Have you ever visited Toronto’s unique and beautiful outdoor Marian Shrine of Gratitude? If you haven’t, you’ve missed a real treasure — and if you have, you know what a jewel it truly is. Either way, the Shrine needs you to help save it!

At least give Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her government credit for chutzpah. During a summer when Canadian forests were burning at an unprecedented rate and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, the government imposed a seven-month moratorium on the approval of new projects using renewable energy to produce electricity.

It has been just over seven years since Canadian law has permitted euthanasia and assisted suicide on demand. In those seven years restriction after restriction on euthanasia provision has fallen and now we stand on the threshold of euthanizing the mentally ill and permitting the as-yet-undefined “mature minor” to end his or her life. Euthanasia is now presented to patients as a health care option.

For individuals of a certain age, the cataclysmic impact of AI has been an existential threat for more than half a century. Many of us grew up with the haunting voice of the predatory artificial intelligence, HAL, from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, resonating ominously, and dispassionately, in our ears.

People jumping into a lake to escape being consumed by flames. Roadways jammed with vehicles on the move. Kilometre-long line-ups to airstrips offering evacuation flights.

We are last to push off from the shore into Oxbow Lake. I am in a canoe with Steph and Ava, two high school students from the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Ahead of us are 30 other TCDSB students ranging from Grades 10-12. For many of them it is their first time paddling a canoe. We are bringing up the rear to ensure no one goes astray. Leading the pack at the front is Greg Rogers, founder of this week-long Catholic Leadership program at Camp Olympia near Huntsville, Ont. He is taking us all to see Jesus.

If you’ve ever wondered: “Why do I need to confess my sins to a priest?”…we need to talk. I truly don’t mean to be insulting or condescending, but any Catholic who asks this question is in need of remedial catechesis. But, I get it. We haven’t been catechized properly, enough or at all — and we haven’t kept up studying our faith as adults.

Every summer, I wait and hope for our plans to cooperate with the weather and give us a day or two on the lake with my parents’ beautiful boat. We need the sunshine to keep us warm enough and the wind to stay mild enough that we can pull the tube behind the boat. The driver and the wind work together to make waves, and the riders delight at the efforts to stay on or fall in. On these rare and perfect days, I might be the biggest kid of all.

Some World Youth Day pilgrims in Portugal were critical of Pope Francis for failing to condemn Russia’s brutal invasion of their homeland.