QUEBEC CITY - The Quebec government is preparing to adopt what would become the most stringent secularism legislation in Canada, hoping to end more than a decade of acrimonious debates about religion's place in the public space.

A crucifix that has hung on the wall of Montreal’s City Hall since 1937, reminding city officials to let God guide their decisions, will be taken down for a renovation project, never to be put back.

VATICAN CITY – Laypeople are called to be a bridge between the Church and the world, particularly in matters of finance where "clerics simply do not have that high level of expertise that can only come from highly competent and dedicated professionals," said Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

The notion of separation of church and state is an important foundation for a true democracy. It guarantees freedom of religion by favouring no religion over another. It is also the surest way of guaranteeing the expansion of religion when the state favours none and allows religion’s best instincts to make a real contribution to society.

WASHINGTON - It hit like the proverbial ton of bricks: the Time magazine cover story of April 8, 1966 — Good Friday that year — asking, “Is God Dead?”

Writing and speaking out against euthanasia is a blessing. There is something bracing about standing up for the truth.

The Church must uphold “the objective truths of Sacred Scripture” in the face of a secular culture that poses a grave challenge to the Christian view of family, Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins told the Synod of Bishops meeting in the Vatican.

TORONTO - For almost 100 years in Toronto, thousands of Sunday worshippers have relied on Sunday only streetcar stops to help get them to church on time.

BROD, Kosovo - The Catholic priest followed the village elders up a narrow road that curved between the green hills in the tiny hamlet of Gjonaj in southern Kosovo.

GUELPH, ONT. - In increasingly secular Ontario, the debate about the real or perceived distinctiveness of Catholic education rages on.

The institutions of society should always show respect and tolerance for people of every faith or no faith. The goal should be inclusiveness and accommodation. That’s how a genuinely pluralistic, multicultural society works.

“Are you an engineer?” I ask, pointing to the slim, shiny ring on his pinky finger.

“No,” he replies. “This is my promise ring.”

Right and wrong are not black and white for Canadians. There’s at least 50 shades of grey in the answers Canadians gave the non-profit Angus Reid Institute to questions about morality and ethics.

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

OTTAWA - Montreal's Loyola High School has won the right to teach its students the Catholic faith from a Catholic perspective.