Feature

Younis Gil is a small man who struggles with English. Years of stress, uncertainty and hard labour have left an imprint. But he squares his shoulders, straightens his back, meets your gaze and smiles. With his wife Saleema Bibi and surrounded by three of his adult children plus a son-in-law, he is a proud pater familias embracing a life that a few months ago was hard to imagine.

Canada can do more to counter Pakistan’s blasphemy law — a law that made refugees of the Younis family and thousands of others, whose lives are on hold in Bangkok and other places around the world — the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief told the All-Party Parliamentary Interfaith Caucus in an online presentation earlier this month.

On May 1, mother of three Linda Murphy began a 900-kilometre hike along Ontario’s Bruce Trail to raise money for domestic violence survivors across Canada.

All labelled and sorted, in bags and boxes, the Loretto College School chapel is crammed with stuff — all of it headed for Ukraine by way of St. Demetrius the Great Martyr Ukrainian Catholic Church in Toronto’s west end.

If the definition of “freedom fighter” is in the eyes of the beholder, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau beholds Ukrainians.

U Sports women’s basketball tournament MVP Jama Bin-Edward of the Ryerson Rams is still coming down from the high of an undefeated season which culminated in the program’s first national title in early April.

The great 19th-century Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky declared that beauty will save the world. Some years earlier, Our Lord anticipated — and no doubt inspired — Dostoyevsky by teaching us the necessity for salvation of experiencing the world and expressing our faith through the beauty in children’s eyes.

Never was a single sentence more longed for. In 40 years since survivors began to speak out, 16 years since the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement and seven years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada delivered its final report, nations and peoples have waited for a Pope to speak.

Vancouver Archbishop Michael Miller says Pope Francis has set in motion a “pilgrimage of closeness” between the Catholic Church and Canada’s First Nation, Metis and Inuit peoples with his historic apology.

Read the full text of Pope Francis' April 1 final audience with the Canadian Indigenous delegation that travelled to the Vatican.