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September 1, 2011
VATICAN CITY - When it comes to sex education programs, the Catholic Church is painted as old-fashioned and callous about teen pregnancy and disease. But governments that mandate sex education in the schools are fooling themselves about its effectiveness, the Vatican newspaper said. Writing on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano Aug. 30, Lucetta Scaraffia looked specifically at New York City, where students in middle school and high school will be required to attend a semester-long course in sex education. She said that "to avoid religious controversy, chastity will be cited among birth control methods and teachers will have to speak about sex with some caution" in the New York courses. Still, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York criticized the mandatory program as usurping the rights of parents to educate their children in line with their beliefs and values, she said.
We've sifted through The Catholic Register photo archives to recount the extraordinary life of a man who, as archbishop of Toronto for 16 years, oversaw the transformation of Canada's largest diocese into a multicultural, multi-racial home to today's 1.8 million Catholics. Cardinal Aloyisus Ambrozic, 81, died Aug. 26 at Providence Healthcare following a lengthy battle with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. His funeral Mass on August 31 saw an overflow crowd of bishops, priests, family, dignitaries and friends fill St. Michael’s Cathedral. Hundreds more, unable to get into the cathedral, stood outside and followed the Mass on loudspeakers. The photo gallery will play at a slow pace automatically. You can pause the slideshow at any time. To scroll more quickly through the images, brush your cursor on the thumbnail images at the bottom of the page.
TORONTO - At a raucous meeting to amend its equity policy, the Toronto Catholic District School Board passed a resolution that affirms denominational rights will take precedence when there is a conflict with government policy. The Aug. 31 meeting was intended to be the final leg in an emotional ride in the board's efforts to hammer out a policy to come onside with the provincially mandated equity policy. Each board in Ontario was to have its policy in place by Sept. 1. The board voted on a series of amendments from trustees John Del Grande and Angela Kennedy during the stormy four-hour meeting. In the end, the board voted to accept one amendment and passed watered-down versions of the others. One other amendment was put off to be dealt with at a future meeting. Emotions ran high during the meeting attended by more than 120 people, many of whom favoured the unequivocal language of Del Grande's amendments that asserted Catholic denominational rights in education. There were loud outbursts when the majority of the Del Grande-Kennedy amendments were defeated and replaced by amendments with less-stringent language. The temporary commotion led to TCDSB chair Ann Andrachuk calling a five-minute recess. This reaction was in contrast to the loud applause that greeted the passing of Del Grande's amendment, which read: "When there is an apparent conflict between denominational rights and other rights, the board will favour the protection of the denominational rights." However, the board also said it would leave it to courts to determine any conflict of rights.
WASHINGTON - Maryknoll Father Jim Noonan hopes the five or so hours he spent in jail recently will be noticed by U.S. President Barack Obama. A staff associate in the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns, Noonan, 77, was among 65 people arrested Aug. 20 during the first day of a planned two-week protest to call attention to the environmental dangers he believes are posed by a proposed-mile pipeline to carry Canadian crude oil to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Through Aug. 30, nearly 600 people had been arrested. "I wanted to do anything I possibly could to be a voice," Noonan told Catholic News Service after his arrest for participating in the first sit-in. "I wanted to ask the president please do not authorize this pipeline because your children and your grandchildren will rue the day that this was authorized." Noonan's angst is aimed at preventing Obama from signing a permit allowing construction of the Keystone XL Project by TransCanada Corp., from Montana to Texas. The pipeline expansion, opponents believe, would open the door to a rapid increase in oil mining in northern Alberta, endangering a fragile ecosystem and escalating the release of greenhouse gases.
September 3, 2011
TORONTO - If retirement residences of the past were places to die, today’s are places to live. Over the past quarter century, retirement living — once an omen of a loss of independence — has begun to take on a new face. As the baby boomer generation begins to flock to residences and homes, they will no longer associate retirement with isolation or dependence, but rather with a healthy lifestyle in an active community. “We’re always trying to change the perception of aging,” said Maureen Scordamaglia, community relations manager at the Scarborough Retirement Centre in Toronto’s east end. “We want to show that just because you’re a senior doesn’t mean that everything ends.” The centre’s programs back up that claim. From art, music and fitness classes to regular outings and parties, the centre allows retirees to “continue in senior years and be able to thrive.”
