FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

A friend of mine, who is somewhat bitter and cynical about the church, recently remarked: "What the institutional church today is trying to do is to put the best face on the fact that it's dying. Basically, it's trying to manage a death!"

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

Some years ago, CBC TV aired a drama that ran something like this:

Three middle-aged couples from Ontario decided to take a summer camping holiday together. The holiday was meant to be a middle-aged fling of sorts, a reunion of old college friends who had spent the last 25 years raising children and paying mortgages and doing the kinds of civic and church things that come with the turf.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

In October 1993, Robert Latimer, a Saskatchewan farmer, looked at his severely handicapped daughter, Tracy, and decided she should no longer have to live with her constant pain. He gently carried her to the family truck, hooked a hose from the exhaust to the cab, and watched as his daughter died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

In this life there is no such thing as a clear-cut, pure joy. Everything comes mixed. As Henri Nouwen once put it: Every bit of life is touched by a bit of death. In every satisfaction there is limitation; in every embrace, there is distance; in every success, there is the fear of jealousy; behind every smile, there is a tear; and in all forms of light there is knowledge of the surrounding darkness.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

Some years ago, counselling a young nun who was trying to make sense of her struggle with religious life, I learned something about religious ambivalence. Her life embodied it.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

Today it is fashionable to criticize the church and blame it for virtually every kind of problem; war, prejudice, injustice and lack of equality. People point to the church's worst moments – the Crusades, religious wars, the Inquisition, its former sanctioning of racism and sexism, its historical resistance to various social and scientific advances, some of its present struggles with fidelity to its own ideals – and they conclude that the world would be better off without it.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

For a great number of people the date, Jan. 1, 2000, is of immense significance. They conceive of this date as, literally, something that comes along only once every thousand years.