Mississauga, Ont. - It will be a special Christmas for the family of Dina Al-Sammak and Fawaz Fatohi; their son, David, turns a year old this Christmas season, which marks the family’s two-year anniversary in Canada.
Like many Catholic families in the multicultural Greater Toronto Area, the family will be celebrating with Christmas Mass and family get-togethers, integrating some of the cultural traditions of their Iraqi homeland into the festivities.
Before being sponsored as refugees by Mississauga’s St. Dominic Catholic Church in 2009, Al-Sammak says attending Christmas Mass and celebrating with family in Baghdad were luxuries they could not participate in because of the post-war violence in Iraq.
Christmas ornaments featuring a kneeling soldier and the words “Never Alone/Jamais Seul” are being sold in a campaign to raise awareness of Canada’s new war veterans.
The campaign is run by Jane Twohey, a Military Christian Fellowship of Canada volunteer from Port Perry, Ont., northeast of Toronto.
Twohey wants to commemorate the service of Canadian soldiers and chaplains serving in missions around the world through the Christmas ornaments.
Pope's trip to Cuba holds layers of spiritual, political hopes
By Patricia Zapor Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON - Pope Benedict XVI's trip to Cuba in the spring will have multiple layers of meaning for the church and for Cuban society, said a U.S. archbishop who pays close attention to Cuba.
The pope will go there as a symbol of peace and hope, as a pilgrim participating in "a springtime of faith," and as part of the church's efforts at creating the climate for a "soft landing" for the country to come out from under 50 years of communist rule, said Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski in a Dec. 14 interview with Catholic News Service.
A glance at the mantle this time of year can give the average Catholic entirely the wrong idea about the Bible.
“You see creche scenes — they cram everything from both Gospels (Matthew and Luke) in there, not realizing that if you line up both those Nativity stories there are inconsistencies and contradictions,” said Jesuit New Testament scholar Fr. Scott Lewis. “Don’t try to mix the four Gospels together. Then you just get a meaningless glop.”
The popular mash up of sentimental baby imagery found everywhere from creches to Christmas cards to movies on TV is a problem for priests preaching on Christmas morning, said St. Peter’s Seminary Scripture professor Fr. Richard Charrette.
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Santa Maria la Menor, the oldest cathedral in the Americas, sits just off a busy plaza in this Caribbean city’s colonial district. However, it’s the nearby bronze Christopher Columbus statue, Hard Rock Cafe and cigar shops that draw the lines of tourists in the plaza.
“We came to see the colonial area. The churches are a nice part of that. But they’re not the reason we came,” said Maria Torres, who perused the shops that ring the plaza after snapping a photo of the statue.
A life-long Catholic, Torres, who was visiting from Spain, asked, “The oldest in the Americas? I had no idea.”
TORONTO - Close to 7,000 Catholic elementary students could lose their breakfast program if proposed City of Toronto budget cuts are passed, says Trustee Maria Rizzo.
Without the breakfast program, kids will be going to school hungry, she said, and would be detrimental to student learning.
“I hope (Mayor) Rob Ford can make sure they'll give them a little bit of gravy,” Rizzo told The Catholic Register.
Education Minister confident Catholic boards will meet anti-bullying criteria
By Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten praised the anti-bullying initiatives undertaken by Ontario Catholic school boards and said she is “very confident” that Catholic schools can fulfill new government requirements to make schools safer.
Broten told The Catholic Register that she was “pleased when we launched the comprehensive action plan last week” and “standing side by side with Catholic teachers and trustees, each and every one of them was standing up against bullying.”
TORONTO - It's a hallway and a museum and an innovative therapy all at the same time. Providence Healthcare unveiled its Memory Lane to three dozen Sisters of St. Joseph, benefactors and friends Nov. 30.
The hallway is full of memorabilia from the history of the Toronto hospital and the Sisters who built it up from nothing in 1851 to one of Canada's leading rehabilitation hospitals. Providence Healthcare patients battling memory loss are often encouraged to spend time with the Memory Lane's interactive displays to discover what memories old typewriters, nuns' habits, furniture, etc. will stir up.
This weekend we've got reviews of two oscar contenders. Alexander Payne's The Descendants and Michelle Williams' homage to Marily Monroe, My Week with Marilyn.
TORONTO - Toronto Catholic District School Board trustees re-elected board chair Ann Andrachuk for a second term at their Dec. 1 board meeting.
Andrachuk spoke of the board's accomplishments in the past year, including balancing its budget, establishing committees on governance and student achievement and selecting a new director of education.
“We have been riding the crest of a wave,” she said. “I look forward to leading this board as we continue to move together with a strong and unified voice and shared wisdom, always focused on student success and achievement.”
More...
Vatican II treasure hunt: Committee seeks bishops' notes, diaries
By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY - With a view toward the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, a pontifical committee has launched a worldwide treasure hunt.
Many of the more than 2,800 cardinals and bishops who participated in all or part of the 1962-65 council kept diaries, or at least notes; some wrote articles for their diocesan newspapers and most -- in the days before emails and relatively cheap trans-Atlantic phone calls -- wrote letters home.
The Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences is asking church archivists, and even the family members of deceased council fathers, to look through their papers to find reflections that can add a personal touch to the historical research already conducted on the official acts of the council.
TORONTO - The key to a successful school, says principal Dianne Parwicki, is a strong partnership between parents, the school and the community,
“Leadership means building trust between parents and the school,” said Parwicki, who was honoured for her leadership with a Principal of Excellence Award by the Toronto Association of Parents in Catholic Education.
Parwicki, principal at Toronto's Fr. John Redmond High School, was honoured along with Toni Mayer, principal at Toronto's Holy Spirit Elementary School.
TORONTO - Birthright International has been for more than four decades a place that provides a loving alternative to abortion, said co-president Mary Berney.
“We’re here to help women and to basically show them how they can have their baby,” Berney told The Catholic Register.
Founded in Toronto in 1968 by Louise Summerhill, a mother of seven, Birthright International now has about 350 offices in Canada, the United States and Africa.
Solid, lasting and happy marriages aren’t as rare as the entertainment industry would seem to suggest — and are worth talking about.
And a group of mothers who had gathered for a Valentine’s Day event with their kids realized that.
“We were sitting around talking, then we started reminiscing about our romances and I was just so moved by different peoples’ stories and how God had helped them along,” said Kathy Cassanto, a mother from Braeside, Ont., who was so moved by her friends’ courtship stories she suggested they gather more stories and compile them into a book.