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PHOENIX, Arizona - Led by donations from Canadian councils, the Knights of Columbus bucked the recession this past year to break its own record for fund raising by donating more than $150 million to worldwide charities.

{mosimage}For many of us summer is our peak time of interaction with nature. We spend more time than ever outdoors, enjoying activities such as gardening, visiting local parks, going to the beach, attending sporting events, picnicking, hiking, cycling, attending outdoor concerts and festivals, stargazing and vacationing in the woods or by the water. We also enjoy the many fresh flowers, fruits and vegetables available locally, some perhaps from our own garden.

Unfortunately, this is also the time of year when our consumption of — and damage to — Earth������Ƶapp resources tends to be highest, due to often excessive lawn and garden watering and car washing, increased car travel (day tripping or driving back and forth to the cottage) and use of pesticides, gas-powered lawn mowers, air conditioners and motorboats, among other things.

{mosimage}One of the most painful events of my summer so far has been watching the Episcopal Church in the United States stab itself in the heart.

This church was my spiritual home before I came to Canada in 1969. It was a good one to be in during my young years: biblical, yet theologically imaginative, rooted in Christian traditions far older than the English Reformation, blessed with splendid liturgy and a rich heritage of devotion. If I am not an Anglican today, it������Ƶapp because I ceased to find that rootedness in Scripture and tradition in American or Canadian Anglicanism, and found it in the Catholic Church.

{mosimage}“A soft answer turns away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. A Proverb for our times.

The recent murder of the U.S. abortionist George Tiller, purportedly as an act of justifiable homicide to protect the unborn, was a horrendous event marked by contradictions and paradoxes that reverberate still. Everyone should meditate on the link, if any, between words, deeds, anger, despair, violence and hatred.

{mosimage}With a contentious debate looming on the parliamentary horizon, Archbishop James Weisgerber is urging his fellow bishops to awaken Canadian Catholics to the dangers in proposed legislation that would legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia.

 The wakeup call was issued by the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in a letter addressed to bishops but with words intended for us all.

PHOENIX, Arizona - Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the , has called on those who “say they want to reduce the number of abortions” to join with pro-life groups to implement a strategy that has proven results in reducing abortion by up to 90 per cent.

Not surprisingly there are many — mostly in the business community — who have serious reservations about Pope Benedict������Ƶapp new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).  Neil Reynolds of The Globe and Mail and Terence Corcoran of The Financial Post delight in savaging Benedict������Ƶapp sustained reflection on “integral human development in charity and truth.”  As “experts” in finance they pull no punches as they lambast the Pope for his insufficient regard for the sweet joys of capitalism, his failure to appreciate the fruits of the free market and globalization and his unhappy reliance on the spurious economic wisdom of his illustrious predecessor, Pope Paul VI.

Unlike Reynolds — who appears to have read but a few papal snippets — Corcoran has paid the Pope the compliment of actually reading the text, at least to the extent that he has counted the number of footnotes. There is one particular passage in Corcoran������Ƶapp minimalist and polemical exegesis that stands out as a real howler: “as with all encyclicals. . . the attacks are incoherent, inconsistent, unsupported and mostly catalogues of conventional leftist theories.”  John Paul II must be rolling in his grave.

{mosimage}New federal regulations that require travellers from Mexico and the Czech Republic to obtain visas to enter Canada will not fix the nation������Ƶapp troubled refugee system. Yet this recently announced initiative of the Conservative government has the overwhelming support of voters, recording 69-per-cent approval in an Angus Reid poll.

Some might interpret that as a general rebuke of Canada������Ƶapp open-door policy of providing safe haven for those forced to flee their homes due to persecution, war and violence, often ethnic or tribal in nature. But we suspect the opposite is the case.

{mosimage}To mark this past Fathers’ Day, The National Post carried an interesting feature about negative images of men in general, and fathers in particular, in consumer advertising.

Most of the complaints centred on portrayals of clumsiness and laziness with household tasks. Some men have found the portrayals offensive enough to file complaints with the Advertising Standards Council, and a few have been upheld.

{mosimage}The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was the 20th century������Ƶapp biggest archeological story.

It had the romance of the desert: Bedouin lads, poking into dry caves near the ancient Dead Sea settlement of Qumran in early 1947, find traces of a mysterious Jewish sect from the time of Jesus.

Coming when it did, on the eve of the post-war surge of new Bible translations, the unearthing of the scrolls caused astonishment by bringing to light the oldest texts of the Old Testament Scriptures in existence.