read in a guidebook that if one arrived at 9:45 a.m. at the visitor centre found... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending Catholics have a rich body of social teaching but their universities don’t teach it, their priests don’t preach it, and many people in the pews either do not know about it or are indifferent, says Joe Gunn, a long-time Catholic activist. Gunn spoke to the Faith and Public Life class at the... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending The exercise of citizenship as ministry is rooted in the Biblical calling to do justice, says Kathy Vandergrift, an Ottawa-based Christian activist who has worked both within government and outside of it on behalf of religiously based and non-governmental organizations. She and William Janzen, long time director of the Mennonite Central Committee... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending  Peter Harder was at the centre of government decision-making in Canada for more than 30 years prior to leaving the civil service in March 2007 to become the senior policy advisor in an Ottawa-based law firm. He served as a deputy minister in various government departments and worked for five prime ministers.... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending Some Canadian churches are posing earnest but polite questions for candidates and parties in the 2008 election campaign while religious conservatives are denouncing Stephen Harper for betraying them on abortion. The statements and election kits prepared by the churches fall into three broad categories: those that focus on questions of social and... Continue Reading →
By Dennis Gruending  Citizens for Public Justice is an Ottawa-based church group with a difference. At a time when the word religion has come to be associated mainly with social conservatism, CPJ provides a Christian perspective regarding public policy debates on poverty, housing, aboriginal rights, immigration and the environment. At its annual meeting in Ottawa... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 