People jumping into a lake to escape being consumed by flames. Roadways jammed with vehicles on the move. Kilometre-long line-ups to airstrips offering evacuation flights.

We are last to push off from the shore into Oxbow Lake. I am in a canoe with Steph and Ava, two high school students from the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Ahead of us are 30 other TCDSB students ranging from Grades 10-12. For many of them it is their first time paddling a canoe. We are bringing up the rear to ensure no one goes astray. Leading the pack at the front is Greg Rogers, founder of this week-long Catholic Leadership program at Camp Olympia near Huntsville, Ont. He is taking us all to see Jesus.

CanadaöĎÓăĘÓƵapp True North has reported that 83 churches have now been desecrated, vandalized or burned to the ground since the announcement that graves were found near residential schools in Kamloops, British Columbia. However, no actual graves have been excavated and no definitive wrong proven. But those who don’t like Catholics and the Catholic Church were given the green light to attack churches and frighten believers. And what has been the response to the destruction from the bishops and the government? Silence.

CanadaöĎÓăĘÓƵapp Federal Court may have unwittingly brought us to peak gender pronoun nonsense. We can only hope — or better yet pray — for a return to earth it puts our feet back on sensible ground.

Mackenzie-Fort Smith Bishop Jon Hansen was among the thousands of evacuees forced to flee the Northwest Territories due to the wildfires. The bishop has been keeping in touch with his flock online.

If you’ve ever wondered: “Why do I need to confess my sins to a priest?”…we need to talk. I truly don’t mean to be insulting or condescending, but any Catholic who asks this question is in need of remedial catechesis. But, I get it. We haven’t been catechized properly, enough or at all — and we haven’t kept up studying our faith as adults.

Every year over a million children experience a tragic milestone: seeing their parents divorce. In fact, when combined with unmarried parents who split up, itöĎÓăĘÓƵapp now estimated that fewer than half of all children today will spend their childhood together with their parents in a unified home.

Every summer, I wait and hope for our plans to cooperate with the weather and give us a day or two on the lake with my parents’ beautiful boat. We need the sunshine to keep us warm enough and the wind to stay mild enough that we can pull the tube behind the boat. The driver and the wind work together to make waves, and the riders delight at the efforts to stay on or fall in. On these rare and perfect days, I might be the biggest kid of all.

Some World Youth Day pilgrims in Portugal were critical of Pope Francis for failing to condemn RussiaöĎÓăĘÓƵapp brutal invasion of their homeland.

In “How the Church Failed Sinead O’Connor” (Aug. 13-20 issue) Katherine Bennett implies that the Church is responsible for the sad life and death of singer Sinead O’Connor.