Arts and Culture

John Paul II film released on DVD

June 28, 2007

The late Pope John Paul II is brought to life with the DVD release of the two-part mini-series aired on CBC this past summer, entitled Karol, A Man Who Became Pope and Karol: The Pope, The Man.

From Genesis to the Apocalypse

June 28, 2007

The most important information in the bookends of the Bible, Genesis and Apocalypse, is the stuff that tells us who we are. Identity is one of the most deeply religious questions we can ask.

A prisoner of his own mind

June 28, 2007

The worst thing you can say about a religion is that it is a self-imposed prison of the mind — an identity of limits that deforms the human soul.

The Yes Men

June 28, 2007

The telling moment in The Yes Men comes at the three-quarter mark when intrepid pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno engage in a wistful meditation on satire.

Battlefield for the soul

June 28, 2007

We ask God not to lead us into temptation because temptation is real. If Jesus had to face it in His 40 days in the desert, then there's no reason to believe any of us will be spared such a quintessentially human experience.

Thrill-ride to redemption

June 28, 2007

There's no reason to think a movie that moves so much you may need Gravol with your popcorn is necessarily a good thing, but The Bourne Supremacy is a much better wild ride than you might expect from an action movie sequel whose title seems aimed at 13-year-old wrestling fans. Underneath the juvenile title is a very adult film that uses the paranoid's paradise conceit of the international thriller genre to probe questions of identity, sin and redemption. Matt Damon again plays Jason Bourne, a young soldier brainwashed by an ultra secret arm of the CIA to be the American government's assassin. When we last saw him in The Bourne Identity, he had woken up with amnesia and the instincts of a very efficient killer.

A western that parallels events today

June 28, 2007

Contrary to rumours carried by the better class of newspaper, western movies are not dead and will not die. The west, the frontier, the endless sky, the open plain, the man on horseback, the pistol, the rifle, the Indian, the settler, the rancher and the farmer have a claim on the American imagination because they're there in American history. Or, never mind the history. Director Ron Howard's new movie demonstrates that the beautiful landscape of mountains and plains is still beautiful - still the best backdrop a movie could ever hope for.

A generational look at God

June 22, 2007

Conversations with Poppi about God by Robert W. Jenson and Solveig Lucia Gold (Brazos Press, 160 pages). American theologian Robert W. Jenson and his eight-year-old granddaughter, Solveig Lucia Gold, exchange questions about the Christian faith in their book Conversations with Poppi about God.

Digital revolution creates opportunities for religion

June 17, 2007

SHERBROOKE, Que. - There is a “digital revolution” transforming today’s mass media in ways that pose both risks and opportunities for evangelization, says a Quebec communications expert.

Partners missing from debate

June 8, 2007

Catholic Women in Ministry: Changing the Way Things Are by Marie-Louise Ternier-Gommers (Novalis, 216 pages, softcover, $21.95). “The laity, however, are given this special vocation: to make the church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that it can become the salt of the earth.” - Lumen Gentium, 33 The Second Vatican Council document, Lumen Gentium, defines the special role of laypeople in the church. It is now more than 40 years since the Council told the laity to make its contribution to “the sanctification of the world,” and the response has been monumental. It is everywhere around us — in volunteer ministry in our parishes and in professional ministry where the shortage of priests has created opportunities for laypeople to exercise their gifts in hospital, prison and school chaplaincy, in pastoral work in parishes and in education, music and liturgy.