Some allegations have staying power no matter how often they are refuted. For the past month, articles and broadcasts have abounded with reports about the sexual-abuse scandal and claims of cover-up at the highest levels of the Church. Most allegations concerned events in Europe and the United States, and spread wildly after suggestions that even Pope Benedict XVI may have known of or approved a decision to return a German priest offender to ministry.

Led by The New York Times, there were efforts to implicate the Pope — in his former capacity as a cardinal and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — with failing to act promptly in a U.S. case. The allegations and The Times’ role in spreading them have been widely and justifiably refuted and discredited, including by The Times itself, albeit with less prominence than it gave the original report.

The rage that has greeted recent allegations of sex-abuse cover-ups and foot-dragging by the Catholic hierarchy comes, at least in part, from genuine compassion for the victims. This righteous anger, expressed in countless newspaper columns and blogs (Christian and secular) over the last few weeks, is something Catholics at every level of the Church should take seriously. Because it comes from a good place — outrage on behalf of the wounded and defiled — it can be a healing wrath and welcome judgment, summoning all Catholics, not just the clergy and hierarchy, to repentance and spiritual revival.

But another kind of anger, arising from a dark, hate-filled place in modern culture, has been evident as well. It’s not the whole story, but it’s an important aspect of what’s unfolding in the present moment’s sound and fury. I am speaking of the vengeful drive by some commentators to bring down the Catholic Church completely — the visible institution, of course, but also its mission of announcing the Kingdom of God.

As the international Jewish community united in protest against a perceived slight spoken in a Good Friday homily by a Vatican official, I wondered why Catholics continue to remain silent amid the suffering of our brothers and sisters in faith in the Holy Land.

This silence has been particularly baffling in the years since the erection of the towering walls that surround some Palestinian cities of the West Bank. Movement from one Palestinian city to the next — and into Jerusalem itself — is prohibited for most Palestinian Catholics. Even those few granted travel or work visas from Israel are subjected to excessive scrutiny. These restrictions prevent Catholics from worshipping in the holy sites of Jerusalem. Seminarians located in Bethlehem are unable to acquire visas to pray in Jerusalem even though it is just a 15-minute drive away.

On April 19 the Catholic Church will celebrate the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s election as pontiff. And, yes, we mean celebrate. Contrary to the smears rampant in the secular media of late, there is much to applaud about the first half decade of Benedict’s papacy.

The mainstream tendency, of course, is to try to define Benedict by the sinful deeds of abuser priests and see-no-evil bishops of the past 30 years. And that is a shame because the vicious headlines and apparent “get-Benedict” mentality rampant in the media can cause even faithful Catholics to become blind to the achievements of an active and productive Pope.

TORONTO-The relationship between science and religion has never been easy but in an era of momentous scientific discovery Fr. Rob Allore believes honest conversation between the two groups has never been more essential.

The passion, death and resurrection of Christ focusses our attention each Easter on the cradle of Christianity, the Middle East. It is where the earliest Christians gave witness to the first Easter, where the faith was nurtured and from where it spread out to all corners of the Earth.

This Easter, we are once again asked to pray for the Christians who remain in this troubled region and particularly for those who have been forced to flea persecution to seek refuge in neighbouring nations. Those that remain in their homeland often live in fear. Their numbers are dwindling. Those that have fled usually live as refugees in deplorable conditions. A small number have found refuge in welcoming nations such as Canada and the United States.

There is widespread concern that, at the current exodus rate, within a generation Christianity will be virtually extinct in the land where Christ walked and in the surrounding region where His disciples first spread His message. Many believe a Holy Land purged of Christians is imminent and unavoidable. The faithful are being forced to leave explicitly because they are Christian, because they believe in the message of Easter, in the risen Christ.

{mosimage}Jesus spoke fondly of shepherds. From the earliest days of His boyhood He would have been familiar with the roaming shepherds and their sheep. Eventually, He would give pastoral meaning to the image of a shepherd and thereby endear the hearts of His people to their God. That image would become inscribed forever as part of the universal language of the church.

On a recent visit to Jerusalem, in the region of Galilee, I came within arms length of a flock of sheep being cared for by a leathered-skinned shepherd, crosier-like staff and all. It was an extraordinary moment that caused biblical images and meaning to spill over into my consciousness.

The shepherd of the field and the ecclesiastical shepherd have little in common when it comes to lifestyles. But they have a great deal in common when we speak of the themes of care, responsibility, dedication and uninterrupted concern for their flock. 

{mosimage}It is a settled issue. At least, that is what politicians and opinion leaders have been saying about abortion for the past 20 years in Ottawa.

So why then did the issue of abortion result in not only a heated debate in Parliament March 23 but also cause the leaders of the two main political parties to face a caucus revolt? I would argue it is because the issue is not settled at all.

