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.

Three cheers for the more than 30 million Canadians who chose to be vaccinated against the COVID virus. You have played an invaluable role in limiting the virulence and death toll of a disease which ravaged many nations much more than Canada.

At least since the 1960s publication of The Population Bomb, many of us have believed there are too many people on this planet. Today, some overbearing environmentalists propel this myth forward by asking everyone from Prince William on down whether it is wise to have a third child. Or even a second. In Vancouver in 2020, a public campaign offered this slogan: “The most loving gift you can give your first child is not to have another.”

The opening to Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou is predictably impossible to watch. An eye is open, observing the viewer, and then a razor blade is sliced across its surface. Few could watch this without blinking or looking away, something the director depended on as he “cut” from a human to a cow’s eye. And yet, as I lay on the operating table, with a mask covering my entire face except for my exposed right eye, I remember thinking, as I watched the scalpel move towards me, and then felt it press on and into my eye, that this was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen. I hoped it wouldn’t be my last.