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February 6, 2014
Candlemas, February 2, has passed and my husband has dragged the tree down the stairs, so the Christmas season is now well and truly over. Lent, with its sense of penance and renewal, hovers on the horizon. However, a secular Lent has begun for hundreds, if not thousands, of fad dieters, for the Fast Diet is all the rage.
OTTAWA - Amnesty International would be “squandering its moral authority” and “abandoning victims” if it proceeds with a recommendation to legalize prostitution, said Conservative MP Joy Smith.
VATICAN CITY - Less than a week after a relic of Blessed John Paul II disappeared from a country chapel east of Rome, Italian police recovered the venerated piece of fabric stained with the late pope’s blood.
For more than a thousand years, Christians have not had the joy of being one family around Christ. Although there were already tensions within the earliest Christian communities, it was not until the year 1054 that there was a formal split so as to, in effect, establish two formal Christian communities, the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church in the West. Then, with the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, there was a further split within the Western Church and Christianity fragmented still further. Today there are more than a hundred Christian denominations, many of them, sadly, not on friendly terms with each other.
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) Feb. 16, 2014 (Sirach 15:15-20; Psalm 119; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37) Accepting responsibility for one’s actions is a rather uncommon human trait. People love to blame everyone and everything — it’s the fault of my parents, my religion, my environment, my genes or even God. The role of victim is more comfortable than that of perpetrator.
MAFRAQ, Jordan - Syrians fleeing to neighboring Jordan from the besieged central city of Homs said some people there are starving to death for lack of food.
February 7, 2014
OTTAWA - The Canadian government should urge Israel to stop construction of a section of a security wall that threatens the livelihood of 58 Christian families and a Catholic religious order, said the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) in a letter to Canada’s foreign affairs minister.
To graduate from high school in Ontario, a student must complete at least 30 academic credits (18 compulsory and 12 optional), achieve the provincial literacy requirement and perform a total of 40 volunteer hours. All this information was given to me when I started Grade 9.
Editor’s note: this is the third place entry in the annual essay contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity sponsored by The Catholic Register and the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement-Graymoor. Zita Lee, a Grade 12 student at Markham, Ont.’s St. Brother André Catholic High School, took third prize.
QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES - Biology major Seary Balliard is finding there’s a lot more to a university education than knowing how the parts of the human body function. She is also learning about the human psyche and the compassion it can share.
If Sam Caldeira Slavec wanted a hands-on method of tackling global justice issues, she got one. On a trip to Nicaragua, she helped clean and repaint walls, put in a new roof and mixed cement for an addition to a school, a room for children with disabilities.
Msgr. Edmond J. Putrimas says he lives his life, metaphorically speaking, with a Bible in one hand and a model airplane in the other.
From his home in Winnipeg, the epicentre of the great Ukrainian immigration to Canada, the Church was always Bishop Cornelius Pasichny’s vital link to Ukraine’s struggle for freedom.
OTTAWA - A feminist group has targeted three Ottawa doctors who refuse to refer patients for abortions or prescribe birth control pills.
February 8, 2014
Behind the anecdotes and centuries-long ups and downs presented here, Mike Aquilina constantly drives home his central point — the papacy never erred theologically.
Now in its 14th year, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy is seeking to step up its academic game by becoming a degree- granting institution.
TORONTO - Timothy Keslick believes Pope Francis’s small gestures are making a big impact on Canada’s university students.
VATICAN CITY - In the first century B.C., a grassy hillside just north of what is now St. Peter’s Square was used as a burial place for local Romans.
TORONTO - A Catholic education involves more than books and study. It means getting involved to make a difference. At least, that’s how Eman Cheema sees it.
VATICAN CITY - Catholic universities must give "uncompromising" and "unambiguous" witness to church teaching and defend themselves from all efforts to dilute their Catholic identity, Pope Francis said.