SHOULD TAX DOLLARS BE USED TO FUND GAY PARADES?

Tourism Minister, Diane Ablonczy, gave $400,000 in tax dollars to support the recent Gay Pride parade in Toronto.

This donation has prompted a backlash from some members of her own Tory caucus.  As result Ablomczy has been stripped of responsiility for disbursing a $100 million tourism fund.  Former  Tory Miniister, Monte Solbe erg, charges that Ablonczy “deserves better than to be ratted out by a colleague on an issue that is a complellte loser for the party.”

Do you think Diane Ablonczy should have been reprimanded?

Should tax dollars be used to finance ga y parades?

What do you think?

SHOULD A PROTESTANT RECEIVE COMMUNION?

A  brouhaha has erupted over an incident at the state funeral of  former Governor-general Romeo Leblan c which was attended by many dignitaries including Prime Minister Harper. 

At communion time one of the priests approached Mr. Harper in tC

There is some dispute about what happened next.  At least one observer told the Catholic authorities that the Prime Minister put the Communion wafer in his pocket therebty committing a sacrilege, a aserious mortal sin.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman, speaking from ItaLY, says that version is absurd.  “The preist offered the host to the prime minister, the prime m inister accepted the host in his hands and he then consumed it.”  Mr. Harper is not a Catholic but is a member of the Evangelical Christian Alliance church.

One high Catholic official in the diociese of St, John, where the funeral occurred, says the incident was a “scandal”:  It’s worse than qa faux pas, it’s a scandal from the Catholic point of view.”  Another priest in the same diocese told Radio Canada the incident was “scandalous.” A spkesman for the Archdiocese of Toronto was quoted as saying, It’s almost as if you had Jesus in your hand, or on your tongue.  And o to put Jesus in your pocket or drop it on the ground …. it;s the most sacred thing you can have or receive.”

The Speaker of the Senate, Noel Kinsella, also weighed in:  “I would l ike to state that I ersonally witnessed Prime Minister Harper consume the host that was given to him by Archbishop Andre Richard.”

Speaker Kinsella added that as a Catholic he  was “”"pleased” to see Harper “express his solidarity” and accept communion during the funeral mass.

I am with Speaker Kinsella. I anm pleased the Prime Minister received Communion.  Rome has been dckering around for decades about whether there should be intra=communion among some Christian churches.  This practice will never come from the top down.  It will come from the bottom up.  Which is why I usually go to Communion at Protestant services, usually funerals.  And I  take no scandal when I see non-Catholics receiving communion at mass.

Should a Protestant receive communion?

What do you think?

 

 

One Catholic official in the diocese of St. John, where the funeral occurred, said the incident is a “scandal.”  “It is worse than a faux pas, it’s a scandal from the Catholic point of view.

DID HITLER DO ANY GOOD?

Jews in Germany and elsewhere (including Canada)  are outraged by comments made by the boss of Formula 1 racing, Britisher Bernard Ecclestone, 78. 

Ecclestone  said this a few days before a major Formula 1 race to be held in Germany:  “In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was, in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done.”

When a storm of criticism broke over his head (including demands that he resign as car-racing boss) Ecclestone tried to explain his remarks this way:  “Between ‘32 and ‘38 he took a Country that was bankrupt and made it a reasonably strong power in Europe, but after that the guy is obviously a lunatic.”

Is it wrong to praise Hitler even for the good things he did?”

I rtemembert my father used to prtaise Mussolini because he made the trains run on time.

Would we not be suppressing or distorting history to maintain that Hitler did no good?

What do you think>

IS THE COVERAGE OF MICHAEL JACKSON OVER THE TOP?

Tday Michael Jackson is being buried.  For almost two weeks the world has been subjected to wall to wall coveraage of his life and death.  If the Pope died or the President would the coverage be any more intrusive and extensive than it has been for Jackson?

Yet Jackson – musically talented that he was – has had no hit records for years — since The Thriller iay more n 1981.  For years he has been virtually a recluse – famous for being famous not for anying he has done.

On the darker personal side, Jackson is a self-admitted peophile sleeping in be with small children.

What does the coverage of his death tell us?   Does it ssay more about our vorerystic society than it does about Jackson?

Is the coverage of Michael Jackson over the top?

What do you think?

SHOULD THE VATICAN DISCIPLINE AMERICAN NUNS?

For decades American nuns were often the unsung workers who helped build the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, plaanting schools and hospitals and keeping the parishes humming.  Without the sisters the American Catholic Church would be at death’s door,

You would think Rome would celebrate the celebrate their contribution.  Instead the Vatican has decided to investigate them.  A coterie of male septuagarian prelates in the Curia have launched a full-scale inquiry into the life style of American nuns.

