Pope Benedict XVI came out today with the strongest statement on the sex abuse scandal yet, drawing close to the message that people want to hear, and making it clear that he gets it. It's not you, he is saying, (the media, liberals, anti-Catholics), it's us (the Catholic Church). Speaking on the papal plane en route to Portugal this week, Pope Benedict XVI called the reality of the crisis "terrifying", adding that the greatest persecution of the church comes from within "because sin exists in the church". The Irish Times said it's his most forthright statement on the issue since the crisis flared up again at the beginning of this year. " ... attacks against the pope or the church don't come only from outside the church," he said. "The suffering of the church also comes from within the church, because sin exists in the church. This too has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way. The greatest persecution of the church doesn't come from enemies on the outside but is born in sin within the church . . . " In particular, Benedict seemed keen to distance himself from senior Vatican officials who in recent months have argued that the Catholic Church is the victim of an international media witch hunt, promoted by anti-clerical and anti-Catholic lobbies.

The Catholic News Services' John Thavis reported the pope as saying: "The church has a profound need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on the one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice. And forgiveness does not substitute justice ... We have to relearn these essentials: conversion, prayer, penance."

My colleague Cathy Lynn Grossman at USA Today's Faith & Reason blog Why has it taken so many years of familiarity with this crisis for the pope to speak so clearly, so sharply, to his own Church? What could the Church do to meet his call? Do you expect to see more bishops resign as they recently have in Ireland and Germany?

Over at the National Catholic Reporter, Mary Gail Frawley-O-Dea, has written a column called the Gift of Shame. She actually suggests millstones around the clerics' necks for awhile instead of those gold crosses. Well, if that's what it takes ...

Cindy Klassen, the Olympic skater, and her sister Lisa, spoke to the 800 or so attendees today at the National Prayer Breakfast (that would be Canada's, not Washington's, and it was at the Westin, not Parliament Hill this year).

They were so positive and well-scrubbed! Cindy talked about her knee surgeries and disappointments at this year's Olympics, and her sister Lisa talked about a horrifying accident in which her car slid off a Winnipeg bridge, and plunged into the icy water below. A series of lucky breaks meant onlookers, including and off-duty fireman, were able to get her out of her car, where she had been submerged for five minutes.

She spent some time recovering, but is now back at work training military pilots.

I'm happy for the Klassens and I would not think of denigrating their faith, but I have a problem with the widespread Christian story line that runs: 'I prayed, I trusted God, and see? Today I'm fine.'

Even Jack Layton talked at the prayer breakfast about how he felt calm, almost afloat, "like wind beneath my wings" when he realized people were praying for him after he discovered he has prostate cancer.

First, it reduces prayer to a quarter in a gum machine: insert petition and voila! All better. Maybe you aren't healed, but you just feel better.

As I say, I'm delighted for Lisa, and for Jack, and have no doubt at all about the sincerity of their prayer and world views, but what about the people who pray, and their child dies anyway? Their husband does not come back from war? Their daughter is raped?  What does this theology offer them? Not much.

Hence much of the bitterness towards modern day ministers, if not God Himself.

Which brings me to my table mates today: Kevin Smith, a secularist who contributes to the Citizen's Ask the Experts columns, and Justin Trottier, executive director of the Centre for Inquiry Canada which, according to its website, promotes "reason, science, and secularism."

Trottier told CBC before the breakfast that he and his compadres were there, not to stir up trouble, but because they too are concerned about religious and ethical matters in the public square.

Afghan Idol? It's a joke, right? If Afghanis were allowed to joke? The thing about religious oppression, is that outlaws fun. It makes being human a sin in itself. That's why this film, being shown Wednesday at the ByTowne, as part of Human Rights Watch film festival. Here's the trailer. I found even this little clip inspiring.

Mmmm, good.  If we still value true goodness anywhere, it is in our food. We want it to be pure. Additives, pesticides, and genetic engineering give us the creeps. We want it raised, harvested and brought it to market by honest, hard-working people like ourselves, preferably members of our community. We've probably guessed that  the modern grocery store is a gustatory pipe dream, produce arranged as if  they floated down from the Elysian Fields of the Greek gods. In real life, winter produce that's all local and all natural is all gone, at least here in Ottawa. Still, the trendy Texas-based chain Whole Foods takes that daydream to a whole new level. Its marketing suggests it's all organic, and that it stresses local produce. At one point, their "California Mix" frozen vegetable mix was from China. In fact, a lot of their stuff is from China. In fairness, Loblaws once sold a European mix that was also from China. It's also been reported that China will soon wipe out Canada's apple industry.

