"What is missing is the spiritual element." Gathering in Winnipeg marks 30th anniversary of Elijah Harper's 1995 Sacred Assembly

 

“The political process has failed us, and I believe that what is missing is the spiritual element.” That’s what then Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper said in 1995 when he called for a Sacred Assembly to deal with stalled talks about land claims and Indigenous reconciliation issues. 

On Jan. 23-25, several hundred people from across Canada, including church and Indigenous leaders, gathered in Winnipeg to mark the 30th anniversary of that Assembly, and to discuss ways to keep its vision alive. 

“I realize it is difficult for Indigenous communities to embrace walking together with the churches, yet we all claim to acknowledge God, our Creator, and we pray to the same God,” said Wallace McKay, Grand Chief emeritus of the Nishnawbe- Aski Nation in northern Ontario in his welcome. 

He hoped the event would cause participants to “learn, understand and respect the choices that all people make as they pray, worship and seek a better tomorrow.”

Read my story about the Winnipeg gathering in the Free Press.

B.C. Supreme Court case asks: Can publicly-funded faith-based hospitals and care homes refuse to allow MAID on their premises? A personal story raises some questions

When I heard about the B.C. Supreme Court case about whether a publicly funded faith-based hospital should be allowed to deny patients onsite Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID), my thoughts went back seven years to my friend John Regehr. 

At that time, Regehr, 93, was a patient at Concordia Hospital, a faith-based hospital in Winnipeg that was started by Mennonites in 1928. Like the Catholic hospital at the heart of the B.C. court case, it doesn’t permit MAID on its premises. 

At the age of 90, Regehr had life-saving heart surgery. A few months later, he fell in his apartment and broke his hip. He recovered, but over the next few years there were more falls and more trips to emergency. 

In October of 2019, he was admitted to Concordia Hospital with severe pain in his hip. It was clear to him he would never be able to go back home again. 

According to his son, Rennie, he didn’t want to lie in bed for the rest of his life, “waiting for death to come.” But when he learned he was eligible for MAID, “his face lit up.” 

Since Concordia doesn’t allow the procedure, due to its beliefs, Regehr was moved by ambulance to Health Sciences Centre on Nov. 7. There, in the presence of this family, he died. 

Looking back on that experience, Rennie said the experience of being transferred “was hurtful” to his father on two levels. First, because he had committed so much of his time and energy to the Mennonite church in Canada, only to feel they had turned, as he was abandoned by them in his greatest moment of need. Second, because riding in the back of an ambulance to the hospital where he could have MAID was extremely uncomfortable and cold. 

For Rennie, Concordia’s decision felt like dogma and doctrine were more important than his father, and for others who find themselves in similar situations. “Can those doctrines and dogmas be set aside to tend to the person?” he asked. “I wish for more pastoral responses.”

Read more about this issue, which is pertinent not just for faith-based hospitals but also for faith-based personal care homes, in my Free Press column.

Photo above: Gaye O'Neill, mother of Samantha O'Neill (at the heart of the case, in picture, left), talks to the media at B.C. Supreme Court before the lawsuit challenging forced MAID transfers at St. Paul's Hospital. From the Winnipeg Free Press.

Rossbrook House celebrates 50 years of "unconditional love'

Fifty years ago, three members of the order of the Roman Catholic Sisters of the Holy names of Jesus and Mary decided no child in Winnipeg’s inner city should ever have to be alone. 

The three women were Sisters Geraldine MacNamara, Marylyn Gibney, and Lesley Sacouman. Together, they founded Rossbrook House, a drop-in centre for youth who had nowhere else to go. 

On Tuesday, 50 years to the day Rossbrook House opened in 1976, the organization held a celebration to mark the work of the three founders and the many staff and volunteers who followed in their footsteps. 

Read my story about Rossbrook House and the sisters who founded it in the Free Press.

Photo above by Mikaela MacKenzie, Free Press

Get your wills ready to defend immigrants and other vulnerable people: American Episcopal bishop to clergy

I was talking to an American friend who, like me, is appalled by the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis and other parts of the U.S.

I told her how helpless I feel as a Canadian while watching the U.S. dissolve into fear, uncertainty and mistrust. Apart from not travelling to that country and not buying American products, what can I do?

