One of the more encouraging signs for the Catholic Church in Canada may have been Cardinal Thomas Collins planting his foot on top of a shovel in the backyard of an old house on Toronto’s St. George Street in early November.

Something big, free and political is coming live to Toronto Catholics before the Oct. 21 federal election. 

OTTAWA - After a year of controversy over the requirements for Canada Summer Jobs funding, the 2019 list of grants reveal many Catholic and evangelical parishes and charities have been successful in obtaining money.

Harry McAvoy is the former Manager, Major Gifts and Corporate Campaigns for ShareLife in the Archdiocese of Toronto. He shares his story of dealing with memory loss.

It is interesting where your mind goes in your darkest hours. I remembered a phrase attributed to my Uncle Basil O’Rourke: “Carry your cross, don’t drag it.” Now, as I carry the cross of memory loss, Uncle Basil is whispering in my ear.

Barely two weeks into a capital campaign to raise funds for the Archdiocese of Toronto’s newest church — named after Canada’s newest saint — about $150,000 has been collected, raising hopes shovels will be in the ground by the end of 2020.

Among 18 Canadians who died in a March 10 plane crash in Ethiopia was a graduate of Toronto’s Catholic school system who had just been accepted into teachers’ college.

Laura Krajewski was a light. 

After topping $13 million for the first time last year, ShareLife is reaching even higher this year as it brings three more agencies under its charitable umbrella.

Winter was settling in and it was a blustery, cold evening as I walked around the streets with Tracey, a survivor of the street who for 14 drug-addled years had called the alleys and drug dens of the downtown area “home.” 

It was one of those nights when I was challenged by Pope Francis’ insightful observation in The Joy of the Gospel: “The Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas.”

OTTAWA – After 10 years at the helm of Citizens for Public Justice, Joe Gunn, 64, is leaving Feb. 11 to head up the new Oblate Centre at Saint Paul University in Ottawa.

Stan Surman has officially been retired for more than 20 years, but not when it comes to his work at church.

With $800,000 from Toronto in their bank account, Canada’s Catholic development agency is looking forward to settling all outstanding questions about whether 52 of its 180 partners are out of step with Catholic teaching before it begins its fund-raising campaign in March.

Alicia Escobar was 10 years old when Pope St. John Paul II came to Toronto in 2002 for World Youth Day. She was too young to participate but remembers the excitement, and now she’s looking forward to experiencing that for herself.

Churches of all denominations across Canada are being asked to participate in the Royal Canadian Legion’s Bells of Peace at sunset on Remembrance Day, Nov. 11.