Prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners — torture according to the United Nations — has no place in a just penal system. Yet isolating inmates for lengthy periods remains common practice at Canadian penitentiaries. It must stop.

It’s continually surprising that people seem shocked or disappointed each time Pope Francis shuns modern convention and affirms some aspect of basic Church teaching.

At a recent event in New York City, Cardinal Timothy Dolan achieved somewhat of a coup when he cajoled Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to set aside their obvious enmity and, in a private moment, pray together. A day earlier they had refused to even shake hands at a presidential debate. Yet at Dolan’s request the candidates agreed to pray, and afterwards they briefly hid their snarls and traded polite banter, creating what Dolan called a “touching moment.”

Pope Francis will join Lutheran leaders in Sweden Oct. 31 to launch a year of commemoration leading up to next year’s 500th anniversary of the onset of the Protestant Reformation. At first glance, it seems an odd stage for the Pope to occupy.

A common response to Ottawa’s recent ratification of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change was to declare it the start of a bold new era. We say not so fast, we’ve been down this road before.

There is a dangerous misconception that because the courts and Parliament have decided people can obtain an assisted suicide, health care institutions therefore have a legal obligation to assess candidates and perform these killings.

After wading into the social and legal morass of assisted suicide Canadian Catholics are now confronting its spiritual implications — and receiving no clear answers.

When he received an unexpected call in June and learned Pope Francis planned to make him a bishop, Fr. Robert Kasun figured someone had made a big mistake. Those doubts endured right up to his Sept. 12 ordination in Edmonton.

Renowned 19th-century novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that “mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.”

As traumatized civilians in war-torn Syria face little near-term hope of returning to their homes, Canada’s refugee resettlement program is running on low battery and needs to be re-charged.