FREE access to the digital edition and archives until September 2. Click here. →
Browse › 2020 › December
December 17, 2020
Catholics across Canada will mull whether they should attend Christmas week Masses in person or if they should just stay home and watch a virtual service.
It is a sad fact that melancholy is a palatable state of mind for many as Dec. 25 approaches — especially in this year of the pandemic.
This is not the Christmas we envisioned for ourselves or our children. There’s no getting away from that, no matter how hard we try.
Legal opening Re: Liberals to implement UN’s Indigenous rights declaration (Dec. 3): The Trudeau government’s vow to implement Bill C-15, legislation based on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), is certainly a welcome move in that it will inject the full colour and spirit of that document into the Canadian legal system. At its core, the declaration expresses the uniqueness of Indigenous cultures, their ties to the land itself, their spirituality and the necessity of preserving their right to self-determination; this is necessary for their survival and undoing the harm of colonization and racism.
VATICAN CITY -- A French criminal court found an Italian archbishop who was once the Vatican's ambassordor to Canada guilty of sexual assault against four men and handed him, in absentia, an eight-month suspended prison sentence.
Cardinal Thomas Collins has approved a short service to give parishes in lockdown regions within the Archdiocese of Toronto the option of offering Holy Communion on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day while maintaining the 10-person limit in churches.
It’s been a long process, but Sandra Dionisi is finally seeing the fruits of the more than 300 hours labour she put into this year’s Canada Post Christmas stamp.
There is one sure sign that Christmas is around at The Catholic Register — the sudden surge of mail into the office on deadline day for the our annual children’s Christmas drawing contest.
It’s that time again. We rush through the shops, picking those perfect presents for our loved ones. Family and friends will soon surround our Christmas table for a feast, followed by robust caroling and gift exchanging.
COVID-19 Christmas ornaments are flying off the shelves in Ottawa this holiday season.
December 18, 2020
Blind, traumatized and unable to work, Amy Hasbrouck is still fighting a law she believes values disabled lives as less than the lives of the able-bodied.
A diocese of immigrants will be using Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz’s acclaimed Angels Unawares as its Nativity this year.
ROME -- The first evening Australian Cardinal George Pell was incarcerated, he began writing a record of his thoughts and experiences in the form of a diary.
At breakfast recently my daughter noted that my cardigan made me look like an academic. As a professor I wasn’t sure how to take the comment. But I admitted that the first thing I did when I began teaching in a university was to rush out and buy a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows.
Isn’t it fascinating how, back in spring 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the first impulse for comfort and familiarity was an urge to watch Christmas shows? The goodwill and good feels of Christmastime pageantry is powerful medicine.
December 19, 2020
Canada, with 37.6 million people, has agreements to purchase 194 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines with options to buy another 220 million. If all these vaccines pan out, we could vaccinate Canada’s entire population almost six times over.
Already vulnerable and alone, many homeless and at risk youth are finding themselves dealing with more than the coronavirus and its restrictions this Christmas. To them, loneliness is another pandemic.
By Christmas Eve the Advent wreath is aglow with the candles of love, hope, joy and peace, and we await the lighting of the White Candle which signifies the coming of Jesus into our world and into our lives. We pray again that this presence will become a reality which we can sense and touch, but for many it becomes an elusive dream that vanishes when they awaken from their restless sleep.
In a famous fifth-century sermon, St. Leo the Great preached that Christmas is a time for rejoicing. “Sadness should have no place in the birthday of life.”
The students from Sudbury, Ont.’s Marymount Academy have let Canadian military serving overseas that they aren’t forgotten this Christmas season.