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October 2008

October 23

Life can overcome death

October 23, 2008

My friend Susan had been thinking about death. “What if there’s nothing after?” she mused to me, with some alarm. “How do we know? I love life — with all its suffering. Life is too wonderful for it just to end in nothing. But how do I know?” Our culture makes it easy to ignore death (up to a point). The reality of death can get lost among our flurried lives, just another “issue” we might or might not decide to put on today’s to-do list.

Remembering the Holocaust

October 23, 2008

TORONTO - Every year during the world’s largest Holocaust education event the links between Christians and Jews — both now and during the Second World War — are visible. Of the 160 events that make up Toronto’s Holocaust Education Week starting Nov. 2, a dozen will be held in Catholic schools. Most of the presentations at Catholic schools involve Holocaust survivors telling their stories.

Habitat for Humanity building with faith

October 23, 2008

TORONTO - Women’s work is good work, it’s the work of faith and sometimes it involves power tools. More than 30 women of all faiths came together to do one of the toughest, dirtiest jobs in house construction at a Habitat for Humanity site in the Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto Oct. 16. They put up vapour barriers and drywall in six units on Kingston Road near Main Street.

Ethical index takes a hit

October 23, 2008

TORONTO - It was a bad month for just about all investors, but a little bit worse for ethical investors in September. The Jantzi Social Index of 60 Canadian stocks chosen for their environmental, social and governance performance plummeted 15.3 per cent in September, compared with a 13.76-per-cent drop in the S&P/TSX 60 and a 14.45-per-cent slide in the S&P/TSX Composite.

Bishops Synod propositions in Pope's hands

October 23, 2008

VATICAN CITY - As the Synod of Bishops on Scripture nears its conclusion, three French Canadians are waiting to learn whether their recommendations will advance to the Holy Father. Bishop Luc Bouchard of St. Paul, Alta., is one of four delegates from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. During his five-minute intervention in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, he recommended that the Catholic Church launch an International Congress on the Word of God.

Vatican calls for timeout on Pius XII pressure

October 23, 2008

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has asked those supporting and opposing the beatification of Pope Pius XII to stop pressuring Pope Benedict XVI on the issue. The Vatican statement came after the latest public clash over whether Pope Pius did enough to help Jews during the Second World War.

October 24

Voicing Catholic education concerns for 70 years

October 24, 2008

TORONTO - Parents need a provincial voice to speak up for Catholic education, says the president of the Ontario Association of Parents in Catholic Education. And that, says Brian Evoy, is what the OAPCE has been doing on behalf of Catholic parents for the past seven decades. The organization celebrates its 70th anniversary next year.

School boards going green

October 24, 2008

TORONTO - Catholic school boards in Ontario and Alberta are going green. At least 10 environmentally friendly schools are being planned within the next two years to accommodate new students, although concerns about declining enrolment are still on the horizon.

St. Mike's to host Humanae Vitae forum

October 24, 2008

TORONTO - Pope Paul VI’s controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae will be under the microscope at a Toronto conference later this month. “Celebrating the Richness of Humanae Vitae: a buried treasure” is the theme of the Nov. 15 conference. It will examine Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical in light of church teaching on sexuality and marriage, marking the document’s 40th anniversary.

Church needs to tap laity for preaching

October 24, 2008

TORONTO - While bishop after bishop at the recently wrapped up Synod of Bishops on Scripture has decried the state of preaching in the church, Dominican Sister Mary Catherine Hilkert argues church leaders are ignoring a potential gold mine of superior preaching. At the annual Dominican Family Justice Seminar at the University of Toronto’s Newman Centre Chapel, Hilkert said bishops should commission lay people to preach at parish Masses. A former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Hilkert led a small group in two days of discussion about the charism of preaching and how it is exercised in the church Oct. 17-18. It was the ninth annual Dominican Justice Seminar in Toronto.

Women abuse: 'It's not OK'

October 24, 2008

TORONTO - Deborah Sinclair’s first introduction to the reality of women’s abuse happened when she was 12, while having lunch at a friend’s house. The friend’s father lifted up the kitchen table in rage despite the fact she, the other six kids and their mother were all present. “I wondered if he knew I was there,” she said. “And you know I didn’t tell my parents because I was fearful they wouldn’t let me go back.”

