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August 23, 2013
I am standing at a crossroads in life. Life only gives you a handful of these, so I intend to soak it in while the moment is still here. This year is a particularly special one because the word “last” pops up a lot.
CAIRO - Churches and other Christian properties around Egypt had already been looted, so when Catholics in Berba were tipped off that their southern village could be next, they acted fast.
Catholic musicians looking for publicity have found a new home at CatholicBands.com — and music lovers are benefitting.
ANTIGONISH, N.S. - A further 62 Catholic churches in Antigonish, N.S., are under review as the diocese tries to get its buildings in line with the number of people attending Mass and the number of priests available to preside.
TORONTO - New Beginnings, an international musical collaboration of mainly youth, is channeling its artistic power to provide homeless families in Haiti with housing and real-life new beginnings.
OTTAWA - A joint fundraising campaign by Canada’s Catholic bishops and their overseas development agency to bring emergency relief to Syrian refugees will close Sept. 14 with a day of fasting and prayer.
August 24, 2013
There’s a very thin layer between heaven and Earth. That’s how Monica Fitzgibbons describes her experience listening to the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles Sisters as they recorded Angels and Saints at Ephesus.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - An unlikely chain of events made him not only a national celebrity but a stand-in for every priest who has ever ministered to the faithful in an emergency.
BARRY’S BAY, ONT. - Catholic education should lead to an encounter with the living God and reveal reality’s transcendence, said the Federation of Catholic Teachers’ Guilds of Ontario’s founding president.
STRATFORD, ONT. - Conor Bergauer considers himself more of a singer than an actor but the young teen jumped at the chance to play “the deaf, dumb and blind,” kid in the summer hit at the Stratford Festival. The Grade 7 Catholic student from Waterloo, Ont. is sharing the lead role in the hit musical Tommy through the summer and into the fall.
VATICAN CITY - Even before retired Pope Benedict XVI set up a pontifical council for new evangelization and convoked a world Synod of Bishops on the theme, a new group of Benedictine monks was using Latin and liturgy to reach out to those whose faith was weak or non-existent.
August 25, 2013
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The Malaysian government has won the right to continue its appeal against a court ruling that allowed non-Muslims — including a Malay-language Catholic newspaper — to use the word Allah.
CAIRO - It was lunchtime at Cairo's Italian Hospital, and some of the nuns who reside there were watching state television's latest announcements on Egypt's "war on terror," the expression used by the country's military and its supporters to describe the nationwide crackdown on Islamists.
TORONTO - Pamila Jesuthasan knows teaching is her vocation. Because of this, she took a leap of faith by moving more than 2,000 kilometres away from the comforts of her Toronto home to the isolated village of Ivujivik, Que.
Catholic elementary school teacher Krista McCarville is taking one more crack at competitive curling before giving it up to focus on her career and family.
Sarah Wu is using the complexities of science to simplify malaria screening.
August 26, 2013
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis called again for an end to the fighting in Syria, denouncing the "multiplication of massacres and atrocious acts," including the suspected chemical weapons attack that left hundreds dead.
MANCHESTER, England - A disgraced Scottish cardinal halted a plan to allow independent investigators to examine Church child abuse files, said a retired archbishop.
VATICAN CITY - Archbishop Georg Ganswein, retired Pope Benedict XVI's longtime personal secretary, said a story about the pope resigning after a "mystical experience" was completely invented.
BEIRUIT - Cardinal Bechara Rai, Maronite patriarch, visited a predominantly Muslim city hit by explosions and called on political leaders to come up with a plan to save Lebanon.