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September 2009

September 25

Halton board celebrates 40 years

September 25, 2009

BURLINGTON, Ont - Alice Anne LeMay recalls playing the role of “hot dog lady” at a basketball game for special needs students in the Halton Catholic District School Board . LeMay, whose son has a hearing disability, said it’s activities like these which highlight the Catholic and “inclusive” spirit of the Halton board over the past four decades.

Catholic teacher hiring policy taken to rights tribunal

September 25, 2009

Hiring only Catholic teachers at publicly funded Catholic schools is “unfair” and discriminatory, says a Guelph-area teacher who has recently taken the Wellington Catholic District School Board to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. “It’s unfair for a large organization to accept large taxpayer dollars, including my own, and then not being interested in hiring everybody from whom those tax dollars come from,” Jesse Lloyd told The Catholic Register in an interview from Guelph.

Bill could limit Catholic school trustees' powers

September 25, 2009

TORONTO - The Ontario government’s proposed bill on student accountability would diminish the powers of democratically elected school trustees, says the president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association. Paula Peroni told The Catholic Register that if passed in the Ontario legislature, Bill 177 would increase the provincial government’s control over school boards.

Stemming the exodus of Israeli Christians

September 25, 2009

TORONTO - Avishay Braverman, Israel’s Minister of Minorities, is as good a Jew, as Jewish a Jew, as anyone could hope to meet. And he’s praying that “the Spirit of Jesus” will guide the leaders of Israel and its neighbours over the coming months and years. “The basis of religion is not about domination. People often take religion and abuse it for domination,” Braverman told The Catholic Register while on a stopover in Toronto Sept. 15. “It’s about acceptance.”

World Youth Day fruits showing in Newfoundland

September 25, 2009

Some say young people are not interested in their faith in Newfoundland, but throughout the past several years I’ve seen many signs of hope. Prior to World Youth Day in Toronto in the summer of 2002, it was rare to see gatherings for young Catholics in Newfoundland. As a teenager I could not find anywhere to share my faith with people my age. Besides church-mandated activities such as sacramental preparation, meetings for Catholics were mostly attended by older people, even if they were designed for youth.

Women Religious Project home gift extends to Kenya

September 25, 2009

TORONTO - In 1999, when the nuns and religious sisters of Toronto decided to build some affordable housing in their city to celebrate the millennium Jubilee along with Pope John Paul II they thought they were addressing an urgent local problem. Ten years on, as people finally move into their homes in Scarborough, Mughtar Yarow has news for them. (See photos of project homes here .)

40 Days for Life campaign kicks off in Canada

September 25, 2009

OTTAWA - The 40 Days for Life campaign of prayer, fasting and vigils outside abortion facilities kicked off in cities across the country on the eve of the Sept. 23 start to the campaign. The movement, which originated in the United States, is gaining momentum and has spread to five provinces, with eight sites in seven cities: Fredericton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Kitchener, Ont., Winnipeg and two sites in Toronto.

Pope reaching out to secular Czech Republic

September 25, 2009

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI is making a three-day visit Sept. 26-28 to a nation widely viewed as Europe’s least-religious country. The trip to the Czech Republic was scheduled to coincide with the feast of St. Wenceslas — a 10th-century prince who is credited with bringing Christianity to the Czech people. It will be a religious pilgrimage for the Pope, who will make stops in the capital to see the Infant of Prague at the Church of Our Lady of Victory and in Stara Boleslav to celebrate the feast of St. Wenceslas, patron saint of Czechs. Pope Benedict will also speak to political and cultural leaders in Prague and meet with President Vaclav Klaus. It will be his first papal visit to the Czech Republic and his 13th trip outside Italy

Catholic leaders at UN summit urge immediate action on climate change

September 25, 2009

UNITED NATIONS - Climate change is more than an environmental concern; it is an issue of justice that merits immediate attention by world leaders. This was the message delivered repeatedly by Catholic participants in the Sept. 22 UN Summit on Climate Change in New York. "It is unfair that people in developing countries pay the consequences for problems that rich countries have created," said Elyzabeth Peredo, director of the Solon Foundation in Bolivia, at a Sept. 22 press conference. As an example, she said Bolivia generates only 0.1 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but melting glaciers caused by the warming effect of emissions worldwide endanger crops for small-scale farmers in communities throughout the country's Andes mountains.

September 26

CCCB president urges politicians to uphold human life

September 26, 2009

OTTAWA - The president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging Members of Parliament to choose good palliative care instead of assisted suicide or euthanasia. As debate approaches for Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde’s private member’s Bill C-384, an Act to Amend the Criminal Code (right to die with dignity), Archbishop James Weisgerber took aim at the “misleading and unclear” terms framing the debate.