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February 1, 2011
OTTAWA - Canada’s Catholic bishops have issued a countercultural message to young people inviting them to lead lives of chastity. “Today, chastity is often mistakenly associated with being old-fashioned, with a fear of passion or with sexual inhibition,” said the eight-page pastoral letter to young people on chastity issued Jan. 27 by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Episcopal Commission for Doctrine. “But in reality it is much more than simply the absence of sexual relations. “Chastity calls for purity of mind as well as body,” the document stresses. “If we are not working to develop a pure heart or a pure mind, then our bodily actions will reflect this. If we have no control over our desires or passions, then we cannot be trusted in either the big or the small things.”
OTTAWA - Whether it is marriage, conscience rights, parental rights to educate their children or hot-button issues like prostitution, the real battles are taking place in the courts rather than in Parliament, say those on the front lines. Catholic Civil Rights League president Phil Horgan said that changes to social policy are no longer coming from the legislative framework where politicians persuade their fellow citizens in elections and then get the support of other legislators to pass changes into law. When the state does enter into areas of social policy — like Quebec’s Ethics and Religious Culture course and the recent related prohibition on religious instruction, prayers or songs in day cares run by religious groups — it has become almost impossible to combat that kind of secularism in legislatures.
Thousands of loyal and faithful watchers of Eternal Word Television Network across Canada are losing their favourite station as Bell TV will drop EWTN from its digital satellite television service as of Feb. 27. “EWTN had a low viewership and Salt + Light (Canada’s national Catholic television channel) is a strong alternative. This channel capacity is needed for new and high-demand channels,” said Bell spokeswoman Marie-Eve Francoeur in an e-mail to The Catholic Register. For Toronto EWTN fan Glen Burke, the network is a big part of his TV habit.
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) Feb. 13 (Sirach 15:15-20; Psalm 119; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37) “It’s not my fault!” Humans are experts at placing blame everywhere but where it belongs. When they do stupid or wicked things it is far easier to find something or someone to blame than to accept responsibility. But Sirach will have none of this. His work is part of an Old Testament theological tradition scholars call the “two-ways” spirituality. People are presented with two ways — one leads to life and happiness, the other to destruction and death. On Ash Wednesday we begin Lent with a two-ways passage from Deuteronomy. We are always urged to choose the first but sadly, as our world attests, many choose the latter. People blame society, their circumstances, other people, genetics or even God. But Sirach is clear: we always have a choice. All of these other influences are certainly present and they can sometimes be very powerful, but in the end nothing can trump the human will.
How many times have you heard “My Favourite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi” and other songs from The Sound of Music? Probably too many. Wonderful tunes, but so familiar they’re hard to hear. Their delightfulness was renewed for me by my niece Clare. She knows the songs and the actions that accompany them by heart. She loves to sing along — during “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” she echoes in top voice, “older and WISER!” When the children sing the good-bye song, she waves and bows, with flourish great and smile wide. Clare was born with Down Syndrome, in a culture which finds this chromosomal condition so unacceptable that some 90 per cent of babies known to have it in North America are aborted. She has suffered from the prejudice. But she has not forgotten how to revel in the joys of music and dance.
All my life I have pondered Catholic identity. Instead of going to the nearest school, I went to the Catholic school. Instead of going to a church my Protestant grandmother might have liked, my family went to a Catholic church. I made my debut at Mass when I was five days old, and I was baptized after Mass when I was three months old. The first time I deliberately missed Mass—which, incidentally, is a serious sin—was when I was 17, because I couldn’t bear to face the little monsters whom I catechized afterwards at Sunday school. St. Francis Xavier may have looked down from heaven and sighed at what a wimp I was. Eventually I crept off to Confession. What struck me most about being Catholic, when I was a child, is how we were told one thing in religion class and experienced another. We were told that we were all supposed to be going to Mass on Sunday, but I very rarely saw my classmates at Mass. I assumed that they were going to another parish church, and in some cases they were. It was a while before I realized that many of them weren’t, and definitely not every Sunday. Their parents had enrolled them in Catholic school, but they couldn’t be bothered to take them to Mass. I found this very odd.
