Politics...

Much to-do in the media over the candidacy of a former male prostitute turned Roman Catholic priest for the Bloc nomination in the federal byelection in Repentigny, Quebec. It seems people are all for repentance and transformation when such experiences are safely in the pages of the Bible and only happen to long-ago figures like Moses (murderer), Matthew (agent of the oppressors) and Paul (human rights violator). If it happens today, there's a lot of tut-tutting and muttering; you can never escape your past.

I'm not a supporter of the Bloc - far from it - but Fr. Raymond Gravel, who seems to have a genuine concern for the disadvantaged, belongs in politics as much as many of the supposedly squeaky-clean folks who sit in parliaments now (and many of them may be like the whitewashed tombs described by Jesus, clean on the outside, filthy on the inside; the cover story in Rolling Stone looks at the American political scene and concludes that This is the Worst Congress, Ever).