Category: Commentary
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Dead faith of the living on display
Papal Mass shows Church remains deaf to residential school survivors Glen Argan Will the Catholic Church ever get it right? After listening to Pope Francis’ homily in Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium on July 26, I now think the lack of understanding of the damage Church institutions did through the residential school system is so profound that…
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Biden book skirts key questions
By Glen Argan U.S. President Joe Biden is the most publicly religious American president since at least Jimmy Carter. Biden is knowledgeable of Catholic social teaching. He is comfortable talking about his faith, attends Mass weekly and prays his rosary regularly. Yet, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is not comfortable with Biden.…
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My father was an amazing man
By Glen Argan My father, William Argan, was born in Regina, Sask., Feb. 7, 1921, 100 years ago today. The oldest surviving son of Ukrainian immigrants from a part of Bukovina which is now in Romania, dad’s birth name was Wasely Arganiszczuk. The names of the family and its members were changed following the Second…
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Call for Vaccine Sharing Met with Silence
By Glen Argan Pope Francis spoke for the common good on Christmas Day when he called for the world’s nations to ensure that those who are poor receive their fair share of the vaccine for the coronavirus. “We cannot allow the various forms of nationalism closed in on themselves to prevent us from living as…
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Sadness has no place in the Nativity of Life
By Glen Argan In a famous fifth-century sermon, St. Leo the Great preached that Christmas is a time for rejoicing. “Sadness should have no place in the birthday of life.” Christmas was still a new liturgical feast at that time, unencumbered by the heavy weight of consumerism which has distorted its meaning today. No frantic…
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Canada should not bow to China’s strongarm tactics
By Glen Argan The Chinese government has unjustly imprisoned Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. They are innocent pawns in a high-stakes game China is playing with Canada to secure the release of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies. The United States wants Wanzhou extradited to face fraud charges. Kovrig and Spavor deserve…
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RCMP brass need greater awareness of systemic racism
(Published in The Catholic Register, June 21, 2020 By Glen Argan It’s astonishing that, amidst massive protests across the United States against police racism, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki had to sort through various definitions of systemic racism to determine whether it was endemic to Canada’s national police force. At first, she claimed the RCMP was…
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God harmonizes dissonant voices in divine symphony
(Published in The Catholic Register, June 6, 2020) By Glen Argan Creation is a symphony, a symphony which only God hears in its fullness. I hope God is listening. I hope that in creation’s symphony, my out-of-tune voice will be gathered with the voices of more exquisite singers to sing a song of joy and…
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Industrial meat production plays role in creation of new diseases
Published in The Catholic Register, May 21, 2020) By Glen Argan In Alberta, the province where I live, those hardest hit by the covid-19 pandemic are workers in meat processing plants. At High River’s Cargill plant, Canada’s largest meat-processing facility, 936 cases of covid-19 had been reported as of May 4 with hundreds more among…
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Laudato Si’, pandemic call us to climate action
(Published in The Catholic Register, May 8, 2020) By Glen Argan One could almost hear the collective sigh of relief as governments across Canada announced the lifting of some restrictions imposed during Covid-19 pandemic. By the time you read this, Albertans will again be able to get their hair cut or styled and go shopping…
Glen Argan.com 