The United States is in the midst of political crisis; divisions among Americans are at a fever pitch. I do not think the country has been this polarized since the Vietnam War era.

I gave a talk some years ago to the Thomas More Lawyers’ Guild of Toronto. It was about the media and religion but because it was the hot issue of the day I spoke in part about the need for the Catholic Church as an institution to do more to combat the then proposed legalization of euthanasia.

Sr. Deirdre Byrne is a remarkable woman. Many of you have heard her life story because of the address she gave to the Republican National Convention in August.

Music is a great comfort. It raises deep issues of the soul and then expresses them in a way most of us never could. Many kinds of music are deeply spiritual, from Gregorian chant to country to rock.

We need to stop from time to time to contemplate what it means to be Catholic in this aggressively secular society of ours. It is easy for our beliefs to be swamped by the detritus of a powerful popular culture that looks upon us with bare tolerance at best and derision at worst.

This column is a shout out to a good man. No one can accuse me of trying to curry favour with him. I do not need a job or need to borrow money.

In my own life I have often looked for inspiration from great men and women.

In the midst of the COVID-19 virus it is easy to forget what other dangers lurk in our society. We must remember that our government has been involved in a great and destructive program of social engineering — and it is about to get far worse.

I am aware I write a lot about my pain. There is a good reason. Pain, specifically spinal pain, has been the dominant force in my life for nine years. It is what I wake up to every morning, it is what I carry around during the day and it is the last thing I feel before falling asleep … and it is what wakes me up through the night when pain is more acute.

There is not a lot to commend living in a quarantined world.