Sightings Articles
Attention, Please
A culture of distraction may detract from religiosity and lead to lazy secularism....
September 22, 2022
Islamo-Leftism and Hope, Faith, and Charity in Modern France
Those demanding adherence to secularism would do well to remember the Christian theological virtues...
April 8, 2021
The Problem with Freedom from Religion
Laïcité must reckon with the continuing impact of French colonial history ...
March 8, 2021
Sunday Is ...
Are traditional holy days still something more than just any other day?...
January 13, 2020
Quebec’s Ban on Religious Symbols 4.0
“People can call police if secular dress code not adhered to, Quebec Public Security Minister says.” So reads a recent headline from The Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s longest-standing national daily newspapers. Hints of a creeping police s...
April 11, 2019
Religious Art Discovered Alive!
No “-scope,” either “micro-“ or “tele-,” was needed last week for us to sight an article written “as if” for Sightings, so bold was its headline, so appropriate to be appropriated by this column on “religion in public life,” given our focus on art an...
January 30, 2017
Saints Displaced and Replaced
Saints are getting pushed around these years, if they are not being forgotten. Jews may not share the Christian belief in the Resurrection and the afterlife of saints, but few faith communities have done more to honor their dead, especially those who...
November 7, 2016
A Crisis of Faith in Laïcité
A few weeks ago in late August, a woman was napping on a crowded beach in Nice when a group of police officers approached and ordered her to remove her shirt. In a striking sequence of photos, a photographer for AFP captured the scene (see Gillman, e...
September 15, 2016
Religious Children More Ungenerous?
“Crisis-talk,” including talk about religious crises, dominates media and discourse currently. Terrorism. Migration. Economies. Morality. These and others are big-screen topics, but they reflect the small accumulating evidences. Pandit Nehru obser...