What will the Apostolic Visitation of Ireland accomplish? In response to the sexual abuse crisis there, Pope Benedict XVI decided last spring to send five bishops to carry out a visitation — ecclesiastical parlance for an investigation — of the archdioceses and seminaries of Ireland. He chose quite a high-powered team: Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster (retired), Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto and Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa. They have each been assigned one Irish archdiocese, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been assigned the Irish seminaries. The visits are ongoing in these months, and final reports are due at the Vatican by Easter.
When the Halton Catholic school trustees, just outside of Toronto, voted to prevent so-called gay-straight alliances from being established in their schools, the reaction was as predictable as an atheists’ cliché. This relatively trivial incident gained major coverage in national media. It was, we were told, “provoking outrage.” Really? Seems to me most people knew nothing about it and, when they were informed, couldn’t care less. But various gay activists and anti-Catholic journalists certainly cared, and they applied the usual pressure. The trustees, relatively inexperienced in such matters, must have been stunned by how they were suddenly publicly abused. What critics demanded was that yet another nail be hammered into the bleeding body of Catholic education. If zealots have their way, parents can sleep comfortably knowing that their children may not receive much of a religious education, but they’ll certainly be taught just how horrible is the life of a homosexual in homophobic, intolerant Canada.
The rights of religious freedom and religious conscience are guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and in the United Nations declaration of human rights. Yet increasingly in Canada and in other Western nations these fundamental rights are being disrespected by legislators, tribunals and courts. So bravo to Regina Archbishop Daniel Bohan for issuing a pastoral letter that challenges government to act skillfully to protect the basic human right of freedom of conscience. His comments were directed at his archdiocese and at Saskatchewan legislators, but they apply right across Canada and beyond.
February 3, 2011
As Catholics, we are called to understand and respect different religious beliefs and practices. Throughout my life, I have been immersed in my Catholic faith but knew very little about other religions in our society. That’s why I was excited about the world religions class that every Grade 11 student at a Catholic high school in Ontario must take. In class, we learned about the practices, customs and beliefs of Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism. The more I learned about other religions, the more I started to see the social misconceptions about different religions, such as the social stigma of baptized Sikhs wearing a kirpan at all times. Many people are concerned about Sikhs wearing this ceremonial dagger, when in reality kirpans are a symbol of non-violence and are only to be used in emergency situations to defend victims of crime.
Notre Dame Basilica, Montreal [images/stories/misc/misc11/notredame.jpg]MONTREAL - Planning a weekend trip to Montreal, there was one place I really wanted to visit: Notre Dame Basilica. While I had been to St. Joseph’s Oratory before, I never had the opportunity to visit the world famous Notre Dame in Old Montreal. I was expecting it to be beautiful. But stepping through the doors, what I saw surpassed all my expectations. The high altar, a very tall backdrop, looked like a small city itself — an intricate structure which seemed to wind all the way up to the ceiling. Blue and yellow lights illuminated various parts of its magnificent construction, with statues of saints surrounding Jesus, along with built-in choir stalls designed in the 1870s by Montreal architect Victor Bourgeau.
D.C. March for Life [images/stories/canada/canada11/marchforlife.jpg]WASHINGTON - Students from Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy in Barry’s Bay, Ont., joined an estimated 400,000 American pro-lifers at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 24. Organized by the pro-life group at the Catholic liberal arts college, 20 students and three staff attended the march and opening prayer vigil Mass held at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. “We walked, prayed the Rosary, prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet and sang chants,” said second-year student Kathleen Dunn, president of the school’s pro-life group. “It was really amazing to be a part of it.” The annual march marks the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision on Jan. 22, 1973, which legalized abortion in the United States.
Karlee Sapoznik [images/stories/canada/canada11/karleesapoznik.jpg]TORONTO - Modern-day slavery is the most under-publicized human rights crisis of our time, said Karlee Sapoznik, a PhD student in history at York University. So Sapoznik, along with three others with ties to York, decided to take action. They created the non-governmental organization Alliance Against Modern Slavery which launched with a fundraising concert and anti-slavery art auction on Jan. 28 followed by an inaugural conference on Jan. 29 at Toronto’s York University. “Our vision is to combat modern slavery by collecting resources, building programs and creating alliances among a network of local and global partners so that every person has the opportunity for sustainable freedom,” said Sapoznik.
