Sara Lin Wilde is a recovering Catholic (and cat-holic, for that matter - all typographical errors are the responsibility of her feline friends). She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she is working on writing a novel that she really, really hopes can actually get published.
It’s back-to-school time, and this year Catholic school teacher Paul Blake goes back to the classroom in England rather than in Canada, where he and his family moved after an Ontario school board marred his record as an educator with a disciplinary note. They say his behavior was “inappropriate,” that he “undermined the vision and mission of the board.” His infraction? Last year, he informed a group of Grade 12 students of their right to be exempted from any explicitly religious content within their education. Read more
Malachi Wilson, a five-year-old citizen of the Navajo Nation, was turned away from his first day at a Texas public school because his hair was too long. School officials ordered him to cut his hair short before returning to the classroom to avoid running afoul of the school’s dress code. The child’s long hair is symbolic of his spiritual and cultural identity; however, his parents had to produce official documentation to demonstrate his official status as a registered member of the Navajo nation before he was allowed to rejoin his classmates in school. Read more
Quebec occultist Yacouba Fofana (a.k.a. Professor Alfoseny) did a pretty nifty magic trick for some clients: he made their money disappear. Any services he managed to conjure up in exchange were apparently invisible. Before he himself could perform a vanishing act, though, he was charged under Canada’s Criminal Code, with both fraud and — wait for it — witchcraft. Read more
North of the border, many secularists (at least the ones I know) look on the spectacle of American religiosity in the media with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity: how can public officials get away with such blatant religious promotion. Yet Canada has its own religious demons, so to speak, that we’re working to exorcise from the public sphere. The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has decided to take a closer look at one of those demons: the practice of opening government meetings across the country with an explicit or implied Christian prayer. Read more
Call it the Catholic Church’s dirty little secret. Well, their other dirty little secret. Actually, at this point it’s kind of an open secret. Most people with even a passing interest in matters of religion and sexuality are aware that a huge percentage of European and North American Catholics ignore the Vatican’s teachings in areas where these matters intersect. Controversy over birth control notwithstanding, most Catholic families show evidence of family planning use, and the majority of Catholic women have used contraceptives at some point in life. A growing contingent of Catholics describe themselves as pro-choice in matters of abortion and assisted dying. And Catholics — youth in particular — express growing support for marriage equality and gay families. Read more
