A legacy is a powerful idea, a way to project the values, hopes and ideals a person has struggled for in this life out into the future, beyond their own life span.

An Investors Group study into inheritance has found that about $1 trillion will pass from Canada’s older generation into younger hands by 2020. A lot of that money is bound to wind up in the hands of individuals, particularly the 9.9 million Canadian baby boomers now between 46 and 66 years old.

People might think of accountants as the guys with sharp pencils who keep the money safely in their clients’ pockets, but a chartered accountant might also be the ideal person to talk to about emptying those pockets.

TORONTO - A gift of $15,000 is probably a lot easier to make if a $6,000 tax break goes along with it. That’s the new economics of giving stocks and bonds to charity, and it likely explains why the archdiocese of Toronto has received more donations of securities this year than in the last three years combined.

TORONTO - Increasingly, more married and single fathers decide to stay home with their children rather than work full-time, according to Andrea Doucet

TORONTO - The art of decision-making often leads students to a crossroad, not knowing which way to turn. What university do I attend? What do I want to be? What is my vocation?

Editor’s note: The following address was presented by retired Canadian senator Douglas Roche, a noted author and veteran advocate for nuclear disarmament from Edmonton. It was given at the Lauriston Jesuit Centre for Social Justice in Edinburgh on Oct. 3. Roche, whose most recent book is The Human Right to Peace (Novalis, 2003), was also welcomed at the Scottish Parliament along with Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien and other church leaders and members of Parliament. The visit was facilitated by Pax Christi.

A time traveller from the Cold War would find it astonishing that nuclear weapons are still very much part of the global landscape. The opportunity that arose at the end of the Cold War in 1989 to get rid of nuclear weapons was squandered. Today, there are still 27,000 nuclear weapons held by eight states which together comprise almost half of humanity.

Catholics the world over are familiar with the New Testament, that portion of the Bible that speaks of a new covenant with God as represented through the life and death of Jesus. But the selection and acceptance of the writings that make up the New Testament formed a complex and highly controversial process that was still being debated within the church 400 years after the birth of Christ.

BEIJING - Some time after Easter, Pope Benedict XVI was to issue a letter to Chinese Catholics that many hope will call for reconciliation and unity between those who have registered with the government and those who have not registered.