My initial reaction to the recent US Supreme Court decision rendering Roe v Wade unconstitutional and giving individual states the right to regulate abortion was, as it was for millions, anger at the fact that men had once again prevailed in depriving women of their right to decide whether orRead More

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

The Catholic Church long ago joined the ranks of the mighty who have fallen, given its obvious knowledge and cover-up of the sexual abuse scandal that has caused so many former Catholics to abandon the pews they’d occupied weekly for the greater part of their lives.  But a series ofRead 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

Author’s Note: Since September 2018, I have been reporting on the extraordinary story of the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven (KBP7), a group of veteran anti-nuclear Catholic activists currently awaiting sentencing for acts of non-violent ‘symbolic disarmament’ at the Kings Bay Trident submarine base in Georgia, home to America’s East CoastRead More

I wonder how Pope Francis feels about having a 92-year-old armchair quarterback living in a neat little cottage somewhere behind the Vatican who suddenly decides to “unpack” the sexual abuse crisis, its causes and solutions? Retired Pope Benedict XVI has decided to share his enlightened version of the worst scandalRead More

How many Catholics, I wonder, of those who continue to attend Mass at least weekly — praying, singing, listening to homilies and participating in the Eucharist — ever give serious thought to the ongoing and possibly greatest scandal in the Catholic Church’s history? Is it a case of “I’m alrightRead More

Summer is considered the best time for light reading, not for serious books that could actually destroy a beautiful sunny day on the beach or the deck, but I recently dove into Crimes of the Father, the 2015 novel by the prolific Irish-Australian author Thomas Keneally. Right off the bat,Read More

The Catholic Church divides the liturgical year into six seasons, the first of which, Advent, lasts four weeks (this year only three full weeks) and has what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops describes as a “twofold character”: a season during which Catholics prepare to celebrate the birth ofRead More