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There is a dangerous misconception that because the courts and Parliament have decided people can obtain an assisted suicide, health care institutions therefore have a legal obligation to assess candidates and perform these killings.

After wading into the social and legal morass of assisted suicide Canadian Catholics are now confronting its spiritual implications — and receiving no clear answers.

When he received an unexpected call in June and learned Pope Francis planned to make him a bishop, Fr. Robert Kasun figured someone had made a big mistake. Those doubts endured right up to his Sept. 12 ordination in Edmonton.

Renowned 19th-century novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that “mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.”

As traumatized civilians in war-torn Syria face little near-term hope of returning to their homes, Canada������Ƶapp refugee resettlement program is running on low battery and needs to be re-charged.

Fall temperatures will empty beaches in southern France and bring a natural end to the burkini furor and ugly confrontations that have triggered a worldwide debate. But the underlying tension won’t be folded away with the beach blankets. And that is unsettling.

Only a handful of Catholics are quoted more often than Mother Teresa. Even today, 19 years after her death, the words of the saintly sister still resonate whenever the topic is mercy and compassion.

Is the West������Ƶapp tepid response to the religious cleansing of Syrian and Iraqi Christians a sign of naivety, greed or maybe cowardice? Or is there a Machiavellian strategy to ease religious tension in the region by silently watching a 2,000-year-old Christian presence simply fade away?

Widespread abuse of prescription painkillers is a major problem that governments are right to address. But Ontario������Ƶapp recent move to become the first Canadian jurisdiction to eliminate high-dosage opioid medications from its provincial drug plan goes a step too far.

Next to the Pope, the Vatican������Ƶapp most quoted person is probably the papal spokesman. In an often thankless job, the spokesman makes official announcements, corrects misinformation, fields reporters’ queries and, generally, is the public face of a Church that is frequently misunderstood.