How often have we heard (or declared ourselves): “I can say what I want! Last time I checked this was a free country!” Um, when was the last time you checked?

Over my 14 years working at Development and Peace – Caritas Canada I have given a countless number of public presentations and workshops on our mission. This has involved sharing story after story of the violence, poverty and injustice of our broken world. Of all the questions people have asked me, there is one that arises again and again: “How do you stay hopeful?”

A friend contacted me a few days ago incensed by Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole banishing Ontario MP Derek Sloan from the party in mid-January.

The message was “blunt,” as he intended it to be: “The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure … and the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries.”

Bad fruit

Re: Biden poses issues for U.S. bishops (Jan. 17):

I am sick and tired of Catholics in general and the leadership in the Church supporting cultural Catholics/Christians.

It has been 25 years since Canada celebrated its first Black History Month, a good time to take stock of how we, as a nation, have embraced the commitment to end racism.

It is one disaster down and one more to go. The first disaster was, of course, the House of Commons passing Bill C-7 that will make being killed by your friendly doctor a lot easier. Thanks, Justin, for your concern for the health of your fellow Canadians. How progressive.

An early December editorial cartoon struck a sympathetic chord with me. It depicted a weary Father Time, sitting at a bar and pleading to be relieved of duty early. Enough is enough, his hoary visage seemed to say.

“I am enough” is a mantra I’ve carried close to my heart these last few years. Brené Brown taught me about being enough with her meditations on the Gifts of Imperfection. Parenthood forced me to acknowledge both what I cannot do and how to show up imperfectly for my kids. And I have been teetering for the last several weeks on an edge of enough I had not seen before.

U.S. President Joe Biden is the most publicly religious American president since at least Jimmy Carter. Biden is knowledgeable of Catholic social teaching. He is comfortable talking about his faith, attends Mass weekly and prays his rosary regularly. Yet, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is not comfortable with Biden. The reason? He is an unabashed supporter of abortion rights.