World Youth Day Madrid will be a totally “green” event according to organizers. In Madrid Thursday  morning the Main Events department and Zeroemissions, a Spain-based company that specializes in making large world events emissions free, announced plans to make WYD eco-friendly. Some of the initiatives aimed at making WYD environmentally friendly have never been seen ...

Does anyone have time for book clubs anymore?  While the idea is quaint, I can’t tell you how many times a group of friends and I have “committed” to reading numerous must-reads only to have them turn into “should-have” reads. Throughout the past week, though, a few of my colleagues and I had the privilege ...

In Ottawa, speculation is growing about a possible spring election. When the federal campaign officially begins, religious leaders want poverty reduction to be front and centre. On Monday and Tuesday, a coalition of faith leaders met with 15 Members of Parliament in Ottawa. Their ambitious goal was to launch a national conversation about poverty. The ...

It’s the perfect Lenten reading: Jesus of Nazareth – Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection.  The followup to Pope Benedict XVI’s first volume on our Lord is now available.  Catholic News Service’s Cindy Wooden and John Thavis offer a review. To download Flash Player please click here ...

“Quid est veritas?” I will never forget that line, “What is truth?”, from the movie The Passion. I remember quoting it constantly among friends. We were fascinated by the line delivery by the actor who played Pilate. …And perhaps we were looking for the truth. I recalled all this recently when reading parts of Pope ...

It was unfathomable that one idea could change how the world interacts. And then you signed up for Facebook. While watching the three-time Oscar winner The Social Network, I was struck by how this invention — motivated, if the film is to believed, by the insecurities of its co-founder — has impacted the lives of ...

The Church certainly does her share of proclaiming saints. If you think about it, it’s an amazing act of faith–the Church, by Her relationship to the Holy Spirit is able to confidently announce that a soul is in Heaven. If we recall  St. Luke’s account of the good thief on the cross adjacent to Jesus; ...

As we mentioned on Monday, Toronto’s Archbishop Thomas Collins has been in Rome as part of the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. While he was there, Catholic News Service caught up with him to ask about his new book Pathway to our Hearts: A Simple Approach to Lectio Divina with the ...

As Christians in Pakistan mourn the killing of their boldest representative, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Canada’s bishops are keeping his message alive. Shahbaz Bhatti was Pakistan’s only Christian cabinet minister before his assassination on Wednesday. He visited Ottawa in February, where he told Canadian Catholic News that he was “ready to die and sacrifice ...

February might become the new month of Mary. Within the past month, she has been making regular appearances in my life. No, not those kind of appearances. Instead, as is her habit, her appearances are often quiet suggestions of beauty, gentleness and humility. Such is her way. This  “re-awakening” to the beauty of Mary within ...