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October 6, 2013
Sometimes it seems like allCanadian art is really aboutlandscape. From the Group ofSeven’s Fred Varley to DanielTaylor there have been great portraitists.From Jean-Paul Riopelleto Kazuo Nakamura there havebeen great abstract painters.From Joe Fafard to David RubenPiqtouqun Canada has producedgreat sculptors.
October 7, 2013
Do you remember Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty? The “Sketch” video featured an FBI forensic artist sketching two portraits of the same woman — one as described by a stranger, another as described by the woman herself.
VATICAN CITY - As efforts to recover the bodies of migrants who drowned off Italy's southern coast continued, Pope Francis again asked people to pray for the victims and he sent his almoner to Lampedusa to pray over the 194 corpses recovered as of Oct. 6 and to visit the survivors.
ROME - Members of the Legionaries of Christ will begin their extraordinary general chapter Jan. 8 to elect new leaders and approve a new constitution, the key step in an effort to renew the order after revelations about the misconduct of their founder.
October 8, 2013
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis, like Islam's Sufi mystic theologians and poets, "is trying to do good for the sake of the Good One, motivated by love and compassion," said the president of the Islamic Affairs Council of Maryland.
MANCHESTER, England - Abortions on grounds of gender are legal in Britain, the country's top prosecutor clarified in a letter to the government.
VATICAN CITY - The predicament of divorced and remarried Catholics will be a major topic of discussion when bishops from around the world meet at the Vatican in October 2014.
October 9, 2013
TORONTO - Blessed Cardinal Newman Catholic High School students will be using their annual Scar Trek walk-a-thon to raise money for Canadian Jesuits International's Syrian refugee support efforts.
OTTAWA - Pro-life groups have commended the Stephen Harper government for holding the line and not funding abortions in the Third World.
VATICAN CITY - With the adoption of a detailed new law on financial transparency, vigilance and information, the Vatican has almost completely revamped its finance laws in less than three years, the Vatican spokesman said.
Why must we suffer? Why do things have to be so difficult? Why can’t things just be easy?
October 10, 2013
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis' decision to call an extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family in 2014 demonstrates how important he believes the family is and the urgency he sees in responding to problems Christian families face, said the head of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Four years after a coup d'etat threw Honduras into crisis, church workers said human rights abuses continue unabated, fueled by disputes over mining concessions.
By taking the bold and encouraging step of empowering a permanent council of cardinals Pope Francis has launched an era of revolutionary rebirth to create a less centralized, more inclusive world Church.
As by now everyone knows, Pope Francis offered a lengthy and wide-ranging interview to the editor of La Civilta Cattolica, which was subsequently published last month in 16 Jesuit-sponsored journals. As we’ve come to expect practically any time this Pope speaks, the interview has provoked a media frenzy.
Karl Rogers once suggested that what’s most private within us is also most universal. His belief was that many of the private feelings that we would be ashamed to admit in public are, ironically, the very feelings which, if expressed, would resonate most deeply inside the experience of others.
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) Oct. 20 (Exodus 17:8-13; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8) Moses had a formidable secret weapon at his disposal, one that generals throughout the centuries would have loved to have as their own. In this case, it was the staff of God held aloft in his hands. As long as his hands were held aloft, Israel prevailed against the Amalekites; when his hands become weary and drooped a bit, they began to lose. His assistants had a solution: they propped his arms up so the Israelites were able to emerge victorious from the battle.
TORONTO - Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Toronto capped off its centenary celebrations with a special Sunday afternoon Mass at St. Paul’s Basilica.
Anybody who argues that there is no right or left inside the Church is living an illusion, and this became abundantly and sometimes unpleasantly obvious following Pope Francis’ now famous interview last month. His words have been dissected to the point of evaporation in the past couple of weeks, so I will not repeat the exercise here; a few observations, however, are in order.
QUEBEC CITY - Last week the National Assembly here was the scene of a rather unlovely protest, with topless women of a feminist bent protesting the presence of the crucifix over the Speaker’s chair in the chamber. Stripping off in the presence of the province’s first female premier, the protesters had written their slogans on their naked torsos, loosely translated as “heritage belongs in a museum.” The reference was to the Parti Québécois position that the crucifix will remain in the National Assembly, even while “conspicuous” religious symbols are banned from the public sector under the proposed “Charter of Quebec Values.” The crucifix is not a religious symbol, the government maintains, but a manifestation of Quebec’s “cultural heritage.”