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April 20, 2008
NEW YORK - As his final goodbye to the American people, Pope Benedict XVI prayed at Ground Zero, the location of the worst terrorist attack ever conducted on U.S. soil, and celebrated Holy Eucharist with 57,000 Catholics at Yankee Stadium.
April 23, 2008
TORONTO - St. Basil's Church in downtown Toronto hosted the ordination of two young men to the priesthood for the Basilian order on April 19. It was a significant day for the Basilians, as Fr. Glenn McDonald and Fr. Andrew Leung, both 29 and from Alberta, were two of only three men ordained as priests within the Basilian order in North America since 2001. The third was ordained earlier this year in Houston, Texas.
April 24, 2008
TORONTO - Toronto’s first real warm spring day welcomed 36 glove-clad volunteers carrying plastic garbage bags or brooms throughout a downtown section of the city April 18.
TORONTO - Lining the sidewalk across from a crisis pregnancy centre and its abortion clinic neighbour in downtown Toronto April 18, 24 people held signs up to passing traffic with messages related to abortion.
OTTAWA - This year’s National March for Life in Ottawa May 7-9 will honour the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
ASUNCION, Paraguay - Retired Bishop Fernando Lugo was elected president of Paraguay April 20, ending the six-decade rule of the Colorado Party. Lugo took an early lead in the pre-election polls, despite official disapproval from the Vatican and, initially, from the Paraguayan bishops’ conference. As support for Lugo remained high in the largely Catholic country, the conference refrained from further comment.
If there is still any lingering scepticism among Canada’s opinion makers about the worrisome ambitions of the country’s human rights tribunals, it should be dispelled by the latest statement from Ontario Human Rights Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall.
For the next year at least you are going to be hearing a lot about Charles Darwin. There is a growing worldwide movement to declare Feb. 12 Darwin Day. Next year is the 200th anniversary of his birth and the push is on to use the occasion to mark the triumph of scientific reasoning.
From time to time I am asked to do speaking engagements and more often than not I’m asked to speak on the controversial subject of human sexuality. I just returned from an awesome retreat where organizers urged me to give my usual, no-holds-barred talk on sexuality to over 150 adults.
Have you ever said no to God? Consciously, that is, and deliberately. Very likely, most of us have a constant “no” running through our bloodstream, even when we think we’re saying yes. But occasionally we may be aware of ourselves saying no.
Ascension of the Lord (Year A) May 4 (Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20) When is God going to topple the totalitarian regimes of the Earth and banish dictators? When is God going to restore democratic governments and put an end to human rights abuses? These are some of the questions in our own minds today, similar to the ones the followers of Jesus were asking: When are you going to eject the hated Romans from our land and restore the Kingdom of Israel? But God is not in the business of king making.
NEW YORK - As his Alitalia Boeing 777, dubbed “Shepherd One,” lifted off from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, Pope Benedict XVI had reason to smile. During his April 15-20 visit to the United States, he had been received warmly by hundreds of thousands, faced the sex-abuse crisis head on and offered a message of hope in Christ to American Catholics.
Emerging from the Dark Age Ahead: The Future of the North American Church, by Charles Fensham (Novalis, softcover, 226 pages, $24.94 list). If Donald Rumsfeld was good for anything, it was savage mockery of pessimistic liberals. “Henny Penny the sky is falling,” he once jeered to their flagellations. “Sometimes even liberals themselves tire of liberal negativity.”
My paternal grandmother died 19 years ago, at age 81. This year marks the 100th anniversary of her birth. To honour her life and her legacy, one of my uncles is compiling a booklet of memories.
On Easter weekend, my father handed me an article that began, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine”(Isaiah 43:1).
TORONTO - The Office of Catholic Youth has extended early-bird registration for the local World Youth Day event until May 15.
April 25, 2008
We don’t like to talk about the old days, we ex-teenaged activists. We don’t discuss how we stood in front of hospitals and clinics with our signs. We don’t recall the bitter cold, the blazing heat, the uncomfortable passersby, their quickened steps. We don’t discuss the adults who ran the movement into anguished defeat. We don’t talk about the bicycle locks, the arrests, the holding tanks, the prison sentences. And we don’t talk about the Other Side, the victorious rent-a-mob who gathered across the street from us in the cold or heat, furious when we tried to outlast them in extreme weather. We had hymn sheets, and they had the chants that burned themselves into our teenage souls.
April 28, 2008
QUEBEC CITY - While Pope Benedict XVI may not attend the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in person, his virtual presence will be there for all to see.
April 29, 2008
TORONTO - The debate over how, when, where and whether scientists should be allowed to experiment on human embryonic stem cells should not be left in the hands of bureaucrats, academics and scientists, London Bishop Ron Fabbro said at a Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute conference for doctors April 27.