Speaking Out

If you have seen a Christian movie, you probably know that many are cheesy, low-budget films that are rarely lucky enough to make their way into theatres.

One would think, as a teenage girl, suicide should be the very last thing on my mind. But in a recent conversation with my grandfather, I’ve had reason to reflect on just how much Canadians have changed their perspective on assisted suicide and what a contrast it is to his generation.

I can’t express the sadness my heart feels at the rising rate of suicide among young people today. The numbers are staggering and I feel helpless thinking of so many who have lost hope.

I see the world enduring endless strife and conflict. But beyond this chaos, I see people standing to fight for humanity.

Maybe I should get a phone. Almost everyone I know has a phone, but at the age of 17, I’ve never had one. At first it was because of my parents. Now that they have given me the opportunity to have a phone, I’ve been weighing the possibility.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias is encouraging his clergy in the Archdiocese of Mumbai to imitate the recently slain priest, Fr. Jacques Hamel. The French priest was brutally killed by two men proclaiming loyalty to the Islamic State on July 26.

In the short two weeks I spent in Poland for WYD, I underwent a profound spiritual revival, one which I had been searching for over the last few years.

I have begun my very first major pilgrimage. On July 20, I’ll board a flight to Warsaw, Poland, where for the following 12 days I’ll join thousands of others partaking in cultural and religious events at World Youth Day, created more than 30 years ago by St. John Paul II. This year’s event is being held in his homeland, Krakow, where he was archbishop.

In the UK, a Catholic teenager is suing his former employer and co-workers for religious aggravated assault. The teenager claims he was subjected to a “mock crucifixion,” tying him from a makeshift wooden cross. The court case addresses other indidents in which his co-workers drew crosses and phallic symbols all over the teenager’s body with permanent marker, setting spray deodorant aflame near his head and giving him a forcible wedgie that caused cuts and bruises.

St. John the Baptist, the Jewish preacher who baptized Jesus in the River Jordan, is celebrated annually in Quebec on his feast day, June 24. It’s a national holiday often accompanied by different Quebecois traditions.