When parents drop off the son or daughter at college they worry about several things Will the son or daughter be fed have the ldquo right rdquo roommate study without parental supervision drink too much and walk out in front of a car fall in with the wrong crowd or fall in love with a

Even if you re a believer you may think that the saints have nothing to do with your own life You ve no doubt read some of those gory stories of men and women having their eyes plucked out or tongues cut out or bodies devoured by lions in the Coliseum not to mention stories of their being behea

Add this to the list of possible omens for tomorrow rsquo s election Neil Diamond is about to release a new album The gravely voiced soft rock sensation will release ldquo Dreams rdquo on Election Day Mere coincidence Perhaps Yet Diamond rsquo s anthology has provided an uncanny soundtrack

Within a fortnight of the end of the Middle-East Synod there is news out of Baghdad which illustrates what the Iraqi bishops were saying in Rome that Christians and their churches are easy targets for the foreign terror gangs in Iraq Zenit reports that Syrian Catholic Archbishop Georges Casmoussa

Here s a good Halloween topic witches and witchcraft An historian at Edinburgh University scotches some myths at the Guardian comment pages nbsp Most witches were executed in the 16th and 17th centuries There were about 50 000 of them A quarter of them were men Julian Goodare warns us against