Maximizing impact of your contributions through insurance
By Quentin Schesnuik, Catholic Register SpecialFew people realize that insurance can be used to make a substantial gift to their parish or favourite archdiocesan charity at a relatively low monthly cost.
Depending on your age, the amount of the policy and your tax bracket, a gift of insurance could cost you less than a dollar a day after tax.
Joint accounts may seem like a good idea but they come with problems
By Rosanne Rocchi, Catholic Register SpecialOne of the most frequently encountered situations in estate litigation involves the improper use of joint accounts.
Joint accounts are a useful tool but they can also be abused. In fact, lawyers have seen a sharp increase in litigation and disputes arising from the use of jointly held property.
To illustrate, let us assume a fictional Mrs. Smith who has four children. She has left all her assets to be divided equally among them after providing for a number of charitable bequests to her favourite charities. Keep her in mind as you read.
Holding Property Jointly
When making a donation to the Church in your will, remember that what you leave behind doesn’t necessarily have to be monetary.
Non-cash gifts, referred to as gifts in kind, can include stamps, coins, art, musical instruments, real estate, an old car, jewellery, books or computers, according to information published on the archdiocese of Toronto’s development office web site.
These may be gifts used in day-to-day parish activity that enhance spiritual development or help the Catholic community.
You can’t take them with you, so why not donate organs
By Vanessa Santilli-Raimondo, The Catholic RegisterTORONTO - Organ donation is a very Catholic act because it lives the Gospel values, said Deacon Michael Hayes.
Hayes is a living example. He himself is an organ donor who has donated 70 per cent of both his liver and a kidney to help others survive.
“When our earthly days are done, you can take nothing with you which you’ve received, only which you’ve given,” said Hayes, quoting St. Francis of Assisi.
TORONTO - A new archdiocese of Toronto “Planned Giving” poster campaign is using the Apostle’s Creed to inspire legacy gifts to the Catholic Church.
It has a twist however. Instead of just words, the campaign features a poster of children’s drawings which brings the Creed to life.
The poster encourages parishioners to consider legacy gifts in the form of donations through bequests or donations through an insurance policy or family endowment.
A well thought out estate plan can also include gifts made during your lifetime. Gifts of securities have a special advantage in that if gifted directly to your parish or favourite registered charity of choice, you will not have to pay any capital gains tax. But more importantly, a gift of securities can be a wonderful way of making the special gift you always wanted to.
One such gift was made by Ms. Mary Louis, a faithful parishioner at St. Anselm’s parish in Toronto. (Her name has been changed to respect her anonymity). For more than 40 years, Mary spent much of her life caring for others.
Shepherd's Trust - Giving back to a priest who gave to you
By Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic RegisterTORONTO - “He was always there for me.” “He anointed her.” These are just a few of the words Catholics Maria Silva-Alton and Betty Klauke have to say about priests who have meant so much to them over the years.
Silva-Alton, a parishioner of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Brampton, Ont., says priests like Fr. Vid Vlasic have been invaluable to her and her family. Not only was he a mentor to her as a student when he was chaplain at Toronto’s Notre Dame High School, Silva-Alton said, Vlasic was also a friend.
"Canadians at War" - Remembering our fallen on Remembrance Day
By Michael Swan, The Catholic RegisterPasschendaele, Vimy, the Somme, Hill 70 and Flanders Fields are all still there more than 90 years after they swallowed the lives of Canadian farm boys and office clerks. The once scarred and rutted fields of mud have been transformed by green grass, monuments, grave markers and crosses.
“It’s a vast memorial,” said writer Susan Evans Shaw.
Evans Shaw has produced a 350-page guidebook to the battlefields of the First World War called simply Canadians at War. The book is dramatically and amply illustrated with photographs by Jean Crankshaw.
The Vatican's global economy - ‘Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish,’ or timely, pertinent, reasonable?
By Michael Swan, The Catholic RegisterThinking in catholic terms about a global economy ought to be natural. Catholic means global, universal, transcending boundaries. But a Catholic proposal for regulating the global economy has stirred a battle between left and right within the Church.
The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s “note” — issued in advance of the G20 meeting that opened Nov. 3 in Cannes, France — proposed a gradual evolution toward global governance of finance and trade.
On the right the proposal has been dismissed as “rubbish, rubbish, rubbish” by American conservative George Weigel of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Centre. Weigel dismisses the Pontifical Council as “a rather small office in the Roman Curia” without much standing in relation to the teaching office of the Church.
MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Teachers should address homophobia in Catholic schools and embrace the objective of gay-straight alliances, two presenters told delegates at a major education conference.
Kevin Welbes Godin, chair of the Catholic Association of Religious and Family Life Educators, and co-presenter Dave Szolloy, religious department head at Scarborough’s Mother Teresa Catholic High School, said GSAs are necessary to combat bullying in Catholic schools. They were speaking to about 30 teachers Oct. 28 at the When Faith Meets Pedagogy conference.
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Teachers can help make for a more just society, Leddy tells conference
By Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic RegisterMISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Catholic teachers, in their “noble and ethical task” of educating youth about the Catholic faith, can help create a more “just” Canadian society by welcoming refugees, social justice activist Mary Jo Leddy told the 15th annual When Faith Meets Pedagogy conference.
The Oct. 27 to 29 conference, which was sponsored by the Catholic Curriculum Corporation, featured workshops for Catholic school teachers across the province.
In keeping with the conference's theme “Room for all at the table: Gathered, Nourished and Sent Forth,” Leddy spoke on welcoming refugees in Canada.
Religion is part of holistic education of children, Pope says
By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News ServiceVATICAN CITY - A holistic education of children and young people must include religious education in accordance with the wishes of the children's parents, Pope Benedict XVI told Brazil's new ambassador to the Vatican.
The teaching of religion in public schools, "far from signifying that the state assumes or imposes a specific religious creed, indicates a recognition of religion as a necessary value for the holistic formation of the person," the Pope said Oct. 31.
The following is an address delivered by Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins at the 32nd Annual Archbishop’s Dinner, Oct. 27, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto.
This evening, as we come together for this great annual dinner in support of so many worthy causes, our joy is tempered by our sadness at the recent death of His Eminence, Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, who so faithfully served our family of faith as its spiritual leader from 1990 until 2007, and who now has completed his earthly journey. We continue to benefit from the blessings that flowed from his wise leadership, and I in particular will always be grateful for his warm welcome when I came from Edmonton to succeed him here as Archbishop. May his soul, and the souls of all of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
TORONTO - While Toronto’s Coptic Catholics drive their kids to school each morning, show up for work every day and go home to their families in the evening, part of them is living in the Shubra district of Cairo.
They fear for families back home in Shubra. They say relatives they left in Egypt are by turns fearful about the future and their personal safety or marching in the streets. But none predict a refugee crisis on the scale of Iraq’s exodus of Christians.
An Oct. 9 army attack on Coptic demonstrators that killed 26 and injured more than 300 Shubra residents hasn’t really changed the situation, Toronto Copts told The Catholic Register after Mass at Holy Family Coptic Catholic Church Oct. 23.