Pietro Parolin

It all started with a phone call. When the Daughters of St. Paul arrived in downtown Chicago in 1979, we were in need of a garbage pickup company. Why not continue with the company that had already been servicing our building? When the Sisters called Flood Brothers Disposal, little did they know the lifelong friendship it would kick off. Mike and Joe Flood were fervent Irish Catholics and…practical jokers. They first pretended to be atheists, but eventually came clean (pun intended) and began picking up our trash gratis, along with financially supporting our media mission.

Saturday morning in early June. Sunshine streaming through lilac bushes. Birds singing from underneath leaves that seem to have grown overnight. And tables full of things we hope other people will like well enough to take home. There are stories attached to the stuff. The kids keep changing their minds and sneaking things back in the house. The seeing and the sifting happen simultaneously.

Dr. Sinda Vanderpool begins her tenure as president and vice-chancellor of St. Mary’s University in Calgary next month with a mindset for growth.

Readers may recall my May 2020 article in this publication. I shared how my Dad, Edward Ecker, was coping with the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic while living in a long-term care facility in Brantford, Ont.  

Farrow informative

In her June 12 column “MAiD to Measure,” Anna Farrow presents an informative history of euthanasia legislation in Canada, showing the advance in sheer ghoulishness over the past seven years.

Distressing as it is that Canadians need urging to step up efforts against the scourge of human trafficking, it remains commendable that the Church continues to provide leadership and leaders for the fight.

When Sr. Nancy Brown began serving as pastoral counsellor at Covenant House Vancouver in 1998, her eyes were opened to the sex-trafficking crisis happening right under the nose of everyday Canadians.

Human trafficking incidents reported by Canadian police declined from 546 in 2019 to 515 in 2020, according to Statistics Canada, but advocates for victims are under no illusion that the numbers are dwindling.

A Superior Court judge authorized the filing of a class action suit related to sex abuse cases against the Diocese of Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec.

The decision of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to close the domestic operations of Catholic News Service strikes at the heart of the notion of synodality which Pope Francis is encouraging through the Catholic Church. The current reflections on synodality call the members of Christ’s Body to consider the proper way for authority in the Church to be shared.