Michael Swan

Catholic Family Services seeing an increase in hardship

September 2, 2010

Debt doom [images/stories/misc/misc10/debt.jpg]TORONTO - A growing number of Canadian families are finding themselves on the losing end of the global financial meltdown. At Catholic Family Services of Peel and Dufferin, counsellors have seen a 177-per-cent increase in the number of clients whose finances have fallen apart. In 2009-2010 the agency saw a 173-per-cent increase in couples and individuals at its door because of unemployment, housing or related issues.

Nigerian bishop offers his priests to universal Church

September 2, 2010

Bishop John Okoye [images/stories/toronto/toronto10/okoye.jpg]TORONTO - There is a seminary with 1,100 men studying for the priesthood. Each year that one seminary turns out a graduating class of hundreds ready for ordination. Since it began with just six students in 1924, this seminary has produced more than 4,000 priests. Though it may sound like fantasy to any North American Catholic who has visited the echoing halls of their own somewhat less populated seminaries, Bigard Memorial Seminary is a real place. And one of its former rectors believes it should be a resource for the entire Catholic Church, not only for the Metropolitan See of Onitsha in Eastern Nigeria.

Foster kids shut out from education grants

September 1, 2010

Aisha Aberdeen [images/stories/features/feature10/aishacover.jpg]TORONTO - Aisha Aberdeen wasn’t born on third base, and she doesn’t imagine she hit a triple. But as the school year starts, the former foster child is ready to trot home. Aberdeen has done what almost no kid who has been through foster care ever does. She’s graduated from the University of Toronto with a double major in forest conservation and Caribbean studies. Now she’s planning graduate studies in the forests of Kenya this year. Fewer than 44 per cent of children who wind up in foster care complete high school before they’re 21. Only 20 per cent of those (8.8 per cent of the total) go on to any form of post-secondary education.

Ontario rolling the dice with online gambling

August 26, 2010

Online gambling [images/stories/misc/misc10/gambling.jpg]Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is about to unleash a new dimension in a spiritual crisis that already grips nearly 80,000 problem gamblers in Ontario, addiction counsellors say. Duncan announced in August that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation will be “extending its brand” into the Internet. By 2012 the province will deal poker, sell lottery tickets and run bingo games online. The province worries its citizens already spend $400 million a year on unregulated, off-shore gambling sites. It expects the provincial take from OLG-run web sites will be in the neighbourhood of $100 million. Charities may be given the opportunity to fundraise directly by running online bingo games. But the toll in addiction will be high, particularly for young males most at risk for Internet gambling addictions, said Christiana Ashabo, Southdown Institute’s addiction and relapse prevention therapist.

Basilian priest charged with abuse dating back to 1972

August 26, 2010

child abuse [images/stories/misc/abuse.jpg]The Basilian Fathers are encouraging any possible victims of sexual abuse by Fr. Kenneth O’Keefe to come forward. O’Keefe was charged Aug. 11 with one count of indecent assault stemming from his contact with a teenaged boy at St. Pius X High School in Ottawa in 1972. But if there are other victims or other unreported incidents to be dealt with, the Basilians want to hear about them and will work with police and the court system to see justice is done, said Basilian spokesman Fr. Tom Rosica.

Pakistan flood aid picks up

August 26, 2010

Pakistan flood [images/stories/international/international10/pakistanflood2.jpg]TORONTO - After a slow start, Canadian Catholics have responded, online and in parishes, to the flood crisis in Pakistan. Contributions over the Internet pushed the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace disaster relief fund for Pakistan over the $100,000 mark on the Aug. 22 weekend. In the archdiocese of Toronto, the ShareLife Pakistan Flood Relief fund went from less than $11,000 on Aug. 16 to $38,497 as of 3 p.m. Aug. 23. With the federal government giving in to pleas from Development and Peace and other agencies to establish a dollar-for-dollar program to match private donations, Development and Peace is hopeful Canadian generosity will begin to equal the massive scale of the floods in the Indus River valley.

Basilian priest charged with abusing Ottawa student in 1972

August 12, 2010

The Basilian Fathers are encouraging any possible victims of sexual abuse by Fr. Kenneth O'Keefe to come forward. O'Keefe was charged Aug. 11 with one count of indecent assault stemming from his contact with a teenaged boy at St. Pius X High School in Ottawa in 1972. But if there are other victims or other unreported incidents to be dealt with, the Basilians want to hear about them and will work with police and the court system to see justice is done, said Basilian spokesman Fr. Tom Rosica. "We are committed to making available financial support for restorative therapy for anyone who has been abused by Fr. O'Keefe or by any other Basilian," said a statement from the religious order.

Mother Teresa still resonates with Canadians

August 12, 2010

Mother Teresa of Calcutta [images/stories/features/feature10/teresa.jpg]Canada is not like Calcutta. Mother Teresa was not like most Canadians. But somehow the life of the tiny Albanian nun who ministered to the abandoned, the forgotten and the dying in Calcutta speaks to Canadians. August 26 is the centenary anniversary of the birth of Blessed Mother Teresa and events are taking place worldwide to honour the occasion. At a July showing of relics of Mother Teresa at St. Barnabus parish in Toronto, Sr. Mary Frank of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity saw people standing in line with tears in their eyes.

St. Jerome's, professors still in labour negotiations

August 12, 2010

St. Jerome's University logo [images/stories/education/education10/sju_logo.jpg]As hints of back-to-school begin to drift into academic consciousness, professors and administrators at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ont., are still in labour negotiations. The SJU Academic Staff Association was certified as a union by the Ontario Labour Relations Board April 24. The professors said they needed the legal protection of a labour contract in light of changes in how the Catholic college at the University of Waterloo is governed. “Negotiations are underway, but proceeding slowly,” staff association president David Seljak told The Catholic Register in an e-mail.

Archbishop Collins, archdiocese step up efforts to help Iraqi refugees

August 10, 2010

TORONTO - For Toronto’s Archbishop Thomas Collins the fate of Iraqi Christians trapped in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon isn’t just another tough case in an unfair world full of too much heartbreak. For him, this one is personal. Collins has written to his fellow bishops across Canada about the fate of Iraqi Christian refugees, asking them to encourage refugee sponsorship in their dioceses. He has urged pastors in Toronto to get their parishes involved in sponsoring refugees. But it’s more than words. He’s also sponsoring a refugee family himself.