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April 23, 2014
OTTAWA - Dr. Balfour Mount, considered the “father of palliative care in North America,” has written an open letter to Quebec’s new premier advising him against re-introducing the euthanasia bill.
April 24, 2014
VATICAN CITY - Blessed John Paul II's deep spirituality and his courage to uphold the truth were clear signs of his sainthood, said his successor, retired Pope Benedict XVI.
VATICAN CITY - People said Floribeth Mora Diaz was crazy to think Blessed John Paul II interceded with God to heal her brain aneurysm, but if so, "then it is a blessed craziness, because I'm healthy," she told reporters at the Vatican.
TORONTO - The spirit of Catholic apologist and author G.K. Chesterton will inspire debate once again in the Archdiocese of Toronto.
Holy Family Ministries is bringing faith back to the family — at summer camp.
TORONTO - In the Christian folk music scene, many know Joe Zambon for his distinctive beard as much as they know him for his music. For his latest album, his fifth, Zambon took his beard and his music back home to record with his brother.
April 25, 2014
My first year of university is finally over. Academically, I held my head above water, but socially, I found myself unable to fit in. I am enrolled in a Life Sciences program, where there isn’t much racial diversity. As one of the few black people, I found myself struggling with my self-identity.
VATICAN CITY - Just days before Pope Francis was set to canonize two of his predecessors, he expressed his hopes the two soon-to-be saints would continue to inspire the whole church in its mission.
TORONTO - Homelessness is solvable and even if the solution isn’t cheap every dollar spent to put homeless people in an apartment of their own saves $2.17 that would otherwise be spent on hospital emergency room visits, other medical services, shelters, prisons and policing, a new study has found.
OTTAWA - It’s been 15 years since Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, Canada’s new apostolic nuncio, has served in Canada, and now that he is back, he has to reacquaint himself with a country he barely got to know first time around.
WASHINGTON - Director Darren Aronofsky says he is not religious, and that his Russell Crowe blockbuster movie Noah is the “least-biblical biblical film ever made.”
VATICAN CITY - Catholics venerate Blessed John Paul II for his holiness, as demonstrated, among other ways, by his globetrotting evangelism and long-suffering endurance in the papacy despite his illness.
April 26, 2014
Cynicism is tempting because it’s easy. Hope is hard work. At 85 peace activist, retired ambassador to the United Nations, former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister and Senator Douglas Roche refuses to take the easy way.
VATICAN CITY - A plump, elderly, smiling Italian of peasant origins, Pope John XXIII brought a humble yet charismatic, personal style to the papacy. He placed great importance on his modest upbringing in a village about 40 km northeast of Milan, saying: “I come from the country, from poverty,” adding it was a “happy and blessed poverty — not cursed, not endured.”
VATICAN CITY - Blessed John XXIII struggled to shake off many formalities that came with the papacy and often conspired with his valet to sneak out of the Vatican.
VATICAN CITY - Blessed John Paul II is remembered as was one of the most forceful moral leaders of the modern age.
VATICAN CITY - The first anniversary of Pope Francis’ election brought stories highlighting the unique style he has brought to the papacy. But maybe people have forgotten how much of what passes today for papal “tradition” was actually an innovation of Pope John Paul II.
VATICAN CITY - Blessed John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council in the conviction that it was necessary for the Catholic Church, yet without pre-conceived ideas of what it would accomplish, said Vatican II participants who recalled the event half a century later.
Brampton, Ont. - Polish Catholics flocked to St. Eugene de Mazenod parish in the early morning to celebrate the canonization of St. John Paul II, a son of Poland and beloved pope of the universal Church. St. Eugene’s houses a first-class relic of St. John Paul II, three drops of his blood located below a statue of the pontiff. On April 27, by 3 a.m. parishioners had already begun to arrive to pray. They listened to broadcasts from local priests who were present at the canonization in Rome. Fr. Peter Nowak celebrated mass at 4 a.m. in both English and Polish. He opened mass by giving thanks to both popes — St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II — being canonized on this Divine Mercy Sunday. “We are, for the most part, people of the head,” he said. “Yet both of these saints spoke to the heart, spoke from the heart.” Nowak called St. John XXIII someone who simply felt the call of God in his heart. This “caretaker pope,” he said, stretched out his arms to welcome the 20th century and tear down barriers between the faithful and clergy. He wanted the basic language of the Church to be the language of love, said Nowak. He went on to say that St. John XXIII was the beginning and St. John Paul II was the natural progression, carrying out what the former pope started. By 5 a.m., parishioners lined up to venerate the relic of St. John Paul II before walking out into the sunrise on this historic day. More to come from The Catholic Register.
KRAKOW, Poland - Tens of thousands of Polish Catholics celebrated their country's newest saint -- John Paul II -- by converging on the southern city where he served as cardinal-archbishop before becoming pope.