When Archbishop Smith asked me to consider speaking for Nothing More Beautiful, I was speechless. Now, anyone who knows me knows this doesn't happen often – yet, like many of the witness speakers before me, I asked myself: Why? Why me? I am like so many of you, an ordinary person.

Yet, as I used to say to the inmates that I served as the RC chaplain at Edmonton Max – everyone has a story.

Several revolutions are going on in post-earthquake Haiti and one of them is changing how Canada's Catholic development agency thinks about its work.

Prior to the January 2010 earthquake, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace's core development work had always been long-term. Agreements with partner agencies usually spanning four or five years, with some partner relationships that have extended over 20 years.

EDMONTON – On Friday night, Feb. 17, Trish Bowie ripped up coloured paper into tiny pieces. Later that night she had a vivid dream, and was inspired the next day to use those shredded pieces to create floral motifs for an art project.

Like other participants at a recent pre-Lent retreat, Bowie was exploring the world of art and prayer.

EDMONTON – At Mass are two tables, the table of God's word through proclamation of the Scriptures, and the table of the altar where the Holy Eucharist is consecrated.

"We have been very much focused over the years on the Eucharist and the reception of Holy Communion, yet sometimes we've forgotten how important the Word of God is," said Father Paul Moret, pastor at St. Anthony and St. Agnes parishes.

VATICAN CITY – Secularism has had an easy time spreading through many traditionally Christian cultures because so many Christians do not know their faith and do not grasp the truth it teaches, said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.

Because Jesus is the truth, Catholics must make a commitment "to combat catechetical illiteracy," Dolan said in a Feb. 17 talk to the College of Cardinals.

VATICAN CITY – Here is the list of the 22 cardinals installed by Pope Benedict on Feb. 18:

VATICAN CITY – Leaders and members of the Catholic Church are called to ensure the Church's fidelity to Jesus and to the faith passed on by the apostles, Pope Benedict Feb. 19 told the 22 new cardinals he created a day earlier.

"The Church is not self-regulating, she does not determine her own structure, but receives it from the word of God, to which she listens in faith as she seeks to understand it and to live it," he said.

EDMONTON – A life enriched by the sacraments "has the possibility of being radiant," the bishop of Saskatoon told the Feb. 16 session of Nothing More Beautiful.

Life itself has a sacramental nature, said Bishop Donald Bolen. God's "holy and redemptive presence" lives within us even before we receive the Church's sacraments.

Meghan Burnside has been painting proficiently for seven years - about as long as she has been able to speak more than a few words.

The 27-year-old Edmonton artist is autistic and for the first 18 years of her life, barely uttered a word.

ROME – Canada's newest cardinal, resplendent in shimmering scarlet vestments, was still adjusting to his new look on Feb. 18 when he arrived at a reception in his honour.

Barely two hours earlier he had become His Eminence Thomas Cardinal Collins after Pope Benedict welcomed Toronto's archbishop into the College of Cardinals on a sunny Saturday morning.