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February 2012

February 1

Author aims to bring more light than heat to homosexuality

February 1, 2012

EDMONTON - While theology professor Paul Flaman has received positive feedback to his new book Homosexuality and Following Jesus, he expects the ultimate reaction will be mixed. A priest-psychologist once told him, “It’s practically impossible to say anything significant about homosexuality without getting somebody mad at you.” Nevertheless, Flaman is out to sow understanding, not division, all the while making the Catholic teaching clear to his readers.

University-based CWL celebrates one year

February 1, 2012

VICTORIA, B.C. - As it celebrates its first anniversary since formation on Feb. 13, 2011, the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) chapter at the University of Victoria (UVic) is young in more ways than one. The second university-based CWL chapter in Canada, all the members of the UVic CWL are under the age of 30. “We’re really excited to have women establishing CWLs on university campuses,” said Velma Harasen, the CWL’s national president. “Their youth voice brings a whole new perspective to the League.”

Christian unity through prayer, understanding [2012 Friar's Essay Winner]

February 1, 2012

Editor’s note: This is the winning entry from the Friars’ essay contest for high school students on how to achieve Christian unity. Throughout many generations, the Church’s moral teachings have succeeded in surviving evolving societies and cultures. However, there is a rift between members of different Christian denominations regarding the knowledge, values and beliefs of the faith. Lack of unity is detrimental to the impact of evangelization and division contradicts the truth of the Gospel, which calls all to unity. The Church is the body of Christ and to fulfill this honour, she must reveal the communion and love of God as one. To attain unity among Christians, the changes that must be made include internal conversion within Christians, done through effective prayer, an increase of understanding and passionate will to continue on the journey towards communion within the Christian faith.

Exploring Mission Week

February 1, 2012

As a liberal arts student, I find the issue of religion constantly brought to my attention, analysed, dissected and eventually applied to today’s issues completely severed from God. Mission Week at the Newman House Catholic Chaplaincy at Queen’s University, however, allowed me the opportunity to engage in a more upward-looking spiritual conversation with my peers. With a table set up at a different location on campus each day, the Catholic Christian Outreach (CCO) missionaries, along with a group of student leaders, spent hours taking surveys and handing out lollipops to the students returning in mid-January.

As is, Bill 13 is ripe for lengthy legal challenge

February 1, 2012

OTTAWA - The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has warned Ontario legislators that passage of anti-bullying Bill 13 as is could result in years of tax-funded litigation. “Before overriding the choices parents make in education, legislators are cautioned that this is not a right to be overridden casually,” write EFC legal counsel Faye Sonier and Don Hutchinson in an open letter sent to Ontario MPPs Jan. 25. “There is an obvious constitutional violation in forcing religiously based schools to establish clubs not endorsed by the faith community, parents or students, or to implement curriculum that disrespects their beliefs.”

February 2

Cardinal Bevilacqua, retired Philadelphia archbishop, dies at age 88

February 2, 2012

PHILADELPHIA - Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, retired archbishop of Philadelphia, died Jan. 31 at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where he resided. According to the Philadelphia archdiocese, he died in his sleep at 9:15 p.m. He was 88. The archdiocese said he had been battling dementia and an undisclosed form of cancer. Cardinal Bevilacqua headed the archdiocese from February 1988 to October 2003. Funeral arrangements were pending.

With Mass, tears, prayers, Nigerians bury victims of Christmas bombing

February 2, 2012

MADALLA, Nigeria - Officials of the Archdiocese of Abuja celebrated Mass for 18 victims of the Christmas bombings at St. Theresa Catholic Church, then buried the remains within the church grounds. Abuja Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan told about 2,000 people gathered at the church Feb. 1 that "those who killed others, either in the name of their faith or ideology, are murderers.''

Strong bond with God is defining quality of religious life, pope says

February 2, 2012

VATICAN CITY - Strengthening one's relationship with God must be the highest priority and most defining quality of religious life, Pope Benedict XVI said. Celebrating vespers with members of religious orders Feb. 2, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the World Day for Consecrated Life, the Pope said the day was a way of bringing greater attention to the witness of faith of religious men and women worldwide. In his homily during the evening service in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Benedict said the day was also an important occasion for religious to "renew your intentions and rekindle the feelings that inspire the giving of yourselves to God."

Innovation becomes tradition: 2011's top 10 films, best family films

February 2, 2012

NEW YORK - In late 1965, the three-decade-old National Legion of Decency announced that it was changing its name to the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures. That switch represented more than just altered terminology. It signaled an intent on the part of the U.S. church's officially sanctioned film agency to take a more open and positive -- though by no means uncritical -- approach in its assessment of cinema. In keeping with this new emphasis, that same year, the film office issued its first list of the 10 best movies released over the previous 12 months. As with many an innovation, the list gradually became a tradition, one that the Media Review Office of Catholic News Service -- which now performs the work originally done by the Legion and its successors -- intends faithfully to honor. So here -- in alphabetical order - are, first, our choices of the Top 10 films of 2011 suitable for a variety of audiences, followed the 10 best films for family viewing.

