Michael Swan

Ontario religious step up poverty-reduction demand

December 5, 2008

TORONTO - The people who started Ontario’s first free hospitals, ran the orphanages and founded schools that were once a ticket out of poverty are appealing to the government and people of Ontario to take up their fight and get serious about poverty reduction. Thirty Ontario religious orders, representing hundreds of Sisters, Fathers and Friars, are publishing an open letter to the government and people of Ontario. The letter urges them to set hard targets for poverty reduction and enshrine them in law.

Charities expect an uncertain year

December 4, 2008

TORONTO - For charities that rely on big donors, the stock market crash has made uncertainty the first principle of budgeting as they face a new year. “Obviously Covenant House and every other charity are looking at their plans and how to approach this kind of time,” said Covenant House spokesperson Rose Cino. “Everyone is in the same boat. Would that we all had a crystal ball.”

Congolese plead for Canadian help

December 3, 2008

TORONTO - Despite another horrendous humanitarian crisis in Congo — 250,000 made homeless by renewed fighting in a war that has killed at least six million since 1996 — the Congolese don't want or need more aid money from Canadians, said a Congolese-Canadian who has for years lobbied Canadian governments to intervene on behalf of peace and demanded that Canadian mining companies cease operation in zones of conflict. "They don't need material things. They need you to be there for them," said Erik Mukandila, a doctoral student studying immigration at the University of Toronto.

Market meltdown less harsh on social investments

November 28, 2008

TORONTO - The September apocalypse on Wall Street and Bay Street is no surprise to religiously and socially motivated investors, who are now contemplating their place in the post-meltdown economy. “Socially responsible investing is going to be very well positioned coming out of this crisis,” said Jantzi Social Index founder Michael Jantzi.

The gift of the incarnate Jesus

November 21, 2008

The church gives us four Sundays to get ready for the enfleshment of God. Four weeks is just enough to get organized for the office parties, gift exchanges, good cheer with good friends, family gatherings, etc. But it is impossible to be ready for God among us, God here and now, God in history — God as a concrete, physical reality. There is no strategy, no program, no scheme that will make such a thing easily acceptable or even understandable. Faith is a gift. The nature of the gift is a clear sense of Christ and profound communion with reality.

Politicians must make Holy Land peace reality

November 21, 2008

JERUSALEM - As Christmas approaches and the world again turns its hopes and prayers toward Bethlehem, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem is asking politicians to make peace a reality in the Holy Land. Patriarch Fouad Twal told Canadian Catholic journalists visiting Jerusalem that a Saudi Arabian peace proposal would make a good basis for future peace in the region.

'Pure prayer, song and dance'

November 7, 2008

TORONTO - Before the Rogers Centre filled up and before the hours of praise and worship began, native drummers and dancers had the crowd rocking at Heaven’s Rehearsal. The evening of straightforward, charismatic praise, music and Bible reading hosted by the Evangelical Crossroads Ministry attracted close to 25,000 Evangelical, Pentecostal and Catholic Christians to Toronto’s baseball stadium Nov. 1.

Students lead way on interfaith dialogue

November 7, 2008

TORONTO - Nobody forced the 40 Catholic and Muslim university students to spend Nov. 1 touring a downtown Toronto church and then a nearby mosque, giving up most of a Saturday for the sake of interfaith dialogue. Students wanted to be there, said University of Toronto Innis College student Ali Shaikh. “There are people who are willing to go beyond their prejudices,” he said. “They’re willing to be the change they want to see.”

In good times and bad, Christians called to stewardship

November 3, 2008

TORONTO - Poverty ought to motivate Christians to decisive action in good times and bad, 1,700 diners heard from politicians and prelates at the 29th annual Cardinal's Dinner in Toronto, Oct. 30. It was the night before Halloween, but the speakers were betting that donors might already be spooked.

Christians need to understand Jewish roots

October 30, 2008

TORONTO - The Catholic Church officially repudiated anti-Jewish teaching and predatory proselytizing of Jews 43 years ago. While violence against Jews, graffiti on synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish cemeteries are still realities in Toronto, such incidents cannot be associated with teaching — official or unofficial — in the Catholic Church. In today’s Toronto, the Muslim community is now about twice as numerous as the Jews and it’s both the integration of Muslims in Canada and armed conflict in Muslim countries around the world that grab headlines. So who cares about Catholic-Jewish relations?