Michael Swan

Lucy and Alcido Fank were never interested in having an amniocentesis screening to find out whether or not their baby would be born with Down syndrome.

If the COVID-era has left most Canadians a little more isolated, a little more cut-off from friends and family, the poor among us have experienced that loneliness more acutely than most.

Ottawa’s plan to take in a record 1.2 million immigrants between now and 2023, just under 15 per cent of them refugees, faces some serious COVID-era challenges, according to the churches and other organizations who sponsor over 20,000 refugees per year.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity for Toronto Catholics to “go deeper” into their spiritual lives, Cardinal Thomas Collins told thousands who gathered before television and computer screens for the most unusual Cardinal’s Dinner in over four decades.

Mike Hyland will always remember the day when his 22-year-old son came to him with tears in his eyes and between sobs told his father he was gay. That memory surfaced again when headlines around the world trumpeted Pope Francis declaring gay people have a right to live in a family and should have legal protections.

With the treaty banning nuclear weapons about to become international law, Global Affairs Canada has softened its opposition. But it’s still on the wrong side of history, according to Project Ploughshares executive director Cesar Jaramillo.

“I knew I had to quit when my 15-year-old daughter would say, ‘Mom, don’t go to work and cry again.’ ”

Canada’s tiny Byzantine-rite Slovak diocese based in Toronto was shocked to learn it no longer had a bishop as of Oct. 20.

In the middle of the second wave of COVID-19 sweeping Canada, Development and Peace-Caritas Canada is making its second attempt to raise the money and awareness its partners in poor countries desperately need.

Life in a northern town can be tough. Life in three northern towns might be tougher. But Bishop Tom Dowd is relishing the challenge of leading the Church in Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay in Northern Ontario.