MONTREAL -- When young Kevin Donovan left Montreal’s Loyola High School 67 summers ago, he could hardly foresee having a son who would one day lead the school to a landmark legal victory for religious freedom.

With two decisions this spring, the Supreme Court of Canada set laudable boundaries between the necessarily neutral state and the exercise of religious freedom.

Now that I am under no professional obligation to read court decisions, I generally avoid them. The turgid prose, the unctuous self-regard and the complacent sense of judicial superiority I find unpleasant and soporific.

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.  

The day the Supreme Court released its decision in the case involving Montreal’s Loyola High School, I thought it was merely more judicial zaniness on offer.

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.

Recent stories about two Catholic high schools are terrific examples of how government policies can sometimes produce the exact opposite effect as intended.

OTTAWA - Montreal's Loyola High School has won the right to teach its students the Catholic faith from a Catholic perspective.

MONTREAL - In response to a controversial decision to drop the word “Catholic” from the name of a prominent Montreal social agency, the archdiocese has announced the launch of a new welfare agency called Catholic Action.

The great Catholic journalist Malcolm Muggeridge said there is nothing more pathetic than a ruling class on the run. Well, maybe there is. Maybe it is  a community that lets its institutions die from the inside out.

OTTAWA - Jim Flaherty was buried out of Toronto’s Anglican St. James Cathedral in a state funeral on April 16 but the political life of the former Finance Minister was shaped by his Catholic upbringing, said former colleagues.