NEWS

We know Canadians love hearing about the American election. Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are just way more interesting than our blancmange politicians up here. Now you can get a truly Catholic perspective on the U.S. campaign from Catholic News Service, one of the most authoritative sources you can find.

In its Elections 2008 feature, the Christian, non-profit group Citizens for Public Justice is advocating a review of key election issues from a public justice lens. "A public justice lens challenges us to express love for our neighbour and seek the common good. It puts the values of justice, compassion and care for creation at the centre of political debates," according to its web site.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Catholic  Organization For Life and Family wants families to discover the sexual liberation buried in long-neglected Catholic teaching.

In its annual message to families, COLF uses the "theology of the body" as a way of talking about sexuality. COLF's goal is to disentangle thinking about sex from  sexual politics, commercialization, media images and pornography.

Catholics aren't the only Christians interested in politics. At www.ecumenism.net the ecumenical movement in Canada is highlighting all the election guides and kits put out by various churches.

{mosimage}TORONTO - By giving back his Order of Canada, Montreal Archbishop Jean-Claude Turcotte is joining a group of more than 100 MPs whose opposition to Dr. Henry Morgentaler's nomination has shone the election spotlight on the abortion debate in Canada, says a leading pro-life group.

Campaign Life Coalition national organizer Mary Ellen Douglas said Turcotte's Sept. 11 annoucement comes just three days after a Campaign Life ad, which appeared in the Sept. 8 edition of The Hill Times, a political newspaper in Ottawa, where the names of 106 Conservative and Liberal politicians opposing pro-abortion doctor Morgentaler's nomination were published.

Canada's Catholic bishops have released a four-page Federal Election 2008 Guide on their web site. The bishops take on complacency and apathy. "Catholics have an obligation to be interested in politics," they write in the introduction.

Two-tier medicine that puts the rich at the head of the line for everything from cancer therapy to hip replacements and legislation that would make cheap and easy euthanasia more readily available than quality palliative care are issues the Catholic Health Association hopes voters will question before they cast their ballots Oct. 14.

Jesuit Father Jim Profit is hopeful that political debate in Canada has begun to take notice of the state of the ecology. "Ultimately if the Earth doesn't survive the rest of us won't survive either. It's a key issue," said the director of the Jesuit Collaborative for Ecology, Forestry and Agriculture in Guelph.

It probably comes as no surprise to many Catholics that Nicole Charbonneau Barron, is running in the Montreal riding of St. Bruno-St. Hubert for the Conservatives. Charbonneau Barron is a member of Opus Dei, and the personnel prelature to the pope is generally associated with conservative, right wing politics.

Enquiring minds want to know what Catholic parishes can and cannot do in this federal election. Fortunately, before every election most bishops across Canada send detailed instructions to their pastors on this subject.