George Weigel might just be the most important lay Catholic at work today. The American writer’s books, essays, newspaper columns and lectures address the importance of defending the Catholic faith, and religion in general, from the assault of radical secularism.

Several years ago, a man showed up at a magazine company where I worked demanding to be paid “his” million dollars.

As a native American, a Catholic and someone who still clings to the notion that character matters, I have found someone who is worthy of my vote. Abe Lincoln is not on the U.S. presidential ballot but I will write in his name.

Bishops in Alberta and the Northwest Territories issued what has been prosaically called a series of guidelines to deal with so-called medical aid in dying. In truth, the Vademecum for Priests and Parishes beautifully illuminates, and reminds readers, what it means to live a Catholic life.

Is music part of the missionary activity of the Church? Or does it remain part of her internal life, as it were, reserved to the worship of God?

Reading through the obituary recently of iconic Canadian author and baseball lover W.P. Kinsella, one paragraph jumped off the pages of the Globe and Mail; dripping with irony.

I believe the heart of our faith is forgiveness. Even when receiving the Eucharist we are reminded that on the cross, in His great agony, Jesus forgave.

The great Canadian author William Kinsella died Sept. 16 at the age of 81. He wrote terrific stories and was brilliant at merging baseball and fiction. His novel Shoeless Joe was turned into the hit movie Field of Dreams. He left behind a great literary legacy and a gaping hole in the hearts of baseball fans with a literary bent.

This week Toronto hosts the head of the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). Within the UGCC, Shevchuk is referred to as the Patriarch of Kyiv, the common title for the head of an Eastern Catholic Church. Due to tensions with the Orthodox though, especially in Russia, the Holy See grants him the title of “major archbishop,” equivalent in all aspects to a patriarch.

Each year, there are more than 5,000 heart transplants around the world — that’s about 14 every single day.