I always look forward to the spring. It is when our university celebrates convocation, and while this is usually an all-consuming, logistically complex event, come the day this is feel-good all the way. 

Planning ahead

Your May 5 editorial on dementia suggested the government needs to prepare for the day when cases of dementia will increase due to an aging population, which brings with it increased health care costs, etc.  

Normally it’s best simply to ignore trash-talking Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte. But when he heaps scorn on Canada for treating his country like a garbage dump, his trash reeks of a sad truth.

The overwhelming election victory of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has heightened fears among members of the nation’s minority religions, including Christians. Yet Christians in the Western world might well learn some lessons, both positive and negative, from Modi’s politics of Hindu nationalism.

Throughout the Bible, much is said about money. From “the love of money is the root of all evil” to “give Caesar what belongs to Caesar” to “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Pioneers

As 50 years have passed since the legalization of abortion in Canada, we should acknowledge some of the early pioneers in the fight to stop the passage of this inhumane law.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration gestured to the buildings surrounding us on Parliament Hill. “These are the people’s houses,” said the Honourable Ahmed Hussen. “These are your institutions — please feel free and at home.” 

Contrary to what most of my professors believed, I sometimes paid attention when I was in the diaconate formation program at St. Augustine’s Seminary. Liturgically I may not have known my ambo from my elbow, but when it came to pastoral care I was totally present.

The executive director of Canadian Physicians for Life spoke for many when she grieved a ruling by Ontario’s highest court that suggested religious rights, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t really a big deal.

A mere 35 years after my Catholic conversion, I suppose I should be a little embarrassed that it is only now that I am finally getting the hang of the rosary and finding it a very powerful devotional instrument in the way that it commands and directs and focuses my prayer. What took me so long?