Michael Swan

Dufferin-Peel board launches book on history of Catholic education

September 21, 2011

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Grade 7 and 10 students in Dufferin-Peel west of Toronto are about to welcome 400 years of history on 252 glossy pages into their classrooms, and they have a couple of former students to thank for it. Our Story. Our Tradition. Our Journey: Celebrating the Church-School Connection in Dufferin-Peel is the first book published in more than 30 years by the Catholic school board that covers Mississauga and Brampton. It’s a history of Catholic education in Ontario and the region. The timeline stretches back as far as the Jesuit martyrs of the 17th century. Former students Daniel Francavilla and Jennifer Paul were asked to work on the book by their media studies teacher, Peter Fujiwara. What began as a little design and layout project ended up stretching out for a year. The pair graduated from St. Marguerite d'Youville Secondary School in Brampton, Francavilla in 2008 and Paul in 2009.

Scarboros mourn loss of well-liked Fr. Veltri

September 20, 2011

TORONTO - Fr. Richard Veltri of the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society was a good friend who loved to laugh and a compassionate pastor who knew how to listen. In recent years Fr. Veltri had struggled with a number of ailments. He died Sept. 12 at the age of 77. As a man who spoke his mind freely and forcefully, Fr. Veltri was never unnoticed in the Scarboro Missions community, said Scarboro Mission priest Fr. Roger Brennan. "He was a character, one of those people who adds a certain flavour to the community — a little something different," he said.

Opera star Mark Doss has seen both sides of the good-evil divide

September 17, 2011

TORONTO - When bass-baritone Mark Doss takes the stage as King Thoas in Iphigenia in Tauris Sept. 22, an altar of sacrifice will stand at the centre of the Four Seasons Centre stage. It will be familiar territory for Doss. Doss has played Thoas in Christoph Gluck’s most successful opera before. He premiered the role with the San Francisco Opera. The Canadian Opera Company has borrowed the San Francisco Opera production. But Doss’s knowledge of altars and sacrifice goes deeper than the opera roles he has played. Doss arrived at classical singing by way of the seminary. His love of liturgy and sacred music eventually spilled over and his big voice found a natural home on the operatic stage. Thirty years later, Doss’s experience of life in the seminary still influences his approach to opera. “I’m the kind of person who really deals with the words,” said Doss. “It comes from that background — the Gospel as the Word of God, and you see it’s a really powerful thing. So, why go away from something that’s really powerful?”

ISARC's end-poverty campaign launched

September 15, 2011

TORONTO - As campaign-style signs went up at Toronto's Anglican St. James Cathedral and other churches around Ontario Sept. 15, Ryerson University political science professor Myer Siemiatycki suggested provincial politicians look to the prophet Isaiah for a crucial plank in their platform. "Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free... share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house," reads Isaiah 58:6-7, the traditional reading in Siemiatycki's synagogue for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Oct. 8 this year). "That's a hell of a political platform," Siemiatycki told a crowd of Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition supporters gathered outside the cathedral to erect signs that read "Let's Vote for a Poverty Free Ontario." Siemiatycki was there on behalf of Toronto's Darchei Noam synagogue, a member of ISARC.

Jesuits 1611-2011: 400 years of giving

September 15, 2011

I met Jesuit Father Bill Maurice on the roof of the mission house on the Fort William Reserve, on the edge of Thunder Bay, Ont. He was repairing an outdoor loudspeaker which he had mounted to broadcast prayers and other vital messages to the surrounding households. It was early spring with the wind whipping off Lake Superior and I had been wondering why an 82-year-old man was scrambling about on the roof with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. Once he had persuaded me up to the roof and started handing me tools I was not so much mystified as aghast. As he handed me tools, he was talking. Maurice had opinions about theology, liturgy, politics, the weather, hockey and everything else but I wasn’t catching much of it while I hung on to the TV antenna. I eventually learned Maurice wasn’t just a colourful, crazy character. He was a Jesuit, one of more than 2,000 Jesuits who have been entwined in Canada’s history since 1611. Just as students in Jesuit schools inscribe the top of their exam papers with AMDG, the old priest had carved Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam (“to the greater glory of God”) into his soul and into every day of the 92 years he lived.