What brings all this close to home is the persistent rumours that Whole Foods has cast a covetous eye upon the prime real estate at Lansdowne Park. Trouble is, it would virtually destroy the wildly successful Ottawa Farmers Market established there that really is local, and organic and, yes, good. Its rules are stringent: all the vendors must be local, and none may buy the goods wholesale and resell them at the market. They must raise or make their products themselves. People have proven they do care about these things: 250,000 came to the market to shop last year. The food is not cheap, nor are there carts or other conveniences. But they are clearly doing something right. Further, their local-only rules are giving rise to secondary markets for ingredients like locally-milled flour. Tourism, other food industries: the potential is huge.The thing about little lies is that they always get bigger. White lies go grey and finally a grimy black. Whole Foods is closer to Faux Foods and it should not threaten something genuinely local, not to mention so successful. Why let profits go to Texas?

Here's a news clip:

Who's the boob here? When an Iranian cleric told the world that decadent women cause earthquakes, Purdue University science major Jen McCreight decided to test that hypothesis. If she could get women to flaunt the girls, wouldn't the earth shake to its foundations? She even came up with the prerequisite T-shirts: "Boobquake 2010: Who says science has to be boring?" and "Boobquake 2010: Did the Earth move for you?" Well, yeah, it sort of did, at least for McCreight, who was interviewed world-wide and named on CNN's website as one of the day's most intriguing people. Some estimates suggest as many as 200,000 women across the globe participated. Some women posted pictures of their breasts on Twitter; some on Facebook. (Yeah, yeah, we know all about ChatRoulette - actually we know a little more than we'd like to.)McCreight, who describes herself on her blog as "a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist feminist trapped in Indiana" scoffed at any suggestion that today's protest might be responsible for any of the earthquakes worldwide. She writes the earthquake in Taiwan was statistically too insignificant to count. "If we get many of a similar magnitude in the next 24 hours, then we might start worshipping the power of immodesty," she wrote on her blog unless she perishes in a "tank-top induced apocalypse." No comment from the cleric. Guess he was neither shaken nor stirred.

Back in February, at the height of the swine flu scare, the Ottawa Hospital circulated a letter calling on the city’s faith groups to help form an “Emergency Spiritual Assistance Care Team," which would be made up of clergy (I guess) and other volunteers who could mobilize in case of disaster. Although the fly pandemic didn’t materialize, sounds like a fine idea. I'll call the chaplains over there this coming week to see what has become of it. I do know that chaplaincy in general has been under seige, especially in hospitals, often targeted as an expendable, so I don't know how successful this team would be. Names might be fun. If the city takes a hand in it, could they be Larry's Angels? Wing and a Prayer? 

Here's something passed along to me by my father-in-law:

 A photographer on vacation was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read '$10,000 per call'.  The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for.
The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God. The American thanked the priest and went along his way.
 Next stop was in Atlanta. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it. He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in Orlando and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was.
  She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God.
  'O.K., thank you,' said the American. He then traveled to Indianapolis, Washington , Philadelphia , Boston and New York. In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same '$10,000 per call' sign under it.
  The American, upon leaving Vermont decided to travel up to Canada to see if Canadians had the same phone.
  He arrived in Canada , and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read '50 cents per call.'
  The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign. 'Father, I've traveled all over America and I've seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I'm told that it is a direct line to heaven, but in the US the price was $10,000 per call. Why is it so cheap here?'
  The priest smiled and answered, 'You're in Canada now, son ... it's a local call.'

    

   
  

   

   
   
         

    

  
  
   
         

  

 








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After three years in an Iranian jail, seven Baha'i members finally saw a courtroom last week - but within a few hours, they decided not to go ahead with what they suspected would not be true justice. One prisoner, pictured right, is the father of Naeim Tavakkoli, a 31-year-old structural engineer who lives in Sandy Hill. The families of the defendants were not permitted entry to the proceedings, which clearly signalled that the session was to be closed. Yet officials and interrogators from the Ministry of Intelligence were present, including a film crew whose cameras were positioned in the courtroom. The prisoners declined to be party to the proceedings and the judge then adjourned the session.  No date was announced for the next hearing. The Baha'i faith is banned in Iran and the charges stem from that conflict of faith. Canada has spoken out against the treatment of the detainees, to no avail. 

Those of you who follow our Ask the Religion Experts will have noticed that we have a new contributor, Ray Parchelo, a social worker, and dharma instructor at the Red Maple Sangha in Renfrew County, which you can see from the photo here. Some of his answers got lost in the daily fray around here, so I'm blogging them now.

Why do so many faiths recommend self-denial like fasting or shunning luxuries?

Ray replies: Practices, like fasting or shunning luxuries, can be valuable on a spiritual path because they simplify one's routines and encourage a focus on non-material concerns. In fact, they can convert the urges or tendencies into reminders to pay attention to the issue at hand. They can, of course, be part of a larger religious effort, such as a retreat. In these we pare our lives down to the bare minimum to allow us to maximize a limited period of intense religious practice, be that prayer or meditation.

