Much ado followed a recent impromptu promise by Pope Francis to study the role of women deacons in Church history. His  simple pledge to convene a commission to look into what Francis called an “obscure” historical question was widely — and wildly — interpreted as a thumbs up for a female diaconate.

Just when you thought the slide into assisted suicide couldn’t get worse, the Prime Minister elbowed into the fray to underscore, once again, the madness of Parliament’s dizzy sprint to pass a new law as if MPs were working on a 30-minute deadline to deliver a pizza.

The most impactful accomplishment of Stephen Harper’s years as Prime Minister might have been his selling G-20 leaders on the need to spend billions of dollars to improve maternal and child health in some of the poorest nations on Earth.

In recent decades Fort McMurray and the oil industry it symbolizes has divided Canadians. The Alberta oil hub was regarded as either a badge of national prosperity or symbol of ecological disgrace. The arguments were fierce.

Good fences make good neighbours, wrote Robert Frost. But don’t try telling that to the bishop of Eisenstadt, Austria.

The federal government’s assisted-suicide legislation is chilling both for what it says and what it doesn’t say.

Once again Africa is reeling from a hunger crisis and appealing for humanitarian aid. And once again the world’s sated nations have a moral duty to generously respond.

Perhaps Cardinal Christoph Schonborn best summarizes Pope Francis’ papal exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love): “There are true innovations, but no break” in tradition, the Austrian theologian told reporters the day the exhortation was released.

The search is on to find a Canadian woman of distinction to honour on an upcoming bank note. After asking why has this taken so long, the next question is who should it be?

If there is an issue that unites most politicians, health workers, social agencies and religious leaders, it is the urgent need for a bold strategy and major investment in palliative and hospice care.