Most everyone has read an editorial or an opinion piece attacking the federal government’s summer jobs program for excluding organizations that are pro-life — like the Roman Catholic Church. It has caused outrage in many quarters. We should be grateful that it is more than the usual orthodox suspects who see the injustice in this warped decision.
The visit of the relic of St. Francis Xavier to the Mississauga, Ont., parish named after him will likely be the largest Catholic event of the year in Canada. Numbers are not the most important part of any pilgrimage, but they do tell part of the story. And the 13,000-plus pilgrims that came to St. Francis Xavier parish to honour their patron is an important story about the state of the Church in Canada.