French schools [images/stories/canada/canada11/frenchschools.jpg]TORONTO - Taking a cue from Pope Benedict XVI about spreading the Gospel through social media, the French Catholic school board serving the Greater Toronto Area is launching a Facebook and Twitter campaign to get the message out about the merits of a French Catholic school education. Aside from the traditional TV, newspaper and radio ads, the Conseil Scolaire de District Catholique Centre-Sud is embracing social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Each of its eight high schools has developed a Facebook page and student-directed YouTube videos informing parents and potential students about their school. “We wanted to reach them where they are,” said Réjean Sirois, director of education for the board.
Prison graphic [images/stories/canada/canada11/prisongraphic.jpg]Building on an October letter from Whitehorse Bishop Gary Gordon to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Church Council on Justice and Corrections is trying to galvanize opposition to Conservative justice and corrections policies by showing how much it’s going to cost to jail people for longer periods. The council, which includes the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops among 11 national churches, sent its own letter to Harper just before Christmas. It repeats Gordon’s argument against tough-on-crime legislation. “Your policy is applying a costly prison response to people involved in the courts who are non-violent offenders, or to repeat offenders who are mentally ill and/or addicted, the majority of whom are not classified as high risk. These offenders are disproportionately poor, ill-equipped to learn, from the most disadvantaged and marginalized groups,” said the letter.
Stephen Harper [images/stories/canada_people/StephenHarper2.jpg]OTTAWA - As the Conservative Party celebrates its fifth anniversary in power, it is recognizing a major reason for the success: a swing in the Catholic and the ethnic vote away from the Liberals. It’s quite a change. It wasn’t so long ago that the Liberals could count on the Catholic and ethnic vote overwhelmingly going its way. In fact, a 2005 study by André Blais of the Canadian Political Science Association found that in the preceding 40 years, Catholics in English Canada were 18 per cent more likely than non-Catholics to vote Liberal. But that changed when Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives were elected in 2006 to a minority government, and returned two years later.
February 4, 2011
ALLOUEZ, Wis. - If the Super Bowl is anything like the National Football Conference championship game, Norbertine Father Jim Baraniak said he expected an overflow crowd. The Packers' Catholic chaplain wasn't referring to the attendance at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, but rather the Mass to be celebrated before the big game Feb. 6. In Chicago, before the Packers beat the Bears Jan. 23, "everybody showed up. We maxed out the room," said Baraniak. "It was just unbelievable,. The Mass was full of energy. I felt nervous during the homily."
We all have role models, albeit some more positive than others. Maybe we strive to be just like our favourite athlete or singer. Others may be inspired by someone who has a career in a field that they’re hoping to get into one day. But we also have spiritual role models: people who live out what it means to be Catholic in their everyday lives. The lives of the saints are excellent examples. Yet, there are other examples too. For me, one of my most influential spiritual role models is my grandmother. She was the one who introduced me to the rosary, the saints and even The Catholic Register. She is also an excellent role model in the way she acts because she is proud of her faith. She is friendly, cheerful and always willing to lend an ear when I need it. She does not judge.
Out of the cold [images/stories/ysn/ysn11/outofthecold.jpg]Toronto - On a cold winter morning, a group of student volunteers from the University of Toronto gathers in the kitchen of St. Basil’s Church to prepare platters of deli meat and cheese sandwiches for those in need. Along with the sandwiches, the soup of the day is red lentil. These students come from diverse faiths and ethnic backgrounds, but they are all here for the same reason: to help with the Out of the Cold program run by campus ministry at the University of St. Michael’s College, the Catholic college at the University of Toronto. Every Tuesday, from the beginning of November to the end of March, the Out of the Cold volunteers gather in the parish hall at St. Basil’s, located on campus at St. Michael’s College. Amanda Mastrocola, one of the head co-ordinators, said the program is possible through the efforts of the volunteers. “Whatever personal reasons that drive (the student volunteers), they come in every week . . . They work so hard,” said Mastrocola, a fifth-year Christianity and culture and philosophy student. “And getting to know these people is inspiring.”