For Buddhists, all such practices are entered into as part of the path and share the characteristics of our Middle Way. Buddhists don't strive for extremes of self-denial or abasement for their own sake. There is a turning point in the historical Buddha's own practice where he had been engaging in the most extreme austerities imaginable and came close to death as a result. He overheard a musician explaining the care of his instrument to someone, saying "making the strings too tight will damage the neck, allowing to much slack will not produce any sounds". This inspired him to realize his (and our) way is the Middle Way one defined by neither self-indulgence, nor self-abuse.

This story also reminds us that the danger in these practices is that they can so intensely focus on denying the body, that we may become obsessed with that same body, turning the practice upside down into an over-focus on the body and our habits. Finally, we may, through austerities, end up damaging ourselves. This is ultimately no more useful than satisfying every urge.

The story also reminds us that this very body, and the physical realm as a whole, are not the villains of the piece. We are not pristine, stainless entities trapped in a corrupt shell. All that is, within and without our bodies, is equally the presentation of Buddha-nature, the primal source of experience. Just as one can use a lever to manouevre an obstacle, the body is not the problem, but one of the many resources available for us to penetrate the questions of life and death.

Should companies be allowed to patent higher life forms, like lab mice?

Since it seems unlikely that bio-industries will show any restraint in the pursuit of creating new life-form variations, be they plant or animal, we need to consider what qualifiers to apply to this activity. First, a distinction needs to be made between the process of generating new species and the creature itself. On a strictly legal level, it would seem that the developer should have some legal protection over the process. It is fair, in our first-past-the-gate world, that their investment of resources deserves protection. On the level of the creation itself, I'm reminded of the episode in the 80's television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, where there is a dramatized debate over whether the android, Mr. Data, has any rights or whether he is simply the product of Star Fleet's R&D department. In the end, his independence and autonomy are (rightly) affirmed. Likewise, while we affirm the rights of an industrial developer to the process, we are confronted with the possibility that we may be extend life and death control over the creature to that developer. We have come a sufficiently long way as a civilization that we know we ought to be careful in establishing any principles of privilege over any creature.

It may be easy for most to dismiss the "'rights" of a mouse, since we don't much value mice as a life form. At stake here, of course, is the principle of the autonomy of a living creature. Since law is conditioned by precedent, we want to be careful not to dismiss any such tiny creature rights, should that precedent curtail the rights of more intelligent life-forms in future. 

For Buddhists, the responsibilities of any creature over the life and death of any other are of great concern. How we value, care for and lead other beings to the awareness of Truth is our primary challenge. Existing or newly-created beings are not merely instruments of profit, they are beings intimately connected to us. We have an obligation to treat them with respect and act in a way which facilitates their growth to fulfillment.                                                              

How does posture, (i.e. kneeling) change prayer?

This body is the first of the four foundations of our mindfulness, the gateway to recognizing and experiencing our world. It follows then, that how we arrange this body is of great significance - in short, posture matters. Regardless of the form of practice, be it prayer, bowing, walking or formal meditation, how we hold this body will shape our experience of this moment of life. Buddhists know that we can never simply "go through the motions" of any form of religious practice. Each moment of our lives presents a unique opportunity to experience how we are and how the world is, therefore, the degree to which we open ourselves up physically influences our experience. Each moment is in itself the whole Universe, and so we need to attend to it as fully and completely as we are able. Only from this authentic awareness can we address the presence of suffering.

Buddhism acknowledges the variations of health, gender, age and development, the circumstances of disability and decline which may attend on our bodies. As such, posture has its ideals, but allows each of us to begin with the bodies we have, and grow to whatever full expression we can attain. We are all familiar with the yogi sitting in full lotus posture, or the monastic walking hundreds of kilometres on pilgrimage. These inspire us and show us what is possible for humans. However, we are taught that such postural or physical extremes are ideals, and granted to a few who can attain them. We each begin here - with this body.

Postures, then, offer us possibilities. Anyone who has practiced any length of time knows the benefits of working with posture, working to open the body, working to align the body. There are breakthrough moments when mental acuity and physical precision align and we find a depth of awareness inaccessible in our usual states. These are not isolated moments, however, but rather are the outcome, the consequence of regular and disciplined attention to the opening up of our physical body. An open posture will lead us to a richer and more complete experience of our practice, such as meditation or prayer.

What do you make of this? Lisa Samson, a novelist at Grand Rapids' Festival of Faith and Writing was talking about the new media, blogging, and Facebook. She mentioned that she was getting some really nasty anonymous comments from one person, who finally said Samson and her husband should have their children taken away. Harsh words! But the couple were able to track back the flamer to his work place, and they sent a message to his boss, "this is how your employee is spending his work time." Now — I'm not sure this is straight up. The commentor made nasty remarks, but he was expressing an opinion to the world at large. He wasn't calling Children's Aid. He also understood the forum to be anonymous. He had no way of knowing he would be outed. Do you think Samson and her husband should have contacted the man's boss? Or the man himself?

