Robert Brehl is a writer in Port Credit, Ont.

Oscar Wilde famously said “to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

Words matter: euphemisms and assisted suicide

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Reading through the obituary recently of iconic Canadian author and baseball lover W.P. Kinsella, one paragraph jumped off the pages of the Globe and Mail; dripping with irony.

Modern medical miracle brings family joy

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Each year, there are more than 5,000 heart transplants around the world — that’s about 14 every single day.

Diverse, diligent panel gets female deacons talks off on right foot

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The swiftness of Pope Francis setting up a Vatican panel to study the question of women deacons clearly indicates His Holiness wants resolution to the prickly issue.

America is reaping what it has sown

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Earlier this month, we were driving to Minnesota to visit relatives on the night a black man was shot dead by police in a St. Paul suburb after being stopped for a broken tail light. That was a day after another black man was killed by police in Baton Rouge.

Time to rethink role of women in Church

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Does anybody today believe men are intellectually superior to women because of their gender? The question is not about the intelligence of an individual man or woman, but collectively. Simply put: if you have the Y chromosome does it make you smarter?

Perhaps Carolyn Bennett should check her mirror

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Have you heard the one about the long-time politician preaching to Catholics about morals and obligations?

A little girl, a potato and the President

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A long-anticipated trip to Ireland, researching ancestors, a poignant story about children playing with a potato, even the name Barack Obama, all eventually led me to pondering the plight of Syrian refugees and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

A question thousands of years in the asking

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Standing recently inside one of the oldest tombs in the world, with about 200,000 tonnes of stone above and around me, strange thoughts manifested in the darkness. The thoughts were not of fear but of perplexity about today’s materialistic, even hedonistic, culture.

My most memorable Christmas gift

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At a recent dinner party, talk turned to most memorable Christmas gifts received. There was a first bicycle, some jewelry and a couple “bucket-list” trips mentioned.

Pope set-up says plenty about rifts in Church

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Francis caught up in smear job by social ideologues