{mosimage}When Linda Kooluris arrived at the Vatican with an old Nikon F2 she discovered the secret life of the city state. She also found out it is not really a secret.

Twenty-seven years later the photographer and painter reveals her discoveries in The Gardens of the Vatican, a 159-page, hardcover photo book with text by her husband Kildare Dobbs (McArthur & Company, $39.95).

{mosimage}Hodd by Adam Thorpe (Random House UK, 320 pages, $34).

The Robin Hood most of us grew up with was a perfect hero for bookish kids. He was cheerful, generous and just. He surrounded himself with merry men, had a loyal, clever, cute girlfriend and together they robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.

If we thought about it later, we might have regarded the Robin Hood of childhood books, movies and cartoons as a gentleman who had taken sides in the class struggle.

TORONTO - Ontario’s Catholic ecumenical officers are delivering a wake up call to parishes across the province in January.

In a 400-word letter to priests, deacons, religious and laity, Ontario’s dozen directors of ecumenical and interfaith affairs are reminding parish leadership that “it remains an essential priority to stay focused on the common pursuit of the unity of all Christians.”

MAPLE, Ont. - Jesuit provincial superior for English Canada Fr. Jim Webb could hardly wait to hit a few hundred guests at the annual Provincial’s Dinner April 14 with a piece of good news.

“This year we have nine novices, the most in 20 years,” announced Webb to a round of applause.

It’s the kind of news bound to hearten elders in the Jesuit community, such as Fr. Jacques Monet, who entered the Society of Jesus Sept. 7, 1949. But it’s not just about numbers, said Monet.

TORONTO - Church unity hasn’t happened yet, but Catholics and Anglicans have a new list of concrete suggestions for ways to bring the two churches closer.

TORONTO - Sandy Sitar and her husband Glenn Brown work in the pharmaceutical industry in technically demanding jobs. They’re educated young professionals — not the sort of people who fall into superstition or believe in magic. But that doesn’t mean they don’t believe in miracles.

Larry Yakimoski could just about spit nails when the subject of the new English translation of the Roman Missal comes up.

“It really seems to me that there are forces in the Church that are trying to roll back the clock,” said the layman from Saskatoon. “I was a kid when Vatican II came along. It was probably the reason why I stayed in the Church.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - If they were not vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience most members of the Canadian Religious Conference’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation network would be retired, smiling, pleasant, mild-mannered grandparents.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Catholic Church officially repudiated anti-Jewish teaching and predatory proselytizing of Jews 43 years ago. While violence against Jews, graffiti on synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish cemeteries are still realities in Toronto, such incidents cannot be associated with teaching — official or unofficial — in the Catholic Church. In today’s Toronto, the Muslim community is now about twice as numerous as the Jews and it’s both the integration of Muslims in Canada and armed conflict in Muslim countries around the world that grab headlines.

So who cares about Catholic-Jewish relations?

{mosimage}PICKERING, Ont. - You can’t keep your faith if you don’t deepen it. A paper-thin faith just gets thinner, until there’s nothing left to hold onto. So Alice Quigley has been diligently deepening her faith with annual retreats at Manresa Spiritual Renewal Centre in Pickering for the last 36 years.

When the 75-year-old Quigley made her first retreat in 1973 she was a woman just beginning to catch her breath at the tail end of more than 20 years of full-bore motherhood — four girls and a boy. Her oldest was just about to get married. She still had three teenagers and one pre-teen at home, but she was beginning to feel a little freedom coming on.