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June 2007

June 22

God’s compassionate, non-violent reign

June 22, 2007

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) July 1 (1 Kings 19:16, 19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62) Freedom is very precious, but it is often taken for granted and is not fully appreciated until it is lost.

We must do more to share the wealth

June 22, 2007

Forget not the widow, the orphan, and slave O God please remember the helpless today Call on Your children repairing the breach There is no place too far that Your mercy can’t reach. - Charlie Hall , recording artist This week’s mail brought the annual status report on the child we support through Christian Child Care International (CCCI) . She lives in Haiti, the poorest and most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere.

Let parents make religious decision for kids

June 22, 2007

Editor’s note: In September 2008 the Quebec government will replace the options in religious and moral education in public schools by the imposition of a single multi-religious course of ethics and religious culture along with the forbiddance, in public but not private schools, of all confessional religious education. This commentary on the issue is written by Jean Morse-Chevrier, president of the Catholic Parents Association of Quebec and first published in Le Devoir on June 4 in French. The author provided this English translation to The Catholic Register.

Amnesty International responds

June 22, 2007

Editor’s note: The following article is a response by Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, to the June 3 Catholic Register editorial, The wrong road, in which we criticized the adoption by Amnesty International of a policy of defending a woman’s access to abortion as a right.

Making the leap with faith

June 22, 2007

My friends and family in the audience, the lights brightly shining on my face, my classmates all watching attentively as I walk across the stage to receive my high school diploma. I feel a sense of accomplishment, a rush of gratitude and much uncertainty of the unknown. I shake hands and walk back to my seat, wondering what God has in store for me.

A generational look at God

June 22, 2007

Conversations with Poppi about God by Robert W. Jenson and Solveig Lucia Gold (Brazos Press, 160 pages). American theologian Robert W. Jenson and his eight-year-old granddaughter, Solveig Lucia Gold, exchange questions about the Christian faith in their book Conversations with Poppi about God.

June 25

Irish famine victims remembered

June 25, 2007

TORONTO - At the June 21 opening ceremony of Toronto’s Ireland Park, Mayor David Miller quoted Canadian poet Al Purdy, saying, “Sometimes we may go back to the country of our defeat ... but it’s been a long time since, and we must acquire the way of strangers.”

June 26

Canadian Anglicans turn down same-sex marriage

June 26, 2007

TORONTO - The close vote by the Anglican Church of Canada against allowing same-sex blessings on June 24 will neither end the controversy nor move it toward resolution, judging from the comments of two Catholic observers of the debate.

June 27

Nine pro-life MPs won’t seek re-election

June 27, 2007

OTTAWA - The pro-life movement stands to lose some staunch political allies before the next federal election. Nine members of Parliament sympathetic to the cause have said they will not run again.

June 28

Five Canadian archbishops receive their palliums from Pope June 29

June 28, 2007

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican anticipated the July 1 celebration of Canada Day with a ceremony highlighting the ministry and authority of five new Canadian archbishops. The archbishops of “the true North, strong and free” knelt before Pope Benedict XVI June 29 and received a woolen band symbolizing the responsibility they share with him of shepherding the church’s flock. They were joined by 41 other archbishops from around the world.

A western that parallels events today

June 28, 2007

Contrary to rumours carried by the better class of newspaper, western movies are not dead and will not die. The west, the frontier, the endless sky, the open plain, the man on horseback, the pistol, the rifle, the Indian, the settler, the rancher and the farmer have a claim on the American imagination because they're there in American history. Or, never mind the history. Director Ron Howard's new movie demonstrates that the beautiful landscape of mountains and plains is still beautiful - still the best backdrop a movie could ever hope for.

Thrill-ride to redemption

June 28, 2007

There's no reason to think a movie that moves so much you may need Gravol with your popcorn is necessarily a good thing, but The Bourne Supremacy is a much better wild ride than you might expect from an action movie sequel whose title seems aimed at 13-year-old wrestling fans. Underneath the juvenile title is a very adult film that uses the paranoid's paradise conceit of the international thriller genre to probe questions of identity, sin and redemption. Matt Damon again plays Jason Bourne, a young soldier brainwashed by an ultra secret arm of the CIA to be the American government's assassin. When we last saw him in The Bourne Identity, he had woken up with amnesia and the instincts of a very efficient killer.

Battlefield for the soul

June 28, 2007

We ask God not to lead us into temptation because temptation is real. If Jesus had to face it in His 40 days in the desert, then there's no reason to believe any of us will be spared such a quintessentially human experience.

The Yes Men

June 28, 2007

The telling moment in The Yes Men comes at the three-quarter mark when intrepid pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno engage in a wistful meditation on satire.

A prisoner of his own mind

June 28, 2007

The worst thing you can say about a religion is that it is a self-imposed prison of the mind — an identity of limits that deforms the human soul.

From Genesis to the Apocalypse

June 28, 2007

The most important information in the bookends of the Bible, Genesis and Apocalypse, is the stuff that tells us who we are. Identity is one of the most deeply religious questions we can ask.

John Paul II film released on DVD

June 28, 2007

The late Pope John Paul II is brought to life with the DVD release of the two-part mini-series aired on CBC this past summer, entitled Karol, A Man Who Became Pope and Karol: The Pope, The Man.

June 29

Difficult dialogue

June 29, 2007

The Anglican Church of Canada dodged a bullet last month. By the tiniest of margins, it failed to approve the blessing of same-sex couples. Yet the manner in which it did so suggests that the issue will continue to plague Anglicans worldwide, along with Roman Catholics, who are far from disinterested observers.

Once more into the breach for Hitchens

June 29, 2007

There’s a joke about Christopher Hitchens circulating around the Internet: “What’s the difference between Christopher Hitchens and God? God doesn’t think He is Christopher Hitchens.”

Seeking mutual understanding

June 29, 2007

Editor’s note: Below is an excerpt from a speech by Fr. Bill Ryan, S.J., founder of the Center of Concern in Washington, a former general secretary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and longtime social justice advocate. It was presented to a gathering of Canadian Muslims at the Congress Centre in Ottawa on May 20.