Winter is here and I’m excited for the Advent season, but everyone who knows me knows that I love summer and I start counting down the days way too early.

WASHINGTON – In the days since the Nov. 30 death of former President George H.W. Bush, several news outlets reported that some years ago he told family members that he doubted any one would come to his memorial when he died.

WASHINGTON – When he was running for re-election in 1992, President George H.W. Bush told Catholic News Service that he believed that a strong religious faith could provide "an extra shot of strength when you need it."

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – Local counselors are concerned about a growing tendency among adolescents and young adults to choose suicide or self-harm and the limited scope of ministry available in local Catholic parishes for suicide prevention or family healing.

Have you ever wondered what would it be like to “speak” from the grave and tell your loved ones how you would like things handled after you die? 

Do you have capacity?

When Amy Profenna recently met with a lawyer to update her Will, one of the questions she was asked was if she wanted to be cremated.

“I have been half in love with easeful Death.” So wrote poet John Keats two centuries ago. For him it was sorrowful, yet his succinct sentence could well describe our current perspective in this country. 

An estate gift to your parish or favourite charity can be your way of expressing what was important in your life. What follows are some of the ways people choose to remember charities in their estate plan.

New federal government rules to monitor euthanasia and assisted suicide are opaque and weak at a time when legally induced deaths are rising at alarming levels, warn several organizations.

Whenever a doctor assists in a suicide in Ontario by injecting a patient with chemicals to stop the heart, it is recorded on the death certificate as a natural death. 

VATICAN – With the July 5 death of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the office of camerlengo is now vacant. A sensitive position, above all in the period between the death of a pope and the election of his successor, the Church awaits Pope Francis’ nomination of a new camerlengo.

VATICAN – Pope Francis attended the funeral Mass and presided over the final commendation of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the French cardinal who led the Vatican's outreach to other religions and who had announced to the world his election as pope five years ago.

Death has lived in the shadows and been discussed in whispers for a very long time.

Gone prematurely, remembered always.

Rebecca Maureen (Becky) Beaton passed away early one mid-May morning after a gutsy 30-month battle with cancer. Becky was just 36 and I was proud to call her my niece for that seemingly brief period of time.