{mosimage}What qualities constitute a real man in the early 21st century? What model could a modern dad look to for inspiration and guidance to get him through challenging times? These are meaningful questions in Canada 2007, amid the ongoing attacks on the traditional family, and we need to look no further for our model than St. Joseph, foster father to Our Lord.

{mosimage}“One is closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth” goes the old saying. I have always known this. But I hadn’t particularly thought of the divine in connection with compost until I read God of Surprises.

{mosimage}Current events in a country bridging Europe and Asia are offering an important object lesson about the Muslim world: it is not monolithic and there are significant forces for religious pluralism and democracy within it.

The Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats are in agreement on maintaining Ontario’s public funding for two education systems: public and Catholic.  One key question I still have today: why should Catholics get full funding and no other religious groups get any public support?

Nobody likes to wait. Especially for a medical diagnosis and treatment.

That’s what my husband and I were doing this past month.

If you want to find a cipher for society’s attitude toward the Roman Catholic priest, look to the priest figure in fiction and popular culture.

{mosimage}The recent visit to Canada of the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to meet with the Anglican bishops across the country was an effort to counsel the bishops on preserving the unity of the communion.

Mother’s Day is upon us once again (May 13) and we husbands and fathers need to rev up the creative juices to identify that unique gift for our special ladies.

I started my career as an economist 20 years ago trying to improve reintegration and vocational training for workers who had been injured on the job. Our work was mostly shelved.

I wasn’t there for Berkeley Brean’s funeral. In fact, I hadn’t seen him in decades. I heard he married but I never met his wife, or their sons. I did not know, until I got his obituary, that he endured cancer for three years before he died on Nov. 4, 2006.