Michael Swan

Canadian Catholic peace movement expands

July 25, 2007

The moment for Canada to beat its own swords into ploughshares, to transform its own spears into pruning hooks and to work so that nation shall not lift up sword against nation may have finally arrived with the defection of a former chair of Amnesty International into Canada’s nascent Catholic peace camp.

RBC is first big bank to offer ethical funds

July 12, 2007

TORONTO - Canada’s biggest bank has just crashed the socially responsible investing party as lining up investments with values goes more mainstream.

Latin Mass increases diversity, says Archbishop Collins

July 11, 2007

TORONTO - For Toronto’s Archbishop Thomas Collins, more diversity equals less controversy in Canada’s Catholic community over liturgy. “We celebrate Toronto as the most diverse diocese in the world. We’ve just been enriched. I think the whole church has.” Collins told The Catholic Register following the release of Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, which declared the 1962 Latin Missal one of two approved forms of the Mass. “This is a great thing, and it solves all of this disputing and all this stuff.”

A truly dignified way to die

July 9, 2007

When Marlene West faced her family to tell them about her plans regarding her death she got a surprise — tears and grasping for words that just wouldn’t come.

Three faiths face death with meaning

July 9, 2007

TORONTO - Friendly volunteers checked bags. Police hovered discreetly at the back of the room. After weeks of spray-painted swastikas and arson, everybody expected the security and nobody talked about it. Recent hate crimes wouldn't stop about 300 Muslims, Jews and Catholics from gathering at Beth Tikvah Synagogue to listen to ethicists and doctors speak about how to care for their dying parents.

St. Anthony’s School celebrates 100 years

June 29, 2007

TORONTO - One hundred years on and St. Anthony’s Catholic School is still teaching girls like Hailey Moreno reading, spelling and arithmetic, plus getting them ready for first Communion. In the last weeks of her Grade 1 year, Moreno is more than happy the centenarian school is going strong in a brand new building.

From Genesis to the Apocalypse

June 28, 2007

The most important information in the bookends of the Bible, Genesis and Apocalypse, is the stuff that tells us who we are. Identity is one of the most deeply religious questions we can ask.

A prisoner of his own mind

June 28, 2007

The worst thing you can say about a religion is that it is a self-imposed prison of the mind — an identity of limits that deforms the human soul.

The Yes Men

June 28, 2007

The telling moment in The Yes Men comes at the three-quarter mark when intrepid pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno engage in a wistful meditation on satire.

Battlefield for the soul

June 28, 2007

We ask God not to lead us into temptation because temptation is real. If Jesus had to face it in His 40 days in the desert, then there's no reason to believe any of us will be spared such a quintessentially human experience.