Since his election as bishop of Rome in 2005, Joseph Ratzinger has cut a considerably less controversial figure than he did in the old days, when he was the uncompromising head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But at least in Italy, a public appearance by our Pope outside the Vatican can still cause quite a ruckus.

{mosimage}For many people in the earthly city, the first of January marked the end of the gift-giving season. The exchange of holiday presents was over, and the last chance to make a charitable donation for 2007 had passed.

For Catholics and other Christians concerned with the advancement of justice, human rights and peace, 2007 has hardly been a year of encouragement. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on. The agony of Africa, afflicted by disease, war and famine, continued. And despite the pronouncements issued by the much-ballyhooed Bali conference, the world’s worst industrial polluters seemed as willing as ever to inflict long-term environmental damage in the interests of short-term economic gain.

{mosimage}Advent invites us to cast aside our pessimism about the present age, and boldly imagine the great new beginnings that God has promised to His people.

The culture of death hates the Catholic Church, with good reason. We stand for life in all its fullness, beauty and possibility, perhaps never before more actively and consistently than we do right now.

{mosimage}For many Catholics around the world, including this one, the joy of this Easter season has been shadowed by the sadness and rage we feel at the kidnapping and death of Paulos Faraj Rahho, Chaldean Catholic archbishop of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

{mosimage}The residential towers now sprouting up across downtown Toronto regularly rouse the ire of citizens. People don’t like these structures for all kinds of reasons: because they cast long shadows, because they increase local traffic, because they make bad fits with the often low-rise neighbourhoods that surround them. But until now, I’ve never heard people objecting to a high-rise development because it threatens to eat up a parking lot.

{mosimage}At last, the food crisis now afflicting millions of the Earth’s poorest people has caught the attention of the well-off nations of Europe and North America. One has to wonder whether we would have ever woken up had not riots and protests broken out earlier this year in a dozen countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.

The North American newspaper is a wonderful thing. Since its rise some 300 years ago, this medium has helped build civil society and advance democracy. It has linked people together over the vast distances of the continent, and it has provided these people with the facts about what is happening in the world, and why.