The carnage has begun. Is there any way it can end without the annihilation of Ukraine? NATO has (rightly) refused to enter the fray, fearing that its participation will lead to the further spread of war and possibly to nuclear war. Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are having no effect on the fighting. It may be months before economic sanctions bring Russia to its knees. Ukraine’s heroic defence is no match in the short run for Russia’s military might.

Three cheers for the more than 30 million Canadians who chose to be vaccinated against the COVID virus. You have played an invaluable role in limiting the virulence and death toll of a disease which ravaged many nations much more than Canada.

As a young man, I developed a curiosity about the Cistercian way of life. Part of my interest came from reading books by Thomas Merton, the dissolute young man who discovered a unity of life and spirit upon entering the Trappist monastery in Kentucky.

In last week’s column I recalled Pope John Paul II’s call for “a patient and fraternal dialogue” among Christian leaders and theologians on possible reform of papal primacy. The day after I sent that column to TheRegister for publication, I received my copy of the British Catholic magazine TheTablet in which Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, discussed the same topic.

From Jan. 18 to 25 each year, the Christian church celebrates the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The week, really an octave, is a time when Christians of various denominations hold joint services in each other’s churches to pray for full visible unity of the communion of believers.

Growing numbers of commentators are warning of “a grave danger” to American democracy — the possibility of a civil war or other anti-democratic actions by right-wing extremists aimed at overthrowing the United States government.

The day of reckoning is upon us; how can we respond?

In a speech to an international congress in Madrid last month, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Jose Gomez, painted movements of social justice, “wokeness” and identity politics as pseudo-religions.

Omar El Akkad begins his novel, What Strange Paradise, with this sentence: “The child lies on the shore.” That beginning calls to mind the photo of the dead three-year-old refugee Alan Kurdi whose body was washed ashore on a Mediterranean island in September 2015. The photo sparked heightened global concern for Syrian refugees and an upsurge in donations to help migrants and refugees.

Today, I phoned to book a haircut only to find that Pat, my stylist of the past two years, had died of the delta variant of COVID. When I last saw him in late August, he looked fit and healthy as ever. I phoned back a month later to set my next haircut appointment but was told Pat was off work because he was having back problems. He died shortly after that call.