Fiducia supplicans is exactly the document that was needed to address the confusion and error circulating among both the heretical progressive clergy who are seeking to legitimize and affirm same-sex unions and the radical conservatives who are unable to recognize the significant and relevant nuance that the issue naturally includes.

Like the first baby born after midnight in the new year, the second day in 2024 marked the arrival of the first Globe and Mail editorial about child care.

Coming to an Ontario corner store near you: beer, wine, cocktails and other low-alcohol beverages, in whatever pack size you want. These libations will also be available in grocery stores, big-box locations  and some gas stations.

Angels are in the spotlight during Advent and Christmas. There is Gabriel’s appearance to Mary, the angels who came to Joseph in three separate dreams, the multitude of angels who appear to the shepherds and the angel’s warning for the wise men to avoid Herod. Then there is the plethora of angels who decorate our Christmas festivities, both secular and religious.

In a recent meeting in Rome with the International Theological Commission, Pope Francis spoke in an impromptu fashion, stating that “one of the great sins we have witnessed is ‘masculinizing’ of the Church... The Church is woman, and if we cannot understand what a woman is… we will never understand the Church... This is the job I ask of you, please: demasculinize the Church.”

When Pope Francis in 2019 declared the late Hungarian Cardinal József Mindszenty venerable, a step on the path to recognized sainthood, it marked long overdue recognition of the near-forgotten 20th-century shepherd’s Christian virtue. Earlier this year, Ignatius Press republished the Cardinal’s out-of-print Memoirs. This would be a worthy addition to reading lists over the holidays or in the coming new year.

It’s Advent — that special time of year when sleighbells ring, chestnuts roast and Christians of different persuasions argue about when to begin celebrating Christmas. Many Catholics adhere to the idea that one ought not decorate or sing Christmas carols before the Christmas liturgical season begins on Dec. 24. There’s only one problem with this: it presumes we ever stopped.

I have been sitting in my living room in the dark evenings lit up by the Christmas tree. I am fumbling with a fiddle, coaxing my fingers to play the notes of folk tunes and Christmas carols. This fall, the world seems particularly weary, beauty weighted with a complicated mix of war and worries. And I sing quietly along in my head one of my favourite lines: “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”

Learn to do good; seek justice.

Isaiah: 1: 17

I am not a social justice scholar. Nor am I an expert in the field of health care. I was invited recently, however, to be part of a forum on Catholic health care to define the concept of social justice, especially as it emerges within the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic social teaching. This tradition, not surprisingly, heavily informs the values and practices that we see manifested in the health care system.

Recently, I have been thinking about indifference, which seems to me to be the defining attitude of our times. At least, I thought of indifference as an attitude. Then I was asked to reflect on a statement by St. Teresa of Kolkata which included these words: “The greatest evil in the world is the lack of love, the terrible indifference towards one’s neighbour.”