TORONTO - Mirella Monte walks more than 6 km five days a week. She meets her walking group at 6:30 a.m. and then does a tour of the neighbourhood in about one hour and 10 minutes. Monte is one healthy 68-year-old. “There’s a lot my children and my grandchildren can give me but I have something to give back too,” said Monte. “I can be an example to them in what I can do.” Monte is the picture of good health. In addition to walking, she is on a bowling team and takes exercise classes for people over 50 when the weather is sub par. Her healthy eating supplements her active lifestyle. “We don’t buy any prepared food,” said Monte. “We cook our food.” In her household, they eat a bit of everything: lots of soup, vegetables, fruits and meat — although they seem to want less meat the older they get, she said.
September 4, 2011
TORONTO - Elodie Robichaud remembers well praying the rosary as a young girl and is pleased she is able to continue this tradition at Cardinal Ambrozic Houses of Providence. Homes like Providence Healthcare help to nurture the spiritual lives of residents. Robichaud really appreciates that spiritual component of the community at the Toronto long-term care home. She considers the faith community there, which prays together and attends daily Mass, “family.” “Being able to go to Mass every morning, it’s a big gift for us,” said Robichaud. Robichaud, 86, and her husband Gaspard, 84, attend daily Mass and rosary group together. The rosary group at Providence began about 25 years ago when resident Jack Scriven started volunteering. Scriven, 94, leads the group that has up to 40 people gathering every day at the chapel.
To counter the partying that goes hand-in-hand with FROSH week at post-secondary institutions, campus chaplaincies offer students something a little different. At King's University College at the University of Western Ontario, the campus chaplaincy will be holding a prayer service to welcome students back to school. "It's a prayer service instead of Mass because we want it to be inclusive for all our students who may not be Catholic," said campus minister Sr. Susan Glaab. The service will involve some quiet reflection, some Taizé prayer, singing and sharing in small groups, said Glaab. Campus chaplaincy will also be there on Labour Day as an unofficial welcoming committee, as the students move into residence, to answer any last-minute questions and offer support to both students and parents, she said. Glaab said it's important for campus chaplaincies to hold FROSH events — particularly when they're affiliated with a larger university — so students know there's a place they can go on campus for support, space and some much-needed quiet. "It's very important because during FROSH week they're just bombarded with everything and, for a lot of students, that can be an overwhelming experience," said Glaab. "Some adapt to it right away but others need more balance in their lives… so we're there to offer that and promote our Catholicity."
September 6, 2011
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican forcefully denied it undermined the Irish bishops’ efforts to protect children from sexual abuse and characterized as “unfounded” claims the Vatican tried to interfere in government investigations regarding Church handling of sex abuse cases. The Vatican recognizes “the seriousness of the crimes” detailed in a government report about cases in the diocese of Cloyne, Ireland, and “has sought to respond comprehensively,” said a communique released by the Vatican Sept. 3. The communique accompanied a 19-page formal response to the Irish government’s Cloyne Report on the diocese and to statements made by the Irish prime minister and motions passed by both houses of the Irish Parliament concerning the report and the Vatican’s involvement in how cases were handled. The Vatican said the report “brought to light very serious and disturbing failings in the handling of accusations of sexual abuse by children and young people by clerics in the diocese of Cloyne,” but it said the local bishop and his vicar general were to blame. The formal “Response of the Holy See” was hand-delivered Sept. 3 by Msgr. Ettore Balestrero, undersecretary for relations with states, to Helena Keleher, charge d’affaires at the Irish Embassy to the Holy See in Rome, the Vatican said.
