{mosimage}Eleven days into a 48-day fast, Jesuit Father John McCarthy was feeling pretty good.

“I haven’t noticed anything yet, other than a bit of weight loss,” McCarthy told The Catholic Register from Corner Brook, Nfld. “But in terms of energy level and everything else — well, it’s only 11 days.”

That is 11 days living on nothing but water and juice. McCarthy never liked V8 juice, but he’s acquiring a taste for the low-sodium variety. The most substantial thing he drinks is Sunkist strawberry and banana smoothies. He’s going through a fair amount of cranberry juice. He doesn’t have a blender.

{mosimage}The cross of St. Andrew, the Saltire, has been a symbol of the apostle’s martyrdom, a symbol of Roman imperial power, the flag of Scotland, the flag of Jamaica and the ensign of the Russian navy.

Now the ancient Christian standard is on its way to Canada from Mexico, where a group of Mexican lay evangelists have pointed out that it looks a lot like a multiplication sign.

The St. Andrew School of Evangelization based in Guadalajara, Mexico, wants to multiply the experience of Christ by forming new evangelists for the 21st century. The 25-year-old group has established national offices in Mexico, Colombia, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Hungary, Argentina, the United States and Quebec. It is setting the stage for a push into English Canada with courses offered at Belleville’s St. Michael’s parish.

{mosimage}Toward the end of 44 days of fasting (see Jesuit's fast shows care for creation ) — living on nothing but juice and water throughout Lent — Jesuit Father John McCarthy found he didn't have the energy to exercise any more.

He also found the cross-country flight he had to take from Deer Lake, Nfld., to Vancouver during the last week of Lent a bit trying.

For the first few days following the end of Lent on Holy Thursday, McCarthy's stomach was feeling a touch delicate. And he did lose some weight. He estimates he's down about 15 kilos or 35 lbs.

{mosimage}What’s a fast for? As Muslims make their way through the month of Ramadan and Jews get ready for Yom Kippur, that simple question can prompt many answers — depending on your point of view.

“People do stuff like not eat in a very scrupulous way in order to avoid having to go to the trouble of being good people,” said Dan Merkur, psychoanalyst and University of Toronto lecturer in comparative religious studies.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Saving the priesthood in the era of sex scandals, skepticism about church authority and a disengaged laity is going to depend on hope, according to the author of a new book about the spirituality of parish priests.

More famous for his writing on Catholic education, Msgr. Dennis Murphy has just launched A View From The Trenches: Ups And Downs Of Today’s Parish Priest — a 140-page examination of how priests are coping.

{mosimage}If it’s been a while since your mother asked whether you could just be quiet for a minute, get ready. Mother church is about to start asking again.

Catholics have been fighting over the words in the 2008 amended typical edition of the Roman missal, but perhaps the most noticeable change will be in the  non-speaking parts. Before the opening prayer, after each of the readings and after communion, the new instructions for how to celebrate Mass will ask for a period of silence.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Alvera Nyabasa grew up going to church in her native Zimbabwe, but she had little idea what was going on before she moved to Canada as an adult. Like 80 per cent of the world’s 1.3 million deaf Catholics who live in developing countries, Nyabasa grew up in a church that simply didn’t know how to deal with her.

Today, attending Sunday Mass with the De Salles Chaplaincy to Toronto’s deaf community is a happy occasion for Nyabasa and her two boys. There at St. Stephen’s Chapel on Bay Street, Fr. Harry Stocks says Mass in American Sign Language, or, if another priest is covering the Mass, it is simultaneously translated.

{mosimage}Canadians are evenly divided on Liberal leader Stephane Dion’s plan to use the tax system to reduce Canada’s disproportionate contribution to global warming.

When the Liberal carbon tax and its purpose was described to them by pollsters at Harris/Decima, 47 per cent of Canadians said they support the concept versus 39 per cent who were opposed.

In Davos at the World Economic Forum you might get to see Bono, Bill Gates and Nicholas Sarkozy having a quiet little chat. But you won't get to see what the Mary Durran saw in Dakar, Senegal, during this year's World Social Forum.

"I witnessed an exchange yesterday (Feb. 7) between a Cambodian organization and a Senegalese organization," Durran, of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, told The Catholic Register in an e-mail.

The Cambodians were worried by how government officials and corporations were working together to drive small farmers off their land so the companies can produce crops for export.

As Catholics and Anglicans sit down again for official theological dialogue this spring, they face the challenge of adding to some of the most substantial and carefully reasoned theological documents written in the last 35 years.

“It’s been some of the best theology of the 20th century, and we’re into the 21st century now. It’s excellent theology,” said Margaret O’Gara, a former Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) member and professor at Toronto’s University of St. Michael’s College.

A new stage of ARCIC discussions opens May 17 to 27 at the Monastery of Bose in northern Italy. The international dialogue group has been asked by the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI to examine “the Church as communion — local and universal” and “how in  communion the local and universal Church comes to discern right ethical teaching.”