What seems to have upset the Vatican is the nuns’ failure to promote three teachings:  that all priests must be male;  that gay people are intrinsically disordered;  and that the Roman Church  has the best way of getting to heaven.

A nun frm  Rome and a priest from the Curia are now running around to convents in the United States trying to discover how nuns are shaping up on these three points.  One nun, a theology professor at Berkley, urged her fellow-nuns not to cooperate with the investigators, saying they should be treated as “uninvited guests who shouldbe received in the parlour, not given the run of the house.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if America’s nuns quietly rejected all three propositions:  an all male priesthood, the depravity of gay people, and salvation is best achieved in the Roman Church?

Wouldn”t that make for a more inclusive and healthier church?

What do you think?

HAS SARAH PALIN COMMITTED POLITICAL SUICIDE?

At the beginning of the Independence Day weeked, Sarah Palin announced that she is quitting as governor of Alaska.

For the most part her explanation was rambling and uninformative.   During the camapign Palin showed that her ad lib remarks were incoherent.  Now she shows that in reading a prepared statement she is just as incoherent.

Why in the world would Palin cry uncle and throw in the towel just half way through her first term as governor?

Is it because she wants to run for president in 2012?  Surely this is a bizarre way to begin a presidentail run.  And if she quit on Alaska would  she also quit on the nation?

Or does she want to out of the kitchen because she can’t stand the heat.  Sshe complained in her statement about unj ustified criticism of her and her family.  But would not a presidential campaign bring her even more criticism.  Is she tough enough to be a naitonal politician?

Or does she want out of po litics altogether?

Or is there another shoe to drop?  Is there a scandal on the horizon and she want s out before it hits?

Can a p o litician as erratic aS Palin hope to attain national office?  Many in her own party don’t want her.

What do  you think?

Is Palin trying to position hyerself for a presidential bid in 2012?

Or does she want out of po litic s for good?

DO CANADIANS HAVE A REASON TYO CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY?

I  think we do.  The reason is in the Oval Office, his name is Barack Obama and he is the 44th president of the United States.

As   we Canadians look across the border on this Independence we see the brightest star in the firmament is the new president.  Like us he is a moderate who favours conciliation over confrontation.  He is, as well a multilateralist and a multiculturalist.  He pursues nuclear disarament and a health care system like ours.  He stands up against climate-change deniers.  And he is not blindedby any sense of American superiority or m uscle-flexing Manifest Destiny or fatuous conceit that he is carrying out the will of God.

 

 

 

 

Ptesident Obama rises above old American prejudices.  Being a politician with an independent mind and an international

perspective -rare   qualities in a U.S  President – his leader5ship is based on broad global interests rather than narrow domestic biases.

Obama will drive the hard-liners nuts -  and that will have Canadians lustily cheering h i m on.  America has a long-standing tradition of exaggerating foreign threats. 

C anadians would have voted for Obama over McCain by a margin of 80 to 20.

Canadians have good reason to celebrate Obama – now the leader of the free woHappy Indepe dence Day.

President Obama rises

DO CANADIANS HAVE A REASON TO CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY?

nd

SHOULD A CHILD OF 15 MAKE LIFE AND DEATH DECISIONS?

In thah’e case of a 15-year-old girl who refused a blood transfusion because she was a Jehova’s witness, the Supreme Court has ruled that a child should be able to refuse life-saving intervention if she is mature enough.  The Globe and Mail disagrees:  “No 15-year-old or younger person should be permitted to die for her religious beliefs — or those of her parents, which may be the same thing.”

Indeed this ruling raises troubling questions.  Should an adolescent be able to make life and death decisions when they are not o to wardeemed able to purchase alcohol or cigarettes, go to war, drive a car or quit school. Then there is the danger of excessive parental and peer influence overwhelming free and voluntary choice. 

Unable legally to drive, drink, vote or quit school, and being of diminished moral capacity should 15 year-olds be able to make life and death decisions?

What do you think?

IS CANADA THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD?

According to a Globe and Mail poll just out on this Canada day, 90 per cent of Canadians think we live in the best country in the world.

And why not?

Canada is fighting above it’s weight in Afghnistan.  We have a social services network that is the envy of the world.  We are in better shape than any other industrialized nation to deal with the world’s economic crisis.

If we ever had a national inferiority complex it’s gone.  When 90 per cent of us think we live in the world’s best country, we no longer have a self-confidence problem.

Is Canada the best country in the world?

Do y  ou agree?

Happy Canada Day.