“You can write,” she said. Sure, I replied, but I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to dump on America; I don’t live there. “Go ahead,” she said. “We are dumping on ourselves.”

With my American friend’s encouragement, I will say something. But not in my words; I’ll let some American Christians do it.

Read what they are saying in my latest Free Press column.

Does Manitoba need a Christian Heritage Month? Does Canada? Yes, say supporters

Does Manitoba need a Christian Heritage Month? Does Canada? Yes, says an evangelical couple in Toronto. And now a Progressive Conservative MLA in Manitoba has joined them, introducing a private member’s bill, The Christian Heritage Month Act, to declare the month of December as Christian Heritage Month in the province. 

Already, about 50 towns and cities in Canada have declared December Christian Heritage Month in their communities, including Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Kingston and Nanaimo, along with the province of Saskatchewan. 

Reaction by church leaders in Manitoba is mixed. Some welcome it, some are cautious, some oppose it. Whether or not it happens will be decided by politicians in spring. 

Read my column about it in the Free Press.

Some top religion stories of 2025

 

What were the top religion stories of 2025? If you go by the amount of media attention, the number one choice is clear: The death of Pope Francis and the surprise election of Pope Leo of the U.S. 

But there were other top religion stories, like the election of Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury — the first woman to lead the worldwide Anglican Communion. Her election led to another big story that hasn’t received much media attention: The potential schism in the Anglican church. (A story for 2026.) 

Other stories included a report from the Pew Research Center that found that Sub-Saharan Africa has become the part of the world with the largest number of Christians, the increasing number of people persecuted for their faith and continuing questions about whether or not there is widespread revival among youth in Canada, the U.S. and the UK. (Spoiler alert: There is no proof it is happening.) 

Read about those, and some other top religion stories for 2025, in my latest Free Press column.

New uses for places of worship: Stories about ways congregations are responding to needs in their communities

 

I’m working on a feature about churches that are creatively converting their buildings and properties into community hubs and affordable housing. It got me thinking about the various articles I have written on this topic, going back 15 years—nine articles in total. 

It’s an important issue; sometime in the next five to ten years, a third of Canada’s estimated 27,000 places of worship (most of them churches) are slated to close due to falling attendance.

What can be done? And what is already happening? If you want to learn more, check out some of the links below. 

My first article on the topic was in 2010, when I wrote an overview of the situation in Canada titled Keeping Faith in Historic Churches. 

I did another one in 2015, titled Does it Matter if a Historic Church Closes? The answer, unsurprisingly, is yes—for various reasons, including all the community, newcomer, arts and recovery groups that would lose space. 

In 2017, I wrote about The Halo Effect, or What are Places of Worship Really Worth to a Community? It’s about a way of calculating the economic value of places of worship in a community—and what would be lost if they disappeared. (I wrote about it again in 2023 for Canadian Affairs; according to the Halo Effect, places of worship are worth over $18 billion to the Canadian economy.) 

In 2019, I wrote about a church in Ottawa that had been converted into a meeting and convention space. “We worked with the community to repurpose it,” Leanne Moussa, president of allsaints Development Inc., said of how the building became a popular venue for weddings, funerals, parties, conferences, theatre, concerts and other events. 

In 2024, I interviewed Mark Elsdon, editor of the book Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition. Elsdon created the book to get congregations to start thinking now about what happens when there are no longer enough people to make their church viable. Rather than wait until there are few options on the table, “Let’s talk about it now, get in front of it,” he said. 

And this year I interviewed leaders of some Lutheran churches in Canada who are converting their buildings and properties into affordable housing. I was taken by the words of Jennifer Hoover, the congregational redevelopment advisor for the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, about a new way for congregations to view the changes they are experiencing today. 

“We need to reframe that narrative, away from one of having failed,” she said, explaining that it is a chance for congregations “to think about what new thing is possible, about new ways they can use the building in ways that are consistent with their mission, vision and values.” 

Also in 2025 I did a story about Winnipeg’s Lutheran Church of the Cross, which closed so its building could be converted into apartments for seniors. And one about how Gordon King Memorial Church in Winnipeg has reimagined itself as a community hub, including a popular coffee house named “Gordie’s.”

It’s an ongoing story; with so many buildings slated to close, there will be many more opportunities to write about this topic.

Photo above: St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Kitchener, which is converting its Christian education wing into affordable housing.