Things you probably didn't know.

Politics

Clyde Wells, the anti-Catholic former Newfoundland premier who laid the foundations for the destruction of Catholic education in that province, has been appointed Chief Justice of the Newfoundland Court of Appeal by his friend, the Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien....The Globe and Mail is promoting Louise Arbour, currently chief prosecutor of the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, Holland, as a shoo-in for the retiring Peter Cory of the Supreme Court of Canada. She has "dream credentials" to fill the vacancy, the paper reported; she is "flawlessly bilingual, highly personable, and a long-time friend of Chief Justice Antonio Lamer" (Kirk Makin, Globe, March 16, 1999). The last point ought to be enough warning against appointing her. Arbour is also a lapsed Catholic, and never having bothered to get married in either Church or City Hall, she has lived common law all these years. These are not qualifications for upholding the integrity of the country's legal system.

Society

Rome--On January 8, Pope John Paul II received in a cordial visit the Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema, his wife, and two children. D'Alema has been Prime Minister since October 1998. What was new about this visit is that he belongs to the Communist Party, renamed Democrats of the Left. An atheist and a dogmatic Leninist, he achieved what no predecessor of his obtained during the years of the cold war: participation in an Italian government.

Church

Ottawa--Out of St. Paul's University, Ottawa, Novalis has published a Sunday missalette in English for four decades or more. It usually has four "intentions" for the Prayer of the Faithful per Sunday. This comes to 6240 intentions since abortion was legalized on May 14, 1969. Over these 30 years, not once has there been a prayer intention for the unborn, or for the abortionists, or for pro-life workers and organizations.