Comment: Aunt Marge certainly made the most of her 'second life'

Oscar Wilde famously said “to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

Opinion: Christmas doesn’t need any jingle

Where I am able to organize things — in my parish, at the chaplaincy — we sing Advent hymns in Advent. But otherwise, Christmas concerts are the order of the day by early December. And so it was that last Saturday I had the privilege of attending the annual Christmas concert of St. Michael’s Choir School in the afternoon at Massey Hall, and then the Christmas pageant (“Gaudy” to employ the local nomenclature) at Massey College in the evening.

Editorial: Transgender Bill C-16 is on the wrong track

Beating the Christmas rush in Ottawa this year seems to mean wrapping up new transgender laws in time for the holidays. It’s hard to find anything merry about that.

Editorial: Canada's pledge to end child poverty was an empty promise

There can hardly be a voter or politician who doesn’t believe Canada’s shamefully high rate of child poverty should be promptly reduced and eventually eliminated.

Opinion: Fidel Castro's death is one small step for Cuban liberty

Fidel Castro is dead. Canada’s prime minister, whose father was an admirer and friend of the tyrant, is struck with grief, but it is not widely shared. Fidel’s death is an advance for Cuba. A more significant step forward will be when Fidel’s brother Raul, to whom power was handed over in 2006, follows his brother into eternity.

Comment: Brazil's Sr. Immolatia comes a long way to plant a missionary seed

I call them the confessions of Sr. Immolatia. They are the words of a vibrant, spirit-led past parishioner of the Church on the Street.

Editorial: Palliative care bill is a must to offset assisted suicide

One obvious failing of legalized assisted suicide is that Canada now recognizes a person’s right to receive a quick exit but fails to grant terminally ill people an offsetting right to humane care until their natural death.

Comment: Church must reach out on gender issues

Cardinal Willem Eijk of the Netherlands recently called on Pope Francis to write a major document on the growth of gender theory. Too many people, including Catholic parents, now accept that one can choose their own gender. Many Catholic school leaders in Canada have also bought into that idea.

Pope, Trump share some values

The election of Donald Trump must have distressed Pope Francis. Or did it?

Stop this torture of using prolonged solitary confinement

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.

Francis may be a reformer, but tradition will rule

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.