Here's something from Kathy English of the Toronto Star about taking away anonymous remarks: “Should the media ever unmask anonymous commenters? Can the courts force them to do so? Is the end of online anonymity near? These are important questions now under consideration in news organizations and courts throughout North America. ... These challenges play out daily at the Star, which now receives more than 15,000 comments each month - most of them pseudonymous. It’s preferable that the media figure this out rather than the courts. One possibility being tried in some newsrooms is to give greater prominence to commenters who do speak out under their real names. Stay tuned for more on this. In the meantime: Commenters - perhaps it’s time you unmask yourselves.”

The twist is that, if you insist on names, it takes some poor soul hours on the phone confirming that people are really who they say they are. That's what most papers do now for letters to the editor. Not sure we can put this genie of instant communication back in the bottle.

Last night at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the guest speaker was mega-seller Mary Karr. She wrote the much-acclaimed Liar's Club about 10 years ago, and has garnered much attention for her latest memoir, Lit, which describes how she scrabbled her way out of alcoholism and into faith. Memoir is a very funny thing. It's making a living from ... screwing up how you lived. I can't put my finger on it, but there was something not exactly insincere, but overpractised, a touch of the schtick, about Karr's talk, probably because she has been on the road on and off for the last six months promoting her book. Also, Mary, memo to self: jokes about Jesus chasing girls and doing cocaine really fall flat at Christian colleges.

That said, she relaxed a little in speaking about her newfound Catholicism, and was quite insightful and informative on Ignatian spiritual exercises and her work with a spiritual director, someone who leads you in one to one conversations about your faith and how it is developing, where you should be going, that sort of thing. She spoke about trying to feel grateful and listing the regular things: food to eat, four healthy limbs, but she admitted to her advisor she really didn't feel much gratitude at all for those things, at least not in her heart. He pointed out that it wasn't about keeping a check list, it was more about savouring moments in our lives - she loves faces, for instance, just looking into faces. She said she often complains about having to meet with the students she teaches, but the truth is, it really makes her happy, watcing their animation, and listening to their ideas. I got what she meant. I love weather, especially wind, and the smell of the rotting leaves in a forest or that indefinable scent of spring.

Anyway, the next blog will be about --- comments on blogs. Do you think people should have to sign them? An interesting moral dilemma came up in these sessions, and I'll welcome your points of view. Anonymous, of course

Wally Lamb addressed about 2,000 people last night here at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids Michigan. He is  master storyteller in person as well as on the page. He doesn't take himself too seriously as witnessed by this (apocryphal?) story of his start in fiction: He grew up in a large Italian Catholic family, and attended catechism class with the stereotypically severe nun in full habit. He described her gruff demeanor down to the glint on her wire-frame glasses. He decided to warm her up one day by telling her a tall tale about his family emigrating from Italy, right after a volcano erupted. His dad ran around the town, warning everyone, little Wally told the scowling nun. And the pope himself thanked him!

"The nun broke out into a wide smile and reached into her desk. She drew out a holy card." Apparently Wally was her new favourite. If ever a note or errand had to be taken to the principle's office, apple-polisher Wallace got to do it. Now here's what I think of the very talented, engaging Wally Lamb: could he be pulling our legs? No nun I ever met in a classroom was that gullible.

This is a wonderful conference of writers and their followers here. There are 60 presenters and about 2,000 in attendance -- including Alison from my church in Ottawa. I almost didn't recognize her because she was not in her regular context.

Tomorrow, Mary Karr, author of Lit, speaks, and I will blog about that.

I'll be away for a few days in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the Christian school Calvin College is holdings in biennial Festival of Faith and Writing. Stellar line-up of authors, and I plan to sit at their feet and learn. Meanwhile, here's my speech for Thursday on journalism. Comments welcome.

I want to talk to you about "what's true." You could say that's the theme of the whole festival, even our lives.  Faith gets us up in the morning but it's our beliefs that drive us through it. To chart our course, we need some working explanation of the world. Virtually everything we hold dear, public or private, is held upright by a tent pole we called truth. In our schools, governments, courts, research labs, even in our relationships - maybe particularly in these  - we are always looking for the truth. So, needless to say, we are always testing that pole to make sure it is sturdy enough to uphold our shelter. We want to know that life is good. The future is bright. We are successful. We have any number of empirical tests to secure those assumptions. The blood test that the infection is gone, the report card that reassures us of our child's future. Then there are the more dubious ones: I have a huge house so I must be a success.Beneath these, are much deeper questions shifting like tectonic plates: what does it mean to say that something is true? How can we arrive at it? Can any one person lay claim to it here on earth?  Are we safe with people who hold different truths, or must they go to their own tent? Or is everyone seeing the same truth from a different point of view?

