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January 14, 2016
For the past 50 years, beginning with the 1965 Vatican II decree Nostra aetate, Catholic-Jewish dialogue has steadily improved to the point that today the relationship between Catholics and Jews has never been stronger.
Belgian spiritual writer Bieke Vandekerckhove comes by her wisdom honestly. She didn’t learn what she shares from a book or even primarily from the good example of others. She learned what she shares through the crucible of a unique suffering, being hit at the tender age of 19 with a terminal disease that promised not just an early death but also a complete breakdown and humiliation of her body enroute to that death.
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) Jan. 24 (Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21) The moment of true conversion of heart and mind should always be an occasion of rejoicing. Often people look back on their errant journey with shame and despondency, wasting a lot of time and energy on self-condemnation.
QUEBEC CITY - A well-known personality in Colombia, he fled to Canada to stay alive. Uprooted, new to the French language, he lived in precariousness in Quebec City, drawing strength to live from his family and his faith. Now he is in charge of the Latino community of the Archdiocese of Quebec.
The Canadian Catholic Organization For Development and Peace greeted 2016 with a new look that reflects its evolving mandate and its role in the global Caritas network of Catholic development and humanitarian agencies.
ROME - History and geography have combined to make Catholic-Jewish relations in Rome unique, both negatively and positively -- a fact highlighted by modern papal visits to the city's main synagogue just two miles from the Vatican.
Newfoundland’s oldest standing wooden church has never had electricity but being unable to power-up a computer hasn’t deterred supporters from taking an ambitious fundraising campaign online.
January 15, 2016
Over Christmas break I had the privilege of attending Catholic Christian Outreach’s annual Rise Up conference. Throughout the five-day conference I reflected on the conference theme “Made for Greatness” and how it relates to my life.
I never imagined that meeting two nuns at a Chinese Catholic camp last September would lead me two months later to the home of my parish’s patron saint, Rose of Lima.
The Anglican Communion voted to censure its American branch, the Episcopal Church, during a meeting in Canterbury, England, called to reflect on the future of the communion.
Widespread opposition to doctor-assisted suicide is beginning to reshape consultations on how Ontario should regulate the practice in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision to decriminalize voluntary euthanasia in some circumstances.
OTTAWA - The Criminal Code, the Supreme Court and even the Pope uphold that a parent is entitled within reasonable limits to spank a child. But on the heels of a call by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to prohibit spanking, the Liberal government has promised to amend the Criminal Code to abolish a parent’s right to physically discipline children.
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican is not "a den of thieves," and such insinuations are an injustice to employees who are proud to serve the pope and the church, said Archbishop Angelo Becciu, a top official in the Vatican Secretariat of State.
The first death by legal euthanasia in Canadian history has occurred, according to a Quebec healthcare spokesperson.
The federal government has been given four more months to come up with new laws and regulations to govern the practice of doctor-assisted suicide.
January 16, 2016
Five years to produce six half-hour television shows sounds like an extremely generous timeline, but God is an extremely generous executive producer in Deacon Pedro Guevara Mann’s eyes.
Can playing video games help youth kick a drug habit? Hamilton’s Good Shepherd centre is hoping to find out.
ROME - Paul Bhatti, a Roman Catholic, worked as a surgeon in his home country of Pakistan and in Europe, while his brother, Shahbaz, went into politics and became Pakistan’s only Christian Cabinet member as the country’s first minister of minority affairs.
January 17, 2016
As Canada continues to fall far short of raising $100 million for Syria relief, more than a quarter of the money raised so far across Canada was raised by three Catholic agencies.
Few artists have left as lasting a legacy as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In just 35 years of life he composed more than 600 musical works that are acknowledged as the pinnacle of symphonic, operatic, orchestral and choral music.