13 Comments

I don't care about what religion you follow, I really don't.

What I do care about is whether your pet religion wants to decide the rules of our society (can you get an abortion in a Catholic hospital?, Will a religious hospital deal with TG people honestly and fairly?), particularly since religion is supposed to be a non profit. If a non profit starts pushing for politics (Catholic Church threatening excommunication of Paul Martin over abortion), they should not be considered non profit, but instead political groups.

Maybe tax churches and we can have a new conversation.

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You're right - you're not going to get an abortion at a Catholic-run hospital. The Catholic church has been pretty dogmatic about that point because they see it as murder. That becomes a problem if a Catholic hospital is the only source of health care in the region. On the other hand, those Catholic hospitals sometimes were the only source of health care for people because those Catholic nursing orders were committed to charitable works, the worth of all people, and their belief in the sanctity of life. Take St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. They provided care to the poor, First Nations, and people of Chinese descent because Vancouver General Hospital wouldn't. Fortunately times change - we have a public option that reduces the cost barrier to access care, and the blatant racism of a century ago has receded. If you want to propose taking over those historically Catholic hospitals and making them fully part of the public system, fine. However, they existed in the first place because of those Catholic beliefs.

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Now I don't know if this happens in BC, but here the Health Authority is responsible, and runs, all the hospitals. Yet St Paul's in Saskatoon is allowed to keep its's religious restrictions, while being run by, and receiving all the benefits of a provincial hospital.

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These hospitals are still owned by Catholic organizations - Emmanuel Care in Saskatoon, and Providence Health Care in Vancouver. They’re part of the health region, but by arrangement with the organizations. My Dad was the planner for the new wing of St Paul’s in Saskatoon back in the ‘80s. We’re not Catholic, but my dad always found the Grey Nuns to be wonderful people.

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Governments decide policy, not churches.

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Correct, and when churches try to force the government to obey it's wishes, they should be turned into political groups and as such, be taxable entities.

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Thus it should be the same for all non-profits as well, as they lobby government, introduce politicians into political parties, and then enforce their policies, legislation, and taxation, on all Canadians. So I too agree, if any non profit is involved in politics of any kind, using government to implement policies, legislation, or taxation, be it through a member of parliament, or from the non profit group themselves, they should then all have to pay taxes. Only those non profits who serve the disadvantaged should be allowed tax free status. Today the new religion of the masses is environmental, decolonization, and ensuring that Canada becomes a Post National State under the guise of using non profits who are funded by the billionaires who then also received tax breaks. It’s two fold the loss in government revenue to which those members of non profits are now with in the government and creating their own religious affiliation to make Canada the first Post National State. All this has been done under tax free status. It’s time to end all but the basic tax free status entities as the majority are in fact there not to serve the people of Canada, but to undermine, destroy, and remove Canadians of powerful positions, so only they remain. Through non profits we are now being led into the New World Order under control of the UN and out of the political control of Canadians leaving us an undemocratic and centrally controlled State.

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This is an example of really bad thinking from a very biased writer. It seems to me that more people than ever before conflate religious belief with spirituality two completely different things and it only adds to the confusion. Spirituality having no terms of reference changes like the telephone game we played as kids were after an statement was passed through a number of kids it would bare no resemblance to the original message the more kids the worse the results.

People everywhere who are not given a stake in society are inclined to burn it down, this is meant to be metaphorical but it makes the crossover easy this is what is happening in indian country it may have nothing at all to do with religion.

What others believe should matter little let them have that, after all it is only a conversation they have with themselves. We can have more meaningful conversations around what people actually know.

I recall that it was at Cardas in 1994 that the Providential man Stephen Harper birthed the notion of theocracy to a welcoming audience no surprise there.

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There's a reason Edmonton has a Grey Nuns Hospital, not a Grey Nones.

I don't think we're at the point of widespread persecution, but there is a serious lack of understanding on religion and it's role. Some good discussions can be found on YouTube, with Peterson, Vervaeke, Pageau, being some notable Canadian participants.

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The article doesn't dig into the very deep, long-standing problems with religion being anything but a private matter: hundreds of years of war.

Catholic and Protestant sects murdered each other for a very, very long time, and the ugliest fights in Britain were over whether the next Monarch would be one or the other. The last executions at the Tower of London were Jacobins.

And Canada had to make a country out of a half-Protestant, half-Catholic population, which worked out so badly in Ireland. The way to get around it was to mention it all as little as possible, and keep it completely out of government. Which was a long-term project, in Quebec, and Quebec did not profit from the delay.

The worst residential schools were run by churches, handed a governmental power and budget, and the final removal of the church from Quebecois governance was the beginning of modern Quebec.

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I agree and acknowledge that religious orders contributed lots of good stuff to society at an earlier time. At the same time, I acknowledge the land-stealing, child-murdering pedophiles and psychopaths in the same organization. Excuse me if I feel nothing for the burnt churches. The question of "how does this advance reconciliation?" is obnoxious: it doesn't. Neither does killing kids. Very little of our country is trying much to "advance reconciliation", and we know absolutely that the Catholic Church stands in the way of progress in this regard, after centuries of brutalizing Indigenous people and their own spiritual lives. I don't hate religion or spirituality - but I hate that god damned church.

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This comments section validates my view that the media has poisoned the discourse of the role of religion in our society. When natural disasters strike what are the prominent non-governmental organizations that step up with action and aid? Usually those that have charity (love) as a founding principle.

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I believe that many Canadians have a faith of some form, be it a ceremonial, spiritual, meditative, or belief that does not necessarily take them to a house of worship. There is need within most humans to believe in something greater than themselves to which they, in the loss of such, will search to find someone or something in which to cling to in times of angst. As we see the loss of one god, we find other beliefs or proposed ideologies which then take the place of the lost god, gods, or religious belief. It seems ironic to find those who are so callous toward one set of beliefs in the transcendent, believe in what they believe to be true, demand all others believe it to be true, demand their beliefs be respected by all others, to which the "anti god" politicians make into laws. Thus forcing all Canadians to believe or face the consequences of judicial enforcement, fines, or jail. Then the same politicians have the audacity to say that belief and politics must not reside in the same house. My personal belief is in irony and hypocrisy, as there seems to be an abundance of that to go around.

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