Peter Stockland

Granted, there is something beyond the borderline of zany in a journalist urging theologians to look to economics for reform of human behaviour.

At the end of a recent long run during which the state of the world is a staple of the conversational smorgasbord, my running partner asked a pressing perspicacious question: When, exactly, was conscience transferred from individual to collective ownership?

The board of a hospice society in suburban Vancouver is fighting for its pro-life life this October. It is also already looking ahead to new life for palliative care in a continent-wide network of euthanasia-free care centres.

Even in the world of what the late, great Allan Fotheringham called the “shy egomania” of journalism, moments of humility tilt unexpectedly upward their beautiful faces and make you see anew.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel deeply uneasy about a minister of the Crown effectively usurping the role of a minister of the Church?

Even for pro-lifer Catholics labouring in the political trenches, it must seem a blessing in disguise that abortion has so far failed to get off the ground as a federal election issue.

Could this most troubling of summers for the Catholic Church across Canada spark its resurgence as a vital participant in the country’s public life? Call me a sun-addled optimist, but I carry a conviction it can so long as we avoid thinking of a phoenix rising from ashes and instead heed the Gospel call to commit ourselves to the long, hard, patient work of building Christ’s Church.

In mid-July, my wife had the opportunity to interview a 92-year-old former opera star at her home in a village between Quebec City and Montreal.

Forgive me for regarding with a somewhat dry eye my fellow Canadians’ umbrage gusting to apoplexy over the infamy of Indian Residential Schools, and Catholic blame for same.

It is heartening to see Catholic clergy calling out the stream of inaccuracies and exaggerations around the Church’s responsibility for the residential schools debacle.