Lent

In the absence of a long-promised federal ombudsperson, legal experts have asked the British Columbia Securities Commission to investigate the sale of a Canadian-owned silver mine in Guatemala.

Welfare reforms that leave a big gap between the poverty line and being poor enough to receive benefits could end up forcing Church charities to make up the difference for thousands of disabled and marginally employable Ontarians.

OTTAWA – Climate politics are shaping up as a federal election issue in a partisan scenario cautioned against by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, his 2015 encyclical on the environment.

WASHINGTON – Many will make sacrifices to attend the upcoming World Youth Day in Panama in late January, but few compare to the challenges facing young Catholics in nearby Nicaragua as the country deals with political and economic upheaval, some of it involving violent clashes with government forces that have plagued the Central American nation since last year.

DUBLIN – The primate of All-Ireland insisted that the country’s new abortion law that took effect Jan. 1 has “no moral force” and it “must be resisted” by Catholics.

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Months after Indonesia's military was summoned to unclog Jakarta Bay, Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo has joined a chorus of disapproval of the nation's growing plastic waste problem by calling parishioners to action.

The rumours have been swirling through the halls of the Toronto Catholic District School Board that a more lean fiscal future will be the new reality, and a late Friday afternoon e-mail from the provincial government Dec. 14 did nothing to allay those fears.

VATICAN – Generously caring for the sick and the marginalized is the best way to combat a culture of waste and indifference that seeks to control and manipulate life, Pope Francis said.

AMMAN, Jordan – Growing numbers of Christians in North America and Europe are joining Christians in Syria's northeast in expressing concern for the future of religious minorities and Kurds in that region should the U.S. give Turkey the "green light" to take over the fight against Islamic State.

If stereotypes are made to be deflated, Amanda Achtman is a young woman who carries a suitcase full of needles and hat pins.