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On June 12, 1984, Ontario Premier Bill Davis surprised everyone with the announcement that the province’s Roman Catholic schools would be put on equal footing with the public school system and be fully funded through the end of high school. The end of the long fight to secure the funding — which included intense lobbying efforts by Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter — also brought out some words of caution by The Catholic Register’s Fr. Tom Raby in his column of June 30, 1984:

June 5 marks the 50th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Sen. Robert Kennedy, less than five years after the murder of his brother President John Kennedy and just two months after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down. The 42-year-old Catholic senator was the leading candidate for Democratic nomination for the presidency at the time he was shot in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan, and his death 26 hours later prompted mourning around the world. The next day in Toronto, Bishop F.A. Marrocco eulogized Kennedy at a memorial Mass, as reported in The Register of June 15, 1968: 

The world’s most famous quintuplets, the five Dionne girls, were born May 28, 1934 to poor Catholic parents Oliva and Elzire Dionne on their farm near Corbeil, Ont. They were the first quints to survive infancy and were instant global sensations. Fearing they would be exploited, the Ontario government made the girls wards of the province with special legislation (the Croll Bill). It prompted a fierce debate over parental rights, which played out in the pages of The Register. Later, a fierce custody battle resulted in the girls returning to their parents in 1943 after an early childhood that saw them put on public display in a specially-built hospital and nursery called Quintland. In 1998, three surviving sisters won a $2.8 million settlement from Ontario as a result of their exploitation. In the April 11, 1935 Register, the parents made their case against the Croll Bill in a letter to the editor:

A new, three-year pastoral plan will drive Toronto’s 195 Catholic schools and 91,000 Catholic students to a deeper sense of who they are and what they are meant to be, even as campaigning Ontario politicians promise to tinker with school curricula to gain votes.

There was worldwide disbelief on May 13, 1981 as word spread that Pope John Paul II had been shot four times in an assassination attempt. The gunman was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned in 2000 at the request of John Paul. This is The Catholic Register’s report in the wake of the the attempt on the pontiff’s life, from May 23, 1981:

The kids at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener, Ont., are breaking down walls with science, or more accurately, one particular wall in the middle of their school gym. 

To the boys on the senior high school soccer team, it was only natural to reach out to people their age who were suffering in the northern part of the province. 

A small handmade gift can have a big impact. 

Michelle Dubre cried with joy when she heard the news.