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October 11, 2009
Fr. Damien de Veuster, canonized Oct. 11, understood Christ’s message of caring for others — something we can all learn from, and should. Also worth noting is the impact his canonization has had and will have on the tiny island of Molokai where he ministered to victims of leprosy, now known as Hansen’s Disease. When I flew out to Hawaii two years ago, I had the surprise of my life. Not only was Molokai Island the home to cowboys, spear-fishers and, believe it or not, thousands of goats living in the mountains, it was also home to a vibrant and rather large Catholic community. Their enthusiasm first hit when when I attended Sunday Mass — I was greeted at the door with a lei made of small seashells and, along with other first-timers, was asked to stand up before Mass so that I could be introduced, by name, to the congregation.
October 13, 2009
VATICAN CITY - U.S. President Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was met with high hopes from the Vatican spokesman. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told journalists Oct. 9 that the news "was greeted with appreciation at the Vatican in light of the president's demonstrated commitment to promoting peace on an international level and, in particular, in recently promoting nuclear disarmament."
October 15, 2009
TORONTO - Economic experts may say the recession is over, but unemployed workers are still bearing the brunt of the economic crisis, say directors of Catholic-run agencies. Good Shepherd Centre executive director Br. David Lynch said the centre has been “seeing more and more people than we’ve ever seen before.” He says there has been a 46-per-cent increase in demand for meals this year at his downtown shelter. The centre is serving an average of 1,100 daily meals and snacks, compared to 800 last year.
TORONTO - Praying for the homeless on Thanksgiving Monday morning at Toronto’s Peace Garden, Ambrose declared himself God’s comedian. The grey, five-degree morning was already cold enough to make a soul wince for those who slept outside the night before. Prayers were offered for Toronto’s street population and the homeless throughout the world. Ambrose joined the circle after having spent the previous night in front of the Thomson Building on Queen Street West, across the street from City Hall.
TORONTO - There’s a mental health emergency in Toronto’s huge Tamil community. Addictions and alcoholism, depression, family violence, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicides haunt the community as people struggle to cope with death and disappearance of their families back home in Sri Lanka. The extraordinary stress on Toronto’s 150,000 Sri Lankan Tamils dates back to the Christmas 2004 tsunami that wiped out whole villages in the largely Catholic coastal areas. But just as Toronto’s Tamils began to recover from the grief of burying family and friends and seeing the places they grew up obliterated by the sea, the war then intensified along the same coastal strip.
October 16, 2009
Throughout May their faces of anger and defiance were displayed on nightly newscasts and in daily newspapers. Canadian Tamils took to the streets by the thousands to demand that the federal government intervene in an apparent slaughter of Tamil civilians as the civil war in Sri Lanka came to a violent end. Five months later, an investigation by The Catholic Register’s Michael Swan has uncovered a “mental health emergency ” among a Tamil community that is now grieving dead loved ones and despairing over family that have disappeared but may still be alive in squalid Sri Lankan refugee camps.
ANTIGONISH, N.S. - I am inclined to believe that most Roman Catholics thought the high-watermark of the sexual abuse of children by clergy had already been reached and perhaps was even receding. The allegations against Raymond Lahey, recently resigned bishop of the diocese of Antigonish, would seem to prove otherwise. Locally, these revelations have introduced dark and foreboding days for the parishioners of this Maritime diocese. At the writing of this article I am in my home diocese of Antigonish attending a family wedding. I can report first hand that newscasts and local newspapers keep the embers of the alleged accusations against Bishop Lahey hot and brightly burning. The environment is blue with sadness as people seek to deal with their anger, disappointment and outright frustration. In the days since the allegations against the bishop broke, the agonizing consequences seem as though they will never go away.
Each time it happens it’s like a wound that we thought had healed suddenly ripping apart and sending a scorching pain though the body. In this case, however, it’s the body of the church. We understand failure. Goodness, we expect it. We’re broken people who sin, which is precisely why we need a saviour, need the sacraments, need the church. But this is not failure. This is something far worse and far more sinister. Former Antigonish Bishop Raymond Lahey has, as we surely all now know, been charged with the possession of child pornography. He has not yet been convicted but each further revelation proves more damning. It is now claimed that 20 years ago he was seen looking at photographs of aroused teenage boys but that the police and church authorities did nothing. Lahey, media reports say, has admitted to being sexually attracted to men of 20 and 21 but not to those who are younger, which seems disingenuous at best. Also vehemently inconsistent, in that adult homosexual activity may be legal but it is not moral and is directly contrary to Catholic teaching, even if it is the stuff of private fantasy.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a voluable woman in possession of a new husband must have advice for the unmarried. And when I write columns about the single life, I do receive requests for advice. The most frequent question is, “How do I meet other single people?” The single life is a good one, if lonely at times, and has many freedoms and opportunities. But single people often feel isolated, so whether or not you hope to marry one day, it is a good idea to pursue your interests in public rather than spend all your leisure time alone. For example, a film fan might consider attending the film nights offered by Regis College.
