There is an old saying, “Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.” The truth is that we are all a complex blend of saint and sinner whose scales of sanctity teeter on a delicate balance throughout life.

It has become fashionable in certain Roman Catholic circles to attack critical race theory as if it were an all-encompassing ideology that threatens to destroy the Church, the university and the whole of society. These attacks risk plunging the Church into a divisive culture war instead of inviting us to reflect on racism as a form of social evil that Pope John Paul II called “structures of sin.”

Unnecessary Act

I concur with your Feb. 20 editorial “Damaging Lies” in its non-partisan criticism of the Prime Minister’s “political lies” directed at the trucker “Freedom Convoy” protesters in Ottawa. He mendaciously called them a “fringe minority” of violent “racists.”  Many politicians, including two Liberal MP’s, voiced their disapproval of his “divisive and stigmatizing” comments.

Last Friday morning, in the leadup to Lent, with Vladimir Putin’s invading troops on the doorstep of Ukraine, Pope Francis paid a surprise call on his neighbours at the Russian embassy on Rome’s Via della Conciliazione. 

In February I decided to read Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. It was written 702 years ago and remains an exhausting, thrilling ride of the imagination. In essence, it’s one long poem that reads like an adventure novel, though few novelists have ever written a story so rich and holy.

We find ourselves in difficult times as Canadians, and in her Feb. 9 column, “Divide and conquer? Never in Canada,” Sr. Helena Burns is attempting to bring us together — particularly now, when there are people who are seeking to divide us.  In our Jewish tradition, we learn that humanity was created through one being so that no one could ever say that someone is better than another.

Word of a “Freedom Convoy” first reached my ears while I was still far away in Rome. Weeks later, much ink has been spilled, arrests have been made, a $306-million class-action lawsuit is underway, the federal Emergencies Act was invoked for the first time and Angus-Reid published poll results with the headline, “Three-in-four Canadians tell convoy protesters, Go Home Now.” What is a Catholic to think?

Theology of me

Sr. Helena Burns’ Feb. 13 column “ Divide and Conquer? Never in Canada” raises the question of whether, in her world, the democratically elected government is the enemy of freedom. Is the sight of a military-style convoy of massive intimidating trucks, each one representing just one person, flying dual flags, blasting any opposition with their air horns, and illegally occupying and thwarting everyone else’s freedom really “glorious” to her?

Seven years ago this spring a high-profile and very public Catholic commentator noisily left the Church after having already abandoned and returned to it previously.

On Feb. 2 an earth-shaking event occurred in the Catholic Church and barely a peep was peeped. Of course, we’re kind of getting used to the fact that the media often ignore major happenings that would be of interest to, oh, say, 1.2 billion people or more. And this was huge. Unpreceded. Shocking.