The most important question, and the most elusive, comes in squaring the gritty, day-to-day reality of our lives with the deeper truth that we sense is out there somewhere, just beyond our grasp. The World War II poet and cryptographer Piet Hein wrote: "Just beyond perception's reach, I sometimes believe I see, that life is two locked boxes, each holding the other's key."

Those two truths - the here and now as against the everlasting - must line up somehow if we are to have any peace. Most often, they don't. And that's where journalists, novelists, screenwriters and even theologians get their best material.To position us in the sweeping landscapes of present-day landscape of faith, we turn to books. I'm thinking of Huston Smith. Harvey Cox, Karen Armstrong. On the radio, we find journalists who are out of the everyday fray, like Krista Tippet, host of Speaking of Faith, and Canada's Mary Hynes, who hosts Cob's Tapestry. They allow us a wonderful stroll through the groves of spirituality and faith: what does heaven look like, is there really a God particle? What is it like to be a chaplain in the midst of combat? Why do people lose faith? All fascinating, important topics.

But now I want to invite you to slum a little in the rougher part of this enterprise: daily journalism. Here, the elbows are sharper, the voices more strident. The stakes are higher: terrorists attack in the name of Allah, or so they say. Other Muslims denounce them, and many experts say it's just an age-old moral justification for an act of war against a stronger enemy. What's new is that these causes would fizzle without international electronic media.  They are killers, but most importantly they are terrorists. Should we consider not giving them the oxygen of airtime? These are some of the considerations of daily news.

We likely have a lot of people who love to read here today - do we? - Most of you are Christian? How many read the Bible? Devotional literature or books that edify your faith? I hope you read newspapers, or some kind of news, and you probably find it not so edifying, especially these days, as the Catholic Church falls deeper and deeper into scandal. I don't want to dwell too long on this sorry business, but I'd like to know: How many here feel the media has been unfair to the church? I won't ask if the church has been unfair to the media, but do you feel it has unfair to the public? Do you feel the media represents you in this issue? In any religious issues? Does it speak for you? Answer your questions?

Canada is about 50 per cent Catholic, at least nominally. In the United States that stands at about 25 per cent. This week, a poll showed at least two million Canadians personally know someone who has been sexually assaulted by a priest. The number crunchers asked 1,000 people, and eight per cent said they knew someone who was assaulted. Extrapolate that and you get your two million. Fifty-eight per cent of the general population, and 54 per cent of Catholics, believe Pope Benedict has "perpetuated a climate of silence and cover up around pedophile priests." Twenty-nine per cent believe the Pope is being unfairly targeted in this scandal.

But 55 per cent of Catholics surveyed were not satisfied with the Church's efforts to root out predatory pedophiles among its priests. The Canadian conference of Catholic bishops responded with a press release saying:  "It is comforting to see that almost half of all Catholics indicate "their satisfaction with the Catholic Church in routing out pedophiles". That has so much spin I'm getting vertigo. One priest who heads a Catholic television station also called the poll "misleading and sensationalistic," because the cases were so old. Meanwhile, as recently as Easter Sunday, Pope Benedict dismissed it all as "women's gossip." Don't forget, these men believe - truly believe - they have the last word on eternal truth because they were called by God to be part of his One True Church. I have to think they don't pay a lot of attention to the truth of the here-and-now.

We ink-stained wretches of the working press try to do justice to the life of faith in the public square but the odds are against us and growing worse. I have to say much of it is our own fault. In 1978, when I was in journalism school, one of my favourite professors read aloud a quote saying that a reporter's objectivity was like a woman's virtue - fundamental to their integrity. Of course, we all guffawed. Women's virtue was a quaint old thing we'd thrown off in the stampede to go skinny dipping. I think most of us students had a sense that objectivity was fading away as well, and that it was no great loss either. We wanted to write features! Go on road trips like Hunter S. Thompson! Who wouldn't revel in our opinions on everything? Lord knows, we found ourselves fascinating.

Today I believe that journalism is in such dire straits largely because it lost its objectivity and thereby its credibility. When it stopped offering a substantial view of daily events, it lost its raison d'etre, especially in the face of the internet where opinion has become a substitute for fact. This is Pope Benedict's dreaded relativism that, in a nutshell, says humans can never arrive at the truth in any final sense, only in relation to their own culture, time and situation. Nietzsche said there are no facts, only interpretations. This fit in so nicely with the European view of laiticite, the idea that religion had no role in the public square. It was like fuzzy slippers - of course you love them, but for heaven's sakes, keep them at home.It worked well, treating every religion as equal and therefore of no real consequence. That is, it worked well until vast swaths of Muslims emigrated there, with no idea or desire to live a private life of faith and a public life of ... nothing. However, that is a separate issue for another day.

