March 2024

Share Lent focuses on farm workers’ rights

Luke Mandato · March 7, 2024

Development and Peace - Caritas Canada's annual Share Lent campaign is in full swing, focusing this year on impacting rural and peasant communities around the world.

Justified slaughter?

March 7, 2024

My family and I visited the Holy Land more than 40 years ago and witnessed discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. After 75 years of such treatment, the Oct.7 event should not be a surprise.

Wrapping ourselves in holy Catholic warmth

March 7, 2024

The world can be a cold, unfriendly, even hostile and angry place — online and offline. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s not supposed to be that way. God created an earthly paradise for us, but when we reject Him and His ways, we reject our true selves, each other and everything we’re actually longing for. We become prideful and selfish. Put a bunch of prideful and selfish people together and you have a recipe for guaranteed misery.

A sacrament to recognize God’s healing love

March 7, 2024

Known by different names over the centuries — “anointing of the sick,” “extreme unction” and “last rites” — it was administered only at the point of death. The Church now teaches it “is not a sacrament intended only for those who are at the point of death. Hence, it is certain that as soon as any of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, this is already a suitable time for them to receive this sacrament.”

Honouring a prophet of his own country

March 7, 2024

Alexey Navalny was surely a hero. Perhaps he was also a saint. Little evidence is available to buttress the hope that he might someday be recognized as such. Navalny, the Russian dissident who died/was murdered Feb. 16, spoke little of his conversion from militant atheism to Christian Orthodoxy during his abbreviated life.

Sneaking polyamory past its sleeping victims

March 7, 2024

“Is Toronto finally shaking off the sexual stigma of polyamory?” reads the recent headline in the Toronto Star. News outlets have been peddling polyamory apologetics after a middle-aged woman released a book about her life-changing adventures pursuing polyamory in January 2024.

Without truth, there’s no reconciliation

Calgary Bishop emeritus Henry honoured for challenging residential schools’ consensus

Peter Stockland · March 8, 2024

Calgary’s emeritus Bishop Fred Henry has been named one of the world’s “Top 10 people of 2023” by Inside the Vatican magazine for challenging the consensus on graves at former Indian residential schools.

Thirst for Scripture quenched with Bible and Beer

Luke Mandato · March 8, 2024

Each month, Ignite Young Adult Ministry welcomes young guests for a unique spin on a Bible study mixer, hosting monthly Bible and Beer sessions at St. Patrick's Church in downtown Toronto.

God's Word on Sunday: A time of reckoning is time for renewal

March 8, 2024

Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year B) March 10 (2 Chronicles 36:14-17a, 19-23; Psalm 137; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21) Why had God allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed and the people to be driven into exile? The author of Chronicles was attempting to make sense of the devastation and ruin that had befallen his land and people. There was more than enough blame to go around. Both the priests and the people had fallen into corruption and pollution of the worst sort. In the eyes of the author, things like this do not just happen — there is always a cause, and most of the time the cause is human in origin.

You can co-exist as Indigenous, Christian speakers share

‘I am a child of God. That’s exactly who I am’

Quinton Amundson · March 9, 2024

Father Deacon Andrew Bennett is on an ongoing quest to reveal how Indigenous culture and Christianity coexist harmoniously and authentically.

Canada mission ‘intimidating’ for Nuncio

March 9, 2024

As lunch companions go, an archbishop who has been serving in the Vatican’s diplomatic service for 40 years is in high demand.

Filipino Catholics resurrect Manitoba parish

Quinton Amundson · March 10, 2024

The revival of St. Isidore Parish in Vita, Man., 13 years after it closed in 2011 due to a dwindling congregation, was sparked by curiosity.

Irish voters resoundingly reject proposals to redefine family, undermine motherhood

Michael Kelly · March 11, 2024

The Irish prime minister, known as the Taoiseach, has conceded that his government was defeated "comprehensively" when voters rejected amendments to the constitution that the country's bishops warned would have weakened supports for marriage and undermined motherhood.

Ukraine has ‘no choice but to defend’ itself: bishops

Gina Christian · March 13, 2024

Ukraine’s Greek Catholic bishops, led by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, have said their nation will continue to fight Russian aggression, “notwithstanding the suggestions for (the) need for negotiations coming from representatives of different countries, including the Holy Father himself.”

Abuse charges withdrawn against Toronto priest

Catholic Register Staff · March 13, 2024

Sexual abuse charges have been withdrawn against a Toronto priest on loan to the Diocese of Peterborough.

Egyptian Catholic clergy say interreligious ties are being derailed by 'Fiducia'

Jonathan Luxmoore · March 13, 2024

Catholic clergy from Egypt have warned that ties with Orthodox and Islamic leaders are being derailed by a Vatican decision to allow the blessing of same-sex couples, after the country's influential Coptic Orthodox Church suspended dialogue over the issue.

Vatican court upholds climate activists’ conviction

Cindy Wooden · March 13, 2024

The Vatican City appeals court upheld the conviction of two Italian climate activists who glued their hands to an ancient sculpture in the Vatican Museums.

Conservatives all in on exploitation bill

Law targeting online porn in works for three years

Quinton Amundson · March 13, 2024

In contrast to the controversial Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) recently tabled by the federal government, Conservative MPs are putting their weight behind Bill C-270 to prevent young people from being exploited by online pornography.

D&P harnesses film to spread social justice

Luke Mandato · March 13, 2024

The Diocese of Hamilton and Development and Peace - Caritas Canada are harnessing the power of film to educate people on social issues across the globe in a casual yet engaging way.

Pope tasks judge to investigate Cardinal Lacroix

Sexual misconduct allegations levelled against Quebec Archbishop

François Gloutnay · March 14, 2024

Pope Francis has asked a retired Quebec judge to conduct an investigation “into the facts, circumstances and imputability of (an) alleged offense” targeting Quebec Cardinal Gérald Lacroix.