Good Friday evening everyone.

 

This is a link to John Allen’s Friday letter, All Things Catholic which gives a gentle introduction to the work of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi , president of the Vatican Pontifical Council for Culture and a forum that will meet next week in Paris under the title “The Courtyard of the Gentiles”.   Building on a speech by Pope Benedict to the Roman Curia in 2009, Ravasi, in partnership with UNESCO, Institut de France and the Sorbonne, will begin a serious dialogue with the secular world and are already planning to keep it going for another gathering in Chicago in 2012.  It is an exciting adventure and Allen does a good job placing it in context.   

   

http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/courtyard-gentiles-promises-boost-catholic-pride

 

Speaking of culture:    Of God’s and Men is playing in Toronto at the moment and is well worth seeing.  It was very well received at the Toronto International Film Festival and has broken box office records in France and Quebec.  The film is based on the life of the Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, from the fall of 1995 until their kidnapping in the spring of 1996.  Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers in a monastery perched in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990s. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by an Islamic fundamentalist group, fear sweeps though the region. The army offers them protection, but the monks refuse. Should they leave? Despite the growing menace in their midst, they slowly realize that they have no choice but to stay… come what may.  There are some exquisite moments but bring Kleenex.  It will open in Waterloo for a limited run on March 25 at the Princess Cinema.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588337/

 

Have a good week

 

Con