Anna Farrow

Jerusalem Latin Patriarch’s words stand out

October 18, 2023

On the same day the Toronto Board of Rabbis pleaded with their co-religionists to show public solidarity, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, offered himself as one such sign.

Canada has strong presence at Synod

October 11, 2023

Relative to its population, Canada is punching above its weight at the Synod on Synodality, currently in its second week in Rome.

‘They were killed because they were Jewish’

October 11, 2023

My sister is a Shabbat-observing Orthodox Jew. When I saw the news trickling out of Israel on Saturday morning, I knew I wouldn’t be able to check in with her until that night. Her phone is off from Friday evening until Saturday sundown. Then I remembered that it was Simchat Torah, and that observant Jews in the U.S. wouldn’t be turning their phones back on until Sunday evening.

These Sisters have a devout love for life

October 7, 2023

An enduring trope in the culture wars is that pro-life advocates care only for the fetus and nothing for the women and children at the centre of abortion debates. Critics point fingers, often literally, alleging that political pro-life wrangling always trumps the physical and spiritual care of women.

The p’tit pére’s little project that grew

October 5, 2023

In a little corner of the cavernous basement of Mary Queen of the World Cathedral in Montreal, Fr. Jean-Pierre Couturier has spent every Thursday of the last 25 years mending shoes.

Hillbilly theology comes to McGill

September 28, 2023

Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP, Rector Magnificus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, brought a lot of theology and a little bit of bluegrass to McGill University when he delivered the 2023 Birks Lectures.

Beauty matters

September 28, 2023

There’s a dynamism in engaging with the natural world, poet Maya Clubine believes.

$20-million Jesuit centre nurtures religious roots

September 22, 2023

With the purchase of a new property in 2021 and ambitious plans for development, Canadian Jesuits are hoping to buck the trend of closures and contraction experienced by Quebec Catholic institutions over the past 50 years.

Fr. Brennan’s funeral was wedded with joy

September 14, 2023

In June of this year, I wrote an article for The Catholic Register on the life and ministry of Fr. Charles Robert (Rob) Brennan, SJ. At the time, Fr. Rob was in palliative care at the Jesuit residence in Pickering, Ont. In my opening sentence, I noted that in 2020 he had said that the only vocational aspiration that remained to him was a “good death.” As it turns out, his prayers, and the prayers of his many friends, were answered and Fr. Rob enjoyed, indeed truly relished, several months’ worth of dying.

Red Mass resurrected

September 13, 2023

A group of 60 jurists, notaries and law students gathered at the Sacred Heart Chapel in Montreal’s historic Notre-Dame Basilica on Sept. 7 to attend the first Red Mass organized by the newly formed Société Saint-Yves de Montréal.