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) Oct. 25 (Jeremiah 31:7-9; Psalm 126; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52) Sometimes one is given the gift of being able to see the far horizon beyond the chaos and negativity of the present. Jeremiah’s entire life had been dedicated to the thankless task of trying to rouse his own people to spiritual and moral renewal. His ministry involved preaching the unwelcome truth: all was not well with the nation and unless there was a radical change disaster was on its way.
MARATEA, Italy - Fr. Adelmo Iacovino smiles with pride as he speaks of his parish in the Basilicata region of rural southern Italy. In this community of fewer than 5,000, scattered across and around Monte San Biagio and overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, Iacovino oversees 30 churches and chapels. Add another 14 private chapels and a visitor might well marvel at the devotion the people of Maratea bring to their Roman Catholicism.
TORONTO - There is one Grade 11 physics class that Natalia Blicharska and Mariya Kolomiyets are certain they will never forget. It was during this class in December 2008 that they had the brilliant idea to start their own charity. The charity’s name — 1 Step @ a Time — is reflective of their philosophy that they must first serve the needs of Torontonians before helping others globally.
OTTAWA - Campus for Christ, a worldwide Christian campus organization that has a group at Ottawa’s Carleton University, organized its second debate in four years to debate the question many have pondered over the years. The recent debate “Does God Exist?” drew more than 100 students. Campus for Christ paired up with the secular campus group Free Thought and the Centre of Inquiry in Toronto to bring in two speakers to face off. Representing Campus for Christ was Evangelical Rev. Joe Boot, while atheist professor Ronald De Souza took the Free Thought position.
October has started out as a difficult month for Catholics in Antigonish and for those of us in New Brunswick too. The news of Bishop Raymond Lahey facing child pornography charges has been hard for all of us to accept. It is devastating to think that somebody in such a position of trust and respect would possess child pornography, especially when he had just been working to help victims of child abuse. Watching the news and reading people’s comments online, it seems that many people have lost faith not only in Bishop Lahey, but in other priests, bishops and the Catholic Church itself.
TORONTO - Children’s rights activist Marc Kielburger says being a graduate of the Catholic education system has taught him about the importance of leadership and helped him in advocating for human rights around the world. Kielburger and his brother, Craig, will join Salt + Light TV CEO Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B., as keynote speakers at the Catholic Curriculum Corporation’s When Faith Meets Pedagogy XIV conference Oct. 22 to 24 at Mississauga’s DoubleTree Hilton.
TORONTO - He’s been “beat up in the media” about a $2.7-million severance payout, but former Sick Kids Foundation president and deacon-in-training Michael O’Mahoney says he’s been given a bad rap and is turning to his Catholic faith to help him get through this “complete misunderstanding.” O’Mahoney told The Catholic Register from Portland, Ore., that he has put “a lot of faith and trust in God that even when that’s happening, it’s going to turn out OK.”
TORONTO - Sr. Theresa Rodgers and Sr. Teresa Garvey of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Toronto will don their walking shoes this month in support of two fellow Canadian Sisters working in Haiti. Rodgers, 67, said she and Garvey (who is in her mid-80s) originally were just curious to see how long it would take for them to walk from their residence (which at that time was 74 Wellesley St. W., above St. Joseph College) to St. Joseph Morrow Park in Toronto’s northern reaches where they worked.
TORONTO - During the early 1980s, in her teen years, Sr. Anna Bodzinska began to learn that history in Poland wasn’t told quite the way it happened. The extent of the atrocities of the Second World War, the treatment of Jews in Poland and Christian-Jewish relations were suppressed to suit the communist ideology of the day. But now Canadians will get to hear from Bodzinska about the initiatives for restoration and understanding taking place today.
October 17, 2009
VATICAN CITY - Development aid that is tied to promoting abortion, contraception and cutbacks in social and educational programs represents a form of "cultural imperialism" from the West that must end, said some African bishops. Nations and institutions, especially in the West, must stop trying to impose on Africa policies and ideas that fail to respect human dignity and life, said Cardinal Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar, Senegal. These foreign concepts represent "a kind of cultural imperialism," he said.
October 19, 2009
In response to a poll showing three-quarters of Quebec medical specialists would likely favour legalized euthanasia, Catholic groups say Canada must improve its end-of-life care. The groups were responding to an Oct. 13 survey by the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists which suggests that a majority of those surveyed are in favour of supporting legalized euthanasia.