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It's that time of year when millions of Canadians wonder about venturing into the church of their youth for a Christmas service. The longing of those Canadians who don't regularly attend church usually comes from a mix of tradition, nostalgia, personal dissatisfaction and the search for a deeper connection to the sacred. The Canadians who are most likely to be feeling an unusual tug to again try out church at Christmas -- who have kept only a loose link to their Christian identity-- are typically mainline Protestants. Evangelicals, by contrast, have a higher rate of regular church attendance than mainline...

In 1961, only one half of 1% of Canadians told census takers they were not attached to any religious body. The figure rose to 4.3 % in 1971 and 16.2% in 2001. After the Second World War, 67% of Canadians told Gallup they had been in a church or synagogue over the previous seven days. By 1990 this figure had fallen by nearly two thirds to 23%. Gallup says it's now less than 20%. In 1961, 90% of Quebecers said they had been to church in the last seven days, and the Catholic church had one priest for every 500-700...

Bishop Frederick Henry on the Church in Canada "We Are Not Nearly Countercultural Enough or Prophetic Enough" CALGARY, Alberta, DEC. 11, 2005 (ZENIT.org).- A culture with a morality gone awry needs countercultural Catholics to proclaim Christ while working alongside dissenting groups, says a Canadian bishop. In an interview with ZENIT, Bishop Frederick Henry, 62, of the Diocese of Calgary, shared his pastoral views and strategies of how Catholics can live in an increasingly secular culture and take an active role in influencing it for the good. Q: Can you give us a sense of the state of the Church and...

Christ gets Canada Post's stamp of approval Religious imagery is making a comeback this Christmas season, writes Jenny Jackson. Jenny Jackson, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 For the first time, Canada Post is selling religious and secular Christmas stamps, hoping to appease "both camps" in the treacherous crossfire over holiday terminology. Next year, it will offer three secular stamps and one religious one. Canada Post released three stamps with Nativity scenes and one snowman stamp in November, just two months after the Catholic Women's League of Canada asked its members to lobby Canada Post, the prime minister,...

The Conservatives say they won't drop the divisive same-sex issue this fall and promise to try to repeal it if they form the next government. The federal Conservatives are still committed to revisiting the controversial same-sex marriage issue when the House returns in nine weeks, even though Bill C-38 received Royal Assent last week and despite last week's public opinion poll suggesting that a majority of Canadians don't want to reopen the divisive political issue. Conservative MP Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.), his party's high-profile justice critic and a former Manitoba justice minister, told The Hill Times that the Conservatives will...

But some of the more aggressive Canadian activists are taking pages from the political strategies of the American religious right. Their campaign against the Liberal gay marriage bill has included provocative direct-mail campaigns, creation of policy think-tanks and lobbying centres, and the deliberate targeting for defeat of politicians they oppose.

The anti-Christian bias of the Globe and Mail, Canada's self-proclaimed "national" newspaper, grows ever less subtle, and last week it broke all bounds when its lead story on the front page implied a Christian conspiracy to take over the Conservative Party. "Christian activists capturing Tory races," shouted the headline. (The "races" were Conservative nomination contests.) A sub-headline elaborated: "Some in party worry new riding nominees will reinforce notion of 'hidden agenda.'" This "hidden" Christian "agenda," the chief authority for which is the Globe and Mail itself, is the ostensible conspiracy of a coterie of religious "zealots" to first gain office,...

Christians capturing Tory party Fri Jun 3 2005 FRANCES RUSSELL CHRISTIAN. Jew. Muslim. Hindu. Buddhist. Agnostic. Atheist. Under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all have equal right to sit at the table of political power. But only if they respect democratic pluralism and the rights of others to hold different beliefs and values. What worries a clear majority of Canadians is a peculiarly American strain of Christianity that clamours for its own religious freedom and rights, but squelches them for others. It seeks political power for the express purpose of remaking the nation in its own rigid and authoritarian...

Our Opinion: Politicians watch as heat rises North Bay Nugget Local News - Wednesday, May 25, 2005 @ 08:00 Judging by a rally at the Ontario legislature Monday, the religious community is starting to get organized in its opposition to same-sex marriage. Even though the number may appear small — 3,000 turned up for the event — it may be just the beginning of a larger, national campaign that may turn heads in Ottawa. One merely has to look south to the U.S. presidential election that saw the religious right become a political force that helped elect a president who...

Christian activists capturing Tory races Some in party worry new riding nominees will reinforce notion of 'hidden agenda' By GLORIA GALLOWAY Friday, May 27, 2005 Page A1 OTTAWA -- Christian activists have secured Conservative nominations in clusters of ridings from Vancouver to Halifax -- a political penetration that has occurred even as the party tries to distance itself from hard-line social conservatism. At least three riding associations in Nova Scotia, four in British Columbia, and one in suburban Toronto have nominated candidates with ties to groups like Focus on the Family, a Christian organization that opposes same-sex marriage. But organizers...

Note to readers: It is important to read right to the end of this column."Jewish activists capturing Tory races," screamed the front page headline in Friday's Globe and Mail newspaper. The article that followed was just as breathless. These Jews represented a "political penetration" of the Tory party by people who take a "hard line." These Jews had "ties" to Jewish "groups." And this was not achieved through normal democracy, but by rabbis "persuading" their flocks to join the party.Out of 308 riding associations, the Globe only found eight in which Jews were candidates. But still they called it...

Since it has been conclusively established that Canada's long-ruling Liberal Party is riddled with corruption in Quebec, since it has been unmistakably demonstrated that the Liberal government will sell out to the socialists to stay in power, and since it has become wholly evident that the parliamentary traditions that safeguard democracy mean nothing to them, what price for all this conduct can the Liberal party expect to pay in an election? The answer, according to the first poll made since the party survived a crucial parliamentary division by a single-vote margin nine days ago, is no price at all. Liberal...