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March 2020

March 5

The Resurrection revisited

March 5, 2020

Opera Atelier does not do anything by half-measures. This Easter, Toronto’s world-renowned company specializing in baroque opera is doing Handel’s The Resurrection full bore.

Peter Stockland: There’s no mystery to this deception

March 5, 2020

Friends, acquaintances and the general commentariat have all been roiling over the revelations about Jean Vanier as a serial sex abuser.

Bethlehem holy sites to be closed after COVID-19 reported at hotel

March 5, 2020

JERUSALEM -- The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem urged its faithful to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health, following its order March 5 to close all schools, universities, mosques and churches, including the Church of the Nativity and Shepherd's field.

March 6

MP’s bill targets sex-selection abortion

March 6, 2020

OTTAWA -- Sex-selection abortion is “antithetical to our commitment to equality” and should be banned, said a Conservative MP as she introduced a private member’s bill that targets health workers who knowingly abort a fetus because it is a girl.

Confirmed case of COVID-19 in Vatican City

March 6, 2020

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican health clinic was closed temporarily after a person tested positive for the coronavirus, the Vatican announced.

Religion a factor in more than a third of hate crimes

March 6, 2020

The number of hate crimes motivated by religion are down, according to the latest statistics, but that doesn’t bring much comfort to those who are targeted.

For-profit multinational given welfare project

March 6, 2020

The job of helping people on welfare in Ontario’s Peel Region to find a job has fallen to the Canadian subsidiary of an Australian multinational.

French cardinal Barbarin resigns following overturned abuse conviction

March 6, 2020

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, five weeks after a French appeals court overturned his conviction for failing to report clerical sexual abuse.

Real ‘spiritual direction’ has defined boundaries

March 6, 2020

That Jean Vanier preyed on women who thought of him as their spiritual director is obviously a serious case of spiritual and sexual abuse. It’s also an illustration of the difference between real spiritual direction and mumbo jumbo, said Montreal-based spiritual director Jesuit Br. Dan Leckman.

Robert Kinghorn: If I knew then what I know now…

March 6, 2020

Driving downtown, the weather forecast came on the radio: “The temperature tonight is expected to plummet to a low of minus-14 degrees with a windchill factor making it feel like minus-25. The health department has issued a warning that at these temperatures frostbite to exposed skin can occur within minutes.”

March 7

Budget stokes anxiety among Catholics

March 7, 2020

EDMONTON -- Alberta’s Catholic community is sharing in the anxiety over the United Conservative Party (UCP) government’s 2020 budget.

Statistics don’t tell whole poverty story

March 7, 2020

OTTAWA -- The federal government is touting recent statistics that indicate that the poverty rate in Canada is on a downward spiral, but social justice and anti-poverty groups say the statistics don’t tell the whole story and there is still a lot of work to be done if Canada is going to reduce poverty levels for Indigenous Canadians and those who live in remote areas of the country.

Church treasures found in antique shop

March 7, 2020

EDMONTON -- Angie Frizzell’s chance trip to an Edmonton antique mall has uncovered a treasure trove of priceless Catholic artifacts that were mistakenly sold to a dealer and put up for sale.

Fr. Raymond de Souza: The nature of devil’s sin still holds lesson for us

March 7, 2020

Temptations indulged, temptations resisted. On the first Sunday of Lent we heard about the devil’s tempting of Adam and Eve in the garden, to catastrophic effect, and the devil’s tempting of the Lord Jesus in the desert, to salvific effect.

March 8

God's Word on Sunday: God is closest when times are tough

March 8, 2020

Third Sunday of Lent, March 15 (Year A) Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42 Water is an absolute necessity for life. We feel its absence very quickly and soon reach a point where we would do anything to quench our thirst.

Green Churches keeps eye on the prize

March 8, 2020

It’s been a slow process for the Green Churches Network in its aim to be a truly national chain of faith-based organizations bent on improving environmental practices, but it is making small gains every day, said its new director.

Building blocks for a nation

March 8, 2020

As we enter the third decade of the 2000s, the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Sudbury can look back 45 years to the elders who set the stage for the growth of Indigenous Studies as a discipline across Canada and, indeed, across the world.

March 9

Vatican closes museums as it battles spread of coronavirus

March 9, 2020

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican has instituted new measures and closures to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.

After leading 'virtual' Angelus, pope blesses crowd in St. Peter's Square

March 9, 2020

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis did not recite the Sunday Angelus from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square March 8, but he did go to the window to wave and to bless the pilgrims who showed up anyway.

March 11

Vatican closes St. Peter's Square, Basilica to tourists through April 3

March 11, 2020

VATICAN CITY — In co-operation with Italian emergency measures, the Vatican has closed St. Peter's Square and Basilica to tourists starting March 10 through April 3.