It’s interesting how often the media picks up on bad news about religion — in particular, news about Catholic schools — and judiciously avoids some of the positive news from around the country.  

TORONTO - Franck Waille still has the posture of a dancer. When he stands, his back is straight, his shoulders are squared and his feet are pointed out — a more relaxed version of ballet’s first position.

When you get to your 800th birthday there’s more than a cake involved. The 800th anniversary of the Dominican order will call the “Hounds of the Lord” (Domini Canes in Latin) to Toronto to study, pray and preach.

A northern Nigeria Muslim leader who promised to pursue a nonreligious agenda as president will now have to deal with an Islamic terrorist insurgency that has wreaked chaos in the country’s north.

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of Christian religious leaders of various churches signed onto a Holy Week call to end the death penalty in the United States.

Much is being made — and deservedly so — of Loyola High School’s victory on behalf of religious freedom. The Jesuit-run Montreal school deserves praise for sticking it out through a seven-year court slog that has made Canada a better place for people of all religions.

The first legal challenge to a policy that would force Ontario doctors to refer for abortions against their conscience has been announced by the Christian Medical and Dental Society.

BHUBANESWAR, India - Students at a Hindu-run school for the blind joined a nationwide outcry over the gang rape of a 74-year-old Catholic nun.

WASHINGTON - Cardinal Chibly Langlois of Les Cayes, Haiti, charged that police have failed to protect religious and priests who have faced a growing number of break-ins, robberies and attacks, including rape.

Requiring doctors to remain pillars of integrity while chipping at their moral underpinning is an odious contradiction. Yet that is what the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario proposes with a draconian new policy that tramples on conscience and religious rights.

WASHINGTON - With measles outbreaks in 14 states and health authorities imploring parents to weigh the minimal risks of vaccines against the ravages of preventable disease, some Christians are raising an objection of a completely different sort: the abortion connection.

MONTREAL - Pope Francis has been invited to Montreal in 2017 to participate in celebrations marking the city’s 375th anniversary.

VATICAN CITY - Bringing the light of hope to ending human trafficking means confronting the brutal "darkness" of evil that is driving those who exploit others, said a number of women religious helping victims.

NEW YORK - The day after a grand jury decided it would not indict a New York police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner on Staten Island, the New York City Commission of Religious Leaders asked that any protests arising from the matter be peaceful.

EDMONTON - The gold stars on his report card are many. Now 83, celebrating his 65 years of religious life, Br. Donatus Vervoort is hard pressed to reply when asked what the greatest joy has been in his life.