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July 2012

July 10

Mexican migrant shelter shuts its doors amid discord, crushing demand

July 10, 2012

MEXICO CITY - A Catholic-run shelter serving the masses of migrants stealing rides on trains passing through the rail yards north of Mexico City closed its doors July 9 after enduring endless quarrels with its neighbors. Local media reported that the St. Juan Diego shelter stopped accepting migrants after a meeting with neighbors, who earlier had closed the facility in a symbolic gesture and posted signs advising migrants to move along. The newspaper Reforma, citing police reports, said that a conflict among neighbors, shelter operators and migrants outside of the facility came prior to the closure. Shelter director Father Alexander Rojas told the newspaper that he was acting on the instructions of his superior, Bishop Guillermo Ortiz Mondragon of Cuautitlan.

Majority of bishops' conferences, except Africa, draft abuse policies

July 10, 2012

VATICAN CITY - The majority of bishops' conferences in the Americas, Europe and Asia have complied with a Vatican mandate to draw up anti-abuse guidelines, said the Vatican's top investigator of clerical sex abuse. Without counting Africa, "more than half of the conferences responded" by the May deadline, Msgr. Charles Scicluna of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in an interview with the Italian monthly Catholic magazine Jesus. All those who did not send in their proposed guidelines would be getting "a letter of reminder," he added.

Solitude is being content in our own skin

July 10, 2012

Eight-hundred years ago, the poet Rumi wrote: “What I want is to leap out of this personality and then sit apart from that leaping. I’ve lived too long where I can be reached.” Isn’t that true for all of us, especially today? Our lives are often like over-packed suitcases. It seems like we are always busy, always over-pressured, always one phone call, one text message, one e-mail, one visit and one task behind. We are forever anxious about what we have still left undone, about whom we have disappointed, about unmet expectations.

The Lord is the shepherd who will not disappoint

July 10, 2012

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) July 22 (Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34) “The Lord is my shepherd” — how often we have heard the opening line of Psalm 23 but perhaps we are not aware of its full import. It is a declaration of independence from the disappointments and betrayals of human beings. Jeremiah, like his fellow-prophet Ezekiel, did not have good words for the shepherds of Israel. They did not do their job. They were corrupt, greedy and self-serving. They were mostly to blame for the disaster that Jeremiah saw looming on the horizon — the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians in the early sixth century BC. Speaking in the first person on behalf of God, Jeremiah expressed God’s disgust and disappointment at the poor performance of Israel. God resolved to take personal control of the situation — to gather the scattered children of God together and provide them protection. New shepherds would be found who would fulfill their responsibilities. Looking to the distant future, a leader from David’s lineage would be selected, partly because of this lineage but mostly because of his God-centred righteousness.

Providing safeguards for medical killing is delusional

July 10, 2012

Tragedy at a Montreal psychiatric facility should stop proponents of medicalized killing dead in their tracks. On June 16, one day after the B.C. Supreme Court struck down Canada’s laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide, someone in the high security psychiatric unit of the Centre Hospitalier Université de Montréal asphyxiated a patient. On June 21, a second patient was suffocated. But here’s the thing: neither death was recognized as a homicide, let alone raised alarm bells, until the next day when an attempt to choke a third patient to death was foiled. A former slaughterhouse worker with a lengthy history of violent crime, who checked himself into the ward the very day the first patient was killed, was charged June 27.

Wily McGuinty’s Orwellian law scorns Church over Bill 13

July 10, 2012

What makes Premier Dalton McGuinty’s treatment of Toronto Archbishop (and Cardinal) Thomas Collins over the gay-straight alliances particularly distressing is that the Church asked for so little and wound up with nothing. To go down fighting in defence of core teachings of the Church would be one thing, but to get a dismissive backhand from the premier when the Church had already accommodated almost every item of Bill-13 and when all that was left is nomenclature, well, that is truly humiliating. Of course, Cardinal Collins was betrayed by many of his putative allies. OECTA, the Catholic teachers’ union, made it clear that they sided with McGuinty and not with the Church from which they derive their raison d’etre. Quislings too, publicly or privately, were many Catholic school trustees. With allies like these, how could anyone confidently go into battle?

Could it actually be that the media is on the side of life?

