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December 23, 2010
Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J. [images/stories/canada_bishops/prendergast08.jpg]OTTAWA - Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., came with “attentive ears and discerning heart” as he conducted the first phase of an Apostolic Visitation to the Tuam archdiocese in Ireland Dec. 13-19. Prendergast was one of four foreign cardinals and archbishops appointed by Pope Benedict XVI last spring as Apostolic Visitor to address the Irish clergy abuse scandal and its impact on the Church in Ireland. Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley visited the Dublin archdiocese in late November, Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins is expected to visit Ireland’s Cashel and Emily archdiocese in late January or early February and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Westminster’s archbishop emeritus, is scheduled to visit the Armagh archdiocese in mid-January.
cscfnlogo [images/stories/education/education10/cscfnlogo.jpg]OTTAWA - A French Catholic school board in Northern Ontario has been ordered to compensate three members of a controversial religious group after an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal found the board guilty of discrimination. On Dec. 15, the tribunal ordered the Conseil Scolaire Catholique Franco-Nord to pay unspecified compensation to Daniel, Michel and Sylvie Chabot, siblings who belong to the Raelian Movement and who operate the Academy of Pleasurology and Emotional Intelligence (APEI).
St. Brothe Andre [images/stories/features/feature10/andre.jpg]As always, St. Joseph’s Oratory will celebrate the feast day of its founder, the recently canonized St. Brother André, on Jan. 6. The only difference this year is the universal Church will be joining the Montreal community in these celebrations. “Liturgically speaking, a person whose cause has been introduced for canonization can be publicly celebrated as a feast only locally — that is to say, where the person worked or died,” said Fr. Charles Corso, a Holy Cross priest at the Oratory in Montreal. “But once the person is canonized, that means that anywhere in the world people can celebrate an official liturgical feast day Mass.”
St. Jane Frances Catholic School [images/stories/toronto/toronto10/student-xmasgift.jpg]TORONTO - When 13-year-old Calvin Asare of St. Jane Frances Catholic School wrote a Christmas letter thanking Canadian soldiers for serving in Afghanistan, he was also thinking of the day when he might one day wear the same uniform. Asare was one of 5,000 Toronto school students who prepared Christmas cards and boxes of homemade cookies for the soldiers and attended a Dec. 16 ceremony handing over Christmas gifts at the Toronto Emergency Medical Services (EMS) headquarters on Dufferin Street.
TORONTO - Toronto agencies that teach new immigrants English and help them find their first job in Canada will be forced to close their doors or significantly curtail services to accommodate a $53-million nationwide cut in funding, say local Liberal MPs. This could mean churches and other community groups may have to take up the slack and provide these services on an ad hoc, volunteer basis, Toronto Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy told The Catholic Register. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told the CBC cuts to Toronto settlement agencies are necessary because Toronto is now receiving fewer immigrants, as the share of immigrants landing in the western and Atlantic provinces increases.
It’s as traditional as the Church, marking the second most important day in the Liturgical Calendar with greetings, wishes and reflections. Benedict XVI is taking every opportunity this year to make sure his thoughts and observations are available to everyone. The messages began pouring out early beginning with the occasion of the annual exchange of greetings between the Pope and the Curia. Appropriately enough given the time and attention that the sexual abuse scandal has demanded, His Holiness spent much of his greeting tackling the issue head on. “We were all the more dismayed, then, when in this year of all years and to a degree we could not have imagined, we came to know of abuse of minors committed by priests who twist the sacrament into its antithesis, and under the mantle of the sacred profoundly wound human persons in their childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime.” Given that the Pope’s penchant for contemplation and reflection, it wasn’t much of a surprise that he both apologized, once again, and attempted to put the issue into some context “But neither can we remain silent regarding the context of these times in which these events have come to light. There is a market in child pornography that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society. The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times. From Bishops of developing countries I hear again and again how sexual tourism threatens an entire generation and damages its freedom and its human dignity.” As was to be expected the Pope’s comments weren’t greeted with universal excitement and in particular, victim’s groups were offended, while others took a more nuanced view. The next major occasion for Papal Christmas Reflections comes on Christmas Eve when the Pope, in a truly unprecedented move, delivers the BBC 4 Thought for The Day. It had been rumoured that the Pope might do this most prestigious British public forum during his Papal Visit in the fall but it turns out the Vatican had something more spectacular in mind. The 3-4 minute daily address has been a regular feature for 40 years and has been offered by leading members of most faith groups. This is a first for a Pope and has been the subject of months of negotiations. The address will be available via the BBC website and is expected to be listened to by hundreds of millions of people in Britain and around the world. It has been the subject of much speculation and one might say excitement, though of course not for everyone as Damian Thompson of The Daily Telegraph points out with much wit. And keeping with the spirit of greater communication and the Vatican’s push to use the new tools of social communication effectively, Christmas Mass, New Year’s Mass and the Pope’s noon address on Christmas day will be available via TV, Radio and the Internet.
December 24, 2010
Nativity [images/stories/misc/xmas/nativity10.jpg]
December 30, 2010
winter cross [images/stories/misc/xmas/winter_cross.jpg]