The insurrection to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is entering its 18th month but despite international condemnation of his brutal methods and economic sanctions against his regime, the dictator refuses to release his grip on power.

The United Nations estimates more than 10,000 Syrians — most of them civilians — have died in the fighting. Other groups cite fatality figures twice that number. In addition, more than a million people have fled their homes, including about 200,000 Syrians, mostly families, who’ve sought sanctuary in neighbouring countries.

Few if any people can feel safe today in Syria. But that is particularly true for Syria’s two million Christians. Under Assad, and his father before him, Christianity was tolerated and some Christians even held prominent government positions. Now Syria’s Christians expect a Muslim backlash when Assad’s overthrow, which seems inevitable, is completed.

Their fear is based on the winds of Christian persecution that blew through Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Like his  Sryian neighbour, Hussein was also tolerant of Christianity. But when his regime fell, thousands of Christians lost their homes and businesses. Many more were harassed, assaulted and large numbers killed. Tens of thousands fled as refugees, reducing Iraq’s Christian population by half.

It may already be too late to save Syria’s Christians from the same fate. But the international community has an obligation to flex its muscle and try. It must learn from its failure in Iraq and act decisively in Syria so that a civil rebellion to end repression doesn’t install a regime that imposes a new type of intolerance.

Pope Benedict has appealed for peace in Syria and for humanitarian aid to support the uncapped flow of refugees. Later this month, he will visit Lebanon and is expected to renew the Vatican’s call for religious freedom throughout the Middle East, home to 5.7 million Christians.

The Canadian government has pledged $10-million in humanitarian aid, including $2 million for emergency medical supplies. That’s a good start, but the aid must go quickly and efficiently into trusted hands who can ensure it is actually spent on humanitarian relief. There are several reputable agencies and NGOs (including the Catholic Near East Welfare Association) that know the political terrain and whose expertise the government should utilize. Even then, the government can do more. It must become vocal at the United Nations and other forums in demanding that Syria’s next government respect human rights, particularly those of its religious minorities. It should also heed calls from the opposition Liberals and temporarily relax immigration policies to make Canada more accessible to Syrian refugees.

Iraq showed what can happen when persecuted minorities are abandoned. A repeat shouldn’t be allowed to happen in Syria.

Quebec society has been chipping away at its religious foundation for years so it should be no surprise that the party poised to form the province’s next government is championing a full-blown Charter of Secularism.

Still, this is a sad testament on the state of spiritual life in what was once Canada’s most faith-filled province. Although there has been some opposition to the proposal, Quebecers have not risen up en masse to denounce the notion of a secular charter or to criticize its authors, the Parti Quebecois, which proposed this unfortunate piece of legislation.

PQ leader Pauline Marois intends to make her secularist charter a priority should her party form the government after Quebecers go to the polls Sept. 4. The gist of the policy is to prohibit public-sector employees from wearing “conspicuous religious signs.” The PQ has not released details, but the legislation is expected to target such religious items as the Jewish yarmulke, Muslim hijab and Sikh kirpan.

Such legislation would be a clear contravention of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects religious expression. But Marois said she’ll override the Charter by invoking the notwithstanding clause because, she said, “we insist on conserving our identity, our language, our institutions and our values.”

Catholic expressions of faith, however, are to be mostly exempt. Civil servants, for instance, will be permitted to wear a chain with a crucifix if it is “discreet,” and a large crucifix that hangs in the National Assembly will remain because, said Marois, it is a part of Quebec history and “we don’t have to renounce our history.”

Catholics should find little consolation in these concessions. All of society has a stake when any government disrespects fundamental rights. And all people of faith should be particularly alarmed when any group’s religious freedom is threatened.

Religious freedom is an inalienable right that is essential to the dignity of all people and, as such, it must be protected by civil authority, according to the catechism. Pope John Paul II said all social and cultural discrimination, including religious discrimination, must be “eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.” Pope Benedict once called it “inconceivable” that people should be forced to suppress their faith or “denied the right to act in accordance with their religious convictions.”

