With more than 195 countries using the Instapray app, the world is more connected through prayer than ever before. 

Every year, more and more people join, making it easier for everyone to share their prayers through a status on social media and enabling people to pray, share and comment on others’ prayer. It is a global community available to all, and it’s free. 

The early evening was warm and the sun had brought out the convertibles with their roofs down and music blaring. I was walking down Jarvis Street and passing Allan Gardens.

In a nation where violence is no stranger to its youth, a group of Salvadoran teenagers stand as a hope for their country’s future.

3 Moments of the Day by Christopher S. Collins, S.J. (Ave Maria Press, 138 pages, softcover $17.60).

Prayer is a conversation with God — but are we delivering a one-way monologue? It can sometimes be difficult to hear God in prayer. However, 3 Moments of the Day presents a refreshingly simple, straightforward method to help us encounter God not only in prayer but throughout the day. 

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, "Laudato Sii" (Praised Be), a line from St. Francis of Assisi's "Canticle of Creatures," will be released June 18, the Vatican press office announced.

For two months the St. Catherine of Siena community was the target of several acts of vandalism. On May 28, the story ended on a blessed note.

For the first time in 20 years six- and seven-year-olds are getting new religion textbooks, their teachers are getting new lesson plans and parents are getting new ways of helping kids in religion class.

An open letter to Roman Catholic bishops

Dear Bishops

I write to you as a loyal son of the Catholic Church, with a particular request: Could you make an addition to our eucharistic prayers to include an explicit invocation for other Christian churches and for those who lead them?

TORONTO - Dynamic Women of Faith and the Archdiocese of Toronto are joining together to initiate fellowship groups for mothers in parishes across the Greater Toronto Area.

VATICAN CITY - The Holy Year of Mercy will be an opportunity to encourage Christians to meet people's "real needs" with concrete assistance, to experience a "true pilgrimage" on foot, and to send "missionaries of mercy" throughout the world to forgive even the most serious of sins, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella.

GUELPH, ONT. - In increasingly secular Ontario, the debate about the real or perceived distinctiveness of Catholic education rages on.

My God, my God, why have we forsaken thee. Society is hell-bent on downplaying the existence of God, ignoring Him, pushing Him to the sidelines, pretending that He just isn’t real.

The latest volley in the deity war was fired broadside by the Supreme Court of Canada. In mid-April, the country’s highest court ruled unanimously that the practice of Saguenay, Que., city councillors of crossing themselves and spending 20 full seconds in Catholic prayer before conducting official municipal business was out of bounds.

Sometimes you can see a whole lot of things just by looking. That’s one of Yogi Berra’s infamous aphorisms. It’s a clever expression of course, but, sadly, perhaps mostly, the opposite is truer. Mostly we do a whole lot of looking without really seeing much. Our eyes can be wide open and we can be seeing very little.

TORONTO - A popular parish priest who was asked to step aside for a “period of reflection” has declined the opportunity and has decided he will leave the priesthood.

The institutions of society should always show respect and tolerance for people of every faith or no faith. The goal should be inclusiveness and accommodation. That’s how a genuinely pluralistic, multicultural society works.