This week we focus on the details of the upcoming Holy Week liturgies. Catholic News Service has details on how Pope Francis and the Diocese of Rome are helping Christians in two areas where Christians have been hit hard with persecution: Iraq and Nigeria. VATICAN CITY (CNS) — As Holy Week and Easter approached, Pope ...read more

(Photo: loyola.ca) The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Quebec’s Minister of Education infringed upon the religious freedom of Loyola, a private Catholic high school in Montreal, by requiring the school to teach all aspects of the province’s Ethics and Religious Culture Program (ERC) from a neutral perspective, i.e. from a non-confessional, or specifically ...read more

Welcome to S+L’s Weekly News Round-Up. As the Director of Marketing and Communications here at S+L, many interesting Catholic news stories and articles come across my desk on a daily basis. Some of them we’ll cover on our different television programs and others I’d like to share with you on this blog. This blog column ...read more

Freedom of religion, it is something that generally speaking, Canadians take for granted. You can wake-up on Sunday mornings, and drive/walk/ride to the local parish. The music plays, the congregation prays, the priest offers the sacrifice of the mass. For most, the conversation ends right there, freedom of religion delivered, your social contract with the ...read more

Perhaps we should be used to the “element of surprise” in the pontificate of Pope Francis.  He was at it again last Friday, March 13 on the second anniversary of his election, when he unexpectedly announced a “Jubilee Year of Mercy” to take place in the Church and around the world from December 2015 to ...read more

So far in part 1, we looked at questions people have regarding fasting and abstinence, in part 2 we looked at suffering and in part 3 we looked at what Scripture has to tell us about why Jesus had to suffer.  I think when people think of Lent, that’s what they think about: fasting, abstinence ...read more

Two Years with Pope Francis March 13 marks the second anniversary of the day the College of Cardinals surprised the world by electing, as pope, a Jesuit from Argentina. Two years on, what effect has this Argentine pope had on the wider church? The 78-year-old pontiff came to his new job with an acute awareness ...read more

On Friday, March 13, 2015, during the penance service in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Father announced an extraordinary Jubilee dedicated to Divine Mercy. Below, please find Vatican Radio’s English translation of the Pope Francis’s homily, in which he made the announcement. This year as last, as we head into of the Fourth Sunday of Lent, ...read more

In St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis announced today, March 13, 2015, the celebration of an “extraordinary Holy Year.” This “Jubilee of Mercy” will commence with the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, 2015, and will conclude on November 20, 2016 with the Solemnity of Our Lord ...read more

(Vatican Radio)  Migration and drug trafficking, the reform of the Curia, the challenges of the Synod for the Family and the need to make the Church a safe home for all children and vulnerable adults. In a wide-ranging interview with Valentina Alazraki, from the Mexican broadcaster Televisa, Pope Francis has marked the second year of his ...read more