With the passing of Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte on April 8, Canadians say goodbye to a man who demonstrated by his actions what the Catholic Church is truly about. Cardinal Turcotte, the emeritus archbishop of Montreal, was humble, drole and friendly…
It is April and we celebrate the Easter season once again. Inevitably, our focus on the Passion and Resurrection of Christ provokes existential questions about our relationship to God and the place of faith in our lives. This year, religious…
What I remember most were the crowds. They were so polite and well-behaved. Despite the fact that they were hungry, and exhausted from standing in miles-long lines, having travelled hundreds of miles, they remained smiling and courteous. I’m talking about…
If the gathering of bishops in Rome for the 2014 Synod of the Family last fall was not dramatic enough, we might be in for quite a surprise at this year’s synod. Already controversy surrounds the upcoming synod and the tension…
The cover of Builders of a Nation has a burly, bearded man in a furry parka and coat, who looks directly at the reader in a challenge. He looks exactly how you’d picture one of the early explorers to the…
For several years, like many others, I had been after David Wells to write a book. I knew he had a book in him, and it was a great book. It’s just that he had to sit down and write…
The election of Pope Francis happened roughly nine months before I was hired at Novalis, so most of what I remember is following news accounts and Twitter updates. My favourite still remains @ConclaveSeagull—the (completely real) Twitter account of a seagull…
“The realization of a vocation came to me out of the blue,” writes Fr. Max Oliva in The Ten Commandments for Everyday Life. I was 24 years old, had a full social life, was driving the car of my dreams…
“It is always a privilege to be invited to speak at a conference,” David Wells says in his newest book The Reluctant Disciple, especially when it is in the province of Alberta in Canada. When I first went there someone listened…
I consider myself fortunate that my parents never hid suffering and death from me as a child. I remember the death of my paternal grandfather and the tremendous grief I felt as I stood at his graveside. I recall the…