Michael Swan

Blitz could open doors to 700 refugees

April 20, 2016

In what will be a record year for refugees finding a new home in the Archdiocese of Toronto, an 18-hour flurry of paperwork may have made the difference for as many as 700 Syrian refugees.

To Gaetano Gagliano, the Church came before his business empire

April 20, 2016

TORONTO – From a distance Gaetano Gagliano was a perfect representative of Toronto’s Catholic establishment. He was a rich man whose business empire employs more than 1,300.

Collins concerned about conscience protection in assisted suicide legislation

April 14, 2016

With a federal bill tabled that will enshrine a legal right to voluntary euthanasia, Toronto’s Cardinal Thomas Collins is still looking for conscience protections for individual doctors and nurses as well as for religiously affiliated healthcare institutions.

Ontario pledges more end-of-life care, says MPP

April 13, 2016

If the Supreme Court of Canada says Canadians have a right to a doctor’s help in committing suicide, Ottawa South MPP John Fraser says we also have a right to timely access to quality palliative care.

"Amoris Laetitia" lets us know sex is not something to be looked down upon

April 12, 2016

Sex is not something the Church fears or is trying to control. Sex is not the opposite of prayer and spirituality, it’s not something we grudgingly concede to the young. Sex is not merely the mechanism of reproduction, although there’s no such thing as a full and true understanding of sex that can’t live with our human capacity to make babies.

Moving Vatican II forward

April 12, 2016

Pope Francis’ long meditation on love in the family does more than sum up two meetings of the world’s bishops in Rome in 2014 and 2015. Francis is bringing a new spark to an old fire.

Collins’ misgivings allayed by final Synod document

April 12, 2016

TORONTO – In six months Cardinal Thomas Collins’ misgivings about the 2015 Synod on the Family have been banished by a deeply scriptural Synod summation from Pope Francis.

St. Joe’s staying true to its Catholic roots

April 9, 2016

TORONTO - How a simple change in letterhead led to wild rumours that St. Joseph’s Health Centre was about to remove crosses from the outside of its building and religious artwork from inside the hospital is not something St. Joe’s vice president of quality, strategic information and performance systems is going to speculate on.

Cardinal Collins commends "Amoris Laetitia" as pastoral and grandfatherly appeal to Church

April 8, 2016

“We’re all imperfect Catholics,” Toronto’s Cardinal Thomas Collins told the press after a quick first reading of the 268-page papal summary of two synods on the family. But the point Francis wants to make above all others is that the Church is still there for us, however imperfect we may be.

Catholic efforts see $3.75 million in matching funds slated for Syria

April 6, 2016

There’s another $7.5 million heading out to help Syrians stuck inside the war ravaged republic or living as refugees in surrounding countries thanks to Catholic donors and Ottawa’s promise to match donations.