The election of Donald Trump must have distressed Pope Francis. Or did it?

Prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners — torture according to the United Nations — has no place in a just penal system. Yet isolating inmates for lengthy periods remains common practice at Canadian penitentiaries. It must stop.

It’s continually surprising that people seem shocked or disappointed each time Pope Francis shuns modern convention and affirms some aspect of basic Church teaching.

Canadians living jam-packed lives barely have time to read their watches, much less pore over voluminous legal judgments on pressing matters of the day.

At a recent event in New York City, Cardinal Timothy Dolan achieved somewhat of a coup when he cajoled Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to set aside their obvious enmity and, in a private moment, pray together. A day earlier they had refused to even shake hands at a presidential debate. Yet at Dolan’s request the candidates agreed to pray, and afterwards they briefly hid their snarls and traded polite banter, creating what Dolan called a “touching moment.”

George Weigel might just be the most important lay Catholic at work today. The American writer’s books, essays, newspaper columns and lectures address the importance of defending the Catholic faith, and religion in general, from the assault of radical secularism.

Pope Francis will join Lutheran leaders in Sweden Oct. 31 to launch a year of commemoration leading up to next year’s 500th anniversary of the onset of the Protestant Reformation. At first glance, it seems an odd stage for the Pope to occupy.

Several years ago, a man showed up at a magazine company where I worked demanding to be paid “his” million dollars.

A common response to Ottawa’s recent ratification of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change was to declare it the start of a bold new era. We say not so fast, we’ve been down this road before.

As a native American, a Catholic and someone who still clings to the notion that character matters, I have found someone who is worthy of my vote. Abe Lincoln is not on the U.S. presidential ballot but I will write in his name.

There is a dangerous misconception that because the courts and Parliament have decided people can obtain an assisted suicide, health care institutions therefore have a legal obligation to assess candidates and perform these killings.