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September 2008

September 25

Senator O'Connor's legacy of generosity, faith

September 25, 2008

TORONTO - In setting out to protect a Toronto heritage home, Mary Fay discovered the story of a man so fascinating she spent years researching his life and deeds. Four years ago, while walking by Senator O’Connor College School, Fay fell in love with a stately old home that sat boarded up on the school’s property, surrounded by a wire fence. Moved by its Colonial Revival-style architecture, she thought it deserved a second chance at life and began to research its history and its pending fate.

25 years of discernment at Serra House

September 25, 2008

TORONTO - Serra House in Toronto has reached its 25th birthday and continues to welcome young men who are in the “pre-seminary” stage of their life. Here, men can discern a vocation to the diocesan priesthood while studying or continuing in the work force, all the while supported by a community of peers striving for personal and spiritual growth.

Studying theology has merits

September 25, 2008

Perhaps one of the most common questions I hear every time I tell someone I study theology is “So WHAT are you going to do with THAT?” This is surely an all too familiar question asked of fellow English, history and philosophy majors, to name a few. It’s interesting how many people believe the misconception that those who study theology possess no marketable skills for making a contribution to an organization.

September 26

ROM to host Dead Sea Scrolls

September 26, 2008

TORONTO - The Royal Ontario Museum has reached out to Israel and back to the beginnings of Christianity and Judaism as we know it to bring the Dead Sea Scrolls to Toronto. Some of the most significant pieces of the 2,000-year-old writings will be on display at the ROM from June 27, 2009, to Jan. 3, 2010. Scrolls on display will include passages of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, the War Scroll, the Community Rule and the Messianic Apocalypse.

Introducing our newest YSN team

September 26, 2008

Youth Speak News (YSN) officially began in the year 2000, with young writers local to the Toronto region. Since then, it has grown to include writers from across Canada — from the Rockies to the Atlantic provinces — bringing our readers news about youth from a youth’s perspective. “I think young Catholics need to be aware of, supported in dealing with, and educated about the issues that affect our church and our world,” said Jessica Williams, our newest Albertan correspondent in Calgary.

Rehab centre puts Catholicity front and centre

September 26, 2008

WOODBRIDGE, Ont. - Vita Nova is one addictions rehabilitation centre that isn’t shy about its Catholic colours. On the staircase wall of the building’s main entrance hangs a large painting of a young woman, head in hands, with a statue of Mary in the background facing away. Franca Carella, the centre’s founder, explains that the painting, the handiwork of a former client at the Woodbridge centre, expressed the artist’s struggle with faith while battling addiction — in her case, the belief that Mary had turned her back on her.

Spirituality a key step in addiction recovery

September 26, 2008

TORONTO - For many people suffering from addiction, the belief in a higher power, or the belief that such a higher power actually cares for them, is often a difficult concept to grasp, addictions counsellors say. Feelings of shame and guilt because of the hurtful things they have done or said during their addiction can make it difficult for recovering addicts to forgive themselves. The concept of a Creator who loves them and wants to help them seems very unlikely.

A very special family vacation

September 26, 2008

They say you can’t go back and revisit the past, but that’s exactly what we did last month. My family went back to the Muskoka resort where we first vacationed decades ago. My parents had stumbled across the place after years of vacationing at housekeeping cottages. It cost more, but it was a real treat not to have to pack groceries, bedding and towels for six, along with each family member’s personal items, and try to cram them all into the car. And how wonderful it was to have someone else preparing, serving and cleaning up after meals and organizing activities. It was truly a time of relaxation and fun.

It's God's vineyard

September 26, 2008

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) Oct. 5 (Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43) Many people can identify with God’s frustration in Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard. Perhaps they have given many hours of backbreaking work in a yard or garden with heat and blisters thrown in as a bonus. And when there are no results, when the anticipated flowers, trees or plants fail to grow or grow in wild and bizarre ways, there is only disappointment, frustration and anger. Why bother!

Sarah Palin: the thrilla from Wasilla

September 26, 2008

When I was an undergraduate, I went to the March for Life Conference in Washington, D.C. The welcome my friends and I received there astonished me. We received letters of welcome from the president of the United States. A famous United States senator addressed us at dinner. Other well-known American political figures gave workshops, ate dinner, hung out. There was an air of sophistication and confidence I had never breathed at a Canadian pro-life event. It dawned on me that in the United States being pro-life does not make you an automatic pariah. In the United States you don’t have to leave your pro-life activities off your resume. Your pro-life activities can get you a good job. Your pro-life activities can get you elected.

Is personal virtue required in democracy?

September 26, 2008

The primary function of the state is to ensure justice for all. This noble idea resonates nicely through the particularities of the fair wage, anti-discrimination policies, affordable housing, universal health care and social justice. Justice, however, is a virtue. Moreover, it is, in its essence, not bureaucratic, but personal. Politicians, nonetheless, who love to talk about justice, rarely understand this. In general, they assume that justice is imposed on people by a liberal government, forgetting, somehow, that a society is nothing without its constitutive people. If there are no virtuous people, there is no social justice.

Creation groans

September 26, 2008

In this federal election campaign, Canada’s Catholic bishops are calling upon all Catholics to consider environmental questions when they vote. In its recent pastoral letter on ecology, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops says, “We hope our elected representatives will remember first of all the heritage we are leaving our children when making important decisions. Because we love our children, what environment, what society do we wish to bequeath to them?”

September 29

Afghanistan falls off election radar screen

September 29, 2008

TORONTO - With 97 Canadian soldiers dead and many more injured, a record year for attacks on development workers and mounting evidence that NATO is losing the war in Afghanistan some might have expected the war to be a major issue in the Canadian election campaign. "It's not an issue because the Liberals gave the issue away when they voted for the Conservative extension to 2011, so there's no difference really between the Conservative and the Liberal position on this," said left-leaning Rideau Institute defence analyst Stephen Staples.

Party platforms now available online

September 29, 2008

Catholic voters keep being told they should read the political parties' platforms before making their decision on Oct. 14. Well, they are now available, so happy reading.

September 30

Read his lips: there will be no abortion law

September 30, 2008

Pro-lifers across the country pull their hair out in chunks every time they hear the dire warnings that Prime Minister Stephen Harper harbours a secret agenda to recriminalize abortion. They know full well he has been the biggest disappointment on that front since the Supreme Court overturned Canada's abortion law in 1988.