UN to hear of 'shameful' conditions for native children

February 2, 2012

TORONTO - A half-dozen aboriginal youth headed for Geneva have shameful things to say about Canada and how it treats First Nations children. But their testimony before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child will be given in the hope that Canada can do better, the young delegates told media in Toronto Feb. 2. "There's been talk for years and years and years. If there's just going to be more talk, I wouldn't consider that a success," said 24-year-old John-Paul Chalykoff from the Michipicoten First Nation on the north shore of Lake Superior.

February 3

Kerala church commission pushes for declaring alcoholism as sin

February 3, 2012

BANGALORE, India - Catholic prohibitionists in India's Kerala state have proposed making alcoholism a sin in the nation's largest Christian enclave. "Alcoholism is a serious problem in Kerala, and we have to take tough measures to counter it," Bishop Sebastian Thekethecheril, chairman of the Temperance Commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council, told Catholic News Service Feb. 1 during the general assembly of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India in Bangalore.

Historic parish reaches out to Super Bowl visitors

February 3, 2012

INDIANAPOLIS - A historic Indianapolis church is in the centre of festivities surrounding the Feb. 5 Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium. St. John the Evangelist parish, founded 175 years ago when Indianapolis was a small town on the edge of the American frontier, is the middle of the Super Bowl Village hosting many events at the Indiana Convention Centre across the street from the church and on streets surrounding it.

Catholic movie reviews - The Woman in Black, Big Miracle and more

February 3, 2012

This weekend sees Daniel Radcliffe's first role after the success of Harry Potter in Woman in Black. Is it worth your time and money this Super Bowl weekend? We also have reviews of Big Miracle, One for the Money and Man on a Ledge.

Richer orders should share with poorer religious, says Vatican prefect

February 3, 2012

VATICAN CITY - Wealthier religious orders should share their resources with struggling religious communities, said the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Cardinal-designate Joao Braz de Aviz said that while religious men and women live a life of poverty and possess nothing, their religious "institution doesn't always give the same witness." "It's not that we are against holding assets or are saying the church cannot have all the things it needs," he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, Feb. 2.

The future is now for pipe organ at St. Joseph’s Seminary

February 3, 2012

EDMONTON - When it came time to build the new St. Joseph’s Seminary, cutting expenses was a must. To save money, a pipe organ for the seminary chapel was left as a project for the future. “We priced out how much an organ would be, and it’s a lot of money,” said Fr. Shayne Craig, seminary rector. “For a new pipe organ, for the size we would want in the chapel, we were being quoted a price of $500,000.”

New homes for Edmonton's Newman Theological College and St. Joseph’s Seminary

February 3, 2012

The Newman Theological College and St. Joseph’s Seminary communities in Edmonton are glad to be back in the same fold. To make way for the Anthony Henday Highway, the college and seminary were forced to uproot and build a new home. They have since moved to new state-of-the-art facilities on the Pastoral Centre grounds, the seminary moving into its new home in August 2010, while classes at the college started in January 2011. “And it’s very good to be back together again,” said Fr. Shayne Craig, rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary and president of Newman Theological College.

In praise of a Catholic liberal arts education

February 3, 2012

TORONTO - Emily VanBerkum believes the “interdisciplinary” aspects of her Catholic liberal arts education have made her a well-rounded student. “It’s very interdisciplinary and it relates to so many disciplines in your life, so many fields like business or politics,” said the fourth-year Christianity and Culture student at Toronto’s University of St. Michael’s College.

US court drops suit state insurance officials brought against Vatican

February 3, 2012

VATICAN CITY - A federal court in Mississippi Feb. 2 dismissed a 10-year-old lawsuit accusing the Vatican of complicity in a scheme to bilk more than $200 million from insurance companies. The state insurance commissioners of Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas had filed the lawsuit in 2002 charging the Vatican and Msgr. Emilio Colagiovanni with racketeering and fraud.

February 5

100,000 welcomes from Ireland's All Hallows

February 5, 2012

A hundred-thousand welcomes is perhaps more students than little All Hallows College could actually accommodate, but that’s the welcome the Irish seminary extends to mature international students. One-hundred-thousand welcomes in the Irish tongue is céad mile fåilte. And the first person to extend that Irish greeting to international students in the Renewal for Life Sabbatical program is a Canadian, Sr. Mary Ann Maxwell.

February 6

Catholicism still dominant in Caribbean, but its influence wanes

February 6, 2012

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Trinidad's only Catholic seminary educated future clergy members for six decades, sending graduates to ministries throughout the Caribbean. But by 2010, the Regional Seminary of St. John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs had more staff than students and was losing nearly $100,000 a year. The Antilles Episcopal Conference closed it.