History will be made.  Barack Obama will be the first black president, the first senator elected president since JFK in 1960 and the first president to have Illinois as a political base since Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, the twin victors of the Civil War.  But it will also be business as usual.  He will succeed President George W. Bush, educated at Yale and Harvard. Senator Obama was educated at Columbia and Harvard.  That’s change you can believe in. Continue reading →

Can the Bible be rescued from Biblical scholarship?

That’s putting it too strongly, but in broad terms that is the question before a major international meeting at the Vatican.  It’s called a “Synod of Bishops,” a triennial meeting of the pope and several hundred Catholic bishops regarding matters of Catholic faith and practice.  At this session of the synod, Quebec’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet has the central role after Pope Benedict himself. Continue reading →

NEW YORK – With the final presidential debate over, it now appears that Senator Barack Obama will simply run out the clock on Senator John McCain and win the presidential election.  His appearance tonight here at the Al Smith Dinner may indicate how he intends to handle conservative religious voters in consolidating his support. Continue reading →

Post-election analysis of this campaign will necessarily be rather more tentative than usual.  After all, how to measure the effect of the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 18% of its value the week before the election, and gaining 11% back the day before?  It’s an American problem first to be sure, but when the Canadian finance minister spends the final weekend of the campaign in Washington, the global effects and the Canadian impact are undeniable.  To sort out all that will take some time. Continue reading →

How are immigrants to Canada faring? It depends on which ones you’re talking about. The Asians — Chinese, Japanese and Indians — are doing very well, thank you.  In fact, with time they achieve higher levels of education and earn more than long-standing Canadians. Continue reading →