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April 2011

April 13

Actors rediscover faith on set

April 13, 2011

Wes Bentley, the son of two Methodist ministers from Arkansas, said his involvement in the faith-based movie and the support of other cast members have helped him get back on the right path. (CNS photo/Motive) [images/stories/arts/arts11/opusdeitherebedragons.jpg]MADRID - Playing a character with no apparent redeeming qualities was a blessing that helped Wes Bentley regain sobriety after years of addiction and isolation. The actor made the comments to journalists in Madrid for the premiere of Academy Award-winning director Roland Joffe’s film There Be Dragons about the early life of St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, founder of Opus Dei. Bentley, the son of two Methodist ministers from Jonesboro, Ark., said he grew up in a “loving, supportive, spiritually strong family.” Over time he said he “drifted into another world” where “things got very dark and lonely. I had isolated myself from everybody who cared about me.” The first scenes Bentley was asked to shoot were scenes in which his character, Manolo, was 78 years old, on his deathbed and about to reveal long-held secrets to his son. In the film, Manolo grew up with and attended the seminary with St. Josemaria but left after one year and ended up becoming a spy for fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. The war, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, tore apart families, as well as the country.

Expressing our love of neighbour in dialogue

April 13, 2011

Annette Gagliano [images/stories/annette_gagliano.jpg]I was sitting down at a study carrel absorbing lecture material for an upcoming exam when my eyes drifted from my notes to the desk. I noticed some vandalism — there were words written in black ink on the tabletop. Expecting to find a meaningless, yet humourous inscription like “U of T is awesome” or “X loves Y,” I was surprised when I pushed my notes aside to expose the entire message. The first word was an underlined heading that said “challenge,” followed by a detailed message that read: “Next time you’re on the bus/subway, talk to the person sitting beside you (if not crazy). It’s amazing what you can get out of a five-minute conversation with someone,” followed by a smiley face. Upon contemplation, I realized that the vandalism had an intrinsic meaning. In the Bible, we always hear stories of Jesus interacting with people He did not know, tax collectors, lepers, the poor and the blind. Jesus talked to strangers and healed them. Although we cannot heal the blind and crippled in its direct sense, we can make a difference in the lives of those around us.

Residential school truth must be heard

April 13, 2011

Marie Wilson [images/stories/education/education11/mariewilson.jpg]TORONTO - An apology is not the end of it and treaties are not dusty history for Canada’s native people is the message Marie Wilson has for Canadians who would rather not talk about what happened in residential schools. Wilson is one of three commissioners who make up the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The trio have five years to document the history of the national network of schools mandated by the government but mostly run by churches. There may be truth but there won’t be any reconciliation if mainstream, urban Canadians don’t acknowledge the legacy of the schools, Wilson told about 70 people at Toronto’s Regis College April 6, where she delivered the annual Martin Royackers Lecture.

Astronaut inspires students to aim high

April 13, 2011

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield addresses students at Marshall McLuhan Catholic High School April 11. Hadfield shared his experiences of space travel and preparations for his next mission in 2013. (Photo by Sheila Dabu Nonato) [images/stories/toronto/toronto11/astronautchrishadfield.jpg]TORONTO - Hearing Col. Chris Hadfield’s space odyssey, students at a midtown Toronto high school say they were inspired to aim high to achieve their goals. Seventeen-year-old Marshall McLuhan Catholic High School student Eric Zucchetto was one of more than 1,000 cheering students who heard about the Canadian astronaut’s adventures in space at an April 11 school assembly. Zucchetto said he was struck by Hadfield’s determination to succeed. And just as Hadfield has made Canada proud through his achievements in space, the Grade 12 student said he wants to do likewise on the soccer pitch. “I want to represent Canada, too, just like how he represented Canada as an astronaut,” Zucchetto said.

Oct. 22 to be John Paul II’s feast day

April 13, 2011

The Polish pope, who died April 2, 2005, will be beatified May 1. (CNS photo/Catholic Press Photo) [images/stories/international/internation11/jpiidayoct22.jpg]VATICAN CITY - The feast day of Blessed John Paul II will be marked Oct. 22 each year in Rome and the dioceses of Poland. When the Vatican made the announcement April 11, it also said Catholics throughout the world will have a year to celebrate a Mass in thanksgiving for his beatification. While thanksgiving Masses for a beatification — like the observance of a feast day — usually are limited to places where the person lived or worked, “the exceptional character of the beatification of the Venerable John Paul II, recognized by the entire Catholic Church spread throughout the world,” led to a general permission for the thanksgiving Mass, said a decree from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. The decree was published in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, and included information about the thanksgiving Mass, Pope John Paul’s feast day, annual Masses in his honour and naming churches after him. The newspaper also published the text of the opening prayer — formally the “collect” — for his feast day Mass in Latin, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish.

