God was abundant at the Toronto archdiocese’s recent inaugural Chesterton Debate. Dear old G.K., unfortunately, was in notably shorter supply.

Christmas came early to our house this year. Very early. Pre-Advent early.

Only in an age permeated with paradox could the victories of the gay rights movement present a model for religious believers in the public square. Yet whether one agrees or disagrees with what gay activists have achieved over the past 40 years, there is no doubt the strategic course they have followed has been wildly successful and worth emulating as a result.

It is both proper and gratifying to see the success of World Youth Day in Rio as a massive, marvelous “yes” to Christian faith.

Only those who have run marathons fully understand the event’s power to shred body, soul and psyche. Runners of half-marathons don’t half understand that power because the full 42.1 kilometres does not split arithmetically in two. It is commonly said the marathon truly begins at 30 kilometres.

As someone who can smell the incense from the last pew of the church, it was no challenge for me to sniff the billows of the beer coming off Ralph Klein.

With all eyes fixed on Rome, it’s not surprising that Paula Celani’s moment of victory in a Montreal courtroom has gone almost unheralded.

The battle over legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Quebec just shifted to the side of the angels. On Feb. 19, a group of more than 300 courageous and very determined doctors took out attention-grabbing newspaper advertisements declaring bluntly that their role will never be to “kill” their patients. Calling themselves the Physicians’ Alliance for Total Refusal of Euthanasia, they issued a manifesto rejecting the whole ideology under which doctors would be complicit in administering lethal doses of drugs to patients.