This was my third “Canadian Christmas” since I started working at Salt and Light. I got to spent my Christmas time in Vancouver. Being far away from my family at Christmas time is never easy, but the wonders of technology make the distances short. I can always be with my family even from far away ...read more

On this New Year’s Day of 2014, Pope Francis has published his first message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace, focusing on the theme of brotherhood. As President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Canada, I want to relay Pope Francis’s intervention to my fellow citizens by taking a look from ...read more

  By Sebastian Gomes It seems that no event or program of the Vatican or the Pope can occur without the question of continuity being raised.  With Tuesday’s release of the Preparatory Document for next October’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization, already there has ...read more

At a press conference in Rome this morning, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri formally presented the preparatory document for the upcoming Extraordinary Synod on Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization. Archbishop Baldisseri, the head of the Synod of Bishops, said the family is an area that the church will work on for the ...read more

Below you will find the official text for Breda O’Brien’s personal testimony, as delivered on Day 3 of the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. Good afternoon, everyone. When I was asked to speak at the Congress, I was both deeply honoured and deeply terrified. I have never missed a deadline for my Irish Times column, ...read more

Where do you draw the line on pornography? That’s the question Pedro asks this week on Perspectives Weekly. Joining him for the discussion is Robert Borys, Author of Love, Marriage and– Pornography? The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines pornography as an offense against chasity, under article 2354: Pornography consists in removing real or simulated ...read more

A couple of years ago, New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan commented that there isn’t a crisis in priestly vocations, but a crisis in marriage. If we work to create stability in marriage and the family, then vocations will naturally flow from that. Families fostering vocations to the religious and priestly life is one of the ...read more

Protecting the family and John Paul II’s beatification headline news out of the Vatican today. Catholic News Service’s Rome Bureau Chief John Thavis reports. To download Flash Player please click here ...read more

When I was little, my mom’s side of the family would gather for a reunion almost every summer. At the time, it felt like a whirlwind of confusing introductions of second-cousins and great-aunts and uncles (many with the same, passed-down names) and my memories were made up of watered-down orange juice, group pictures, and spilling ...read more

It was an event over 120 years in the making. A day that Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi had always dreamed about. The day that the greatest work of his life and career would be consecrated by the leader of the Catholic Church. The Sagrada Familia Church garners over 4 million visitors a year, but up ...read more