The duty to engage in politics is not negotiable in John McKay’s view. “You have the absolute right not to vote”, the Scarborough-Guildwood MP asserts with this warning to those politically asleep at the wheel, “and I have the absolute right to impose a $100 fine on your tax return.”

Infants born alive after abortion has come up recently. But why discuss this most electric of third rail issues? Babies born alive after an abortion in the second trimester is “common.”

Did you ever make an Hour of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and wonder if there was a more fruitful way?

“Every day is Thanksgiving. That’s what the Eucharist is for."

Remi De Roo named a bishop just as the Second Vatican Council opened in October 1962. He was 38 years old, the youngest bishop in the world. De Roo attended all four sessions of Vatican II, and the experience changed him for life. He gained a new understanding of the Church, one more inclusive than the hierarchical model he had learned in the seminary.

I suppose it is not a surprise to say that a writer loves words. Thinks words are powerful and important. Spends minutes and hours thinking up just the right way to express feelings and ideas with words. 

Peter Maurin, from the Catholic Worker movement, was known to proudly assert, “I am a peasant. I have roots.” Most would not share Peter’s pride. Thanks to the Middle Ages and Western pop culture’s treatment of it — the word is considered derogatory. That is something that needs to change. 

People new to, or wishing to grow deeper in faith, often ask me to recommend good Catholic books. The height of understatement is to say coming up with such a list is a daunting challenge in a tradition that, beginning with the Holy Scriptures, has an almost inexhaustible treasury of books.

The liturgical calendar turns briefly in late September and early October to the role of angels in salvation. First, there is the Sept. 29 feast of the messengers Gabriel, Raphael and Michael – not celebrated this year because the feast falls on a Sunday – and then the Oct. 2 memorial of guardian angels.

It’s a scene straight out of a horror movie. A 14-year-old girl douses a 15-year-old girl with “liquid from a black canister” and sets the girl on fire, to the shock of students and teachers at Evan Hardy Collegiate in Saskatoon.