FREE access to the digital edition and archives until September 2. Click here. →
Browse › 2013 › March
March 5, 2013
VATICAN CITY - After completing their third pre-conclave meeting, the College of Cardinals still had not announced a date for the conclave. Instead, they used the March 4 and 5 meetings to discuss needs of the church.
VATICAN CITY - Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet said the conclave "opens up a new future" for the church and is a responsibility the cardinals see as "their main task."
March 6, 2013
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Hugo Chavez, a socialist president who transformed Venezuela while acting as chief protagonist in what was one of the worst Catholic Church-government relationships in Latin America, died March 5. He was 58.
VATICAN CITY - Although by March 6 the world's cardinals had not set a date to begin the conclave to elect a new pope, they had begun discussing "the profile" required of the next pope to meet the needs of the church, the Vatican spokesman said.
VATICAN CITY - The Sistine Chapel's transformation from a world-famous tourist site to the prayer-filled space where cardinal electors will choose the next pope is under way.
BRAMPTON, ONT. - The two men who will be ordained priests in the archdiocese of Toronto this spring were honoured at the annual Ordinandi Dinner March 5 at the Pearson Convention Centre in Brampton, where they shared the stories of how they were called to the priesthood.
March 7, 2013
The past eight years gave proof that the College of Cardinals got it right in 2005 when they shrugged at Joseph Ratzinger’s birth certificate and made him Pope.
Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year C) March 17 (Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11) Human memory can be very faulty when it comes to remembering the great things God has done for us. We need to be constantly reminded. The psalm’s refrain of “The Lord has done great things for us” is but one example of how the Scriptures continually proclaimed God’s past mercies and blessings.
VATICAN CITY - When Pope Benedict XVI officially stepped down from office Feb. 28, his wardrobe changed -- right down to the ring on his finger.
March, always a special month, is set to be one to remember this year. Forever a part of Lent and leading up to the holiest days of the year, March can also be a tease for Canadians: warm spring sunshine on the face one day followed by snow and sleet the next.
These are sad days for Catholics in Edinburgh. I’m sure readers are sick and tired of scandals involving Catholic priests and bishops. Hannah Arendt was definitely on to something when she described the “banality of evil.” But, as I’ve discovered, there’s nothing banal about a clerical scandal when it involves your own archbishop.
Before we receive a new pope, it is worthwhile to consider the impact of the pontificate itself.
It was a sad, bad time for the Church. Only days before the conclusion of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Britain’s most senior cleric, resigned as archbishop. He had been accused 24 hours earlier of “inappropriate behaviour” towards some priests in the 1980s. Four men complained, and while we do not know the details of all this, resignations are seldom offered and rarely accepted if charges are flippant and without any foundation.
VATICAN CITY - When 115 cardinal electors gather in the Sistine Chapel for the conclave to elect a new pope, they will be praying and voting four times a day.
Catholic Register Associate Editor Michael Swan filed this report while on his way to Rome to cover the conclave to elect a new pope.
VATICAN CITY - Chanting the Litany of the Saints, asking a host of holy men and women to help them, the cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel in procession, aware of their enormous responsibility to elect a new pope.
March 8, 2013
A week before Israeli Apartheid Week is set to send Canadian universities into their annual turmoil over the Middle East, a group of young Israelis are storming campuses armed with a capacity for conversation.
Updated 03/11/13 - Corrections on volunteer appreciation event title When in a conversation regarding anything political, I’m often told to keep my religious beliefs to myself and out of the conversation.
VATICAN CITY - If Jesus had wanted a Church free of scandal or problems, he would have put it in the hands of angels, not a humanity he loved, said Nigeria's newest cardinal elector.
TORONTO - St. Dominic’s Vietnamese youth group looks forward each year to the Lift Jesus Higher Rally to express their faith with other Catholic youth in the Greater Toronto Area.