Part of the Canadian bishops’ contribution toward Health Canada������Ƶapp consultation on palliative care.

One of the most oft-quoted passages of the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 13:1: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” The ensuing verses are probably the most popular option for the epistle in the Roman Catholic Nuptial Mass and why wouldn’t it be at an occasion when we are celebrating the love between the bride and groom?

A few years ago — let������Ƶapp say 20 — I watched as the police handled a disturbance. An elderly gentleman was standing in the middle of the sidewalk talking animatedly to an invisible friend. It seemed to be a delightful conversation, and the man actually excused himself to his imaginary friend when the authorities intervened.

“The joys of parenthood: apparently the best kept secret.”

The contemporary political and cultural mood demands recall of what would normally be a blinding statement of the obvious in a liberal democracy: expression is not automatically endorsement.

Message of thanks from Pope Francis to the volunteers of World Youth Day XXXVII during his Apostolic Journey to Portugal.

In October 1996 I found myself in a seminar group with Sinéad O’Connor. My name then was O’Neill and the alphabet had lumped us together long before any other identity group had a chance to.  

Do the letters BBAABA and the number 1,500 mean anything to you? Most likely not. But it������Ƶapp my hope that they will stick in your mind. Unsettle you. Inspire you to think deeply, share your thoughts about them, take action if you can.  And pray.

Something that my faith has instilled in me is a simple phrase, “it is never too late.” No matter how bad things are, no matter what has happened — there is nothing and no one beyond redemption through the infinite love and mercy of God. It is, I think, a radical aspect of our faith. All that is required, we are told again and again, is to say “Yes” to the invitation to experience that love and mercy.

In Civilization – The West and the Rest, historian Niall Ferguson asks why, from about AD 1500, the West was able to rise from being a backwater of illiterate, unhygienic bumpkins to become the greatest civilization the world had ever seen.