Bishops in Alberta and the Northwest Territories issued what has been prosaically called a series of guidelines to deal with so-called medical aid in dying. In truth, the Vademecum for Priests and Parishes beautifully illuminates, and reminds readers, what it means to live a Catholic life.
The great Canadian author William Kinsella died Sept. 16 at the age of 81. He wrote terrific stories and was brilliant at merging baseball and fiction. His novel Shoeless Joe was turned into the hit movie Field of Dreams. He left behind a great literary legacy and a gaping hole in the hearts of baseball fans with a literary bent.
This week Toronto hosts the head of the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). Within the UGCC, Shevchuk is referred to as the Patriarch of Kyiv, the common title for the head of an Eastern Catholic Church. Due to tensions with the Orthodox though, especially in Russia, the Holy See grants him the title of “major archbishop,” equivalent in all aspects to a patriarch.