It’s impolite to brag, we’re told, so our apologies off the top for this boastful editorial.

A quarter century ago, towards the end of a year in which her children had been running amok, Queen Elizabeth lamented her annus horribilis, her horrible year. The bishops of America know that feeling.

Latin may never bounce back from being all but dead, but the Vatican keeps trying and deserves credit for its efforts. If not them, no one else will.

It turns out that recent measures in Canada and abroad to protect minors, punish abuser priests and discipline bishops who cover up these crimes are one of the Church’s best-kept secrets.

Normally it’s best simply to ignore trash-talking Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte. But when he heaps scorn on Canada for treating his country like a garbage dump, his trash reeks of a sad truth.

The executive director of Canadian Physicians for Life spoke for many when she grieved a ruling by Ontario’s highest court that suggested religious rights, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t really a big deal.

Finally the Vatican seems to recognize that the shame inflicted on the Church by the sex-abuse scandals is as much about bishops who cover up crimes as it is clerics who commit them.

Jean Vanier, Canadian writer, philosopher and humanitarian who died May 7, was a champion for people with intellectual disabilities and touched countless lives through his constant message of love.

More than half a million Canadians are living with dementia and many more people than that live with a dementia sufferer. In little more than a decade those numbers are projected to almost double.

As flames engulfed Notre-Dame Cathedral, threatening to destroy a Paris treasure that for 850 years withstood revolutions, wars and natural disasters, dazed crowds formed impromptu vigils on nearby streets. They prayed, they cried, they sang Ave Maria’s.