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"When the dark powers seem to be winning, our impulses tell us to get angry, fight back, win the argument of the day. As human as such reactions may seem, there is a stronger, more profound response necessary: that we respect our opponent, pray for our enemy and speak truth with love. And again, this can only happen with prayer." As followers of the Gospel, our immediate response to news of suffering and destruction must be to turn to prayer. It is in prayer that we reconnect to our center: Christ living within us.

Dr. Dennis O’Hara and Fr. Steve Dunn, C.P. facilitated an Open Forum on Pope Francis’ new encyclical Laudato Si on June 30, 2015 at St Gabriel’s Parish in Toronto, Canada. Close to three hundred people attended. Many from different parishes and religious congregations all across the city gathered to celebrate the encyclical and to draw and to share insights from it. Many communities are finding that the best place to begin is with an open discussion!

Has civic discourse become impossible?  Are we so fragmewnted and polarized that common ground and consensus are "relics of a distant past?  Writer and teacher, Paul Wadell, walks us through a hopeful challenge in this essay.