In what came as a shock to some, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush promoted condom use “every time” in the pages of the Washington Post on Dec. 1. Writing on World AIDS Day, Bush urged: “Practise safe sex,” and advocated the “correct and consistent use of condoms” which, she said, “means not just occasionally, but every time.”

{mosimage}Pope Benedict XVI told members of the International Theological Commission, in an October address, that the natural law must be the foundation of democracy, so that those in power are not given the chance to determine what is good or evil.

{mosimage}Outside a small circle of socially conservative Catholics, few people have heard of Catholic Insight magazine. Yet all of us — Catholic, non-Catholic, religious and nonreligious — should be concerned about its fate as it faces a complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

{mosimage}The Bouchard-Taylor Commission, now finishing up its work on reasonable accommodation in Quebec, is only the most significant example of the struggle we have in Canada of finding ways to live together with growing ethnic, religious and cultural differences. There have been many others. And this will only intensify as the country continues to evolve thanks to growing immigration.

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.

 
The countdown is on for my eldest daughter’s mission trip. It’s only a few weeks away now. She’ll be travelling to the Dominican Republic to build housing as part of the Dominican Republic Education and Medical Supplies (D.R.E.A.M.S.) project. This is her high school’s second year participating.

{mosimage}Many people are filled with joyful anticipation and festive good cheer right now. But some are apprehensive and may also experience heightened feelings of loneliness as Christmas approaches. Or perhaps they feel empty inside.

There may be a large found within the media coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical on hope and the holding of the first International Symposium on Euthanasia in Toronto at the beginning of December. The first received paltry, pro forma coverage, the other almost none and the obvious links between the two were scarcely noted.

Afghanistan leads the news these days and for good reason. But the fixation on the question of whether our troops should remain or come home has obscured the most important objective of Canada’s presence — namely, supporting the struggle of the Afghan people to live in peace with decent living conditions. 

All of England appears to be waiting for confirmation that its former prime minister has at last crossed the Tiber. Given that if the average Brit had a choice between going to Westminster Abbey for Evensong or dropping by Leicester Square for a bit of celebrity gazing there would be no choice, the pending conversion of Tony Blair as a news item of national interest does appear at first blush to be surprising.