Some may take Michael Crummey’s brilliant 2019 novel The Innocents as a piece of nostalgia for a lost way of life in Newfoundland’s outports. But The Innocents offers insights much greater than the nostalgic pacifier Make Newfoundland Great Again. It depicts an unrelenting struggle for survival by two children left orphaned when their parents and baby sister die within a matter of months.

Although the last Indian residential school in Canada closed 25 years ago, new revelations will continue coming to light for many years. The existence of the schools is a national scandal which cannot be wiped from our memories.

Residents of my Edmonton neighbourhood are setting up front yard signs of solidarity to honour the 215 former students at the Kamloops Residential School whose remains were found outside the school. As well, demonstrations were held in some centres regarding the detection of these unmarked graves. This discovery has moved people in a way that earlier revelations about the schools did not.

Marian devotion and the Church’s preferential option for the poor come together in the feast of the Visitation, celebrated May 31. The feast marks the beginning of Mary’s three-month visit to her cousin Elizabeth.

Despite plenty of reasons to believe otherwise, Christianity remains the greatest force in the global push for human equality, human rights and the dignity of the human person.

When we talk about a sustainable society, the mind almost automatically shifts to the natural environment. Climate change, pollution, wilderness protection and restrained use of natural resources become the topics at the top of the agenda.

In recent weeks, I have encountered a few Catholics who believe the current pandemic is not real, that it has been created by an anonymous “they” who want to restrict the civil liberties of ordinary people.

On Easter Sunday, I will receive my first COVID vaccine. When I heard the date, it felt like an intrusion on the day of celebrating the resurrection of Our Lord. Upon reflecting about it for a while, I decided that receiving the vaccine was a fine way to mark the liturgical feast.

May 1 will mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of Pope John Paul II’s landmark encyclical Centesimus Annus. The document’s name suggests that it was written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, the first papal encyclical which addressed social issues of work, labour unions and economic justice. To an extent, that is true. However, the greater inspiration for the content of the document was the fall of Eastern European communism in 1989.

Sometimes, morality is the enemy of justice. Leading a morally upright life should lead one to act with integrity and compassion. Society itself cannot be good unless a critical mass of its people is morally good. But when we try to make other people good and judge them harshly when they don’t live up to our standards, we become repressive.