A benediction please:To Starve or Canonize?

With starvation in Africa having taken front stage this last week in a global way, the Catholic Church’s position on the use of contraceptives will again come under the withering gaze of the informed and increasingly agitated Catholic. Allowing babies to be born into starvation rather than prevented by contraception can become a more challenging argument when the church is viewed as fast-tracking sainthoods for political gain. Is it so much more politically correct to gain a saint in an unseemly hustle than it is to prevent the suffering of children by changing an antiquated policy? Is selling sainthoods next, or haven’t we 'been there done that' before?

The religious climate is right for a leader of challenging and original inspirations to come forward. But the fact that our civilizations are failing to create or school such intellectually stimulating leaders is a blessing in disguise right now for Catholic Church hierarchy. Ironic, that there is no man to offer revivifying benedictions to oppose the hard lines of Pope Benedict.

Comet to be Penetrated by Man-made Probe
As I write this, way up there in space travelling at mindboggling speeds we have a comet and a manufactured item set on a deliberate collision course, all intended to inform and edify man. It is hoped that this tinkering with stellar objects will not become so ordinary that mankind finds himself inadvertently toppling the universal balances.


Artist's rendition of probe about to penetrate comet.