Message of thanks from Pope Francis to the volunteers of World Youth Day XXXVII during his Apostolic Journey to Portugal.

The contemporary political and cultural mood demands recall of what would normally be a blinding statement of the obvious in a liberal democracy: expression is not automatically endorsement.

In October 1996 I found myself in a seminar group with Sinéad O’Connor. My name then was O’Neill and the alphabet had lumped us together long before any other identity group had a chance to.  

Do the letters BBAABA and the number 1,500 mean anything to you? Most likely not. But it’s my hope that they will stick in your mind. Unsettle you. Inspire you to think deeply, share your thoughts about them, take action if you can.  And pray.

Something that my faith has instilled in me is a simple phrase, “it is never too late.” No matter how bad things are, no matter what has happened — there is nothing and no one beyond redemption through the infinite love and mercy of God. It is, I think, a radical aspect of our faith. All that is required, we are told again and again, is to say “Yes” to the invitation to experience that love and mercy.

In Civilization – The West and the Rest, historian Niall Ferguson asks why, from about AD 1500, the West was able to rise from being a backwater of illiterate, unhygienic bumpkins to become the greatest civilization the world had ever seen.

Regarding ‘No quick fix to housing asylum seekers, says ORAT head’ at catholicregister.org, it was so gracious that Tabernacle Church reached out to temporarily house our brothers and sisters with the financial help of Mohamad Fakih.

Archdiocese of Toronto parishioner Cindy Tracey, a grandmother of (soon to be) 25 grandkids, reflects on her unique role in light of the third World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly on July 23.

A pithy truth attributed to G.K. Chesterton is that the proof of Original Sin is evident on every city street and the front page of the daily newspaper.