{mosimage}The Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas has its fun parts. Buried right at the end of Part Two, in Question 169, Article 2, Thomas addresses the controversy of “Utrum Ornatus Mulierem Sit Sine Peccato (Whether the Adornment of Women is Devoid of Mortal Sin).”

As a father of a severely mentally disabled and autistic 21-year-old son (Justin) who suffers from a rare and incurable neurological disease, I would like to share a few reflections on the highly publicized Robert Latimer case and its implications for us as Catholics in our local parishes. 

{mosimage}During Lent, we are called as Catholics to renew our commitment to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. In the archdiocese of Toronto, the Catholic community comes together to support the most vulnerable and needy in our communities through ShareLife.

{mosimage}There is a letter by Dr. Frances Cole in the Dec. 22/29 edition of The Tablet, in which the writer claims that the absolute nature of certain official Catholic moral teachings makes her work as a Catholic GP and cognitive therapist impossible.

At the beginning of Lent I read an article about the adverse effects on our spirituality of the achievement- and consumer-oriented North American lifestyle and how to counteract them.

{mosimage}We love to talk about peace and what it means or may mean, and yet we know how elusive the definition and the experience can actually be. I suspect that is why we look for people who embody the “reality” of peace, individuals who have given themselves over to a life of creating a culture of peace, people who understand directly the costs of peace.

{mosimage}Charles Moore wrote a column not long ago in England’s Daily Telegraph so politically incorrect as to take my breath away.

I believe firmly in freedom of speech, but I do draw the line. Incitements to violence and murder are illegal in Canada, and well they should be. Libel, treason and sedition are also illegal. It is also wrong to pass off another’s words as one’s own. Meanwhile, I am not at all interested in freedom to create images — especially pornographic images.

It is only days away, that fatal day, that day with the power to cast single women into abject gloom and to send married men into a frenzy of procrastination; that day that crushes the joy out of men who love and rarely fails to disappoint the women who love them; that day that sends boys and girls hand in hand to their local Catholic college campus to watch The Vagina Monologues. Yes, my friends, Valentine’s Day is upon us again.

{mosimage}Lent is both a question and an answer. It is the Christian’s way of asking the fundamental human question of why there is evil if God is good. But in the asking the answer is found.