Canada appears to be busting out with “special rapporteurs” this week, although one remains unnamed and the other remains unreachable at least to representatives of the Canadian Catholic Church.

Proceedings from the House of Commons as reported in Hansard

There is an adage that to get off the streets you need a home, a job and a friend. The reality is that there are not enough affordable homes, few jobs open to those who are homeless and even fewer friends who are willing to walk the harsh streets to sustain hope in the darkness. 

Every so often a song comes into my life that makes me cry in a flood of deep spiritual emotion. The latest one made my wife cry first. She heard it at a performance where our kid is a Grade 12 student at the Etobicoke School of the Arts. It was a choral rendition of Low Lily������Ƶapp song “Hope Lingers On,” arranged by Andrea Ramsey. She inspired an online search for it. This article is best read to that soundtrack.

An outwardly immovable obstacle to assessing Pope Francis’ papacy at 10 years is the indisputable and unalterable fact that he is the Pope.

We’ve all heard, ad nauseam to some degree, that words matter. But you sometimes have to wonder, to whom?

Transcript of the presentation by Ilora Finlay, Barroness Finlay of Llandhoff, a member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, professor of palliative medicine, and a Welsh medical doctor, to the Canadian Parliament������Ƶapp Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying.

Almost a decade ago, I visited a close Catholic friend and his wife and family in one of the charming bedroom communities outside Boston. The highlight of the evening was a dinner that my friend hosted replete with fine food, delightful wines from a well-stocked cellar and rich conversation. Sitting next to me on that occasion was my friend and American Catholic man of letters Thomas Howard. 

A workman came to the convent the other day and we began talking about the problem of evil. 

As he steps into retirement at 76 with the Toronto archdiocese and, indeed, Catholics across Canada recognizing his remarkable leadership, Cardinal Thomas Collins leaves in the air a question at once riveting, chilling and Lenten.