Michael Swan

Matching fund offers chance to save lives in famine-ravaged countries

June 2, 2017

There are 20 million people on the edge of starvation in just four countries and Development and Peace thinks we should do something about it.

Aid to the Church in Need's work in Iraq goes on despite war

June 2, 2017

Even as the fighting rages in Iraq, the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need is restoring damaged houses and helping displaced Christians return to their villages on the outskirts of Mosul, the country’s second largest city.

Cardinal Collins to make case for Bishop Michael Power’s sainthood

May 30, 2017

Cardinal Thomas Collins believes the Archdiocese of Toronto’s founding bishop was a martyr and is a saint. On the occasion of the archdiocese’s 175th anniversary, Collins announced he plans to begin the process that could make it official.

Battle for a living wage is a key to Church’s drive for social justice

May 30, 2017

Even as the Ontario government moved to enact new labour laws and increase the minimum wage to $15, experts agree there is no quick fix to protecting workers from the threat of poverty.

Former papal spokesman helps Salt + Light mark 15th anniversary

May 29, 2017

TORONTO – If the news seems to be shouting at you and your Facebook feed is crowded with takedown artists, Fr. Frederico Lombardi has an alternative media diet you might want to consider.

The gospel according to Di Cicco

May 27, 2017

UPTERGROVE, ONT. – Ordinary lives, however quiet or unnoticed, are a sequence of miracles, tragedies and triumphs. We all stumble into hell and are repeatedly resurrected into ultimate beauty.

Fear and anger haunt Christians in wake of mass Coptic slaughter in Egypt

May 26, 2017

Abouna Beshoi Yasa Annis has been talking to angry, frightened and despairing parishioners in his Catholic Coptic parish in Assiut, Egypt, ever since gunmen killed at least 28 pilgrims on a bus, two hours’ drive north of his town in the Christian heartland of Upper Egypt.

Canada lagging behind in aid to world’s poor

May 26, 2017

The global economy is picking up steam, but higher global growth numbers aren’t changing the outlook at Canada’s Catholic development agency.

Archdiocese 175: Stories of struggle, sacrifice, grace

May 25, 2017

Just off the boundaries of Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School there’s the site of a 600-year-old Huron-Wendat village — longhouses, sweat lodges and plots where people grew squash and beans. That little shard of Toronto’s mostly forgotten, 10,000-year history of human habitation reflects a little of the good news and bad news Toronto has accumulated in its Catholic history.

Faith still a powerful personal force, Angus Reid poll finds

May 25, 2017

No matter how many times we hear that we live in a secular society, faith keeps popping up. An Angus Reid Institute Poll has found that a majority of Canadians don’t just have a faith, they use it.