For the parish that seeks to know, understand and draw a little closer to suffering — the suffering of Christ on the Cross or the suffering of their brothers and sisters — there is a resource hidden in the pews, quietly praying. People who struggle with depression, addiction, anxiety, compulsions and social phobias have suffered, will suffer and know suffering. The mentally ill and those struggling with mental health can teach a parish about suffering.

A recent photo created by an app showing Pope Francis wearing a designer bomber jacket went viral on social media, fooling millions around the world. 

When Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us” in a comic strip back in 1970, he didn’t know the half of it. Pogo never heard of Twitter, attack ads, bot farms or “doing your own research.” Pogo could never have imagined a Church or society broken down into political and cultural sects caught up in perpetual rhetorical war with one another.

Repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, endorsing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, confessing the sin of a colonizing mentality, promising to stand with Indigenous peoples when they struggle for their land and their rights and committing the Church to reconciliation with Indigenous people world-wide — all this arrived in a two-page statement issued jointly by two Vatican dicasteries as another step in the pilgrimage of penance Pope Francis undertook in Canada last summer.

Despite needing repairs topping $1 million, a recently deconsecrated landmark Acadian church has drawn extensive interest from buyers since being put up for sale by the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth late last month.