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October 2, 2009
The most recent casualty of the global financial crisis is the economic organization widely blamed for causing the near-collapse of the world economy. The G8 has been retired from its role as caretaker of world finances, giving way to the G20, a younger, more inclusive organization that comprises nations from every region in the world. This historic transfer of power, which occurred Sept. 25 at a G20 summit in Pittsburgh, marks a significant — and welcomed — evolution in world relations. The G8, forged during the Cold War as an economic alliance of mostly rich, Western nations, had become an anachronism in a world in which emerging economies in Asia, Africa and South America have been playing a greater role in global affairs. As American President Barack Obama put it in his closing remarks in Pittsburgh: “We can no longer meet the challenges of the 21st century economy with 20th-century approaches.” That meant finding a place at the table for the likes of China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Australia and South Korea.
October 5, 2009
VATICAN CITY - Africans must tap into the strengths of their cultural and religious values to promote reconciliation on the continent and to resist the "spiritual toxic waste" spread by the West, Pope Benedict XVI said. Presiding Oct. 4 over the opening Mass for the special Synod of Bishops for Africa, Pope Benedict said the vocation of the Catholic Church on the continent is to work for peace and to promote the holiness that will lead to justice, strong families and care for the weakest members of African societies.
October 8, 2009
TORONTO - Saving the priesthood in the era of sex scandals, skepticism about church authority and a disengaged laity is going to depend on hope, according to the author of a new book about the spirituality of parish priests. More famous for his writing on Catholic education, Msgr. Dennis Murphy has just launched A View From The Trenches: Ups And Downs Of Today’s Parish Priest — a 140-page examination of how priests are coping.
OTTAWA - As Antigonish parishioners coped with the “pain and anxiety” of the arrest last week of their former Bishop Raymond Lahey on charges of possessing and importing child pornography, a retired Newfoundland priest said he reported Lahey for possessing pornography 20 years ago. Acting on information from a boy who had visited Lahey’s residence in the mid-1980s, when Lahey was still a parish priest, Fr. Kevin Molloy went to former St. John’s Archbishop Alphonsus Penney in 1989 to report some “bad news with respect to Bishop Lahey,” Molloy recounted in an Oct. 6 interview. Molloy said he subsequently phoned Lahey and told him of the allegation.
TORONTO - It’s been a harrowing week for Faye Arellano as she worried about relatives in the Philippines hit by Typhoon Ketsana, the “Katrina of the Philippines.” Close to 300 people died in and around Manila from the typhoon which struck on Sept. 26. It dumped an average month’s worth of rain in one day in Greater Manila and displaced about half a million people. A week later, at least 22 people were killed by tropical storm Parma.
In August Bishop Raymond Lahey was applauded for finalizing a multi-million-dollar settlement that would bring some measure of justice to men who were victims of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of Nova Scotia clergy. Last week, having resigned as bishop of Antigonish, Lahey surrendered to police to face charges of possessing and importing child pornography. How is a faithful Catholic to reconcile these two events. How do we respond to yet another sexual-misconduct scandal involving clergy and children? What are we to make of a bishop who is a champion of abuse victims one day and an alleged abuser the next?
Some strange news releases, media alerts and queries reach me on a regular basis, but the invitation to “International Blasphemy Day” stood out for a number of reasons. Who knew that blasphemers were being given the short end of the stick by society? From my perspective, it would be hard to know there was anything exceptional going on. The first article promised “Jesus as you’ve never seen Him before,” dripping “red nail polish around the nails in His feet and hands.” As it happens, some of the things we see at the office make a few dabs of nail polish look like amateur hour. I’ve seen crucifixes propped up by human waste, chocolate Jesuses with obscene touches and at least one Jesus look-alike contest (the latter two were Easter promotions, by the way). I’ve also helped get a Communion Host removed from the auction block on e-Bay, and encouraged YouTube to remove purported desecrations of a Host from its site.
TORONTO - American Catholics who care about abortion and end-of-life issues are being cynically used in the bitter health care debate in the United States, one of the U.S.’s leading experts on Catholic health care has told The Catholic Register. “It has partly to do with just political polarization between Democrats and Republicans in this country in the wake of the election of President (Barack) Obama,” said Dominican Father Charles Bouchard, vice president of theological education at Ascension Health in St. Louis.
