It’s the timing that makes Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s cap-and-trade announcement particularly ironic.

Proof that the Church has no shyness about irony is affirmed by news that Canada’s new Catholic hymnal will be unleashed during Lent two years hence.

It’s probably a safe bet that Ontario’s new premier has never read Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on marriage, parenthood, procreation and contraception. 

This column started about all the gun violence in Toronto this summer, but then it changed. For some reason, thoughts moved from hatred and death that guns bring to unconditional love and affection that family pets offer.

You could almost hear the champagne corks popping below the border when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation. 

The Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 8 (Year B) Ezekiel 2:3-5; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6

Canada’s bishops typically are cautious when passing comment on public policy. So they grabbed our attention when, in the first paragraph of a recent press release, the bishops predicted Canada’s new marijuana law will have “disastrous effects” on society.

I love words. They flow constantly from my head to my heart, spill out of my mouth with laughter, make sense of my world.  And sometimes, words fail. They take the air from my lungs or hit me in the face. Sometimes, there isn’t sense to be made. 

Several years ago, a friend who had immigrated from the former Soviet Union told me, “Canada is the greatest place on Earth. It is a paradise.” While I felt flattered on behalf of my country to hear those words, I also wondered what in our country made him so effusive.