Sixty per cent of Canadian children are being raised in homes with married parents, a new study has found, a number that has stayed steady since 2016 after years of decline.

Christmas is a time when loss is felt more acutely. But what of losses that we pretend are not? Of all the ideas our culture accepts as normal, divorce may not be the most pernicious. Pretending it is not a loss, pretending that divorce is empowering, just might be. 

If you don’t get married you won’t get divorced. But as marriage and divorce both decline, that is no guarantee of a happier or healthier society, said a researcher who has documented a drop in divorce among Canadians.

MANILA, Philippines -- A Philippine church official has expressed surprise over the speedy acceptance of a bill in the country's parliament that would legalize divorce.

VATICAN – Implementation of Pope Francis' abbreviated process for declaring the nullity of a marriage got off to a slow start, Vatican statistics showed, but his encouragement for making the annulment process free for petitioners fared better.

Promises, promises.

VATICAN CITY – The same mercy and patience that are essential for building a strong family must be shown to those whose families are in trouble or have broken up, Pope Francis said in his highly anticipated post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

BANGALORE, India - Catholic bishops in India made some self-critical observations and also discussed moral decline and growing religious fundamentalism during their biennial assembly.

VATICAN CITY - As the discussion began at the world Synod of Bishops on the family, Pope Francis urged members not to act as if the only question that mattered was the pastoral care of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, his spokesman said.

TORONTO - Robert Mickens is expecting Pope Francis to “rattle cages” during the Synod of Bishops on the Family by challenging the world’s bishops to face and address the problems within the Church.

PHILADELPHIA - As the director of the Catholic Organization for Life and Family, Michele Boulva is well-known in the Canadian Catholic Church. Yet at the World Meeting of Families Sept. 23, she mentioned something she had never told publicly before.

In a just-released book Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has poured cold water on arguments that the Church should allow communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

Bishops who attend the Synod on the Family in Rome next month should find a way for divorced and remarried Catholics to be forgiven and allowed back into the communion line, urges one of the most senior and respected canon lawyers in Canada.

Speaking out on one of the most contentious issues of his papacy, Pope Francis issued a powerful call for the Church to embrace Catholics who have divorced and remarried, telling a gathering at the Vatican Aug. 5 that such couples “are not excommunicated, and they absolutely must not be treated that way.”

On the solemn feast of Corpus Christi a counterintuitive thought occurs: Are too many people receiving Holy Communion too often?