European Politics

The Canadian Centre for Ecumenism’s virtual event “The Itinerants Speak to us” provided a forum for society’s marginalized and voiceless to share their life story and offer perspective on how individuals can come together to combat poverty.

While visiting with a Catholic bishop in Egypt more than 15 years ago, Marie-Claude Lalonde, national director of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), recalls a moment when a call came in that a young Christian woman had been kidnapped.

One chilly morning, I boarded a city bus. All four linked cars were empty aside from me and the driver, who was making occasional cheery remarks over the loud-speaker. The usually-locked door between driver and passenger was propped open. 

It has become fashionable in certain Roman Catholic circles to attack critical race theory as if it were an all-encompassing ideology that threatens to destroy the Church, the university and the whole of society. These attacks risk plunging the Church into a divisive culture war instead of inviting us to reflect on racism as a form of social evil that Pope John Paul II called “structures of sin.”

Last year one international student living just outside Beijing, China, would get up at 3 a.m. to virtually attend an afternoon seminar at the University of St. Michael’s College, recalls Mark McGowan.

Unnecessary Act

I concur with your Feb. 20 editorial “Damaging Lies” in its non-partisan criticism of the Prime Minister’s “political lies” directed at the trucker “Freedom Convoy” protesters in Ottawa. He mendaciously called them a “fringe minority” of violent “racists.”  Many politicians, including two Liberal MP’s, voiced their disapproval of his “divisive and stigmatizing” comments.

Last Friday morning, in the leadup to Lent, with Vladimir Putin’s invading troops on the doorstep of Ukraine, Pope Francis paid a surprise call on his neighbours at the Russian embassy on Rome’s Via della Conciliazione. 

Dr. John Cappucci strove to present over 2,000 years of history in Catholic-Jewish relations in under 75 minutes during a Feb. 24 webinar called “The Church and the Jews: A Complete 180.”

After praying the Panachyda — traditional Byzantine prayers for the dead in time of war — Katia Metersky left Toronto’s St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in tears.

In February I decided to read Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. It was written 702 years ago and remains an exhausting, thrilling ride of the imagination. In essence, it’s one long poem that reads like an adventure novel, though few novelists have ever written a story so rich and holy.