FREE access to the digital edition and archives until September 2. Click here. →
Browse › 2007 › January
January 4, 2007
VATICAN CITY - Executing someone guilty of a crime "is not the way to restore justice and reconcile society," the Vatican spokesman said after Saddam Hussein was hanged Dec. 30.
OTTAWA - The Ontario Court of Appeal has recognized three parents in the case of a child being raised by a lesbian couple and has accorded equal rights and obligations to the lesbian partner in addition to the child's biological mother and father.
January 5, 2007
OCT [images/stories/logos/oct_copy.jpg]TORONTO - One of the most hated of the Mike Harris Conservative's education reforms in the eyes of teachers' unions is now in the hands of one of the unions' very own.
TORONTO - The Catholic school board in the rich and growing suburbs squeezed in between Toronto and Hamilton is worried.
Just before Christmas, in one of those quiet moves governments make when everyone's attention is somewhere else, Health Minister Tony Clement announced the membership of the new board to run the Assisted Human Reproduction Canada agency. It has been a long time coming.
Long before the execution of Saddam Hussein in late December, the world had come to understand clearly the character and career of the former Iraqi dictator. He was a man of blood in the baleful tradition of earlier strong men in the modern era: murderous and cruel, vengeful, suspicious and infinitely jealous. He meted out terror and torture to his real or imagined enemies, and corrupted his society with the constant threat of violence. For the countless crimes they committed, Saddam and his henchmen deserved severe and lasting punishment.
Much of what we read last month about the opposition to public displays of Christmas was largely irksome and petty. In some circles, for example, it is impermissible to bring red or green cookies to a "Holiday" party.
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) — Jan. 14 (Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 96; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-12) Physical injuries can be easier to overcome than shame and disgrace, for the latter can cut deeply into the heart and soul. The people of Israel considered themselves disgraced before the nations: they had been abandoned or punished by their God and reduced to slavery.
youtube [images/stories/misc/youtube.jpg]TORONTO - Some religious communities are turning to the latest technology to help promote vocations. Fr. Paul McAuley, C.S.Sp., decided to post some videos about TransCanada Province of the Spiritans on YouTube after reading about it in the news recently.
Recently, after putting myself through a crash course in selecting ladies' rings and cashing some Canada Savings Bonds, I proposed to my beautiful girlfriend. On bended knee I spoke of love and the future. She tallied up the pros and cons and fortunately the former outnumbered the latter.
TORONTO - There's no new money but there is a new name for the federal government's program to house the homeless across Canada.
I have recently discovered the importance of surrendering to Christ, giving up my questions and anxieties to God and adopting a child-like faith. Looking back on my journey of faith, I realize that I learned this lesson, not without difficulties, partially through my quest of faith in the summer of 2004, when I travelled throughout eastern Canada to visit various religious communities.
QUEBEC CITY - Instead of ringing in the New Year partying at a club at the stroke of midnight, about 450 young people from across Canada broke out into song praising God.
Fr. Drouin [images/stories/presentClergy/drouin.jpg]OTTAWA - Fr. André Drouin rushes from his Ottawa office and returns with a woven white and black rug. He holds up a side where black dominates the weave; when he turns it over, white dominates. He explains that just like the rug, the church is one, but it has two different faces: a celebratory face reflecting the love towards God, and a face of service to others, reflecting love of our neighbours.
TORONTO - Canadians are the third most generous people in the industrialized world, but only half as generous as Americans. A spate of recent statistical reports on Canadian philanthropy draws a picture of a nation that opens its wallet, but not too wide. givinglevels [images/stories/canada/givinglevels.jpg]
TORONTO - Normally, Lillian Gomez of Toronto would not attend Mass on a Thursday but she did on Dec. 28. What compelled her to attend Mass that cold Thursday was the theme of the service.
Children of Men [images/stories/movies/childrenofmen.jpg]Writer-director Alfonso Cuaron uses P.D. James's novel The Children of Men to show us a world worn out, spinning on the empty energy of caffeine, terrorism, anger, paranoia, suicide and the media's technology of mental chaos. He shows us the real culture of death. But then he shows us something more.
January 16, 2007
OXFORD, England - Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus of Warsaw resigned just two days after formally taking office, after admitting that he acted as an informer for Poland's former communist secret police and that his co-operation harmed the church.
OTTAWA - The Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute welcomed news that a source of stem cells has been found in amniotic fluid that bypasses the ethical problems of using embryonic stem cells.
TORONTO - After nearly 30 years in operation the airport chapel at Lester B. Pearson International Airport's Terminal 2 will close Jan. 28. This comes just one day before the Greater Toronto Airport Authority closes Terminal 2 altogether. The chapel was the first religious presence at the airport when it opened in 1979.