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September 17, 2007
TORONTO - A new religious order has joined the archdiocese of Toronto. Three Sisters of Life arrived Aug. 27 to open the order’s first Canadian chapter.
As the Halton Catholic District School Board prepares to launch into the second year of its mandate, trustees are still huddling with private consultants in hopes of articulating a common vision and priorities.
TORONTO - Parkdale isn’t what it used to be. There are condos going up, gourmet restaurants offering Food Channel cuisine, artists and entrepreneurs sharing the sidewalk with the homeless, ex-psychiatric patients and the chronically unemployed.
TORONTO - St. Matthew Catholic School teacher Kateri Vrakking won a silver medal in archery this past summer at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
I have been in a long-distance relationship for a few years. When we first started dating I was overwhelmed with joy. I felt the typical butterfly sensation people get when they first fall in love, sort of like the exhilaration of flipping upside down on a roller coaster ride.
September 18, 2007
ORILLIA, Ont. - This summer, I was among 39 lucky applicants chosen by the Knights of Columbus for a life-changing week of faith, fun and friendship.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Among the two per cent of Catholics in Iceland, many of whom are new immigrants from Poland and the Philippines, are young people making a difference.
Jews and Catholics Together: Celebrating the Legacy of Nostra Aetate, edited by Michael Attridge (Novalis, softcover, 180 pages, $19.95). It’s hard to imagine just how abysmal Jewish-Catholic relations were before the Second Vatican Council, but abysmal they were. Merely 40 years ago, Jews were often viewed as “Christ-killers,” condemned to wander the Earth because of their refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah. There was also a longstanding and largely unresolved debate within Christianity over “supersessionism,” the view that the Jewish covenant with God was nullified by the covenant in Christ, thus making Judaism a false religion. Consequently, Jews were targeted by missionaries for conversion. And then there is the question, still being grappled with today, of how centuries of Christian anti-Semitism provided fertile soil for the Holocaust.
OTTAWA - Groups that have fought for years to raise the age of consent to sexual activity raised from 14 to 16 are going to have to start all over again.
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C), Sept. 23 (Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13) Greed and corruption are certainly nothing new, for they have been around as long as humans. The callous injustice shown the poor and defenceless in the reading from Amos is not exceptional in that regard. What is very different, however, is that a firm link has been established between worship of God and care of the poor, marginalized and vulnerable.
The 2007 Toronto International Film Festival was a huge, happy party from start to finish. It was a mix of gala screenings, sightings of Brad and Angelina, stylish cocktail parties and non-stop schmoozing and gossiping by people in the movie industry. It was one of those events that makes you feel good about our town, and about our moxie when it comes to hosting big cultural conclaves.
The Toronto Star’s Web Forum was neatly categorical. The online results to the question “Should the province fund faith-based schools as John Tory has suggested?” were a staggering 71 per cent No and 28 per cent Yes. What happened to the remaining one per cent is anyone’s guess.
In the bad old days, Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants in Toronto did not get along. Catholics kept to themselves, Anglicans fussed over what popish dash was allowable in church and old-style Protestants hosted Belfast-style Orange Day parades. Now Catholics marry anyone who will take them, Anglicans scooped our pretty things in the post-Vatican II sales, and there are hardly any old-style Protestants left to speak of. The Orange Day parade, strangely, remains.
Advertisers have recently picked up upon a theme teachers have known about for time immemorial. Labour Day is indeed the “real” New Year’s Eve. Many young people and adults make new resolutions to do better and to achieve certain goals. Others will choose a new career or again get serious with their lives. Promises in the calendar year are often linked to the new school year, revolving around our relationship with others, the community, the church and God. They often begin with the words, “This year, I am finally going to….” Well, what exactly are you promising to do?
Clashes between religion and politics are breaking out all over these days. Those predictions a generation ago that religion would die quietly in a new enlightened secular age appear to be the only thing to have passed to the Great Beyond. Religion is hale and hearty by comparison, though it is appearing in situations that are causing people of faith to squirm.
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholic health care and ethical groups thanked the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for clarifying its stand on artificial nutrition and hydration for patients in a persistent vegetative state in a pair of Sept. 14 documents.
September 20, 2007
HPV.jpg [images/stories/bioethics/HPV.jpg]TORONTO - It appears most Catholic school boards in Ontario are on board with the province's plans to vaccinate girls against the HPV virus. It's predicted the vaccine will reduce cervical cancer rates by 70 per cent.
September 21, 2007
OTTAWA - The Catholic Church has excommunicated the Quebec-based Army of Mary movement that bases its teachings on the mystical visions of an 86-year- old woman who claims to be a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary.
OTTAWA - The latest Statistics Canada’s Census 2006 report, Family Portrait, released Sept. 12, shows troubling trends that spell bad news for the future well-being of society, say pro-family groups.
September 22, 2007
MONTREAL - What kind of society won’t admit religion? Apparently Canada. Douglas Farrow believes Canada’s grand experiment in multiculturalism is doomed. Or rather that it dooms its citizens to cultural relativism, a moral quagmire and the absence of true community.