Robert Brehl is a writer in Port Credit, Ont.

One Saturday night years ago, my mother won a trip to Monaco and the French Riviera in a raffle. The next morning, I remember her putting more money in the collection plate than usual.

Comment: Nun’s murder filled with unsettling twists in new Netflix series

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As a fan of murder mysteries, I was drawn to a new Netflix series entitled The Keepers, a true-crime story about the murder of a popular young nun who was a high school teacher in Baltimore.

Comment: No bond is stronger than mother and child

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This being Mother’s Day weekend, an editor asked if I’d like to write about it. Initially, I decided to pass because I’ve written about my wonderful late mother many times.

Comment: Uncle Bill brought out the best in family

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It’s been said family can provide us with great strength and expose our greatest weaknesses. Or, as comedian George Burns once said: “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”

Comment: Education is the best way to tackle bigotry

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“What good can this wretched intolerance and religious bigotry effect?”

Comment: Talk of married priests is all about the math

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The Pope’s recent musings about the possibility of older, married men someday being ordained as priests is all about math, not theology, doctrine or politics.

Comment: Sts. Perpetua, Felicitas’ martyr story is both horrific, inspiring

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March 7 is the feast day for Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas — the patron saints of mothers and expectant mothers — and the story of these two courageous martyrs is appropriate to reflect upon.

Comment: Plenty of smoke but no fire at the Vatican

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The headline on the front page of the New York Times last week about Donald Trump’s key advisor was ominous: “Steve Bannon Carries Battles to Another Influential Hub: The Vatican.”

Comment: More to Malta Affair than meets the eye

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One must wonder whether the rather bizarre clash between the Vatican and the Knights of Malta — a Catholic humanitarian organization with diplomatic ties to more than 100 countries — is really about distributing condoms as part of an aid project.

Comment: The duke with a detached look on his face

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On a family holiday in London earlier this month, I learned many fascinating stories while wandering the old town, but one involving the last Catholic king of England and his nephew may well have been the most captivating, so to speak.