Swirling D&P controversy raises concerns about fundraising backlash

April 13, 2011

Bishop Grecco [images/stories/canada_bishops/BishopGrecco2.jpg]TORONTO - Ongoing controversy over abortion and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace may be having a negative effect on overall fundraising for ShareLife. Each time Development and Peace faces public allegations that some of its partners are linked with organizations advocating legal access to abortion, ShareLife is contacted by angry donors threatening not to give, said ShareLife spokesman Bill Steinburg. “Whenever they call we always remind them that by doing so they’re having an impact on the huge family of more than 40 agencies that do a lot of work here on the ground, helping our own communities,” Steinburg said. Early this month, speaking engagements by a Mexican priest to promote Development and Peace’s overseas work were cancelled in Ottawa and Cornwall following allegations that the Jesuit priest’s human rights centre is associated with an organization that supports decriminalization of abortion. In cancelling the Ottawa events, Archbishop Terrance Prendergast said that support by Fr. Luis Arriaga’s centre for groups sympathetic to abortion is “incompatible” with Church teaching.

Focus on families in election campaign an encouraging sign

April 13, 2011

This election campaign, political parties are offering a variety of incentives for middle-class families. (Photo courtesy of iStockphoto.com) [images/stories/canada/canada11/family_apr12.jpg]OTTAWA - Pro-family groups are delighted to see a focus on family issues in the election campaign platforms of all three national parties. But some social conservative leaders have expressed disappointment that Stephen Harper refuses to reopen the debate on abortion or marriage even if the Conservatives win a majority. Past elections have seen the “odd snippet” of platform policy directed at family issues so it’s encouraging to see the major parties addressing family matters in this campaign, said Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC) executive director Dave Quist. “It’s good,” he said. “It’s time they looked at the foundation of our society and that is the family. “We may disagree on the solutions, that is what democracy is all about, but it’s important that we be discussing these things.”

April 15

Mexican bishop says priest abandoned parish after threats

April 15, 2011

MEXICO CITY - A Mexican bishop said at least one priest has abandoned his parish in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, where the bodies of at least 122 abducted and murdered bus passengers have been pulled from mass graves within the first half of April. Matamoros Bishop Faustino Armendariz Jimenez told reporters April 13 that at least one priest from a municipality near where the mass graves were discovered had fled after being threatened and subjected to harassment by presumed members of organized crime. He added that other priests have encountered difficulties travelling in the state, which is plagued by highway checkpoints manned by organized criminal groups such as Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. "We've had (incidents) at the armed checkpoints," Armendariz said in comments published by the newspaper El Universal. "Thanks to God, we're still here. Fortunately, nothing has happened, but we travel with fear."

Protect rights, well-being of circus workers, animals, says Vatican

April 15, 2011

2011 World Circus Day, celebrated April 16. [images/stories/international/internation11/worldcircusday2011.jpg]VATICAN CITY - The rights of circus and carnival workers must be protected and circus animals must be properly cared for and treated ethically, said a top Vatican official. Archbishop Antonio Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, made the remarks in a message marking World Circus Day, celebrated April 16. "The Church recognizes the social, cultural and educational value of circuses," which bring children and families together, spark people's imagination and foster creativity, he said in a message released April 15. Carnivals and circuses offer special opportunities for people to break out of their shell, be awed by the beauty of the shows and the skills of the artists and acrobats, and be filled with "hope that brings inner peace even amid the suffering, worries and frustrations in life," he wrote.

Church doesn't fear truth about Pius XII

April 15, 2011

Pope Pius XII is pictured at the Vatican in a file photo dated March 15, 1949. (CNS file photo) [images/stories/international_people/inter_peop11/popepiusxxiiportrait.jpg]NEW YORK - Addressing the continuing controversy over Pope Pius XII's actions during the Second World War, Archbishop Timothy Dolan expressed sympathy before a Jewish audience April 12 at researchers' "present frustration about the pace of opening the Vatican Archives" from that period. "Whatever is needed to complete this project, even in phases rather than only as a whole, should be explored for its practicability," said the New York archbishop and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in an evening talk at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. "Whatever the archives hold, the Catholic Church does not fear the truth about the often heroic and sometimes disgraceful conduct of her leaders and members during the Second World War." The archbishop, a trained historian who served as the bishops' liaison for Catholic-Jewish relations until November, said he sometimes hears questions about how the Church can consider both Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II as candidates for beatification. But, he said, "what constitutes holiness of life — that is to say, closeness to and friendship with God — is not measured in the same way as political, social or financial success.

