The worsening persecution of Indian Christians by fundamentalist Hindus is a black mark on India’s modernizing democracy and a violation of Hinduism’s basic principle of tolerance for other religions.

Western Christians should stand in solidarity with our Indian brothers and sisters who are being murdered, mutilated and driven from their homes, whose houses are being burned and whose churches are being desecrated and destroyed. In this Canadian election season, we should exact a promise from our prospective members of Parliament that they will urge the next government to encourage Delhi to beef up its current, woefully ineffective campaign to halt the violence.

{mosimage}I’m fed up with Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) and their collaborators inside and outside the Catholic Church. And while I’m on the subject — I’m also not very happy with the namby-pamby way some representatives of Catholic officialdom are dealing with what RCWP is up to.

This summer, I am celebrating the 10th anniversary of my conversion to Catholicism. I didn’t make this turn in the usual, sensible manner, after a suitable period of study and reflection. I didn’t break with Anglicanism, the Christian path I had chosen early in life, because of any disagreement over doctrine or practice. I became a Catholic, as the Godfather movies has it, after getting an offer I couldn’t refuse.

This summer, the 77-million members of the Anglican Communion are hurtling toward a crisis that could end with their fellowship ripped apart.

{mosimage}In his winning stride through the U.S. Democratic presidential primaries, Illinois Senator Barack Obama didn’t bring American Catholics along with him.

Some pundits believe that Obama cannot win the White House in November without this important group, which constitutes almost a quarter of the U.S. population. The primary results in the must-win states of Pennsylvania and Ohio certainly do not bode well for the Obama campaign. In Pennsylvania, 70 per cent of self-described Catholics went for Hillary Clinton, while in Ohio, she won 65 per cent of the vote in this category.

I’m writing this column in a room on the psychiatric ward of a large downtown hospital. I’m not here as a visitor or observer. I’m a patient.

{mosimage}The residential towers now sprouting up across downtown Toronto regularly rouse the ire of citizens. People don’t like these structures for all kinds of reasons: because they cast long shadows, because they increase local traffic, because they make bad fits with the often low-rise neighbourhoods that surround them. But until now, I’ve never heard people objecting to a high-rise development because it threatens to eat up a parking lot.

{mosimage}At last, the food crisis now afflicting millions of the Earth’s poorest people has caught the attention of the well-off nations of Europe and North America. One has to wonder whether we would have ever woken up had not riots and protests broken out earlier this year in a dozen countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.

The North American newspaper is a wonderful thing. Since its rise some 300 years ago, this medium has helped build civil society and advance democracy. It has linked people together over the vast distances of the continent, and it has provided these people with the facts about what is happening in the world, and why.