The Vatican has ordered a Bloc Québecois MP, Rev. Raymond Gravel, to quit his post in Canadian parliament and return to being a Roman Catholic priest. Vatican officials indicated that Gravel’s support of same-sex marriage and women’s rights were the cause of the order. This isn’t the first time The Vatican has ordered a public official to leave politics. From a Globe and Mail article: (emphasis mine) In 1984, the Vatican also ordered Rev. Robert Ogle to give up his New Democratic Party seat in the House, in a bid to avoid a blurring of lines between the secular and spiritual worlds. You ...

JEFFREY SIMPSON | Globe and Mail ST. PAUL, MINN. — John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate because of her gender but much more because of her solid social conservative/evangelical Christian credentials. Mr. McCain wanted to choose someone else, but both Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman and former Pennsylvania governor Tom ... ...

MATTHEW CAMPBELL | Globe and Mail Update Massive pieces of Canada's northern ice shelf broke away in early August, a team of researchers reported on Tuesday. The 50-square-kilometre Markham shelf, located on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, is now floating free in the Arctic ocean along with a larger portion ... ...

And in a mixed bag this morning, there are events aplenty in Canada, as federal Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares for a general election which his party may not even win, after only a single term of office. It is uncertain what this will mean for Onsite, the recovery and detoxification facility that is part of the controversial Vancouver Insite safe injecting facility for IV drug users in Vancouver’s impoverished Downtown Eastside. Giving the lie to Harper administration rhetoric about attention to drug abstinence and recovery programmes, the Toronto Globe and Mail notes that in British Columbia, and Canada as ...