A recent celebrant on CTV’s local Mass for Shut-ins began his homily with this line: If you go out into the garage and stay there all day, it doesn’t make you a car. Similarly if you go to church every Sunday, it doesn’t make you a Christian. That statement threw…Read...

Although the Residential Schools have come under attack over the years, the discovery of the graves of children in and around the former schools in May of 2021 resulted in a new and urgent call for apologies from the various churches involved in them. Almost immediately after the graves wereRead More

In 1963, when Nate Nathanson, owner of CJCB radio and television, approached Rev. Frank Abbass with a plan to broadcast Mass for those unable to attend in person, I doubt either of them imagined the program would become the longest-running TV production in the country. Certainly, neither could have envisionedRead More

Reporters and religious writers who cover the Vatican are already going to great lengths to make sure that Catholics, especially LGBTQ Catholics, realize that Pope Francis’ statement re “civil unions” changes nothing as far as the Catholic Church’s stand on homosexuality and its definition of “marriage” is concerned. (The latterRead More

“It’s God will” is a statement so often heard that when one personally decides s/he no longer accepts it as reasonable, practical, or —  let’s face it — believable, a statement from a high-ranking clergyman in the Catholic Church endorsing such a view, especially with regard to COVID-19, has toRead More

While much has been written about the many ways in which COVID-19 has changed our lives over the past few months, little has been said about how those who are regular church-goers have been affected as a result of being deprived of the spiritual support of weekly attendance at Mass.Read More

The news that Jean Vanier, who died in May 2019, sexually abused six women surely devastated his followers and admirers around the world, including, one assumes, the L’Arche community in Iron Mines, Cape Breton. (I made an effort to contact them but heard nothing back after leaving a message.) TheRead More

I will give Pope Francis a tip of the biretta for his latest act on behalf of some of the poorest of the poor in Rome, or as he refers to them “society’s rejects, victims of today’s throwaway culture.” He has turned the Palazzo Migliori, a 19th palace named forRead More

On 7 November 2011, Pope Benedict XVI was presented with the first printed copy of the revised English edition of the Roman Missal by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. I have admitted to not being very happy with the translation and as the years have gone by I still hearRead More

Timothy Schmalz, a renowned Canadian sculptor, has a reputation for producing pieces of art that are influenced by the Bible, including “Homeless Jesus,” a sculpture of a man sleeping on a park bench, wrapped in a blanket and identifiable as Jesus by the wounds on his bare feet. The workRead More