Pope Francis’ address to a delegation from “La Diaconie de la Beauté” at the beginning of Lent.

Recent sexual abuse civil suits against leaders in the Canadian Catholic Church, including Cardinal Marc Ouellet and Quebec City Cardinal Gérald Lacroix, can leave the faithful struggling to find signs of hope. They won’t get any help by relying on typical media stories, says Gatineau Archbishop Paul-André Durocher.

So it is with every artisan and master artisan …

they set their heart on painting a lifelike image,

and they lose sleep in order to finish their work

Sirach: 38: 27

As a writer I have always had an interest in the complexity of language: the way words could be constructed to say one thing when an entirely different message was intended. This perhaps is most obvious in coded messages — words spoken into dangerous situations that must be disguised to protect the speaker.

There is a saying that the law of relationships that are unhealthy is, “Don’t trust, Don’t talk, and Don’t feel.” The ministry of the Church on the street, and all ministry in fact, is to reach out with the law of healing relationships, “Show up, Listen, Don’t judge, and Don’t fix.”

In 1949, Abbé Pierre, a young French priest, welcomed Georges Legay, a homeless man who had tried to commit suicide, into his rundown home in Paris. Instead of giving Legay housing, work and money, Abbé Pierre said, “You are totally miserable, and I have nothing to give you. So why not help me help others?”

By now, my corduroy Levis were covered with snow from wiping out, and the snow was turning to ice against my skin. My brother looked truly sorry for my misery.

On Jan. 29, federal Minister of Health Mark Holland introduced legislation seeking a three-year delay in the extension of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to those suffering from mental illness.

Deacon Andrew Bennett was certainly right in his Feb. 11 column to correct my error in generalizing the “approval” understanding of blessings as being “corrupted and secularized.” I was unaware of the Eastern understanding of blessings. An online commenter graciously corrected me after my article was published.

Those with keen eyes for systemic abuses within the legal world might turn their gazes on a class action lawsuit that has left publicly hanging two Canadian Roman Catholic Cardinals.

Overview of the legal action filed Feb. 2, by Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine to prevent Quebec forcing MAiD into a palliative care centre in former church still owned by the Archdiocese.