The Jesuit Relations opened up the New World to Europe

September 15, 2011

The most popular books in France in the 17th century were written in Canada. The Jesuit Relations told the story of brave and brilliant missionaries who stepped into an unimagined, fantastic world, learned its languages, spoke to its people about God and heroically endured incredible hardships. From 1632 to 1664, edited collections of letters from Jesuit missionaries to their provincial superiors were published annually in book form. The letters recounted almost day-by-day the activities of Jesuits in New France, their observations concerning Aboriginals and the challenges they faced in the vast colony. The books inspired a wave of immigration into the colony and raised the equivalent of millions of dollars from private donors and the royal court in Paris. The books formed Europe’s first ideas about the New World — both positive and negative — and encouraged a new, scientific mindset that came to define the Enlightenment.

Ontario bishops push poverty on to election radar

September 14, 2011

When Jesus predicted His disciples would always have the poor with them, He didn’t mention they would be invisible — unseen, unheard and unthinkable in the political arena. Ontario’s bishops have again identified poverty as an essential issue facing voters as they go to the polls Oct. 6. “Jesus directly connects our salvation to how we have tended to the needs of the poor, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the least among us,” wrote the Assembly of Catholic Bishops in its pre-election message. “We face that judgment personally and also as a society.” In “Your Right to Be Heard: A Guide to the Ontario Election — 2011” (download the full statement here), the bishops urge Catholics to ask candidates about poverty reduction strategies, homelessness, unemployment and “basic income that is sufficient for food and housing.” They also remind Catholics of their duty to vote. “It is inconceivable that people would consciously decide not to vote,” the guide said.

9/11 can’t take away our sense of optimism

September 9, 2011

TORONTO - There are lots of numbers associated with Sept. 11, 2001. More than 3,000 people were killed including 19 hijackers. Another 6,000+ people were injured. There were nearly three million square metres of Manhattan office space damaged or destroyed. New York’s gross domestic product declined $27.3 billion in the 15 months following the attacks. Nobody counts the number of prayers. At the Newman Centre at the University of Toronto, Fr. Pat O’Dea watched in horror at the face of evil revealed on television — “That’s all it is, pure evil,” he said. But he also watched in wonder at the outpouring of prayer on the downtown campus. All week long the St. Thomas Aquinas Church remained open for anyone who wanted to pray, and hundreds did, recalled O’Dea, who was pastor at the Newman Centre at the time.

Bright future beckons Hope for Children scholar

September 7, 2011

TORONTO - At 14 Neola Husbands decided she couldn’t continue living at home with her father and his new wife. At 18 she’s starting her second year at McGill University in Montreal, her first year in the bachelor of commerce program, while she shores up a business plan that she hopes will launch a career in fashion. The bridge between a violent home and a bright future for Husbands has been group homes run by the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. On Aug. 22 Husbands was one of 100 former CCAS youth in care to receive a scholarship from the Hope for Children foundation. She planned to use the $2,000 she received for tuition — absorbing a small part of the burden of debt she would otherwise face as a university student with no parental support. Foster kids graduate out of the children’s aid system at 18. At the age when most high school graduates are getting some help from their parents in realizing their post-secondary dreams, kids like Husbands have to make it on their own.

Sherlock saddened by how disease ravaged cardinal

August 31, 2011

The last time Bishop John Sherlock saw his old friend Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic there were tears in Sherlock’s eyes. “The devastation of that Parkinson’s (like disease) had set in,” recalled London’s bishop emeritus. “I remember being overwhelmed with sadness. I remember I came out of his room and I broke into tears.” Cardinal Ambrozic was a scholar who spoke English, French, Italian and German, read Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, all in addition to his native Slovenian. It was painful for Sherlock to think of the cardinal imprisoned by a disease, unable to communicate. “His life must have been pretty miserable. He was a voracious reader and I presume even that was stripped away. He was a great communicator and that was taken away,” said Sherlock. Sherlock prayed for Cardinal Ambrozic by name every day over the last two years. He directed his prayers to Blessed John Paul II, who had also suffered through Parkinson’s.