News/Canada

TORONTO - The Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of People has appointed Toronto's Marie Deans as the next national director of the Canadian English sector of the Pontifical Mission Societies.

OTTAWA - The Alliance for Marriage and Family filed an application Mar. 5 to appeal the so-called Three Parents Case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

ST. PAUL, Alta. - The choice of Catholic organizations to raise funds from gambling “is scandalous and compromises the religious identity of the institution or organization,” says the bishop of St. Paul.

OTTAWA - A pair of Catholics have made the grade as Canada’s governor general has announced 87 new appointments to the Order of Canada.

TORONTO - Vision TV will broadcast this year’s National Catholic Mission, two talks from renowned speaker and best-selling author Matthew Kelly, March 25 and 26 at 7 p.m. (E.T.)

MONTREAL - Catholics played a key role in the development of  Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, yet increasingly the Catholic Church is seen at odds with the so-called rights revolution that in 2005 brought the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Yellowknife, NT - Hundreds of parishioners packed St. Patrick’s Church in Yellowknife, NWT, on Feb. 18 to see Don Flumerfelt ordained as the first Catholic priest married with children in the Mackenzie-Fort Smith diocese.

TORONTO - A man known to the courts only as John Doe is sitting in a jail in Nebraska waiting for a decision from a Canadian judge. He’s a Colombian in the United States because the rebel FARC army has shot at his family and threatened his life, but he is barred from applying for asylum because he has been in the United States for more than a year.

OTTAWA - The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) says a recent call by Canadian obstetricians and gynecologists for all women to be offered prenatal genetic screening is a “disturbing step toward eugenics in our society.”

OTTAWA - The Canadian Judicial Council has dismissed REAL Women of Canada’s allegations of judicial misconduct against Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry, whose 2003 Halpern decision determined the traditional definition of marriage discriminated against same-sex couples.