Vatican concerned with deteriorating relations with China

April 15, 2011

A Catholic woman prays during Mass at a church in Changzhi, Shanxi province, China. (CNS Photo/Reuters) [images/stories/international/internation11/chinesecatholicsvatican.jpg]VATICAN CITY - A Vatican commission on China expressed deep concern over worsening relations with the Chinese government and appealed to authorities there to avoid steps that would aggravate Church-state problems. Specifically, the commission urged Chinese authorities not to persist in imposing new government-backed bishops who do not have the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. Titled a "Message to Chinese Catholics," the text was issued April 14 following a three-day annual meeting of the commission at the Vatican. The commission expressed joy at the news that the diocese of Shanghai was launching the beatification cause of Paul Xu Guangqi, a Chinese scholar who worked closely with the famed Jesuit missionary, Fr. Matteo Ricci, in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Pope earmarks Holy Thursday collection for disaster relief in Japan

April 15, 2011

Men sit amid debris in an area that was destroyed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture, in northern Japan, April 6. (CNS photo/Toru Hanai, Reuters) [images/stories/international/internation11/japandisasterreliefpope.jpg]VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has decided the collection taken up at his Holy Thursday evening Mass will be used to help those affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan. The March 11 disaster left more than 13,000 people dead and another 13,700 unaccounted for. More than 150,000 were made homeless and many lost their jobs, especially in the fishing industry. Each year, the Pope chooses where to send the collection taken up during the Mass of the Lord's Supper at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the diocese of Rome.

April 16

Seders give Christians the Passover experience

April 16, 2011

A rabbi holds up matzos during a Passover Seder. More Christians are experiencing this at interfaith Seders. (CNS photo) [images/stories/features/freature11/rabbiseder.jpg]Christians can’t think of the Easter Triduum, let alone live through it, without thinking of the Passover. Increasingly, Christians are letting that thought lead them to an authentic experience of the Jewish Passover in interfaith Seders. A Seder is a family meal that ritually re-enacts the Exodus story. It’s the beginning of the Jewish celebration of Passover. Foods served at the Seder are connected directly with the Exodus and the story of Israel’s escape from Egypt is retold, reading the Haggadah aloud through the course of the meal. The Haggadah is a sort of expansion of the Bible story with roots in the Mishnah, a collection of Jewish writings based on oral tradition. “It’s a story of liberation,” explains Beth Porter. “We’re really meant to appropriate that story for ourselves as we sit at the Seder table — to think about our own journey from bondage to freedom.”

April 17

Inside Easter with B.C.'s Benedictines

April 17, 2011

A monk prays in the silence of the Benedictine’s Westminster Abbey in Mission, B.C. Salt+Light Television is airing its look inside the walls of the abbey in This Side of Eden on Palm Sunday, April 17. [images/stories/arts/arts11/thissideofedensltv.jpg]If you strip life down to its essentials you don’t strip out beauty. You produce lives entirely devoted to beauty. In This Side of Eden we’re invited into the lives of Benedictine monks at Westminster Abbey in Mission, B.C., during Holy Week. The simplicity of their daily round of work and prayer feeds into the most solemn and significant liturgies of the Christian calendar — Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil. All this unfolds before the camera in one of the most extraordinary settings. Surrounded by mountains and nestled into the temperate rain forest of the B.C. coast, Westminister Abbey Church is a modern architectural gem constructed in the early 1980s with 7,000 square feet of stained glass. The church and abbey are filled with contemporary frescoes, paintings and sculpture — much of it by one of Mission’s monks, Fr. Dunstan Massey.

Holy confusion? Beatification, canonization are different

April 17, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Eucharist during the canonization Mass for Brother Andre in October 2010. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) [images/stories/international/internation11/canonizationmass2010.jpg]VATICAN CITY - The slight differences between a beatification and a canonization are easy to miss, especially when one pope beatifies another pope. Just three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI was to beatify Pope John Paul II, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments issued a decree designed, in part, to maintain the distinction. The decree dealt with one of the three main differences: the number and location of dioceses that can hold annual public liturgical celebrations in the holy person's honour. The other two differences are less noticeable and they deal with who ceremonially requests the Pope to act and the level of papal authority involved in the proclamation. During a beatification ceremony, the bishop of the diocese where the person dies asks that the candidate be declared blessed; at a canonization, the prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes speaks in the name of the whole Church and asks that the candidate be declared a saint.

