OTTAWA – The latest statement about drinking water from Canada’s bishops “might shock” some people, admits Archbishop J. Michael Miller of Vancouver.

Canadians take water for granted. We have more ocean shoreline than any nation on Earth and our freshwater lakes and rivers cover almost 12 per cent of Canada’s landmass.

VATICAN – Water is a gift of God that makes life possible and yet millions of people do not have access to safe drinking water, and rivers, seas and oceans continue to be polluted, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – Building on the development of Catholic Church teaching against capital punishment, Pope Francis has ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person" and to commit the church to working toward its abolition worldwide.

VATICAN – Everyone should have access to essential health services and no one should have to fall into poverty to obtain needed care, a Vatican representative said.

GENEVA, Switzerland – Health care access is a human right, not just a matter of philanthropy, the Holy See told the United Nations last Friday.

VATICAN CITY – The Catholic Church is not a fancy medical clinic for the rich, but a "field hospital" that – often literally – provides the only medical care some people will ever receive, Pope Francis said.

The Supreme Court ruling that legalized assisted suicide last year didn’t just find a technical problem in the wording of the Criminal Code. It said that Canadians have a right to ask for and receive state-sanctioned aid in killing themselves under certain circumstances.

OTTAWA - A Mexican group that includes the mother of one of 43 students who disappeared from a teacher-training college in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, is asking Canada to take Mexico off its list of safe countries.

Top officials from the Vatican, the head of the United Nations and leading scientists came together at a summit Tuesday (April 28) in Vatican City to label the fight against man-made climate change as a “moral issue.”

If you ever visit Tiananmen Square in Beijing on a Sunday and decide you would like to attend Mass at Our Lady of China, you will have to catch Line Two from the Qianmen subway station just south of the square and travel six stations to Dongzhimen. Walk about five minutes west from Dongzhimen and you will find yourself at the front gate of the Canadian Embassy. Inside the embassy on Sundays expatriates from Africa, Europe, Canada and elsewhere gather to form their own parish.

OTTAWA - Parliamentarians marked the first John Paul II Day a day early April 1, recalling the late pope’s legacy as a defender of human dignity against oppression.

GENEVA - The Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations in Geneva called on the international community to assist Nigeria and neighbouring countries to rid the region of Boko Haram insurgency.

“Some people are starving around the world,” I used to say to myself, when an unfinished meal was thrown away. In the couple times I let this comment slip to other friends, the response was usually the same.

“It’s not like I can send them my food,” or “It’s my meal, I can do what I want with it,” both of which are valid points.

VATICAN CITY - The Catholic Church firmly opposes the death penalty and urges all states to move toward its abolition, said the Vatican's permanent observer to United Nations agencies in Geneva.