How has the pledge to end poverty gone? Bloody terrible
By Michael Fullan, Catholic Register Special
Nov. 24 marked the 25th anniversary of a trail paved with good intentions but marred by broken promises.
The beginning of a new liturgical year is a suitable time to think about the liturgy in a broader and deeper way. Two recent books from Ignatius Press help us to do so in a devout and scholarly way. They are not for the casual reader, but parishioners looking to challenge their priests with some serious reading this Christmas would do well to consider them as gifts.
In mid-November, Pope Francis gave an address to new communities and ecclesial movements in the Church that was, even by his high standards, utterly inspiring.
Jason Brown was making millions of dollars playing in the NFL when he suddenly quit last winter to answer a call to feed the poor.
One of the highlights of the year just ending was the canonization of the greatest pope and dominant religious figure of our times, John Paul II. Over the years I had attended many such events as a reporter or broadcaster in the media section, but I thought that this time I would take it in as a pilgrim. That meant arriving in St. Peter’s Square some four hours or so before the Mass began. How to spend those hours in a suitably pious and productive way? After all, the breviary and rosary don’t take that long, even at a leisurely pace.
Ontario’s Ministry of Education has launched an online survey regarding the sex-ed component of a new health and physical education curriculum for elementary schools. According to an information package, the ministry is seeking input from 4,000 selected parents — one from every elementary school in the province — as it finalizes a new curriculum for implementation next September.
The problem with earthly justice is that sometimes it seems to take its good old time and other times it just doesn’t seem to exist at all.
Four months after its health care policy for refugee claimants was ruled unconstitutional, Ottawa has grudgingly relented to a judge’s order and returned many — but not all — benefits to the needy people it had previously abandoned. We say grudgingly because the immigration minister remains determined to continue a court battle in defence of a policy that a federal court has already — and quite rightly — denounced as “cruel and unusual.”
So often we hear and read about the lives of the rich, powerful and famous. Celebrity seems to rule our culture.
But reflection on the lives of the ordinary, the everyday, the taken-for-granted, is often far more illuminating. If we look beyond the glitz we can see the real stars, the real world, and answers to some of the real questions.
Imagine for a moment that you have no home.
What would you do for meals today? Where would you shower? Where would you sleep? If you have children, how would you provide for them?
The controversies surrounding the recent extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family have often put me in mind of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the greatest Catholic churchman of the 19th century. Newman wrote eloquently on an extraordinary range of topics, but the arguments around the Synod compel us to look at Newman’s work regarding the evolution of doctrine.