July 10, 2012

The parallels between abortion and euthanasia or assisted suicide are often cited during debates, especially by those who recall the role played by the media and the courts in first liberalizing Canada’s abortion laws and later eliminating them. But over the past few weeks we have seen a striking difference emerge. Decades ago, almost all media outlets supported liberalization of abortion laws. In recent weeks, however, media reaction to a B.C. court decision striking down Canada’s assisted suicide laws has been anything but unanimous. Even editorials supportive of the decision have acknowledged the vulnerability of the elderly and disabled, and pointed out the potential for abuse through a more liberal law. Opposing the court decision, the Vancouver Province said, “Allowing doctors to kill patients nearing the end of their lives, even with their consent, cheapens the sanctity of life, no matter how horrible the disease a patient is suffering from.”

Julian Fantino must be an advocate for the poor

July 10, 2012

At first glance, the appointment of Julian Fantino to replace Bev Oda as Canada’s Minister of International Co-operation seems an odd choice. Fantino inherits responsibility for overseeing a $5-billion aid budget co-ordinated through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Becoming the public face of Canadian charity is a big leap for someone best known as a hard-nosed cop who, if he has a soft side, keeps it well hidden. Then again, Fantino may be exactly what CIDA needs.

America’s most cherished liberty under attack

July 10, 2012

On the Fourth of July, the Catholic Church in the United States turned toward Washington, not for the fireworks, nor for a windy speech from the president, but for the conclusion of what the American bishops declared to be a Fortnight for Freedom. I followed it rather more closely than most, since I was appointed last year a consultant to the American bishops Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty. Alarmed at encroachments on religious liberty at home, and escalating violence against Christians abroad, the ad hoc committee of senior bishops proposed a special fortnight of prayer, fasting, catechesis and public action in defense of religious liberty. Summoning forth “all the energies the Catholic community can muster,” the fortnight was a dramatic appeal to Americans — both Catholic and otherwise — to realize that their “first, most cherished liberty” is under sustained and serious attack.

ShareLife a million shy of campaign goal

July 10, 2012

TORONTO - With barely two weeks left in the 2012 ShareLife campaign, parishioners are being called upon to pull together and raise the remaining $1 million needed to reach this year’s $12.3 million goal. “(We) thank those Catholics who have made a contribution this year and appeal to all Catholics to support the ShareLife campaign before July 31,” said Arthur Peters, ShareLife’s executive director. “Parishioners have been very generous. Over the next few weeks I just hope people will continue to be generous and help us reach our goal.”

Caritas Niger video tells hunger story [w/ video]

July 10, 2012

With 18 million people either starving now or facing near term shortage of food, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace and its Caritas partners are ramping up fundraising efforts with a new video that explains the crisis through the eyes of people in Niger and Mali. The eight-minute video (embedded at the bottom of this article) aims to make people aware of how Caritas is fighting for people’s lives. The English version is called Niger: On the Hunger Frontline.

July 11

Ground broken on new Southdown

July 11, 2012

As the sprawl crawls toward them, the Canadian Church’s first option for helping and healing priests with addictions, depression and other psychological issues is pulling up stakes. The Southdown Institute has broken ground on a new address at the north end of East Gwillimbury, Ont. Surrounded once again by farm country, the new Southdown facility in Holland Landing will aim to better serve an aging population with up-to-date strategies for dealing with everything from eating disorders to dementia, said Southdown CEO Sr. Miriam Ukeritis of the Congregation of St. Joseph.

Short stay ends, 11 years on for Toronto’s John McGrath

July 11, 2012

TORONTO - After serving on a host of Catholic boards, including the senate of the University of St. Michael’s College, John McGrath came to the archdiocese of Toronto in 2001 to be chancellor of temporal affairs, a rough equivalent to chief financial officer. He intended to stay five years and had an opt-out clause at two-and-a-half years, just in case. He stayed 11. Shortly after turning 70, McGrath welcomed his 20th grandchild and let it be known it was time for the archdiocese to start searching for his replacement. After a lengthy search, the changeover took effect on July 1. But retirement won’t change McGrath’s life. He will continue to serve on the boards of St. Joseph’s Hospital, Catholic Charities, the Southdown Institute, the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute and the Patrons of the Arts for the Vatican Museum.

