The much-anticipated Vatican summit on clerical sexual abuse of minors is still days away but perhaps the strongest declaration to be expected from this unprecedented gathering of bishops has already been made.

Of the thousands of words spoken last month inside a Saskatchewan courtroom, none were more profound than this simple declaration: I forgive you.

Young people are not the future of the Church — they are the present.

Canada’s bishops have listened for years as frustrated Church leaders in the developing world decry Canadian companies for acting as if the worker codes and human rights mandated by Canadian law become optional when operating abroad.

There’s nothing like a feel-good story to kick off a new year, and stories seldom get more uplifting than a dramatic rescue involving a teenage girl who feared for her life.

After an extraordinary year of bickering and division in the U.S. Church, some 200 American bishops have listened to Pope Francis and taken a timeout. They gathered in early January for a six-day retreat near Chicago where they were encouraged to be silent and to pray.

One way to view world history could be through a lens of justice. In courts, on battlefields, in parliaments and in many other settings where humans interact, justice has been a constant pursuit — but remains elusive in so many ways.

No memories are so sweet as those which cluster round the Infant Saviour’s festive season.

Far too late to save the summer jobs of thousands of students who went unemployed last summer, the government has finally conceded a heavy handed edict to link a public grant with Liberal Party ideology was a dumb idea.

As Parliament awaits the imminent arrival of a report on assisted suicide that may make a bad situation even worse, it’s worth noting some chilling stories from the first countries to legalize medically induced death. This could be our future.