Getting back to the ascendancy of opinion, Cambridge professor and atheist Simon Blackburn says that everyone feels entitled to scream his own opinion from the rooftops, "dogmatisms feed and flourish on the desecrated corpse of reason. "Astrology, prophecy, homeopathy, Feng shui, flying saucers, voodoo, conspiracy theories, crystal balls, angel visits, alien abductions, management nostrums and a thousand other cults dominate people's minds, often with official backing," he spits. He see relativism as "something diabolical which corrupts and corrodes the universities and the public culture, that sweeps away moral stands, lay waste young people's minds, and rots our precious civilization from within. Blackstone argues that our beliefs inform and fuel our actions, therefore we have a moral imperative to base those beliefs on a dependable truth. Look at Hitler's view of Jews, for instance.

We may find this truth, he says through reason which enables us to find or certify it, and objectivity, the cardinal virtue of reasoning. So we see that objectivity is the cornerstone of truth in far more than journalism. It is the basis for scientific method, for governmental formation of policy, for courts, education and academic research - all these start from a position of aloof inquiry. All employ a debate model in which a truth is put forward and then tested by opposing points of view. Journalism embraces this method as a means of providing a brokerage for the facts of daily life. From there, the conversation can begin.

Objective report began by meaning that, if a disinterested, reasonable person put in the legwork, he or she would have come to much the same conclusion as the reporter did on today's story. In later years, it too started going the way of relativism. Reporters phoned everyone on each side of an issue, strung them together and went for a beer, leaving the reader to figure it all out for himself. The stories were strangely denatured, made little real sense, and were crushingly boring, as only bad writing can be. Circulation started to drop and the Internet began to gain on us further. Aggregated opinion started to outstrip film and restaurant reviews. I don't see any real harm in that, but maybe that's because I have nothing to lose - but it's really not OK in matters of faith.

I once did a story about closures of Anglican churches. Something like 12 had to close, almost 25 per cent in my diocese. That sounds like a lot, until you realize that the diocese sprawls across hundreds of square miles, and that only four or five elderly people tottered in for the service on the rare occasion they opened the church (in one case, they had to start the wood stove an hour before). But bloggers leapt on the figures to show the liberal church was collapsing and sent  this message over the web. I tried to point out their lack of context, to no avail.

The newspaper - even radio and television used to speak to a town or city as a geographic entity. Your neighbour might be Jewish, but you were both interested in whether your property taxes were going up. The drycleaner may have emigrated from Lebanon but now he was a citizen here, in every sense. Global communication has interrupted this cohesion. People who emigrate continue to have a very large stake in their homeland. They keep in touch with cheap phone rates, and connect with like-minded group on the web.

I did a six-month project on the growing Muslim community in Ottawa in which I interviewed about 40 people. Every last one of them asked me to send the link when I did the story. Not one subscribed to the Citizen, and it didn't occur to any of them to go out and buy a copy. One sweet, intelligent woman, a Canadian citizen who is very active in her community, said she gets most of her news from Al Jazeera.

I was ashamed and saddened when a colleague of mine - another reporter - referred in conversation to Muslims as 'rag heads' or 'diaper heads.' Apart from the real grief that this brought me, what made me really despair was that surely this is an epithet to hurl, not at Muslims, but at Sikhs, who in fact wear turbans?

In Ottawa, a city of about one million, I figure at least 100,000 people go to some kind of religious service once a week. That's five times a sell-out game of the Senators hockey team. Yet there is this persistent perception that religion does not belong in the newspaper. A recent Pew Research Centre poll found that 41% of Americans say there is not enough coverage of religious and spiritual issues. Women at 44 per cent, are more likely than men at 37 per cent to seek more coverage of this area; 49 per cent of young adults say this. The only topic they wanted more of was science writing.

I began this beat because I was intrigued by religion but put off by the chokingly sweet language that often surrounds it.  I wanted to act as a translator at the church door - a plainspoken writer, neither an adversary nor apologist, who would simply explain people to one another. "This is how they think, this is where they are coming from, you don't have to agree with it, or like it, but just try to get your head around it, if for only as long as it takes you to read this story.'

Yes, it fit in with my faith, a practising Christian, born a Catholic but went to the Anglican Church when my daughters were born about 20 years ago. Most of my contacts find this bland, white-bread background pretty agreeable, even the Wiccans. All they really care about is that I take their faith seriously. Having said that, I don't think the Muslims would talk freely with a Jew, and nobody will open up for an atheist or true agnostic. Make no mistake. I write news stories. Sometimes they are redemptive, and it's probably my greatest weakness that I want to make them that way. Most of the people I report on are very nice and I take no pleasure in portraying them any other way. But a story has to look trouble straight in the eye - suffering, evil, lying, doubt  - it can't flinch Any less is patronizing to the reader, and ultimately lack spiritual or intellectual nourishment.

Stephen Prothero in his new book God Is Not One, points out that each are fundamentally different from the others in their outlook.

• Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission
• Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation
• Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order
• Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening
• Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God

They have real points of contention and they need to be able to read clear stories about themselves and others in the media. So how are we going to talk to this jostling, muttering, hard-of-hearing, crowd? How can we illuminate for the Hindus how the city's Muslims are trying to build a minaret over the objections of their Christian neighbours? If Jews are divided over charging for seats in the synagogue is that nobody's business but their own? We have to proceed carefully. Clearly. With respect.

Peter Manseau, who is at the festival this year, wrote a few years ago, if you are looking for a common denominator, look for the pain and ambivalence beneath the rhetoric of faith. " Faith is about ambivalence, and an interior story ... interior elements are the real engine of stories about faith; they are the complications that make the stories."

For years, I avoided doing anything on First Nation belief systems. I didn't know how I would explain them with a straight face. I also suspected that they were neo-belief systems, cobbled together as a response to an eviscerated culture. I had to face up to my own prejudices. I was really casual about arriving on time - I wince to even admit this - because, I thought, hey, they're on Indian time. I have to admit, I was uncomfortable with the poverty.

I finally went to a Circle of All Nations healing weekend, where one native elder told me to wear a skirt in the sacred area of the grove because the spirits got confused over who was male and who was female. Not far away, another elder was performing Reiki. Now what to make of this? How to handle it without either losing my own credibility or laughing at them.

I ended up saying in my story, "The pipe ceremonies, respect for the spirits, drumming, dancing -- not everyone buys into it.  ..."  and just went on to say there were several hundred people, relatively few whom appeared to be aboriginal. In other words, make of it what you will.

A few months later, I talked to Grandfather Commanda, the organizer of the Circle of All Nations, and a much more three-dimensional portrait emerged. His mother named him after the morning star, but took him to mass every week where he sang in the choir.But both his parents were alcoholics, and he had grown up in abject poverty, really hungry all the time. A park ranger confiscated a moose hunted out of season and the family of nine didn't eat for three days.

In later years, he was dying of cancer when he had one of those moments that people talk about. He heard a bird which he believed to be the voice of the creator, and he asked to be given a purpose or allowed to die. His cancer receded and he has gone on to live a life devoted to bridging cultural divides. He was recently awarded the Order of Canada for his efforts.

I have not been as successful with that vast readership that is "spiritual but not religious. The closest I got was writing a story about Christian objection to Oprah's loosey-goosey outlook.

For a long time, I didn't much cover people who object to faith. I can't quite my finger on why. I guess they didn't seem to have much of a beef. But lately, we have included them - I am moved by their stories of trying to recover from rigid views of faith that reduced them to nothing more than sinners.

It has had its challenges. When I first did a story on the problems in the Anglican Church, I seriously wondered if my minister would withhold communion. He didn't, but he did chew me out for attending a meeting as a parishioner and then reporting on it. We can talk about that later if you like.

I thought I would have trouble fighting off the urge to always be nice, and I did, but I actually had more trouble deciding that, at church, I would not be a reporter. For one hour a week, I would leave the notebook at home.

Blogging has made that worse. You are supposed to reveal yourself, something I don't much care to do anyway. (I don't even like answering the phone.) And if you talk about your faith life, there is something very --- big headed about it. One year, I gave up shopping for Lent and wrote about it on the blog. It was worthwhile in one way, but in another, deeper spiritual way, it was exactly the shtick it appeared to be. I still love this beat. I love trying to capture such ephemeral but deep movements of the heart.

William Clifford, a 19^th-century mathematician and essayist said: "If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts .. or regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it, the life of that man is one long sin against mankind."

To me, that seems like a pretty good reason to keep going in this beat.

There is a second caveat though. It contradicts Clifford, but I keep it on my desktop anyway, should I get too pleased with myself.

20 "Where then does wisdom come from?

       Where does understanding dwell?

 21 It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,

       concealed even from the birds of the air.

 22 Destruction and Death say,

       'Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.'

 23 God understands the way to it

       and he alone knows where it dwells,

 24 for he views the ends of the earth

       and sees everything under the heavens.

 25 When he established the force of the wind

       and measured out the waters,

 26 when he made a decree for the rain

       and a path for the thunderstorm,

 27 then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;

       he confirmed it and tested it.

 28 And he said to man,

       'The fear of the Lord-that is wisdom,

       and to shun evil is understanding.' "

Job 28

I'm not sure what to make of the shroud of Turin, which is going on display for the first time in 10 years. For what it's worth, Pope Benedict XVI will visit the city in northern Italy to pray before the shroud on May 2, so I guess he thinks it's the real thing. Some two million other visitors are expected.

In 1988, special tests dated it to between 1260 and 1390, suggesting it was a medieval forgery, and not Jesus' burial shroud after all. But since then, other scientists have cast doubt on those findings and appealed to the Vatican to allow new tests using more modern techniques. There are dozens of websites, but I'm not sure which are reliable, so I've only included this one from PBS.