According to a Harris-Decima poll for the Manning Centre 74 per cent of Canadians find abortion morally wrong (60 per cent strongly agreeing, 14 per cent somewhat agreeing). When politicians say the issue is settled, it is to avoid discussion of what abortion really is and explanations of why they support or oppose Canada’s current status quo of zero limit on abortion right up to the moment of birth.

Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his plan for lowering mortality rates for mothers and children in the developing world there has been fierce lobbying from the pro-life and pro-choice sides on whether a “full range” of family planning options, including abortion, should be included. While the Conservative government received heat from pro-life activists to keep it out, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff answered calls from Action Canada and the International Planned Parenthood Federation to put it in. The issue came to a head with a vote, and public humiliation for Ignatieff, in the House of Commons.

As Canadian politicians twiddled their thumbs and denounced their opponents for most of an unproductive winter — in the process alienating voters even further from the political process — I recalled a different kind of politician, a man who entered politics not from personal ambition but from conviction, an MP of the British Parliament who chose to quit politics rather than compromise his principles.

That unlikely politician was novelist, poet, essayist and Catholic apologist Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953).

Born of mixed parentage (English and French) at La Celle Saint Cloud, about 20 km outside Paris, Belloc loved both France and England (particularly East Sussex). He was educated at Cardinal Newman’s Oratory House; his precocious intellect enabled him to carry off academic prizes in several subjects. One such prize was a signed copy of Cardinal Newman’s The Dream of Gerontius, which Belloc later had to pawn when his finances were precarious.

Following a year of French military service, Belloc went up to Balliol College, Oxford, where he excelled academically and was elected president of the student union. A contemporary, E. C. Bentley, thus described him:

“When Belloc came to Oxford . . . a fresh spirit began to work in the intellectual life of England. His immense personal magnetism, his cascade of ideas, of talk, of fervid oratory, his exuberant and irreverent humour, his love of bodily activity and adventure, carried all before them.”

For a temperament as bellicose as Belloc’s, Parliament was a natural outlet. In 1906 he ran as Liberal candidate in the marginal South Salford constituency where the electorate was overwhelmingly Protestant and Belloc’s Catholicism was considered an insurmountable political liability. The Conservative incumbent, J. Greville Greeves, was a wealthy brewer whose family owned a hundred pubs within the constituency. Belloc countered Greeves’ advantage by pointing out that people had died from drinking impure beer; if elected, Belloc promised a Pure Beer Bill. He made good on his promise, but his bill was defeated in parliament.

Urged by his campaign manager to make no mention of religion, Belloc began his first election speech in typical pugnacious fashion:  “Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This (taking a rosary out of his pocket) is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.”

After a shocked silence, there was applause. Belloc won.

He proved a prickly parliamentarian. So frequently he voted against the government that he was sometimes mistaken for an opposition member.  When a minister proposed “compromise and moderation” over a bill dealing with Catholic education, Belloc rose to say: “I cannot too emphatically point out that those two words are absolutely meaningless when the House of Commons is dealing with the Catholic faith.”

What a contrast Belloc is with our sorry string of ostensibly Catholic prime ministers — Trudeau, Turner, Chretien and Martin — who first initiated, then extended, abortion access until Canada became unique among countries of the Western world in having no legislative restriction on abortion.

Belloc served two terms (1906-1913) but finished up at odds with his party and constituency, the latter because they spurned his proposal to run as an independent. To a close friend Belloc wrote: “I can no longer stand the House of Commons. I see little object in it. It does not govern; it does not even discuss. It is completely futile.”

What would Belloc make of the bellicose barnyard which our House of Commons has become? Better not to ask.

After he left Parliament Belloc continued to lecture and write but, by 1940, the four human beings who had mattered most to him were dead: his wife Elodie, his mother, his eldest son Peter and his closest friend, G. K. Chesterton. Solitary, and increasingly senile, Belloc lived a hermit-like existence at Kingsland, his Sussex home, until July 14, 1953 when he fell out of his chair and was badly burned in the fire grate. Two days later he died.

In a sense, it could be said that Belloc foretold not only his own fate but the fate of that rare bird (probably  extinct now in Canada), the principled politician, the man who puts principle before expediency, when, as a young man, he wrote these lines:

A lost thing could I never find;
Nor a broken thing mend.
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get to the end.
O who will there be to comfort me,
O who will be my friend?

(Ian Hunter is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at Western University.)

{mosimage}For more than 40 years Canadians have been fortunate to have the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace rolling up its sleeves on their behalf to deliver aid to some of the poorest regions on Earth. But somewhere along the way D&P seems to have lost its way.

How else to explain a bizarre D&P document recently leaked to the public that is rife with misrepresentation and distortion as it disparages the respected Catholic pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition? How else to explain the hypocrisy of D&P itself resorting to an ugly smear campaign when just a year ago the overseas development agency was crying foul over alleged assaults on its integrity that, they cried, were fuelled by slander and unfounded accusations?