OTTAWA - Only a few days after Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness for the failure of “cradle Catholics who have failed to pass the faith onto others," the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) released a message designed to help families do a better job. In its latest message entitled "Love is Calling Your Children," COLF calls on Catholic families to recognize the role they play in helping their children find their vocations and suggests resources to aid them in this task. “It is within the family — very gradually and in the course of daily life — that children and adolescents learn to know God and to trust Him,” COLF says. “That is where they meet Jesus and welcome Him as a friend. “As they spend time with Him, they will come to understand that the big challenge for a child of God and a disciple of the King of the Universe is not only to avoid evil, but to do, with Him at their side, all the good they are called to do. Rest assured: Christ will call every single one of our children to a very personal vocation. “Their answer will depend to a great extent on the openness of heart acquired in the family,” it said.
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - The community life of the church must be motivated by love, which includes humbly calling each other to responsibility, Pope Benedict XVI said. The notion of "fraternal correction," he said, "is not a reaction to an offense suffered, but is motivated by love." Addressing pilgrims gathered in Castel Gandolfo Sept. 4 for the recitation of the Angelus, Pope Benedict discussed the day's Gospel reading about how to handle a member of the community who does wrong. Jesus said a church member should first point out the problem in private and, if that does not bring a change, approach the person again with two witnesses. If that does not work, take the matter before the community. If the person still does not acknowledge the error, "one must help him perceive the detachment from the community that he himself provoked, separating himself from the communion of the church," the pope said.
September 7, 2011
VATICAN CITY - Crying out to God when one is in the grips of pain or fear is a sign of faith in God, Pope Benedict XVI said. A central tenet of faith is believing that the loving God is always close to his creatures and ready to reach out and save them, the pope said Sept. 7 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. The pope, who is still staying at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, returned to the Vatican by helicopter for the general audience with about 11,000 pilgrims and visitors. Afterward, he went back to the papal villa, about 20 miles south of Rome. Continuing a series of audience talks about prayer, Pope Benedict told those gathered for the audience that when they are really hurting or afraid, they can use Psalm 3 to express both their suffering and their trust in God.
It’s back-to-school time and, as the TV commercial jingle goes, “The most wonderful time of the year” . . . for parents. Reflecting on the summer holidays with our two children, aged 12 and 15, it was challenging at times juggling work and kids’ needs and demands. But, overall, it was clearly a “two thumbs up.” What really tipped the balance for me was an impromptu, father-son excursion to a graveyard. It sounds a little strange, maybe even morbid, but hear me out. My son and I were in Toronto running errands when it struck me that we were not far from Mount Hope Cemetery. “Mind if we make a short detour?” I asked, needing to repeat the question after he finally pulled out his ear plugs.
The Vatican has engaged the Irish government in an unpleasant war of words that is unlikely to help restore its battered image in that country. At issue is a government report into Ireland’s sex-abuse scandal and the failure of Church hierarchy to identify and punish abuser priests. The “Cloyne Report,” released in July, asserts that the Vatican shares responsibility for the crisis with local bishops because it fostered a see-no-evil culture that reassigned, rather than punished, abuser priests. It also accused the Vatican of being “entirely unhelpful” to Irish bishops who sought to get tough on abuser priests. If that wasn’t enough, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Holy See of attempting to “frustrate” the enquiry and, in an unprecedented blistering reproach applauded nationally, he railed: “The Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and the narcissism that dominates the culture of the Vatican to this day.”
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) Sept. 18 (Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm 145; Philippians 1:20-24, 27; Matthew 20:1-16) An ancient Greek philosopher once observed wryly that if horses could draw they would draw gods that looked like horses. Or put another way — God created humans in God’s image and humans returned the favour. The God that we believe we worship is often something of our own creation or projection, looking and acting suspiciously like us. But through the prophets God reminds us very forcefully that God is utterly unlike humans. God’s “ways of thinking” and God’s ways are not merely an extension of our own but of a completely different order. How often we hear from people what God wants, thinks, likes or will do in the immediate future. This is more often than not a projection of the speaker’s prejudices and opinions and those of the group to which he or she belongs. Isaiah urges people to seek God while He is still near so that they can encounter this totally other God.
