In the mid-1990s, while a student at Cambridge, I made a critical mistake. Desirous of discovering the world of musical theatre, I took the train down to London and saw my first musical at the Palace Theatre, on a £5 student ticket that had me sitting above the lighting technicians. I was totally captivated by Les Misérables. It was a mistake to see it first — I mistook the masterpiece for the genre, and have been disappointed with musicals ever since. Continue reading →

In late December, we always have a natural tendency to look back at the year. But in 2012, we spent much of the entire year looking back — and sometimes even looked forward to looking back. It was a year of major anniversaries. Continue reading →

Spiritual but not religious. That’s one finding of the new Forum Research poll of Canadians, commissioned exclusively for the National Post: some 65% consider of Canadians themselves spiritual, but only 50% would identify as religious. What are we to make of this? Continue reading →

In my first year as a parish priest, the choirmaster asked me to speak to the choir just minutes before Mass on Christmas Eve. The high school students in the choir were distraught. One of their classmates had been killed the day before in a train accident. I was reluctant. What to say? But it falls to the preacher to preach. Continue reading →