Pope Benedict’s comments were in response to violent persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa.  What the PQ proposes is tame by comparison. But it is discrimination nonetheless and should be denounced; freedom of religious expression is an inalienable right of all people.

Christian nations can hardly demand foreign governments respect the rights of religious minorities if Christians are unwilling to defend full expression of those fundamental freedoms at home.

The Vatican has made commendable efforts to integrate modern communication tools into its daily routines. Even the Pope has embraced the Internet and encouraged such social media innovations as blogs, Twitter and Facebook. Yet it’s been like entering a Ferrari in the Formula 1 racing circuit without hiring a professional driver.

That has changed, however, with the recent appointment of a seasoned journalist who brings impressive newspaper and television credentials into the new role of senior communications advisor in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Greg Burke, 52, left Fox News to take the wheel of the Vatican’s communication machine. His daunting challenge is to steer the Church clear of the public relations potholes that, in recent years, have so often jarred all Catholics.

Hiring a qualified professional for this critical role is long overdue. The Church has been hammered in the international media almost from the day in 2005 that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, chided in the press as the Vatican’s bulldog, became Pope Benedict XVI. In countless media accounts, the new Pope suffered in comparisons to his popular predecessor, John Paul II. It has been a losing battle since then to usher the secular media past its bias and stereotyping and have them report fairly and accurately on the Pope and Church events.

That now become’s Burke’s job. His resume suggests he is up to the challenge. He came to Rome in 1988 as a correspondent for the U.S.-based National Catholic Register and has covered the Vatican ever since. After a decade as a Time magazine correspondent,  he joined Fox News in 2001 and has covered the papacy extensively, developing a reputation for fairness and accuracy. Burke, a member of Opus Dei, calls himself an old-fashioned mid-western Catholic.

A sense of what he faces was evident in a snide account of his hiring in a prominent London, England, newspaper. It read: “The scandal-plagued Vatican has hired a U.S. news specialist to drag its public-relations operations out of the dark ages.” The Vatican is hardly “scandal-plagued” or stuck in the “dark ages” but those types of messages are consistently delivered to Catholics and non-Catholics by the secular media.

Burke’s unenviable task is to not only reverse the negative messaging but, in a dizzying world of media overload and sound bites, he must show Vatican leaders how to effectively communicate the Church’s message. That won’t be easy. It requires a confident communications strategy to rebuild the Church’s image, but also a resolve to respond quickly, directly and candidly to harmful, often inaccurate stories about the Church.

Burke acknowledges that counselling the Pope and his advisors is “a little bit scary.” He says any turnaround will take time, but putting a qualified professional behind the wheel is a positive start.

Blessed John Paul II, an avid sportsman in his youth, once lauded the moral value of sports. “They are a training ground of virtue,” he said.

His wisdom is worth contemplating during a busy summer that, in addition to the usual menu of baseball, football, tennis, golf, etc., offers the Olympic Summer Games in London, England.

Unfortunately, virtue can sometimes be difficult to find in modern sport. Multi-million-dollar professional salaries, bloated  TV ratings and lucrative endorsements frequently breed a cult of celebrity that often spawns immoral behaviour both on and off the playing field.

The Olympics are supposed to represent sport in its purest form but, even if that was once the case, that purity has been compromised. Commercialism is rampant and, in many glamour sports, the financial stakes are high. Organizers in London will spend millions of dollars on drug testing and it will be a shock if they fail to expose some cheaters.

But those inevitable incidents shouldn’t detract from the overall celebration of virtue that Pope John Paul II believed was the essence of sport.

John Paul II was affectionately known as the “athlete pope.” As a student he was a runner and soccer player and later became an ardent swimmer, skier and hiker. He believed that sport, in its pure form, could provide an arena for evangelization because the attributes required to become a champion — sacrifice, passion, obedience, discipline — were similar in many respects to those required to become a saint.