 If we accept that there was a man named Jesus and he was crucified, died, and was buried, it stands to reason there would have been a shroud, right? So is it the fact that the fabric has lasted for 2,000 years?  Is that considered miraculous? Surely his death isn't the point - it was the resurrection. Or am I missing the point here — the shroud is simply an artifact which reminds us of Christ's Passion, the way a work of art would. I'd like to hear what you think of this and other relics. For instance, did you know that the altar in every Catholic Church has, or should have, a relic tucked in it? The archdiocese keeps a few on hand when new churches open — true fact!

When I became a journalist in the 1970s, I never thought I would see the day that I would be covering stories like this never-ending tragedy:

In the spring of 1982, everyone in Wilno felt nothing but sympathy when the mother of their favourite priest passed away. The deeply Catholic community looked up to Bernard Prince, who had grown up in the town and was ordained there in 1963. So when the cleric asked one of the Wilno youths to serve as altar boy at the funeral, and then keep him company at his apartment two hours east in Ottawa, the 14-year-old was honoured. "He could have asked anyone and he asked me to help him through this mourning period."

Twenty-four hours later, the boy's life was in ruins. The priest had sexually assaulted him, leaving him with a shame that would metastasize into alcoholism and an inability to form any relationships with anyone, male or female. He didn't even tell his parents what had happened.

"I was ... I was ...  well, it ruined my life," said Tom, whose full name is under a publication ban. "It changed my life to this day."

It would be more than 25 years before Prince, left, would be defrocked and convicted on 13 counts of sexual assault. In 2008, he began a four-year jail term in British Columbia. Civil proceedings are underway as 16 men sue the diocese of Pembroke for $2 million each, among them the one-time boy who thought he was offering comfort. Six have already settled.

Prince also targeted Tom's younger brother but "I didn't know until police started asking questions. I told him that I was going to come forward, and he said, 'well if you're going to be strong enough to do it, then I'll do it as well.' "

Now 42, the man says his life might have been very different had he had counseling after the incident. Of course, it never happened.

"Because (Prince) was so respected in the community, back in the '80s, if I had mentioned a word to anybody, including my parents, they would have believed him over me," he said Friday.

"For years and years after, I couldn't tell anybody because I was ashamed.  I just couldn't say anything. It was terrible. I lived a terrible life."

Court documents in Pembroke show that even Ottawa's former archbishop, Marcel Gervais, knew about Prince's transgressions, and yet did nothing to bring it to the attention of police.

In 1993, the Vatican awarded Prince a high-ranking post in Rome, thereby "removing him from the Canadian scene," according to J. R. Windle, then bishop in Pembroke.

In a letter to Rome's representative in Ottawa, Windle warned that outraged victims of Prince's "untoward behaviour" might go to the police demanding justice, should they hear the priest had been given any honours or promotions.

The letter, dated, Feb. 10, 1993, said: "All of the bishops of Ontario who are aware of this situation (and there are several) would most certainly agree with my assessment in this regard. They include Archbishop Ambrozic, Archbishop Spence, Archbishop Wilhelm, Archbishop Gervais, Bishop O'Mara, and Bishop Tonnos, since each of them was involved directly or indirectly with Fr. Prince." Tonnos, now bishop of Hamilton, has denied that he knew anything about it, and a statement to that effect is to be read Sunday in

Gervais was also serving as head of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops that year.
Robert Talach, with the LeDroit Beckett law firm in London, Ont., is representing Prince's victims. He said his clients want parishioners to stand up and force some change. They want good priests to take a stand, too, breaking ranks with the abusers and acknowledging that the scandals are tarring the reputation of the entire church.

As reports flood in from the United States, Ireland, Germany and Norway, the Vatican has been rocked to its foundations. Some have called for the pope's resignation, or even his arrest. Not only are lay people outraged at the assaults, they are dismayed at how the church has made every effort to shield offending clergy.

Will this wide-reaching scandal finally change the church? Talach, who has been working on clergy sex abuse cases since 2002, says, "Sometimes I get hopeful, but then I'm always disappointed. There is definitely some peripheral, surface change. They've got better at image control; there is a little more of the PR campaign. But behind the curtain, it's still business as usual."

Tom, for his part, still has bouts of depression, but he has beaten his dependence on alcohol and has been able to get his life back on track, thanks to the Men's Project, trauma counseling offered at Ottawa's YMCA. At 39, he had his first relationship with a woman, and now they are married. After 25 years, he finally opened up about the assault, telling his father first and then his future wife.

Despite it all, Tom says he would consider going back to the Catholic Church, if it would just come clean.

Gervais did not return phone calls Friday, and the archdiocese had no comment except to say the
case involved the Pembroke diocese and the Vatican, not Ottawa.