How could this death surprise me? Vanier was 90 years old, ill and living in a nursing home. But there are some people who make this weary world more bearable. We want to know they walk among us. How can you leave us, Mr. Vanier?

It was only a matter of time before this ersatz religion’s false anthropology and cosmology – its denial of the unique status of human beings in a natural order that’s created, not accidental – would lead to the grotesque. With human composting, gussied up as a matter of ecological responsibility, the grotesque has most assuredly arrived.

FOR OVER A HALF-CENTURY, what styles itself the “pro-choice” movement has thrived because of its extraordinary ability to mask what it’s really about – the willful taking of innocent human lives in abortion – through various rhetorical deceptions.

PUBLISHED A WEEK short of his 92nd birthday, Joseph Ratzinger’s essay on the epidemiology of the clergy sex-abuse crisis vividly illustrated his still-unparalleled capacity to incinerate the brain-circuits of various Catholic progressives.

That Easter Effect is worth keeping in mind in this season of Catholic discontent. Even amidst anger and embarrassment, Christians can do the work of evangelization because the first Easter told us that, for the truly converted disciple who has met the risen Lord, despair never gets the final word: God will vindicate his plan for the salvation of the world.

A LENTEN QUIZ: Which came first, God’s creation of the world or God’s covenant with Israel? If we think in terms of chronology, the answer is obvious. If we think theologically, however, we get a different answer – and the drama of creation, covenant, and redemption comes into clearer focus.

This is why our Catholic Mass, rich in Scripture and stories of faith, has a deeply formative power. Over time, as we encounter the real presence of God in the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we become what we receive.

As diocesan mission director, I found myself at a very beautiful liturgy of the Eucharist on the campus of St. John’s University on Sunday evening, March 10.

Readers of a certain vintage (say, over 60) will remember the Imperial Margarine TV ad that dismissed butter as “the high-priced spread.” That image came to mind rather unexpectedly when I was addressing the parents’ associations of two prestigious Catholic prep schools several years ago.

YOUR EMINENCE:I noted with interest your recent announcement of a “binding synodal process” during which the Church in Germany will discuss the celibacy of the Latin-rite Catholic priesthood, the Church’s sexual ethic and clericalism, these being “issues” put on the table by the crisis of clerical sexual abuse.