End all persecution

Re: Persecution hits close to home (Jan. 13):

Bob Brehl states “we can go on and on about the persecutions of Christians around the world,” then abruptly switches to a story from The New York Times which discusses the homosexual individual from a Catholic San Diego parish who was harassed. Am I the only one who sees a disconnect? 

It was one of those nights when I was challenged by Pope Francis’ insightful observation in The Joy of the Gospel: “The Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas.”

The cover headline on the December issue of Sojourners magazine caught my eye — “Decolonizing the Spiritual Life: Contemplation, healing, and activism centred on people of colour.” It pointed to an article inside the U.S. magazine, an interview with Teresa Mateus of the Mystic Soul Project.

Remember the good old days.

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.

For several years now, Catholic refugee policy — articulated passionately and repeatedly by the Holy See and many national bishops’ conferences — has focused on the urgent secondary thing, rather than the most important primary thing.

One of the great joys of dealing with chronic pain is that I can read books about the faith all the time without feeling guilty. 

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.

As predictably as rain falling in Dublin, Irish pro-abortion stalwarts are already agitating for so-called exclusion zones around health facilities where the life-ending procedure is performed.

Choosing is in the air. At the beginning of the year, the marketers are competing for our money, and gyms and diet programs are poised to pounce on the good intentions that follow Christmas feasts.