Last week, I went to see director Neil Burger's seductively charming (and faintly sinister) new film The Illusionist. The story has to do with a young magician (excellent Edward Norton) in Vienna, circa 1900, who falls in love with a titled aristocrat (Jessica Biel), much to the annoyance of the lady's suitor, the Austrian crown prince (Rufus Sewell). This tale is intriguing and the photography is sumptuous — though that's not why I am bringing up the film now.

When I first read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in 1960, this ironic novel from 1932 about the distant future had been around for a little over 25 years. But already its predictions seemed to be coming true, at least in the affluent North American society in which I lived as a young man.

Last month in Ottawa, the Anglican Catholic Church — not to be confused with either the Anglican Church of Canada or the Catholic Church — consecrated two new bishops. According to all reports, it was a moment of celebration for the small denomination, which, some 30 years ago, split off from mainstream Anglicanism over the ordination of women.

Among the initiatives of the Second Vatican Council aimed at making the church’s ancient rites more accessible to God’s people, the reforms and translations of the Mass have been the most successful, as well as the most controversial. Less successful, however, have been the attempts to bring the Liturgy of the Hours — the church’s majestic daily prayer — out of the cloister and the priest’s study and into the daily life of Christians.

As one of those who opposed U.S. military intervention in Iraq from the outset of this adventure four years ago, I would have liked the quick official response of the American Catholic bishops to President George Bush's recent decision to boost U.S. military force in Iraq to go further than it did, and declare the intervention to be immoral at its very core. As it stands, however, the statement issued on Jan. 12 by Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is wise and sensible counsel about the extraordinarily difficult situation faced by the Western principals in the conflict.

God’s Warriors, the six-hour CNN special report broadcast over three evenings in late August, was promoted as an even-handed look at the evil that Jewish, Christian and Islamic militants are promoting in the name of God. Hosted by Iranian-born reporter Christiane Amanpour, a CNN heavyweight, the series purported to document the dark taste for violence in all three religions with roots in Holy Scripture, and, by implication, the violence of biblical religion itself.

The news from the frontier between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is seldom good, and usually awful. Headline after headline in the mainstream media confirm the popular (and hardly inaccurate) view that the border is a place of violence and danger, where Israeli soldiers daily face death and injury from suicide bombers and armed militants, and Palestinian citizens are constantly liable to harassment and arrest.

Against this baleful backdrop of discord and suffering, however, a new and more hopeful story has begun to emerge.

{mosimage}When death came for Swedish film and theatre director Ingmar Bergman in late July, it found a lonely old man living on a desolate island, whose most important accomplishments in art lay far in the past. He still had numerous fans, as we were reminded by the outpouring of tributes. But despite the polite homage often paid him by younger directors, he had no followers in Scandinavia or anywhere else.

{mosimage}In recent years, the world has witnessed a remarkable upsurge of popular interest in cities. Architects, planners and myriad ordinary citizens are talking, as never before, about what makes cities work and what can be done to make them work better. The topics of this optimistic discussion are wide-ranging; they include sustainability and transportation, the problems and opportunities of suburban development and the enhancement of the public realm.

{mosimage}Though design is an important part of it, Toronto’s 21st century wave of new cultural buildings is about more than just architecture. It’s also about city-building: how best to create an urban complex that is beautiful and liveable, and that serves the millions who live here. Each of the new structures we see going up suggests a different approach to this crucial task.