{mosimage}With just 18 words Pope Benedict XVI ignited an international fury that dominated headlines, dwarfed his good works in Africa and raised serious questions about the Vatican’s media savvy in a media-mad world.

The 18 words were extracted from a comment made by the Pope about  AIDS during an in-flight press conference, as follows: “The problem can not be overcome with the distribution of condoms: on the contrary, they increase the problem.”

{mosimage}The theme for the 2009 ShareLife parish campaign is “You can work wonders.” We should all take a moment to consider those words.

They represent much more than a call to mail in a cheque, or go online to make a credit-card donation, or drop $100 into a collection basket.

That’s not to diminish the importance of fundraising. It’s vital, of course. The 2009 ShareLife appeal must raise $14.3 million to fund its commitments to 33 charitable agencies. So give and give generously.

{mosimage}U.S. President Barack Obama surrounded himself with political friends, the sick, the handicapped, churchmen and scientists on March 9 to trumpet his intention to separate politics from science. To enthusiastic applause he announced an executive order that will rescind a ban on government funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).

What utter hypocrisy.

{mosimage}The latest economic report from Statistics Canada reinforces the need for swift and decisive action. Governments at all levels must implement policies that are prudent, just and comprehensive, but this is not their problem to solve alone. All of society has an important role to play.

Led by dramatic losses in the automotive and housing sectors, Canada’s gross domestic product shrank in the fourth quarter by an annual rate of 3.4 per cent. The national unemployment rate topped 7.2 per cent in January and will continue to rise, according to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

Too often you will pick up a newspaper and read about the trouble our kids have got themselves into. Today, you will pick up The Catholic Register and only find out the good.

And it’s not just the kids themselves. You can also read about the teachers, the administrators, the parents, all who contribute to the good that our Catholic schools are doing.

{mosimage}Could Francine Lalonde be thinking that the third time is a charm? It certainly appears that way as the Bloc Quebecois MP announced recently that she intends to table in Parliament, once again, a bill to legalize assisted suicide in Canada.

Lalonde’s first two attempts failed and never really were a threat to pass. And it could be said this time around that her efforts are bound to meet the same fate. After all, she is introducing her legislation as a private members’ bill, and it is very rare, almost to the point of impossible, for such a bill to pass.

{mosimage}It strikes us as very Orwellian, the scenes found on many of the university campuses across Canada these days.

These supposed bastions of free speech look more and more like they come right off of the pages of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Remember how in Orwell’s classic novel, which reflects on the ills of the Soviet era of Joseph Stalin, that all animals on the farm were to be equal, none above the other. Yet as time goes on, we find while all animals are equal, some really are more equal than others.

{mosimage}If there is something that history can show us, it’s that barring the gate and looking inward to ease the economic pain of this recession is not a wise route to take. One need just check the history books and see how taking this path only worsened the Great Depression back in the 1930s, when the United States brought in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to protect its economic interests. Global trade fell off by two-thirds, turning a recession into a full-blown depression, the worst economic crisis the world has ever experienced.

Yet that appears to be part of the solution the United States is banking on to get out of the current recession. The multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate is heavy on its “Buy American” details, shutting the doors on other nations and some of their goods in an effort to stimulate the American economy. A controversial provision of the House’s version of the bill would bar virtually all foreign iron and steel from the stimulus plan’s infrastructure projects, while the Senate’s version, still to be voted on by The Register’s press time, would extend the U.S.-only requirement to all goods paid for by the plan (though it appears President Barack Obama is attempting to water down these provisions).

{mosimage}When it comes to economics, Catholic social teaching is pragmatic, not ideological. While popes in the last 150 years have recognized that capitalism beats socialist economic systems in terms of human freedom and effectiveness, they have been under no illusion that, unless carefully managed, free market economics can inflict terrible pain and injustice.

That’s why successive encyclicals on political and social matters have emphasized the “preferential option for the poor” and insisted that governments have a duty to protect the most vulnerable from the vagaries of the market while working for the common good of all.

{mosimage}If U.S. President Barack Obama thought the hard slugging was through, overcoming centuries of oppression for  blacks in the United States to make history as its first African-American president, just wait for what the future will bring.

As Obama took his position as leader of the world’s only superpower Jan. 20, he assumed control of a nation mired in crisis, on so many fronts. The economy is in the tank, facing its worst financial crisis in eight decades. The United States is in deep in not one, but two major wars, with a third conflict in the Middle East never far beyond U.S. parametres. The rich-poor divide is widening, too many Americans do not have proper health care coverage, action is needed to combat climate change and, yes, despite his election, racial tension is always on the radar — just see the reaction to the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white transit police officer in Oakland at New Year’s for evidence.