“See the wise and wicked ones, who feed upon life’s sacred fire.” That’s a lyric from a song by Gordon Lightfoot that tries to interpret the struggle going on in the heart of the mythical hero, Don Quixote. Goodness separates him from the world, even as he understands that wickedness has the same source. And there’s perplexing irony in this, both the wise and wicked, saints and sinners, feed off the same, sacred source. The same energy that fuels the dedicated selflessness of the saint who dies for the poor fires the irresponsible acting-out of the movie star who proudly boasts of thousands of sexual conquests. Both feed off the same energy which, in the end, is sacred. But it’s easy to misinterpret this. For example, one of the major criticisms made of religion is that it too frequently uses God to justify war and violence. We commonly see terrible violence being fueled by faith and religion, as is the case with extreme Islam today. But Christianity is hardly exempt. In the Crusades and the Inquisition we have our own history of violence in God’s name and there is more violence than we have the courage to admit still being done today by Christians who draw both their motivation and their energy from their faith. We can protest that, in these cases, the energy is misguided, perverted or usurped for self-interest, but the point remains the same. It’s still sacred energy, even if perverted.
KEARNEY, ONT. - With the start of a new school year, the sight of school buses picking up students in the small (pop. 837) town of Kearney, Ont., brings back precious memories to retired Catholic teacher Dolores White. White, now 82, is among a dwindling group of Ontario educators who taught in one-room schoolhouses. She recalls fondly the days of teaching Grades 1-8 in a classroom of up to 30 students. One-room schoolhouses were once common in Northern Ontario. Some were housed in railway cars — a school on wheels — that would travel between communities. Part of the train was the classroom, the other the travelling teacher’s residence. White’s teaching space was more stable. She taught in a large room, complete with desks, blackboards and heating, that had been the original St. Patrick’s Catholic pioneer church. In 1910 the church became the Kearney Separate School. Kearney is about 250 km north of Toronto. “I had to be well organized to make sure I covered the curriculum for each grade,” said White. She also relied on student tutors. “If I was busy teaching someone, and someone else needed help, I’d tell them, ‘Take your work to one of the older classmates.’ And the older ones responded.”
Stained glass windows are one of the most interesting phenomena in art. We might wonder why not simply paint pictures as it would be a lot easier than meticulously arranging pieces of coloured glass. However, their translucent beauty has a special characteristic not found in other forms of art. Glass, it seems, was the earliest product used in ancient times as decoration in temples, tombs, palaces and as personal adornment. Many fragments of these ornaments have been discovered among the ruins of ancient cities. But although glass has an ancient history, the earliest known glazing of window openings only dates back to 306 BC. And even then the glazing was not done with glass, but with coloured pieces of pot-metal, an easily malleable combination of cheap metals. A full appreciation of glass as a material to transmit light and decorate walls came only with the large window openings of 12th-century Gothic architecture. The windows had to be strong enough to keep out the elements and transparent enough to admit light.
VANCOUVER - Embracing the Christian life is a sacred mystery and icons possess a mysterious power to draw the spiritual seeker to Christ, says iconographer Matthia Langone. Icons are artistic “written” images of Jesus, Mary, the saints or angels that offer a living theology and experience of prayer. Iconographers not only offer their creative charism to God, they offer their whole heart, mind and soul. “It is a transformational experience, a vocation,” said Langone. She should know. When she encountered Russia’s most prized icons while attending an ordination in Moscow about 15 years ago, she was so struck with the stunning images, the course of her life was changed.
WASHINGTON - A new initiative got under way this summer for the first audio recording of the New Testament in Latin. Vatican Press has partnered with Faith Comes By Hearing, a non-profit, donor-driven interdenominational ministry “committed to the mission of reaching poor and illiterate people worldwide with the Word of God in audio” for the audio recording of the Neo-Vulgate, the Catholic Church’s official Latin translation. Fr. Peter Stravinskas played a key role in spearheading this project. “I’ve been involved with making available the liturgy in Latin since I was ordained,” said Stravinskas, founder and president of the St. Gregory Foundation for Latin Liturgy based in Pine Beach, N.J. Stravinskas said in the early 1980s he celebrated the only Latin Mass in New York. In an interview with Catholic News Service, the priest said he learned about Faith Comes by Hearing, which for the past 30 years has made the New Testament available by audio in more than 500 languages. He e-mailed them and said he was impressed with the program but noticed Latin was missing.