Union leaders ‘out of touch’ on abortion

July 11, 2012

When a union declares itself pro-choice and tries to shut down debate about the legal status of a fetus, its stand is neither progressive nor representative of its membership, said Toronto pro-life feminist Martha Crean. The Canadian Auto Workers wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper June 7 objecting to any debate in Parliament over the legal definition of a human being, as proposed by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s Motion-312. The nation’s largest private sector union, representing over 200,000 workers, also organized counter protests to denounce a series of anti-abortion protests organized by the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform. The CAW-led protests backfired in Windsor June 24 when more people showed up for a protest against the CAW position, and Local 444 president Dino Chiodo distanced himself from the official CAW protest by telling the media it had been organized above the heads of Windsor union officials.

Difficult stories of Old Testament draw us into Triune God

July 11, 2012

OTTAWA - It may be tempting to ignore the Old Testament, or spiritualize its more bloodthirsty or seemingly contradictory stories, but wrestling with them can lead to a deeper understanding of the Gospel and the nature of the Triune God, says Scripture scholar Edith Humphrey. Whether it is the story of Abraham being told to sacrifice his only son Isaac, God’s genocidal ban placed on some of the peoples who already inhabited the Promised Land or God portrayed as angry, jealous or vengeful, these difficulties have sometimes led to heresy and they continue to tempt Christians to avoid the Old Testament.

No peace without dialogue, sacrifice, patience, Pope says

July 11, 2012

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - Just as individual musicians in an orchestra turn dissonance into harmony through hard work, sacrifice and listening to one another, so, too, can the world's people turn conflict into peace, said Pope Benedict XVI. The pope made his remarks following a July 11 concert performed in his honor by young musicians from Israel, the Palestinian territories and other Arab countries.

July 12

Religion is so much more than sticking to a routine

July 12, 2012

I decided to try a weightlifting routine a few months ago. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but sweating and struggling on bicep curls was easily the coolest thing I did in awhile. The feeling intensified when I looked at the mirror a few weeks later and noticed a subtle but definite improvement. Within two weeks, however, I fell out of my routine. After doing the exact same thing repeatedly, anything — no matter how exciting it is — can become a chore. I’m pretty sure that we can remember at least one homily where the priest inspired us, making us feel like our lives would never feel the same afterwards. Yet I’m also certain there are many times when we just don’t feel like going to church on Sundays. Since Jesus died for our sins, we’re supposed to feel free, liberated and unbound. So why does service sometimes feel like a tedious obligation? For a concept that’s supposed to provide salvation, religion can sometimes feel more like a chain than a key.

The Mass shows a young person’s dignity is from God

July 12, 2012

“Why do I need to go to Mass?” Every Catholic has heard that line before, especially when uttered by teenagers and young adults. We’ve also heard virtually every excuse on why not to go to Mass. But how do we convince sceptics of the Mass’ importance and contemporary relevance? In Talking to Teens About the Mass: A User’s Guide, Fr. John C. Yake seeks to tackle this loaded question, offering rebuttals against the common alibis for not attending Mass regularly. In the process, he demonstrates that contrary to the misperception of the Mass as an outdated, old-fashioned and boring ritual, the Eucharist and the Catholic Church are still very relevant to the contemporary struggles of teenagers.

From Youth Speak News to Oxford University

July 12, 2012

TORONTO - Peter Grbac heads to Oxford University in October, leaving behind a legacy of volunteerism at his alma mater Harvard University. A former St. Michael’s College School student, Grbac took part in The Catholic Register’s Youth Speak News program during his high-school years. His faith followed him to Harvard University in Boston where he just graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies. At commencement, Grbac was a nominee for the prestigious Ames Award for helping others in the community and inspiring leadership. “Harvard is an interesting place,” he said. “It’s a place where you are exposed to very different people and very different ideas, and it’s easy to lose track of your faith. If there (was) one constant in (my) four years and going forward it would be my faith community,” referring to St. Paul Catholic Church in Harvard Square.

U.S. Episcopal Church approves liturgical resources for same-sex blessings

July 12, 2012

INDIANAPOLIS - In a decision that could strain relations with the Catholic Church and within its own Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church in the United States has approved liturgical resources for the blessing of same-sex relationships. The church's House of Bishops voted 111-41 July 9 in favour of provisional use of the resources until the next General Convention, held every three years. About 80 per cent of the church's House of Deputies gave their approval July 10.