April 18

For Pope John Paul II, spiritual journey marked path to beatification

April 18, 2011

Church officials say Pope John Paul II is being beatified for how he lived the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love. [images/stories/faith/faith11/jpiidocumentary.jpg]VATICAN CITY - As church officials keep emphasizing, Pope John Paul II is being beatified not for his performance as pope, but for how he lived the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love. When the Vatican's sainthood experts interviewed witnesses about the Polish pontiff, the focus of their investigation was on holiness, not achievement. What emerged was a spiritual portrait of Pope John Paul, one that reflected lifelong practices of prayer and devotion, a strong sense of his priestly vocation and a reliance on faith to guide his most important decisions. More than leadership or managerial skills, these spiritual qualities were the key to his accomplishments -- both before and after his election as pope in 1978. From an early age, Karol Wojtyla faced hardships that tested his trust in God. His mother died when he was 9, and three years later he lost his only brother to scarlet fever. His father died when he was 20, and friends said Wojtyla knelt for 12 hours in prayer and sorrow at his bedside.

Packed church remembers the martyr Shahbaz Bhatti

April 18, 2011

Shabhaz Bhatti's brother, Peter, spoke of his family's shock and grief. He believes 'Pakistan has lost its Martin Luther King'. [images/stories/toronto/toronto11/bhattiservicetoronto.jpg]TORONTO - The life of slain Pakistan minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti is an inspiration to all Christians to live in the footsteps of Jesus, said Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins at an April 16 Memorial Mass at St. Andrew's Catholic Church. "We look to the example of great heroes like Shahbaz Bhatti to show us the way, to share the light of Christ by what they say, how they live and their life of sacrifice," Collins told about 1,800 people, including some politicians and members of the Pakistani community from different faith groups, who packed the church. The challenge is "not to be complacent but be inspired" by Bhatti's martyrdom, he said. Bhatti was gunned down on March 2 by Taliban militants who claimed responsibility for the assassination because of Bhatti's vocal opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Bhatti spoke out against religious discrimination and openly supported the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy. He said the blasphemy laws are being used to prosecute innocent people from minority religious groups in the country.

Palm Sunday celebration takes faith to the streets

April 18, 2011

About 300 people wound their way through downtown Toronto April 16 in a Palm Sunday procession. (Photo by Bill Wittman) [images/stories/toronto/toronto11/palmsundaywalking2_blank.jpg]TORONTO - Barbara Kowalski usually walks through the streets of Toronto without showing outward signs of faith. But that changed on Palm Sunday. Walking in a procession from St. Paul’s Basilica to St. Michael’s Cathedral as part of the Office of Catholic Youth’s World Youth Day Palm Sunday event on April 16, she helped to carry the World Youth Day commemorative cross down Queen Street. “It was nice to show others that this is my religion,” said Kowalski, 23, a legal communications clerk at a law firm in Toronto. Palm Sunday is recognized internationally as the World Day of Youth.

April 19

Ottawa priest’s ‘lifestyle’ prompts financial audit

April 19, 2011

Fr. Joe LeClair of Ottawa's Blessed Sacrament parish [images/stories/canada/canada11/frjoeleclair2.jpg] OTTAWA - The Ottawa archdiocese confirmed it had launched an audit of the finances of Blessed Sacrament parish “some weeks” before two front-page stories appeared in the Ottawa Citizen April 16-17 raising questions about the lifestyle of its popular pastor. The Citizen reported that Fr. Joe Le Clair had cash advances from the Lac-Leamy Casino across the Ottawa River in Quebec of more than $137,000 in 2009-2010, and incurred a credit card debt of more than $490,000 in that time period. It reported Le Clair had repaid Visa $424,000. “How he could afford to repay that much is not known, other than the fact that as a Church pastor, Le Clair earns a net salary of $24,400,” journalists Meghan Hurley and Andrew Duffy wrote. Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., in a statement issued April 16, said stories about Le Clair’s “lifestyle” were brought to the attention of diocesan authorities in late 2010 and early 2011. He instructed his Vicar General, Msgr. Kevin Beach, to “clarify the issues raised by the stories.”

Toronto board's equity policy draws more fire

April 19, 2011

Chris D’Souza, former equity and diversity officer with the Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board [images/stories/education/education11/chrisdsouza_tcdsb.jpg]TORONTO - A vocal group of Catholics loudly expressed its concerns that the Toronto Catholic school board’s draft equity policy could undermine Catholic teachings on same-sex relationships. About 120 people attended the first equity policy public consultation at St. Mary’s Catholic High School April 18 and heard four panellists speak on the equity policy, including Chris D’Souza, a former equity and diversity officer with the Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board. The McGuinty government introduced its equity and inclusive education strategy prohibiting discrimination based upon race, religion, gender and sexual orientation in 2008. Boards are expected to implement equity policies this school year. The Toronto Catholic District School Board’s draft policy states that the board “gives pre-eminence to the tenets of the Catholic faith” which are “congruent and compatible with the protections entrenched in the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Constitution Act 1982 and confirmed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”