It’s full throttle on the Christmas shopping season now and even a pandemic isn’t about to put the brakes on people rushing to line up outside stores by buy gifts.

Fifty years is a long time for a good idea to sit on a shelf.

Jonathan Castillo is a cartonero in Argentina — a collector of discarded recyclables.

ASSISI, Italy -- With a pilgrim's staff and mantle, Pope Francis entered Assisi's Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels with 500 economically or socially disadvantaged people and the volunteers who walk alongside them.

We are divided, sorted, separated. As the gaps between us grow, society slides into the abstract. Our concrete reality is the opposite of society. Day to day we experience life as individuals. We live in a tight circle of economic security that revolves around our lonely selves.

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 the promise of spring in the air, the day had turned windy and blustery, cutting sharply through the heavy jacket I reserve for evenings such as these on the street.

The Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition is once again battling poverty in Ontario, this time with facts laid out in black and white and printed in a book.

“You say you care about the poor … then tell me, what are their names?”

The typical image of poverty is often presented to us when we walk down a busy street. We see a man or woman holding a coffee cup, baseball cap or some other vessel to receive the pocket change of passers-by. 

Ontario’s plan to help poor people has left a lot of blanks yet to be filled, said the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Toronto.

OTTAWA -- Anti-poverty groups say Canadians most vulnerable to living in poverty will fall further behind because of COVID-19 unless post-pandemic recovery efforts focus on eliminating systemic issues keeping them in a perpetual state of poverty.

VATICAN CITY -- Christians cannot stand idly by and watch as millions of people are deprived of their basic needs because of others' greed, Pope Francis said.

Sheri McConnell has no doubt some divine intervention was involved in her taking on the role of executive director of Mary’s Meals Canada in March.

OTTAWA -- The federal government is touting recent statistics that indicate that the poverty rate in Canada is on a downward spiral, but social justice and anti-poverty groups say the statistics don’t tell the whole story and there is still a lot of work to be done if Canada is going to reduce poverty levels for Indigenous Canadians and those who live in remote areas of the country.