{mosimage}MONTREAL - The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has turned to Newfoundland to find a new president of its national council.

Pat Hogan of St. John’s has been elected as the new president, according to a Dec. 16 news release from the organization’s head office in Montreal. At one-time a teacher in Zambia with CUSO, Hogan joined Development and Peace in 1996 and served as chair of the St. John’s diocesan council and as a member of the education committee prior to being elected to the national council in 2004.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Campus pro-life groups have gained an ally in their battle to be heard at universities across Canada.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has urged student unions at universities and colleges to not deny club status to groups that oppose abortion. The association made its view known in a letter sent to student unions across Canada in late January.

{mosimage}As an investigation proceeds into Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace's funding policies, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging Catholics to continue to give to the development and humanitarian assistance arm of the Canadian church.

In the first statement from the bishops since an Internet site accused the Development and Peace of funding "pro-abortion groups" in Mexico, conference president Archbishop James Weisgerber invoked Pope Benedict XVI's mission to Africa and the worldwide financial crisis as reasons to continue to give generously.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The ecumenical social justice coalition KAIROS claims the Conservative government has been less than honest with a delegation of Colombians who came to Canada to lobby against a free trade deal.

KAIROS sponsored a delegation of Colombian church and civil society leaders on a visit to Canada in February. The group received assurances Canada wouldn’t proceed with an already negotiated free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia until concerns about the South American nation’s human rights record have been investigated.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Two bishops from eastern Canada will lead an inquiry into allegations that funds from the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace have gone to Mexican groups that have ties to abortion advocacy.

Archbishop Martin W. Currie of St. John’s, Nfld., and Bishop François Lapierre, P.M.É., of Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., were to go to Mexico April 15-18 to meet with local bishops, announced the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

{mosimage}The Jantzi Social Index continued to keep pace with standard market indices through the May climb back to a shaky respectability.

The Jantzi — which picks its 60 Canadian stocks based on environmental sustainability, labour and human rights performance and transparent governance — was up 10.68 per cent in May and 32.2 per cent over the previous three months.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Toronto Auxiliary Bishop Richard Grecco bishop of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

At the same time the Pope accepted the resignation of Bishop Vernon Fougere, Charlottetown’s bishop since 1992, for reasons of health.

“I am humbled by the announcement of the Holy Father and look forward with great joy to serving the people of the diocese of Charlottetown," said Grecco of  the July 11 announcement. "I send my thoughts and prayers to all those on Prince Edward Island and look forward to joining their community shortly.”

Sr. Nuala Kenny, who has spent most of her life facing down what she calls the “de-moralization of modern medicine” in the context of advancing technology and commercialization, will receive the Canadian Medical Association ’s Dr. William Marsden Award for leadership in medical ethics.

Kenny is a pediatrician, a former professor of medicine and ethics at the University of Toronto, Queen’s University and Dalhousie University , and a one-time deputy minister of health of Nova Scotia. She founded Dalhousie’s department of bioethics and served on the ethics committees of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada , the Canadian Pediatric Society, the National Council for Bioethics in Human Research , the National Science Advisory Board and the National Forum on Health. She has been president of both the Canadian Pediatric Society and the Canadian Bioethics Society. She is an officer of the Order of Canada , was a founding member of the Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research , one of the founders of the Governing Council of the Health Council of Canada and one of the founders of Canadian Doctors for Medicare .

{mosimage}TORONTO - Canadian Catholics are funnelling money as fast as they can to bishops in the Philippines as the dioceses in and around Manila struggle to deal with massive destruction and loss of life left by Typhoon Ketsana.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace immediately sent $50,000 and set up toll-free phone lines and a web site to accept donations. In Toronto, where a majority of the city’s 172,000 Filipinos are Catholic
parishioners, ShareLife is also accepting donations.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It is “astonishing” and “pathetic” that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is advocating that Canada fund overseas abortions as part of a strategy to improve health care for women and children, said Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins and Calgary Bishop Fred Henry.

The bishops were responding to statements made by the opposition leader after Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada, as president of the G8, would champion an international initiative to bring basic health care to mothers and children in the world’s poorest countries. Ignatieff declared his party would only support the initiative if Harper’s measures included provisions for abortion and contraception.