Sportsmanship, as an ideal, is all about character. It’s about humility, honesty, loyalty, respect and generosity. It is not a quest for perfection but, like a faith journey, is a quest for virtue. There will be moments of temptation and times of failure but the true sportsman, like the faithful person, will acknowledge setbacks with integrity and strive to become better.

John Paul II once said the Church values sport because it advances the complete development of the body and soul and contributes to the advancement of a more human society. He believed the virtues evident in true sport could cultivate harmony among cultures and peace among nations.

“Sports have, in themselves, an important moral and educative significance,” said John Paul II. “They are a training ground of virtue, a school of inner balance and outer control, an introduction to more true and lasting conquests.”

He called sport a gift from God to mankind. And like the late pope, the 19th-century founders of the modern Olympics believed in sport as a training ground of virtue.

That noble ideal may have taken a beating over the past century, but the pursuit of virtue is still worth championing and, when it bubbles to the surface in a young athlete, well worth celebrating.

At first glance, the appointment of Julian Fantino to replace Bev Oda as Canada’s Minister of International Co-operation seems an odd choice.

Fantino inherits responsibility for overseeing a $5-billion aid budget co-ordinated through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Becoming the public face of Canadian charity is a big leap for someone best known as a hard-nosed cop who, if he has a soft side, keeps it well hidden.

Then again, Fantino may be exactly what CIDA needs.

Canada Day is a time to give thanks for the many blessings we enjoy as Canadians. Few nations are so fundamentally committed to freedom, democracy and peace. These common values are the building blocks of a society of unparalleled diversity and tolerance that, while still a work in progress, deserves a national celebration.

But we shouldn’t allow the fireworks to divert our attention from a troubling trend. A belligerent secularism has a hold on popular culture and is causing a re-interpretation, if not a re-definition, of two fundamental Canadian rights — freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.

And so it begins.

The B.C. Supreme Court has overruled Parliament to decree it lawful for a doctor to kill Gloria Taylor. Canada’s first legal physician-assisted suicide will occur when (and if) Taylor decides to proceed, despite Criminal Code statutes forbidding assisted suicide and valid concerns that Canada is on a slippery slope towards indiscriminate euthanasia.

According to the legal logic of Madam Justice Lynn Smith, a disabled person’s constitutional rights must include an equal opportunity to commit suicide. Suicide is legal in Canada but aiding suicide is not. But when illness or disability makes someone physically incapable of killing themselves, they deserve a helping hand,  Smith ruled.

The Ontario government’s so-called anti-bullying legislation, Bill-13, is a failure of lawmaking.

It mocks religious freedom and disrespects parental rights. It undermines the authority of elected trustees and school principals by giving veto power to children and teens with respect to some after-school clubs. It awards special status to certain types of bullying rather than uniformly attacking bullying in all its forms.

Dalton McGuinty may not trust high school students to make smart choices about what to eat for lunch but he believes they are mature enough to overrule parents, principals and trustees on serious matters pertaining to sexuality and bullying.

At noon McGuinty insists adults must impose healthy food on kids in cafeterias. But if those same teenagers, who could be as young as 13, meet after school to discuss sexual orientation, gender identity and bullying, McGuinty will let them impose their will on their adult supervisors.

Welcome to the bizarre world of Ontario education, where vegetables may be mandatory but respect for religious tolerance and diversity is optional.

Cardinal Thomas Collins is puzzled and troubled by the Ontario government's reversal on a key aspect of Bill-13 but says it's premature to speculate on a court challenge to keep gay-straight alliances out of Catholic high schools.

Collins responded on May 28 to Education Minister Laurel Broten's announcement three days earlier that the government's anti-bullying Bill-13 will be amended to prevent Catholic school boards from blocking clubs called gay-straight alliances (GSAs). Under the amended legislation, the naming of such clubs will be solely up to students. Previously, the bill said clubs that deal with sexual orientation and gender issues could be called a gay-straight alliance "or another name."