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March 4, 2015
MONTREAL - Christians have always faced various degrees of persecution through the centuries and should always be prepared to wear “the crown of martyrdom,” a Coptic leader in Montreal told his congregation Feb. 28 during a memorial Mass honouring 21 Egyptians who were beheaded on a beach in Libya by jihadists in mid-February.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis is expected to canonize Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux, during the world Synod of Bishops on the family in October.
WASHINGTON - Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency, called assertions that it had supplied birth control in Kenya "misleading, exaggerated and untrue."
NEW YORK - Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said Islamic State militants terrorizing the Middle East are a distortion of “genuine” Islam much as the Irish Republican Army was a “perversion” of Catholicism.
March 5, 2015
Hang on for dear life. Unfortunately, the dearness of life seems to be dying a not-so-slow death.
Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year B) March 15 (2 Chronicles 36:14-17a, 19-23; Psalm 137; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21)
Long before today’s clamorous atheists (Christopher Hitchens, God is not Good; Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion; Sam Harris, The End of Faith, etc.) began filling bookshelves and public airwaves, there was one name that was synonymous, at least in England, with public atheism. That name was Antony Flew.
At a concert put on by friends, a song brought me back to another time and place, as only songs can do: "This land is parching, this land is burning. O healing river, send down your waters."
As I wrote last week from Jerusalem, just months after the massacre at a synagogue in Har Nof, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood, I felt a duty to make a visit, to pray for the dead and to offer, in a small way, solidarity with those who suffered the desecration of their house of worship.
A friend who attended a commemoration Mass at a church in Montreal’s Villeray neighbourhood at the end of February e-mailed me this compelling observation shortly afterward.
VATICAN CITY - The most serious ailment the aged face and the greatest injustice they suffer is abandonment, Pope Francis said.
A harsh ruling by a Quebec judge against a hijab-wearing Muslim woman offers a cautionary tale about what can happen when a peaceable society falls sway to fear and suspicion.
BEUERBERG, Germany - Cold winter light is streaming through the ancient windows of Beuerberg Abbey. It plays on the wood of the empty choir stalls, shimmers on the bronze hand bell of the prioress. Everything is quiet and ready for the next prayer.
WASHINGTON - Everyone has a high opinion of Pope Francis. Well, almost everyone.
John’s account of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple is in sharp contrast to the other Gospel accounts of this dramatic story. In the Synoptic Gospels, this scene takes place at the end of the “Palm Sunday Procession” into the holy city.
March 6, 2015
One of the hardest things about moving to a small town is integrating into the community. After my last column was published, I was offered a job in northeastern Alberta and found myself moving to the town of St. Paul. It’s the centre of the diocese and at approximately 6,000 people it’s the smallest municipality I’ve ever called home.
LONDON, Ont. - Despite the winter winds howling outside, youth ministry specialist Dan Moynihan and his team are busy preparing to welcome hundreds of high school students to camp this summer.
NEW YORK - Cardinal Edward Egan, who served as archbishop of New York through the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks and the clergy sex abuse scandal but was best known for administrative acumen that helped solidify the finances of the sprawling archdiocese, died March 5. He was 82.
VATICAN CITY - The Catholic Church firmly opposes the death penalty and urges all states to move toward its abolition, said the Vatican's permanent observer to United Nations agencies in Geneva.
TORONTO - Despite an overwhelmingly negative response from members of the public, physicians and organizations during a three-month online consultation, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons voted 21-3 to force doctors to refer for abortions, contraception and other legal treatments or procedures even if they have moral or religious objections.