Browse › 2007 › June

June 2007

June 4

Some Inquisition

June 4, 2007

Dr. Shiraz Dossa, a Muslim professor of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., protests a little too much. In an essay published in the June issue of the Literary Review of Canada , he accuses his Roman Catholic employer of authorizing “a small Spanish Inquisition” and sanctioning “a crusade against a Muslim Holocaust scholar” (that would be Dossa).

Time to end discrimination against educational minorities

June 4, 2007

The Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats are in agreement on maintaining Ontario’s public funding for two education systems: public and Catholic. One key question I still have today: why should Catholics get full funding and no other religious groups get any public support?

Turkey’s reality check: the true Islam

June 4, 2007

Current events in a country bridging Europe and Asia are offering an important object lesson about the Muslim world: it is not monolithic and there are significant forces for religious pluralism and democracy within it.

There’s nothing God can’t use

June 4, 2007

“One is closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth” goes the old saying. I have always known this. But I hadn’t particularly thought of the divine in connection with compost until I read God of Surprises.

The Body and Blood are never just for us

June 4, 2007

The Body and Blood of Christ (Year C) — June 10 (Genesis 14:18-20/1 Corinthians 11:23-26/Luke 9:11b-17) How often we wish that certain passages in the Scriptures would say a bit (a lot!) more than they do. Who was Melchizedek? Obviously he was someone very important in spiritual terms, for he gives his name to an eternal priesthood fulfilled by Jesus. But in comparison to Abraham, Moses, David and others, he does not get much press. And he uses a different title for God — “El Elyon” — the Most High God rather than the usual Elohim or Yahweh.

North meets south on a student exchange

June 4, 2007

TORONTO - Students from a Toronto Catholic high school and Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, exchanged homes for a week this spring.

Canadian immigrant starts Catholic lay movement

June 4, 2007

TORONTO - More than 100 children, teens and young adults gather for a prayer meeting every Friday at St. Basil the Great High School in North York. Members drive in from as far away as Waterloo and Hamilton on a weekly basis.

June 5

Go to church? Are you kidding!

June 5, 2007

Having just finished four years of university, I know a thing or two about working on Sundays. Often, I would give myself time to sleep in, sleep off a week of classes, tutorials, assignments and incredibly late nights, but then it was time to get up and at ’em for a long day of work. For many young people, church is not even a thought worth entertaining during the school year. “Are you kidding? I have four essays and two presentations to finish by Thursday!”

Unmasking Amnesty’s hope-filled realist

June 5, 2007

Dispatches From the Global Village by Derek Evans (CopperHouse, softcover, 192 pages, $23.95). If you asked me today to name a sole companion on a desert island, my first choice — after my husband, of course — would be Derek Evans, former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International. Until now, he was only a name on mailings I would receive in return for my annual donation. But after reading Dispatches From the Global Village — a collection of 38 monthly columns he’s written for his village paper near Penticton, B.C. — I realized here truly was a man described in the foreword by a friend as a “gentle soul with a will of iron… an artist and a scientist” and one who, “in the midst of this global terror, introduces us to a diplomacy of light.”

Dark vs. light, Russian style

June 5, 2007

For those who found the Lord of the Rings trilogy a tad bombastic and perhaps simplistic in its fairyland reduction of the forces of light and forces of darkness into two massively clashing armies, now there’s an alternative — from Russia, with love.

Archdiocese of Toronto Archives develops heritage program

June 5, 2007

TORONTO - The archdiocese of Toronto has approved a new cultural heritage program, one of the first of its kind in North America.

‘I think there is a great future for religion’

June 5, 2007

WINDSOR, Ont. - Despite numerous predictions of its demise, religion is very much a part of the world, and perhaps more alive and vital now than it has ever been, speakers told delegates at a conference at Assumption University here May 16-18.

Less whining, more action needed to open government ears to church views

June 5, 2007

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - After more than an hour of mainline Protestant and Catholic consternation and deep thinking over the declining influence of Christians in Canada’s political life, Jeremy Bell had had enough.

Mandatory sentences not an answer

June 5, 2007

TORONTO - As two 17-year-old boys prepare to face a judge over the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners in a Toronto school hallway, the ecumenical Church Council on Justice and Corrections continues its fight against mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.

Women’s ordinations not connected to church

June 5, 2007

TORONTO - The Roman Catholic Church in Toronto says an ordination ceremony held May 27 by a group that calls itself “Roman Catholic Womenpriests” has “no connection whatsoever to the Roman Catholic Church.”

Pro-life doctors fight for conscience rights

June 5, 2007

OTTAWA - Should doctors who object to abortion on religious or conscience grounds be forced to refer patients seeking to terminate their pregnancies? Should abortion be a required procedure for all medical students?

St. FX professor accuses school of ‘Islamophobia’

June 5, 2007

The St. Francis Xavier University political science professor who made headlines in 2006 by attending an Iranian conference on the Holocaust along with leading Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis has accused Antigonish’s Bishop Raymond Lahey and St. Francis Xavier University of being the “distilled voice of Canadian Islamophobia” in an essay published in the Literary Review of Canada.

June 7

Man tries to jump at papal jeep

June 7, 2007

VATICAN CITY – A 27-year-old German man was forced to undergo immediate psychiatric treatment June 6 after he jumped over a barrier in St. Peter’s Square and reached the back of the open jeep in which Pope Benedict XVI was riding.

Ode to fathers

June 7, 2007

It’s customary for some segments of society to view Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, not to mention Valentine’s Day, as marketing occasions for greeting cards, florists and golf retailers. Cynicism should be set aside, however, as these special days mark important aspects of human relationships that deserve special recognition in this Age of the Individual.

Joseph: an unsung superhero

June 7, 2007

What qualities constitute a real man in the early 21st century? What model could a modern dad look to for inspiration and guidance to get him through challenging times? These are meaningful questions in Canada 2007, amid the ongoing attacks on the traditional family, and we need to look no further for our model than St. Joseph, foster father to Our Lord.