By taking the bold and encouraging step of empowering a permanent council of cardinals Pope Francis has launched an era of revolutionary rebirth to create a less centralized, more inclusive world Church.

In their darkest warning yet, world scientists have predicted an inevitable increase in storms, droughts, heat waves, floods and, ultimately, deaths due to global warming which they boldly now confirm is caused by humans.

A day after at least 85 Christians were murdered at a Peshawar church, thousands of protesters spilled into Pakistan’s streets to demand justice and protection. Their cries for help followed a particularly bloody weekend for Christians who, in addition to enduring persecution in places like Syria, Iraq and Egypt, were among those targeted by Muslim terrorists in a mall massacre in Kenya that caused dozens of deaths.

A month ago Canada’s new ambassador for religious freedom called on Iran to stop persecuting followers of the Baha’i faith, the country’s largest religious minority. Citing Canada as a leading defender of religious freedom, Andrew Bennett urged “the regime in Iran to live up to its human rights obligations and to respect the voices, thoughts and beliefs of all Iranians.”

It took the deployment of chemical weapons to fully awaken the world to the war horror that has stalked Syria for 2 1/2 years. Now global leaders must forcefully react, not with missiles, but with an immediate and profound assault on the humanitarian crisis that is destabilizing the region and raining immense suffering on millions of innocent Syrians.

KINGSTON, ONT. - A humble, prayerful and dedicated priest, Msgr. Tom Raby was “the salt of the earth” who influenced countless lives as a pastor and writer, a crowded church heard at his funeral Mass.

The chemical weapons massacre that killed 1,429 Syrians, mostly civilians, many of them children, was a monstrous act. “Abhorrent and repugnant,” said Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. “A moral obscenity,” said U.S. President Barack Obama.

On the feast of St. Augustine 100 years ago the doors to the Scarborough seminary named in the saint’s honour officially swung open to welcome 51 aspiring priests into this new masterpiece of the Canadian Church.

Egypt’s dance with democracy has become a tragic failure. The optimism of the Arab Spring movement has been lost beneath a flow of blood that may yet carry the nation to all-out civil war.

The Canadian Medical Association refers to its general meeting as “the parliament of Canadian medicine” because the annual assembly is where doctors debate policies and health issues that affect the nation.