The most striking aspect of The Two Popes is that it avoids being didactic, offering instead a complex portrayal of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Although Bergoglio is liberally-minded, outgoing and pastoral, while Benedict is more conservative, introverted and academic, the film avoids tropes, depicting each in a multidimensional light. Fernando Meirelles’ film,…
Category: Reflections
Fr. Joel Sember serves as pastor of three churches in the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin. When he shared the audio recording of his most recent homily, entitled “The Problem with the Catholic Church is…,” I found it hard to suppress my curiosity. The homily’s theme was prompted by the cancellation of Saturday evening Mass at St. Anthony, one of…
Father Ferenc Deák (or Deák atya, in Hungarian) died yesterday. He served Our Lady of Hungary Parish in Montreal from 1975 to 2007 and played a truly formative role in the lives of those of us who grew up in the eighties and nineties. He baptised me in 1981, I had my first communion with him in 1988 and then…
Encore Books and Records proved to be one of the best bookstores I have visited in a long time. Located at the corner of Sherbrooke West and Harvard in Montreal, a mere fifteen minute walk from our family home in the city’s NDG neighbourhood, I arrived with a completely random request. I was looking for Evelyn Waugh’s The Ordeal of…
Theologian Richard Hooker lived and wrote with the activities of those Puritans in mind, who were looking to radically reshape the Church of England. At the centre of Hooker’s study “Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity” is the relationship between Scripture, Authority and Tradition, and the role of human reason in embracing Christ’s salvific message. Hooker wrote in an era…
Set against the misery of the Great Depression, the Ottawa Little Theatre brought to life John Steinbeck’s story of how two men who journey together in search of work struggle to overcome a dehumanizing situation through their frustrating, yet ultimately genuine friendship. Ottawa actor J.T. Morris played George Milton poignantly and Dan DeMarbre, cast as George’s friend Lennie Small, gave…
Jason Moscovitz’s piece on Jacob Weksler – formerly a Polish Catholic priest known as Romuald Waszkinel – who discovered late in life that he is Jewish (“Ideas and Impressions,” Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, April 16), resonated with me. Like many families in eastern and central Europe, mine too decided to conceal its Jewish identity, as well as the family’s tragedy during…