Novalis deal completed

October 24, 2008

TORONTO - Bayard Canada has put the finishing touches to a deal that will give it ownership of Novalis, Canada’s largest Catholic book and periodical publisher. The ink has dried on the deal signed Oct. 1 between Saint Paul University in Ottawa, which owned Novalis, and Bayard of Montreal, which since 2000 has been handling the distribution and marketing of Novalis books and magazines.

Setting the record straight on Martha of Bethany

October 24, 2008

The Many Faces of Martha of Bethany by Diane E. Peters (Novalis, softcover, 230 pages, $26.95). For someone who only receives a couple of short mentions in the Gospels, Martha has certainly caused quite a commotion over the past two millennia. Most know her as the woman who was too busy in the kitchen to hear Jesus preach. There is a lot more to her than that — including her skills as a dragon-tamer, at which (some say) she was more impressive than St. George.

Helping us in the chaos of our inner journey

October 24, 2008

Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, O.F.M. (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 136 pages, softcover $10.50). I started reading Franciscan Friar Murray Bodo’s book, Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations, early this summer and ended reading the last pages as autumn came. As it turns out, the book begins in autumn and ends in summer. These are serendipitous reversals that call attention to each individual section in this book of meditations and poems. Seasons signify personal states of mind and our sense of quest, as do the heightened awareness and insight that each changing time and period evoke on Bodo as he contemplates his life’s passages.

African reality alive in fiction

October 24, 2008

Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan (Little Brown and Company, 368 pages, hardcover, $26.99). Say you’re One of Them is a masterpiece of reality-fiction that evokes powerful emotions. Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian Catholic priest, has exceptional narrative skills. He captures heartbreaking realities in Africa as seen through the eyes of children. He uses his characters to show us spiritual values of love, hope and sacrifice. Akpan explores unimaginable tragedies of poverty, suffering and sacrifice across Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Benin in this collection of five stories. He narrates experiences perceived through the eyes of children in these five countries. In all the stories innocence and vulnerability are interwoven with suffering, survival and hope of families who struggle with some of the hardest realities of Africa — realities readers will barely comprehend. The children are lenses through which we see a series of surreal tragedies and triumphs.

Story seen through wrong eyes

October 24, 2008

Cibou: A Novel by Susan Young De Biagi (Cape Breton University Press, softcover, 256 pages, $19.95). In her back cover biography, Susan Young De Biagi claims no Mi’kmaq ancestry. Yet the Cape Breton native, who has a master’s degree in history from the University of New Brunswick, has an obvious, abiding interest in the indigenous people of her home province. She has brought both these things to her first novel, Cibou (the territory her fictional Mi’kmaq inhabit) and puts her abilities as a historian to particularly good use.

October 27

Canadian Bishops sound alarm on Indian persecution

October 27, 2008

OTTAWA - The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops wants Canada to express “grave concern” to India about Christian persecution and cut off funds if aid money supports persecuting groups. “According to substantiated news reports, this past summer there have been pre-meditated mob attacks in the state of Orissa as well as in the states of Karnataka and Madha Pradesh,” bishops' conference president Archbishop James Weisgerber wrote in an Oct. 15 letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

October 28

God's word is spread through service

October 28, 2008

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI closed the Synod of Bishops on the Bible by preaching a lesson on love of God and neighbour, saying the word of God must be put into practice through service to others. The concluding liturgy came after the Pope accepted 55 final synod propositions, including a proposal that women be admitted to the official ministry of lector, or Scripture reader, at Mass.

October 29

D&P pleas for Haitian aid

October 29, 2008

OTTAWA - The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace is seeking funds to help Haiti recover from a series of devastating hurricanes. “This is the worst impact from hurricanes that we’ve seen in decades,” said Anne Catherine Kennedy, Development and Peace program officer for Brazil and Haiti.

October 30

Quebec parents seek choice on religious education

October 30, 2008

MONTREAL - Close to three-quarters of Quebec parents want the right to choose between a secular Ethics and Religious Culture program and denominational religious instruction for their children, suggests a new poll. The poll by Leger Marketing on behalf of the Catholic Parents Association of Quebec was released Oct. 28. It found that 72 per cent of those surveyed agreed that parents should have a choice between denominational religious instruction and the new non-denominational course all Quebec schools — public and private — are being told to provide for students.