When we talk about a sustainable society, the mind almost automatically shifts to the natural environment. Climate change, pollution, wilderness protection and restrained use of natural resources become the topics at the top of the agenda.

VATICAN – The constant temptation and cancer of corruption is one of the most devastating illnesses to befall society, Pope Francis said.

In a first for Toronto’s St. Augustine’s Seminary, students, faculty and friends came together recently to celebrate four Catholic authors who happen to also be St. Augustine’s professors. Celebrating Catholic authors, Catholic books and Catholic publishing is important, said Toronto Auxiliary Bishop Wayne Kirkpatrick because books build Catholic culture and add to a legacy of faith.

As Americans learned how Washington was realigned by the Nov. 6 mid-term elections, the elder statesman of the American civil rights movement was in Toronto calling President Donald Trump “an icon of chaos” and urging Canadians to resist “plantation capitalism” being pushed by American nationalists.

VATICAN – Even in societies increasingly marked by divisions and prejudice, Catholics gather every Sunday "in the Lord's name and acknowledge that they are brothers and sisters," Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – The Catholic Church must find a way to look at secularization as an opportunity to find new ways to proclaim the Gospel, the Jesuit superior general told the Synod of Bishops.

PARIS – The French bishops said proposals to extend fertility treatments to lesbian couples and single women would harm society by removing fatherhood from the lives of children.

If you’re reading this, you are likely racist.

TRIESTE, Italy – As Catholics continue to debate pastoral and doctrinal approaches to marriage, they should remember that the Catholic approach to marriage and the Eucharist has a direct impact on what the Church teaches about society as a whole, an expert on the Church’s social teaching has said.

Two recent films, Deepwater Horizon starring Mark Wahlberg and Sully starring Tom Hanks, represent something of a breath of fresh air. Both movies feature men who are intelligent, virtuous and quietly heroic. If this strikes you as a banal observation, that just means you haven’t been following much of the popular culture for the past 20 years.

VATICAN CITY – Catholic and Muslim leaders meeting in Rome said religion can humanize and civilize communities when followers actually adhere to their faith's teachings about loving God and neighbor.

TORONTO - We have the technology to extend life beyond its natural limits, so why not apply our technological resources to end a life when natural death eludes us? Why not take full responsibility for the control humans already exercise over life?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Pope Francis urged society to rethink its ideas of locking up inmates and throwing away the key, calling such an approach another symptom of the "throwaway culture" he often decries and "a symptom of a culture that has stopped supporting life, of a society that has abandoned its children."

Everyone longs to know something that’s secret, to know something that others don’t know, but that you know, and the knowledge of which gives you some insight and advantage over others who are outside the inner circle of that secret. It has always been so. Historically this is called “Gnosticism,” which forever makes an appearance in one form or another.

VATICAN CITY - The mission-oriented agencies of the Church must guard against operating like nongovernmental organizations, empty of Christ's presence, Pope Francis said.