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December 2008

December 8

Oblate province returns Orders of Canada to protest Morgentaler award

December 8, 2008

TORONTO - In a protest against the award of the Order of Canada to abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler, a community of priests has returned its orders given to two well-known colleagues. The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate — Assumption Province announced Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, that they were returning the awards given to Frs. Anthony Sylla and Michael Smith.

Novalis gets a new English-language director

December 8, 2008

MONTREAL - Bayard Canada has appointed Joseph Sinasac to the newly created position of Publishing Director for Novalis, Canada's leading publisher of religious books and resources. Sinasac, currently Publisher and Editor of The Catholic Register, will oversee the English-language division of Novalis from its Toronto office, including editorial, sales and marketing departments.

December 9

We can't compromise on violence

December 9, 2008

Put Down Your Sword: Answering the Gospel Call to Creative Non-Violence , by John Dear S.J., (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, softcover, 216 pages, $18.50). The title of Fr. John Dear’s latest book comes from Jesus’ instruction to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane as He was being arrested. Dear makes the point that Jesus’ call to “Put down your sword!” is particularly significant to us today. They were the last words Jesus spoke to His assembled disciples — to the church. The disciples all ran away at that point and the other, more famous last words of Christ were in truth spoken to others.

Canadian literature as diverse as our landscape

December 9, 2008

In Boston, I was so homesick a psychotherapist recommended drugs. Instead I sang a patriotic song to myself. Well — I exaggerate. I didn’t know any patriotic Canadian songs, so I sang Gilles Vigneault’s “Mon Pays” instead. Under all that romantic stuff about snow, it is about a nation without borders, which basically describes my Toronto neighbourhood where the Persian signs are outnumbered only by the Korean signs. Once upon a time, all Canadians knew the song “The Maple Leaf Forever.” I’ve often wondered why I was never taught this song in school.

December 11

Economic stimulus can be found in Catholic social doctrine

December 11, 2008

OTTAWA - As Ottawa contemplates how to respond to the economic crisis, Catholic social teaching offers some guidance, but not enough to shape a consensus even among Catholic thinkers. “The issue of how much fiscal stimulus the Canadian economy requires right now is very much a matter of prudential judgment,” said Richard Bastien, Catholic Civil Rights League National Capital director, who spent 31 years as an economist advising the Department of Finance.

Campus pro-life battles are about free speech

December 11, 2008

TORONTO - Tensions on Canadian university campuses have intensified this year as pro-life clubs continued fighting for status while others were denied funding. Yet, while only half a dozen of the 40 or more pro-life clubs on campuses across Canada have butted heads with their student unions, many are worried that the silencing of pro-life speech has expanded to a threat against freedom of speech in general.

Scholar wants to widen Pius XII scope

December 11, 2008

As scholars around the world urge the Vatican to slow down the possible canonization of Pope Pius XII, a young Canadian scholar at the University of Western Ontario is hard at work on a biography of the wartime pope whose record has been a flashpoint in Catholic-Jewish relations for decades. King’s College UWO history professor Robert Ventresca said it would be better for everybody if the Vatican delayed any further moves toward canonizing Pius XII until after the full archives of his 19-year papacy can be catalogued and made available for study. Ventresca is backed up by some of the most senior Catholic and Jewish historians of the Holocaust who in early November issued a public appeal for the Vatican to delay plans to make Pius XII a saint.

Patriarch Alexy praised for leading transition from communism

December 11, 2008

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI asked the world’s Catholics to join prayers with “our Orthodox brothers and sisters” for the peaceful repose of the soul of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow died Dec. 5 at his home outside the Russian capital. He was 79. A funeral service was held at Christ the Saviour Cathedral on Dec. 9. A Vatican delegation led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, attended the funeral.

It's a start

December 11, 2008

Faced with a surefire deficit next year, it took considerable courage for the Liberal government in Ontario to stick to its commitment to tackle poverty. The poor are the most voiceless of all of us, and least likely to vote. It would have been easy for Premier Dalton McGuinty to dispense with this promise, as he had with other more contentious promises in the past. Remember “no new taxes”? On Dec. 4, Deb Matthews, Minister of Children and Youth Services, announced her government’s commitment to lift 90,000 children from poverty by 2013. It involves doubling the Working Income Tax Benefit to $2,000 and increasing the National Child Benefit Supplement to $1,200 per child. There will also be an increase in the Ontario Child Benefit and extra millions to help children leaving foster care and beefing up its Youth Opportunities Strategy to help kids in poorer neighbourhoods get summer jobs and training. (See our story on Page 11.)

