On March 13, 2013 the new pope, a surprise selection, received thunderous cheers when introduced to thousands of pilgrims packed into a drizzly St. Peter’s Square. It was a precedent-setting night. Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first South American pope, the first Jesuit pope and the first pope named Francis.

Beneath Canadians’ cringing at Justin Trudeau’s embarrassing Indian amble, there seemed charitable hope he could use the debacle for hard reflection on the difference between image and reality.

The massacre of 17 innocents at a Parkland, Fla., high school is not fading out of the news as quickly as other similar tragedies that have plagued the United States.

It’s a sneaky way to make a government look progressive, a religion look regressive, and to divide a congregation.

In today’s world, people are mostly foreign to stillness.

Second Sunday of Lent, Feb. 25 (Year B) Genesis 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18; Psalm 116; Romans 8:31b-35, 37; Mark 9:2-10

Last May, my wife, daughters and I stayed at a resort on a First Nations reserve on Vancouver Island to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday. The last night we were there, my mother-in-law moved into town, and my wife and I slept in the yurt where she had stayed.