FREE access to the digital edition and archives until September 2. Click here. →
Browse › 2010 › May
May 21, 2010
Christian publications [images/stories/features/feature10/christianpublications.jpg]TORONTO - Christian media in Canada are feeling the heat to modernize their news delivery and increase subscriptions if they want to keep their publications alive. The Canadian Church Press (CCP), which in conjunction with the Association of Roman Catholic Communicators of Canada (ARCCC) held its annual conference here May 13-15, has seen its members suffer a two-per-cent decrease in subscriptions across the board in the past year. The theme of the conference? “We’re all in the same boat.”
Affordable housing key [images/stories/toronto/toronto10/housingkey.jpg]TORONTO - People are homeless because we’ve chosen to believe a lie, or perhaps chosen to believe more in the real estate market than the Gospel, says Dion Oxford. The first lie that rules out affordable housing is “the real estate lie,” said Oxford, who runs the Salvation Army Gateway shelter on Jarvis Street in Toronto. The Toronto obsession with real estate values and the idea that middle class families can make a killing selling their homes every four or five years is killing our sense of home, neighbourhood and community, said Oxford.
ShareLife logo [images/stories/logos/shareLife_new.jpg]TORONTO - Raising money for ShareLife not only fulfills the call to be charitable but also helps build community, say members of parishes that were among the top donors to last year’s annual campaign. All say they are aiming to exceed their totals from last year.
Recently, I heard a powerful message at school from a pro-life speaker named Nicole. She said that if a private pro-life stance was all it took to abolish abortion, then it could be achieved. Unfortunately, this is not enough, and so we are all called to be publicly pro-life. I felt that in many ways I am already publicly pro-life. I defend the unborn when debates break out in class. I proudly attended a pro-life symposium held at another high school. However, Nicole’s message instilled in me a desire to raise more awareness of the gruesome reality of abortion.
Centre for Jewish Catholic Muslim Learning [images/stories/ysn/ysn10/interfaithkings.jpg]LONDON, ONT. - A youth organization that has dedicated itself to promoting positive dialogue between Catholics and Jews is now doing the same with the Muslim community. The Centre for Catholic Jewish Learning, an organization established to improve Catholic-Jewish relations at King’s University College in London, changed its name to the Centre for Jewish Catholic Muslim Learning (CJCML) this year.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet [images/stories/canada_bishops/ouellet.jpg]What a difference a year makes. The 2009 National March for Life in Ottawa drew a record 12,000 enthusiastic supporters but was virtually ignored by the media. Twelve months later, the annual March attracted roughly the same number of pro-lifers to Parliament Hill but this time earned national TV coverage and front-page headlines in some large dailies.
May 26, 2010
Cardinal Marc Ouellet [images/stories/canada_bishops/Ouellet061008.jpg]OTTAWA (CCN) — Cardinal Marc Ouellet has vowed not to be silenced on the “crime” of abortion and has answered his critics by demanding federal government funding to assist pregnant women. In an interview on May 23 and at a press conference May 27, Ouellet expressed surprise at harsh political and media reaction to his recent comments in which he stated that abortion is a moral crime even in cases of rape. He was vilified in the media and one popular La Presse columnist called him an ayatollah and extremist and wished the cardinal would die from a slow, painful illness.
May 31, 2010
arizona [images/stories/international/international10/arizona.jpg]MESA, Ariz. - Thirty-five years after he first began trying to make a life in the United States, Manuel Gutierrez, a legal resident from Mexico, is taking his family out of Arizona. Although Gutierrez first came to the United States illegally in 1975 and was soon deported, he returned several times, pursuing legal residency that finally became permanent in 2007. He now runs a successful business and all but his eldest child are U.S. citizens.
Ottawa Peace Tower [images/stories/canada/canada10/peacetower.jpg]When children want to become magicians they are taught to say hocus pocus. When adults want to become politicians they are taught to say transparency and accountability. In both cases, the audience eats it up. Children, though, grow up to realize that people aren’t fooled by hocus pocus alone, while politicians never seem to learn. Our elected representatives, regardless of party, are forever calling for government to be more open and transparent. They understand that voters want to know what their government is doing, how it is doing it and what it costs. Simple, really.
Is it okay to endanger the economy of a country by aggressively backing financial instruments then bet against them? It appears that American banking giant Goldman Sachs thinks so and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernacke isn’t sure. Yes, the Security and Exchange Commission has charged Goldman Sachs with fraud, but this is not the first time an investment institution has been raked over the coals, usually with very little result. Business as usual is not to be stopped.
Fr. Popieluszko [images/stories/international/international10/popieluszko.jpg]WARSAW, Poland - When a Catholic priest who was murdered by communist agents is beatified in Warsaw June 6, it will confirm his place as one of the church’s most conspicuous modern martyrs. Polish church leaders hope the beatification will also recall values for which Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko gave his life and revive interest in a remarkable story of Christian courage and witness.
“Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.” So wrote Scotland’s bard, Robert Burns, nearly three centuries ago. Today, thanks to a DVD called The Cove, man’s inhumanity to dolphins is making countless thousands protest. Online petitions against the senseless slaughter of dolphins that occur annually in a cove at the Japanese village of Taaji have embarrassed the Japanese government — particularly after The Cove won the 2010 Oscar for best documentary. Each September dolphins are driven towards a cove on the Japanese coastline by fishing boats that lay down a “wall of sound” that serves to terrify the dolphins, which have acute hearing. Fleeing from the noise, the dolphins can effectively be herded into one small, secure cove at Taaji, where they are penned in by nets. Marine museums and commercial aquariums come to Taaji to select specimens for a lifetime of captivity. The dolphins that are not selected are slaughtered and their meat marketed through Asia, often misleadingly labelled as whale meat. The dolphins contain worrisome — indeed sometimes toxic — levels of mercury. Nevertheless, until recently dolphin meat was a staple in the compulsory lunches that Japanese schools provide to students.
The beautiful installation called Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday), by German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer, is the most brilliant, deeply original Christian artwork I have ever seen on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Readers interested in art should catch this show before it leaves Toronto on Aug. 1 Like some Baroque depiction of a saint’s martyrdom, Palm Sunday refers immediately to an occasion that lies largely beyond the margins of the work, in this case the liturgy for the Sunday before Easter.
Archdiocese of Toronto [images/stories/logos/ArchToronto.jpg]The following clergy appointments have been announced for the Archdiocese of Toronto, effective June 30 - July 1, 2010.
Body and Blood of Christ (Year C) June 6 (Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11-17) In many narratives there is greater meaning in what remains unsaid and unexplained. The passage from Genesis seems mundane and innocuous enough. After returning from a minor skirmish with the enemy, Abraham shares the booty with a mysterious figure named Melchizedek. But then the questions begin.
Art teacher Patrizia Montefiore is joined by students who helped build a mosaic of their school’s patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi, at James Cardinal McGuigan High School. Other students and staff also contributed to the project by bringing in tiles or cutting them in the shape of doves, flowers, a wolf and St. Francis. [images/stories/education/education10/montefiore.jpg]TORONTO - After two months of cutting tiles for a mosaic honouring the school’s patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi, James Cardinal McGuigan High School teacher Patrizia Montefiore and three students who contributed to the project stand proudly beside the new mosaic. The St. Francis mosaic has become an instrument to spread the saint’s message of peace, charity and environmental stewardship at the school.
A scene from The Ultimate Sacrifice, a Gospel musical opening at the Panasonic Theatre June 25. [images/stories/arts/arts10/thehumanexperience.jpg]TORONTO - As an actor, Michelle Lopez is accustomed to a theatre ensemble circling to practise lines, but before joining the cast of The Ultimate Sacrifice she’d never encountered an entire theatre group gathering for a lively half-hour prayer before and after rehearsals. Those sessions are just one reason Lopez calls her role in the Gospel musical a blessing.
Singer Rosanna Riverso with Sony Recording artists The Priests. Riverso was a soloist at the show The Priests performed in December at Toronto’s St. Paul’s Basilica. [images/stories/arts/arts10/riversorosannathepriests.jpg]TORONTO - During these uncertain times, Mississauga, Ont., singer-songwriter Rosanna Riverso wants to bring a Christian message of hope, peace and inspiration to all. “I think we live in a very fast-paced society and even right now, today, are facing a lot of economic, social and spiritual strife,” Riverso told The Catholic Register. To that end, Riverso has organized the Peace Concert Tour that will take place in three Catholic churches in Southern Ontario. The first concert is on June 6 at Oakville’s St. Matthew’s Catholic Church. The following concerts will be held at Hamilton’s St. Margaret Mary’s Catholic Church on Sept. 19 and Oct. 8 at Toronto’s St. Paul’s Basilica.
Barbara Farlow holds her baby Annie, who died at 12 weeks old in 2005. Farlow and her husband are suing Toronto’s Sick Kids’ Hospital over the infant’s death. [images/stories/toronto/toronto10/farlowbarbara.jpg]TORONTO - Annie Farlow would have turned five on May 25. She died in 2005, 80 days after being born with a congenital genetic disorder called Trisomy 13. Five years later, Annie’s parents are still fighting to get answers about how their baby died. Tim and Barbara Farlow, the parents of nine children, filed suit in small claims court against Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital in 2007. It has since become a medical malpractice lawsuit that was transferred to Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice last September.
For the past week or so, I’ve been living in an alternate reality — one common to many but foreign to me. I find myself writing now in a different room, a different house, a different city, a different province. To expand my understanding of the world’s many cultures, I decided to start at home and learn French. I have chosen to spend my summer in the small town of Chicoutimi, Que., in a French immersion program, where English is completely off limits. I am to speak (and write) only in French for the five weeks that I am here, while meeting new people, visiting new places and residing with a new family.