TORONTO - If Christians and Muslims are going to talk, Christians are going to have to unlearn what they think they know about Muslims, particularly Muslim women, according to a Wilfred Laurier University professor of religion and culture. From the images of protesting women in burkas to the idea Western armies can liberate women in Afghanistan, cliches and gross simplifications are overwhelming conversation, Meena Sharify-Funk told about three dozen students along with church and mosque representatives at the annual dinner of the National Muslim Christian Liason Committee held in the University of Toronto’s Multifaith Centre Oct. 1.
Understanding globalization, and how we should act in the face of it, are tasks every thinking Catholic must undertake. My experience of trying to sort out these matters suggests they are not easy topics to tackle. In the first place, the word globalization is awkward, abstract and impersonal, and it comes burdened with the connotation of a vast force free of human agency — something too inexorable even to think about. Also, there’s the daunting complexity of the phenomenon and the fact that its worst manifestations seem to be coming at us all at once: the near-death of international banking and capital markets last year, the ongoing flight of manufacturing jobs from the old lands of the Industrial Revolution to emerging economies on the fringes of the West, social conflicts erupting as huge movements of people from the developing world into the traditional bastions of Western culture take place — the list goes on and on.
TORONTO - The spirituality of making the world a better place gets a close look at the Conscious Activism Doc Fest. The documentary film festival at the University of Toronto’s Hart House will present four movies that examine how religious people take on social and political issues.
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) Oct. 18 (Isaiah 53:10-11; Psalm 33; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45) Suffering — is it good or bad? We are appalled by the overwhelming amount of suffering in the world and we want to alleviate this suffering. At the same time, we speak of suffering in terms of a positive force with a redemptive value. Much depends on who is suffering and why.
With three of his former students struck down by gun violence, teaching veteran James Flaherty says he was driven to try to make a difference. The graphics and technology teacher has been at Malton, Ont.’s Ascension of Our Lord High School for 15 years and has used his film-making skills to try to make that difference.
WATERLOO, Ont. - To St. Jerome’s University President Fr. David Perrin, it was no surprise that an award dinner in honour of Fr. Bernie Hayes drew a sell-out crowd. “Fr. Bernie has touched countless lives and hearts in this community,” said Perrin in presenting Hayes with the 2009 Chancellor John Sweeney Award for Leadership in Catholic University Education.
Internet-based allegations that the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace financed partners who have lobbied in favour of legalized abortion are a non-issue, the general secretary of the world-wide alliance of Catholic development agencies told The Catholic Register. None of the Catholic development agencies in Europe — many of whom work with some of the same partner organizations in Latin America, Africa and Asia as Development and Peace — has been accused of collaborating with organizations that support legalized abortion, said CIDSE general secretary Bernd Nilles in a phone interview from Montreal.
OTTAWA - A sea of empty chairs on the floor and a virtually empty gallery greeted Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde’s opening speech on the first hour of debate on her bill to legalize assisted suicide Oct. 2. Only about 20 MPs were present, scattered along the margins. “My conviction has grown stronger, and that is why I am introducing an amended bill on the right to die with dignity, Bill C-384,” said Lalonde.
October 9, 2009
TORONTO - During his five years as Toronto’s poet laureate, Fr. Pier Giorgio Di Cicco says what’s surprised him the most is the “unspoken need for spirituality” in Canada’s largest and most prosperous city. Di Cicco told The Register in an e-mail interview that there has been a surprisingly “deep civic hunger” in the city. He said his presentations, talks and city-building initiatives to different community groups echoed “a call to a common spiritual language.”
Canadians have been celebrating the feast of Thanksgiving in their homes since the time of our forefathers, but so much has changed since then that we are often left wondering what it is we have to be thankful for. The early Canadians celebrated a safe journey looking for the Northwest Passage, but what about us? There are no long trudging trips for us to make, and most of us don’t cultivate or hunt the food we eat. So what then do we have to be thankful for when everything we have is at our disposal and we live in a society that allows us to make a $40,000 income while sitting at home in our pyjamas?
TORONTO - Nine-hundred students at St. Michael’s College School walked to conquer cancer at their first event in honour of a beloved past school president. The students raised $17,000 which they will donate to Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation on behalf of the late Fr. Daniel Zorzi, C.S.B., their school president who died of cancer at the age of 48 in January.
Bishop Raymond Lahey’s evasive behaviour coupled with a passport stamped with exotic locations known for child pornography prompted a Canadian Border Services agent to examine the contents of his laptop. Lahey, 69, faces charges of possession and importation of child pornography in the form of “graphic computer images.”