Growing up, The Catholic Register was always a great teaching tool about my faith. Though it contained stories from an international, national and local perspective, it usually included pieces written by scholars, priests or literary faithful sharing their expertise.

I would never have considered it a place that would draw young people.

The U.S. Catholic bishops have welcomed the Obama administration’s tentative agreement aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and their top spokesman on international affairs bluntly warned Congress against doing anything to undermine it.

This Easter I became a Catholic.

What was a long and sometimes circuitous journey culminated, in a way, at the Easter Vigil as I was confirmed, received into the Church and shared in the eucharistic celebration.

YON, France - Sunlight slants across a classroom at the Catholic University of Lyon, where the Bible dominates an evening lecture.

Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square, by Randy Boyagoda (Image, hardcover, 480 pages, $35).

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’ life was a broad sweep in many ways. Born into a Lutheran family in the rural Ottawa Valley, he ended up living in densely populated lower Manhattan.

WARSAW, Poland - A new airport, improved road and rail links, a fleet of dream buses and "Youth Bible" are among features projected for the Catholic Church's 14th international celebration of World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, in 2016.

CANTERBURY, England - Tens of thousands of people in Leicester — England’s most religiously diverse city — are getting ready to honour the memory of a long-despised English king with a ceremony that testifies to the already warm relationship between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.

MANILA, Philippines - Dozens of Filipino Catholics are joining a global Lenten fast to call on world leaders to act on climate change.

One of the hardest things about moving to a small town is integrating into the community. After my last column was published, I was offered a job in northeastern Alberta and found myself moving to the town of St. Paul. It’s the centre of the diocese and at approximately 6,000 people it’s the smallest municipality I’ve ever called home.

NEW YORK - Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said Islamic State militants terrorizing the Middle East are a distortion of “genuine” Islam much as the Irish Republican Army was a “perversion” of Catholicism.

Nadia Bulkin, 27, the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, spends “zero time” thinking about God.

“What are you?”

That is a great question — and it is not one that I am asked much. Honestly, I am glad people do not ask this of me often, because I rarely know what people want to know when they ask.

OTTAWA - Ontario Catholic authorities believe Catholic teaching is protected in the province’s new sex education curriculum, though pro-family groups don’t share in that optimism.

TORONTO - On a large campus like the University of Toronto’s St. George campus, it can be hard for students to feel a sense of community. So the Newman Centre’s Student Campus Ministry (SCM) team is going out to let Catholic students on campus know it is there for them.