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Esteemed theological thinkers will doubtless spend the coming months scratching their parses on the latest exhortation from Pope Francis, Querida Amazonia

How does tyranny arrive? And what does it look like once it has? At times it comes like a bomb that overturns all existing norms. Think of a military junta or the sudden collapse of order following massive protests and riots.

When I was a young journalist, I joined the Volunteers, a group associated with the Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate (OMMI), a secular institute, and began to take part in their regular discussion groups. Early on, we discussed the five elements of the OMMI spirituality. 

A good friend of mine, a fellow scotch aficionado, sent me a story which is an adaptation of a well-known leadership story, popularized by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Plain wrong

Regarding the government’s consultations on euthanasia, it is obvious that the justice department is making a pretence of listening to input from Canadians, as happened when euthanasia was legalized in 2016.

When Ottawa legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, Canada’s bishops were dubious about claims the new law would sharply reduce youth pot consumption or eliminate the black market.

Francis Campbell’s column last week about a 200-year-old teapot, a story steeped in family history and faith, brought to mind a three-decade-old tale about another family heirloom.

It’s an impossibly tight deadline that the Trudeau government has deliberately created, but one we must respond to with great urgency. 

War-free world

Re: Victims of madness (Jan. 19):

Returning from a recent visit to the Holy Land, Winnipeg Archbishop Richard Gagnon compared the Palestinian territory of Gaza to a prison.

It’s true there’s a challenge, to say the least, in seeing the “bigger picture” when the picture’s focus is life and death itself.