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May 2012

May 30

‘Speak boldly to the government’: Canadian Council of Churches president

May 30, 2012

The Canadian Council of Churches has questions and it has plans. The questions are for the government and its plans are for Canada’s Christians. As the CCC executive committee elected new officers, including the first Salvation Army president in the Council’s 68-year history, it also trekked to Parliament Hill to ask politicians and bureaucrats about environmental policy and plans for an Office of Religious Freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. “We went there knowing there are issues on the horizon that we would like to ask questions about and simply learn more about,” said CCC general secretary Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton.

Head of Christian meditation community gets Order of Canada

May 30, 2012

OTTAWA - The head of the London-based World Community for Christian Meditation, Benedictine monk Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada May 25. Freeman was recognized for “a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large” as an “an internationally recognized spiritual leader and proponent of peace and interfaith dialogue and understanding.” Freeman said he was “astounded” and “honored” to be named, but he said he would receive the award “on behalf of the Canadian Christian meditation community.”

Pope deplores 'VatiLeaks' scandal, prays for quake victims [w/ video]

May 30, 2012

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI voiced regret for the turmoil surrounding the recent publication of leaked Vatican documents, but thanked the vast majority of people who work at the Vatican for their dedication and fidelity. Speaking at the end of his weekly general audience May 30, the pope said much of the media coverage of the leak of private letters and of the arrest May 23 of his personal assistant has been exaggerated and "completely gratuitous, and has gone far beyond the facts, offering an image of the Holy See that does not correspond to reality."

Areas of Bill-13 could invite a court challenge against GSAs on Constitutional grounds

May 30, 2012

OTTAWA - The Ontario government’s controversial Bill-13 could face a court challenge on six different points, a constitutional lawyer told an Ontario government social policy committee hearing. During a May 22 submission, Albertos Polizogopoulos, an Ottawa lawyer who practices primarily in the areas of constitutional and civil litigation, gave the committee an inch-thick document that highlighted previous Supreme Court decisions related to religious freedom. “Nobody has a right to insist Catholic schools become non-religious or non-Catholic,” he said.

Papal butler's lawyers ask Vatican for house arrest for their client

May 30, 2012

VATICAN CITY - The lawyers for Paolo Gabriele have petitioned Vatican magistrates for house arrest for their client, who is accused of illegally possessing stolen documents as part of the so-called "VatiLeaks" scandal. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said May 30 that the magistrates who have been holding Gabriele in the offices of the Vatican police were considering the formal request to allow him to return to his Vatican apartment with his wife and three children.

IEC is Ireland's largest religious event since 1979 papal visit

May 30, 2012

DUBLIN - The weeklong 50th International Eucharistic Congress, which gets under way in Dublin June 10, will be Ireland's largest religious event since Pope John Paul II visited in 1979. The celebration of faith offers a lively mixture of prayer, reflection and liturgy with participation from some of the leading voices in the Catholic world. Organizers promise an estimated 12,000 overseas visitors the traditional Irish "cead mile failte" --"a hundred thousand welcomes." Many Dubliners have opened their homes to pilgrims.

Unique Vatican court system tackles petty to serious crimes

May 30, 2012

VATICAN CITY - From picked pockets to a 1998 double murder and suicide, the Vatican legal system has dealt with a vast array of crimes and misdemeanors over the decades. Now it has begun a formal inquiry into the case of the pope's personal assistant who has been implicated in the media-blitzed "VatiLeaks" scandal. Paolo Gabriele, the pope's valet since 2006, was arrested May 23 by Vatican security for having unauthorized documents in his possession.

Brief news item about victims led priest to tackle issue of 'femicide'

May 30, 2012

ORANGE, Calif. - Father Rafael Luevano's life was never been the same, he says, since he spotted that small story in the newspaper almost 20 years ago. "At the breakfast table one morning back in 1993, I read the briefest of newspaper accounts reporting on the discovery of what would be merely the first of the hundreds of women's bodies that would be found in the desert on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez in northern Mexico. "In that instant my life changed."

May 31

Photography club inspires confidence in young women

May 31, 2012

TORONTO - When Diane Vautour developed a yearbook course that incorporated photography at Loretto College two years ago she immediately saw the potential benefits that photography could bring to her students. So she applied for a SpeakUp grant from the provincial government to start a photography club at the all-girls Catholic school in Toronto. The SpeakUp grants are given to students and teachers in support of programs intended to engage students within the school and wider community. And the photography club, which is preparing for its first public exhibition, has certainly exceeded these expectations.

Martin Sheen’s activism is all in the family

May 31, 2012

Martin Sheen grew up in a home where rights were something you fought for. The actor’s activism was inspired by his immigrant father who risked his factory job fighting for the right to unionize despite having 10 children and a wife at home relying on the wage he earned. “It was an introduction into the real world,” said Sheen, recalling his father’s teachings of pride against prejudice. “My father was my hero, he struggled against prejudice (and) against the system basically.”

For Michael O’Brien, faith is life

May 31, 2012

TORONTO - The Catholic Civil Rights League has named Michael O’Brien, a world-renowned Canadian author and artist, the 2012 recipient of the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Catholic Excellence in Public Life. This annual award recognizes “outstanding lay achievement in advocacy, education, life issues, media and culture, and philanthropy.”

Celebrating lay leadership with the sound of music [w/ audio]

May 31, 2012

TORONTO - Three years of lay formation training was celebrated on Pentecost Sunday at a quasi-graduation ceremony for 66 people at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish. During the afternoon event, adults from 30 Archdiocese of Toronto parishes were recognized for their leadership accomplishments, dedication to the community’s faith and personal sacrifice of time. “We (zeroed) in on basically the foundational foundations of the faith to try and help people understand what it is the Church actually teaches,” said Bill Targett, director of the office of formation who launched the project in 2009.

The human factor: Vatileaks scandal highlights devotion, excess at Vatican

May 31, 2012

VATICAN CITY - Depending on what commentary one reads, recent leaks of internal Vatican memos and private letters to Pope Benedict XVI are the work either of praiseworthy whistle-blowers or criminal moles. Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist who published a book based on dozens of private Vatican documents, said his main source was part of a group of Vatican employees who wanted to "help" Pope Benedict XVI clean up the church by revealing evidence of corruption, infighting and power struggles. But Archbishop Angelo Becciu, a top official in the Vatican Secretariat of State, said leaking the material was "behavior unjustifiable from every point of view."