Last Friday morning, in the leadup to Lent, with Vladimir Putin’s invading troops on the doorstep of Ukraine, Pope Francis paid a surprise call on his neighbours at the Russian embassy on Rome’s Via della Conciliazione. 

Seven years ago this spring a high-profile and very public Catholic commentator noisily left the Church after having already abandoned and returned to it previously.

More than 130 years ago, in a foundational encyclical of Catholic social teaching, Pope Leo XIII warned against “crafty agitators” within the political class bent on dividing society for pernicious ends.

Premier François Legault vowed in advance of a truckers’ convoy arriving in Quebec City there would be zero tolerance for antics that interfered with residents enjoying “normal” life.

Critics across the Church spectrum habitually accuse Canada’s Catholic leadership of ducking what “must” be done — must inevitably being defined by what a given critic wants.

American journalist Holman W. Jenkins Jr., who is typically brilliant, outdid even himself recently identifying the emerging metaverse as a potential end game for current woke identity politics.

The beautiful paradox of Catholic faith is living itself out in Quebec where church pews are empty by State decree but parking lots outside Christ’s houses of worship are filling with prayer.

Mainstream outlets and social media players had kittens last week over remarks attributed to Pope Francis about the “selfishness” of people keeping pets in place of raising children.

Finalizing a “framework” for a five-year “campaign” to “fundraise” for a cause are hardly the whiz bang motivational words most of us need to roar out of the blocks for 2022. Set alongside, say, “sprinkling pixie dust to miraculously end the pandemic,” they might even appear a little, well, beige.

It is with some relief that we can soon put 2021 in the proverbial rear-view mirror.