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Browse › 2013 › December

December 2013

December 9

Ending hunger on a Wave of Prayer

December 9, 2013

A Wave of Prayer, a campaign to end global hunger, will wash over Canada on Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day.

December 10

Taking the mystery out of sacred mysteries

December 10, 2013

TORONTO - The sacred mysteries aren’t so mysterious to the faithful because the liturgies already reveal them, says Fr. Bill Irwin.

St. Michael's mourns loss of Fr. Thomas Mohan

December 10, 2013

TORONTO - Basilian Father Thomas Mohan, who is credited with bringing stability to St. Michael's College School during the 1990s, died Dec. 8 after a month's-long battle with leukemia. He was 84.

Ukraine protest is spiritual movement, bishop says

December 10, 2013

ROME - When Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Borys Gudziak addressed the crowds in Kiev's Independence Square Dec. 8, he focused on the youth and told them they could change the country.

European body accepts Vatican report on fighting financial crime

December 10, 2013

VATICAN CITY - A European body that investigates government efforts to combat financial crimes has confirmed the Vatican has made significant progress in reducing the risk that its institutions could be used for money laundering and financing terrorism.

Mandela 'touched my heart, my soul, my life,' says ex-fellow prisoner

December 10, 2013

JOHANNESBURG - Former South African President Nelson Mandela looked down on the tens of thousands of people gathered at his memorial service in Johannesburg and smiled as he watched them celebrate his legacy, said Andrew Mokete Mlangeni, a Catholic who was imprisoned for decades with the late anti-apartheid icon.

December 11

Persecuted minorities must band together to fight all oppression says activist

December 11, 2013

OTTAWA - Persecuted minorities must band together to fight all oppression, not only their own, One Free World International founder Majed El Shafe told a human rights event in Ottawa Dec. 9.

Bishops lead protesters in prayer after night of police action in Kiev

December 11, 2013

ROME - In the deep of the freezing night, security forces moved into Ukraine's Independence Square intent on dislodging protesters who had spent weeks talking, singing and praying for their country.

Vatican official says not to expect papal encyclical on poverty

December 11, 2013

VATICAN CITY - An official at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said that, despite widespread news reports and the statement of an Italian bishop, he does not expect Pope Francis to write an encyclical on the subject of poverty.

December 12

Pope Francis named Time's Person of the Year

December 12, 2013

For the third time, Time magazine has chosen a Pope as its Person of the Year.

Central African leaders tell of humanitarian crisis in Bangui

December 12, 2013

OXFORD, England - Catholic leaders in the Central African Republic spoke of a humanitarian crisis and criticized attempts to fuel interreligious clashes in their nation.

Power of forgiveness

December 12, 2013

Nelson Mandela once said that in the pursuit of peace “courageous people do not fear forgiving.”

Mandela inspires a hope for progress

December 12, 2013

Reflecting on the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as the first black president of South Africa, American scholar Rob Nixon wrote: “Between 1964 and 1990 he was absented from the political present, yet remained a pre-eminent inhabitant of South Africa’s past and future. He lived on the cusp of time, embodying a people’s hope, yet monumentalized on a scale ordinarily reserved for the dead.”

Francis and Flannery: their two sharp pens

December 12, 2013

Anyone sifting around for Advent reading might consider the just-out apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis to lay alongside a strange and beautiful new book bearing Flannery O’Connor’s name. Reading Evangelii Gaudium alternately with O’Connor’s prayer journal creates the sense of listening to a yearning yet joyful dialogue between two immensely gifted writers whose very habit of being is illumination of the Catholic soul. It is not habitual — perhaps even unheard of — to praise a pontiff for his literary prowess. The job generally places far heavier emphasis on other gifts, talents and skills. Wherever he ranks in the pantheon of pontifical pens, however, there can be no doubt that Francis is the first to use the noun “sourpuss” in an apostolic document. More, he positions the word perfectly in his sentence to make it clear that it is us that he is concerned about.

Mandela a model of putting natural virtue to service

December 12, 2013

The death of Nelson Mandela has produced the most extravagant laudations, and his funeral rites have attracted a parade of the great and the good not seen since the funeral of Pope John Paul II, and which will not be seen again until the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. I made my own modest contribution in the National Post, praising Mandela for the virtue of magnanimity, that large-heartedness which enabled him to renounce vengeance first, and political power later.

Open up and let God into our lives

December 12, 2013

I just can’t do it in my own. We vain humans have such difficulty admitting that.

We must trust in God’s will

December 12, 2013

Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year A) Dec. 22 (Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 24; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24) King Ahaz was close to despair. It was 734 BC, and Jerusalem was surrounded and besieged by her enemies the Syrians. They were trying to force Ahaz to join in rebellion against the Assyrian Empire, to whom Ahaz had submitted as a vassal. Defeat seemed unavoidable, and Ahaz was considering an attempt to make military alliances with other powers to alleviate the situation.

Searching for a Word filled with reality

December 12, 2013

Faith is not something you achieve. If you try to nail it down, it gets up and walks away with the nail. Faith works this way: Some days you walk on water, other days you sink like a stone. You live with a deep secret, the poet Rumi says, that sometimes you know, and then not, and then know again. Sometimes you feel the real presence, sometimes you feel the real absence. Why?

Keep Christ as the reason for the season

December 12, 2013

In a report on the eve of the 2012 Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., gave a brief but stinging assessment of the impact of secularism in our time. He noted a dramatic reduction in the practise of faith among the baptized from so called First-World countries. In addition, he said entire generations have become disconnected from such “foundational concepts” as marriage, family, common good and right and wrong. Secularism, he said, has created Catholics who are unable to recite the Church’s foundational prayers, who see no value in Mass attendance and who ignore the sacrament of Penance.

Misericordia Sisters’ founder named venerable

December 12, 2013

Canadian-born Mother Rosalie Cadron- Jette, whose ministry to assist young women is alive today in Toronto’s Rosalie Hall for unwed mothers, is one step closer to sainthood.