Columns

By the time you read this, the College of Cardinals will most likely have elected a new pope. However, before the conclave began, the cardinals appear to have gone to great lengths in discussing the issues facing the Church and drawing a profile of the man best able to meet those challenges.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

There's a disturbing trend within our churches. Simply put, we are seeing the embrace of our churches become less and less inclusive. More and more, our churches are demanding a purity and exclusivity not demanded by Jesus in the Gospels.

KATHLEEN GIFFIN

Passion Sunday
March 24, 2013

My backyard is again filled with snow, the birds are eager at the feeder, and the icicles hang long and pointed off the eaves. It's hard to believe Easter is so near, that the Passion of our Lord is so soon to be remembered.

Commitment to human dignity is needed more than ever in our world today. One billion among us go hungry, and countless others are sacrificed to the idols of greed, violence and war.

BOB MCKEON

Each year, on Ash Wednesday, Catholic clergy, religious and lay people who pray the daily Prayer of the Church read the assigned Scripture from Isaiah 58 that speaks about fasting that is pleasing to God. The prophet Isaiah says, "Is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free."

BISHOP FRED HENRY

In Kia's Super Bowl ad (which we weren't able to see on Canadian television stations), a son asks his father where babies come from. The father (behind the wheel of a new Kia Sorento) is so distressed by the question, he concocts a story about how babies come from a distant planet called Babylandia.

Do I Believe Christ descended into Hell – and on the third day – He rose again?

Blessed John Paul II was able to challenge the false god of communism and win a victory. Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his pontificate to overcoming a much more resilient idol – what he called the dictatorship of relativism.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

Anxiety, like all tensions, eats at us at various levels. More superficially, we worry about many things. Deep down though we are anxious in a way that colours most everything we do. So much of what motivates and drives us is an unconscious attempt to free ourselves from anxiety.

MARIA KOZAKIEWICZ

Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 17, 2013

In antiquity, adultery was considered one of the most severe transgressions a woman could commit. Not only was it seen as a fundamental breach of trust, but it also put into doubt the paternity of children raised in the family. A child born out of wedlock, passed off as a legitimate heir could eventually lead to transfer of family property into a stranger's hands.