There's room at (Royal York) inn

December 11, 2008

TORONTO - Toronto’s Fairmont Royal York Hotel is no stranger to old-fashioned Christmas giving, but gives it a modern twist. Instead of giving away wrapped gifts, the hotel will be offering a free place to stay for people visiting hospitalized family members or for people from outside of the city who need daily medical treatment. The “Room at the Inn” program offers patients at St. Michael’s Hospital, Casey House Hospice or Hospice Toronto the opportunity of staying for up to as many as seven nights. So unlike Mary and Joseph in the Christmas story, those selected will have a pretty cosy refuge.

Halton's helping hands for Haiti

December 11, 2008

BURLINGTON, Ont. - The children at St. Mark’s Catholic Elementary School learned a lesson about social justice and Christian love recently. It was that they should share from their abundance with their much poorer fellow students in Haiti. The school was one of 49 in the Halton Catholic District School Board that are being introduced this fall to Helping Hands from Halton Catholic: the Solidarity-Haiti Project.

School boards choose 2009 leaders

December 11, 2008

TORONTO - Most Ontario Catholic school boards have chosen their leaders to guide them into the next year, with one notable exception. The Toronto Catholic District School Board, which has been under a provincial government-appointed supervisor since a controversy erupted over trustee spending last year, has postponed its board elections until January.

Christmas tree beauty goes beyond looks

December 11, 2008

As I write, Gayla Peevey sings “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” Soon the McAvoy family will embark on our annual Christmas tree hunt. I am already psyching myself up. When our children were small, finding a Christmas tree was simple. Jennifer and I would bundle one, two and then three little ones in snow suits and pack them into a sled. We would pull the sled six or nine metres into a tree farmer’s field, spot a tree more or less in proportion, cut it down and take about a dozen pictures. With smiling faces we would return home, put the tree in the stand, invite family and friends to add a bit of tinsel and a few ornaments, and we would be happy.

December 12

Maybe it's time we pay more attention

December 12, 2008

John Peter Humphrey is a Canadian to be reckoned with. And much of the world did so on Dec. 10 of this year. The Vatican hosted a day-long meditation and celebration on Humphrey’s most famous writing, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights celebrating its 60th anniversary this month. But any contemplation of the declaration just makes clear that old saying, “ideas have consequences.” Humphrey, a native of New Brunswick and a Christian, was born in 1905. A lawyer, jurist and legal scholar, in 1946 Humphrey became the first director of the Human Rights Division of the just created United Nations. After consultations with his boss, Eleanor Roosevelt, he drafted the Universal Declaration.

God's plan revealed in Christ

December 12, 2008

Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year B) Dec. 21 (2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16; Psalm 89; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38) Who are you to build me a temple? Do I need one? Did I ever ask for one? God is definitely not keen on the proposed temple (in the omitted verses) and does not seem at all impressed with David’s offer. There is a degree of control and self-aggrandizement in a project such as a temple construction and it would go a long way to enhance David and his entire dynasty.

Finding Gross National Love

December 12, 2008

“My brothers, what use is it for a man to say he has faith when he does nothing to show it? Can that faith save him? Suppose a brother or a sister is in rags with not enough food for the day, and one of you says, ‘Good luck to you, keep yourselves warm, and have plenty to eat,’ but does nothing to supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So with faith; if it does not lead to action, it is in itself a lifeless thing.” (James 2:14-17) I thought this passage from the Bible was a good reminder of our call to action as Christians during these tough economic times as we approach the Christmas season.

Peaceful unity in captive's book

December 12, 2008

TORONTO - It’s been three years since Jim Loney narrowly escaped from Baghdad with his life. He marked the occasion with a book launch Nov. 26 which gathered dozens of people who had prayed and worked for his release. Kidnappers held Loney and three other members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams captive four months, until an international military operation sprang them March 23, 2006. By then one of the four captives, American Tom Fox, had been killed by the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, a previously unknown group.

Confirmation pilgrims take to Saint John streets

December 12, 2008

SAINT JOHN, N.B. - Preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation doesn’t usually mean joining 600 other youth for a day of talks and a walking pilgrimage through city streets. But in Saint John, that is exactly what students did, converging at St. Malachy’s High School from towns across the diocese.

A passion for youth and chastity

December 12, 2008

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - Life is full of decisions and questions about issues like faith, love, sex and human dignity. Dr. Coleen Kelly Mast saw the need for youth to have the answers to these important questions and she took up the challenge. Mast, wife and mother of five, works as a call-in talk show host for a Catholic broadcasting station called Ave Maria radio. She has written two chastity education programs, available internationally, called Love &Life and Sex Respect, which include videos, books and training seminars. She has been a guest on Oprah, Mother Angelica Live, 60 Minutes and Geraldo, and leads conferences across North America — most recently a women’s conference on hope and the culture of death in Charlottetown.

A pie in the eye for spectacular efforts

December 12, 2008

Being taped to the wall or having pies thrown at you by your students aren’t exactly part of the job description of being a Catholic school principal. But for Daphne Brumwell of Sacred Heart Catholic School in Timmins, Ont., the pie-throwing and wall-taping events were all for a good cause.