������Ƶapp a decade ago, I concluded that the underlying affliction in North American society is potato chips.

On a car ride from Kingston to Ottawa, I tested my hypothesis on Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and my then-colleague Fr. Raymond de Souza, with whom I co-founded Convivium magazine. Both of these supremely brainy Catholic clergymen looked at me as if I were mucho nachos shy of a full bag.

The small but agitated crowd at the front steps of the Catholic Centre in downtown Montreal mistook me for their saviour.

Some will sniff that a hierarchical Church is hardly an institution to concern itself with authoritarian politics.

Often when a particular friend of mine says certain things, I don’t react right away. In fact, it might require days. Or impose a prudent pause until the 12th of Never.

What was surprising about the Hindustan Times being the first source I was offered on Google for reports of Pope Francis’ weekend message to journalists was how unsurprising it was.

Granted, there is something beyond the borderline of zany in a journalist urging theologians to look to economics for reform of human behaviour.

At the end of a recent long run during which the state of the world is a staple of the conversational smorgasbord, my running partner asked a pressing perspicacious question: When, exactly, was conscience transferred from individual to collective ownership?

The board of a hospice society in suburban Vancouver is fighting for its pro-life life this October. It is also already looking ahead to new life for palliative care in a continent-wide network of euthanasia-free care centres.

Even in the world of what the late, great Allan Fotheringham called the “shy egomania” of journalism, moments of humility tilt unexpectedly upward their beautiful faces and make you see anew.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel deeply uneasy about a minister of the Crown effectively usurping the role of a minister of the Church?