Dead wrong: Catholics must no longer support capital punishment
By Carol Glatz, Catholic News ServiceVATICAN CITY - The Catholic Church's position on capital punishment has evolved considerably over the centuries.
And as a result, "it is not a message that is immediately understood -- that there is no room for supporting the death penalty in today's world," said a Vatican's expert on capital punishment and arms control.
Because the church has only in the past few decades begun closing the window -- if not shutting it completely -- on the permissibility of the death penalty, people who give just a partial reading of the church's teachings may still think the death penalty is acceptable today, said Tommaso Di Ruzza, desk officer at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
St. Thomas Aquinas equated a dangerous criminal to an infected limb thereby making it "praiseworthy and healthful" to kill the criminal in order to spare the spread of infection and safeguard the common good.
TORONTO - New Toronto Catholic District School Board’s director of education Bruce Rodrigues hopes to bring the “strong work ethic” and “humble leadership” he learned in Toronto Catholic schools to his new role as head of Canada’s largest Catholic school board.
Rodrigues, associate director at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, begins his new job on Oct. 3.
“The things that I learned (as a TCDSB student) were strong Catholic values. I learned about having a strong work ethic and the importance of diversity,” he told The Catholic Register.
Rodrigues attended St. Francis Xavier Elementary School and Chaminade College High School in Toronto. He also taught summer school at Don Bosco High School and a few months at Cardinal McGuigan High School.
OTTAWA - Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins urged Catholic school trustees not to compromise fidelity to the Catholic faith as they face government pressure to adopt policies contrary to Church teaching.
Speaking to the annual conference of the Canadian Catholic School Trustees’ Association in Ottawa Sept. 23, Collins exhorted everyone involved in Catholic education to become disciples of Christ and to fully participate in the New Evangelization, which he described as proclaiming the Word in places where the Gospel has been forgotten and God has been squeezed out.
“We are marinated in secularism,” he said, urging those present to take a look at the working document for the upcoming Synod on the New Evangelization called by Pope Benedict XVI.
The year 1959 is a couple of generations ago — hardly a blink of an eye in the gaze of history. But on Sept. 15, 1959, Georges Vanier took office as Governor General of Canada with words few leaders would speak in public today.
“My first words are a prayer,” said the old soldier. “May almighty God in His infinite wisdom and mercy bless the sacred mission which has been entrusted to me by Her Majesty the Queen and help me to fulfill it in all humility. In exchange for His strength, I offer Him my weakness. May He give peace to this beloved land of ours and, to those who live in it, the grace of mutual understanding, respect and love.”
A new biography of Georges and Pauline Vanier by Mary Frances Coady tells the story of their lives lived in tandem, driven by high ideals and understood as a spiritual enterprise. Georges and Pauline Vanier: Portrait of a Couple covers a century of history in which Canada emerged from a semi-colonial backwater to become a modern nation. But rather than a march through two world wars and into the Cold War, Coady presents this history through the intimate lens of a marriage.
Dufferin-Peel board launches book on history of Catholic education
By Michael Swan, The Catholic RegisterMISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Grade 7 and 10 students in Dufferin-Peel west of Toronto are about to welcome 400 years of history on 252 glossy pages into their classrooms, and they have a couple of former students to thank for it.
Our Story. Our Tradition. Our Journey: Celebrating the Church-School Connection in Dufferin-Peel is the first book published in more than 30 years by the Catholic school board that covers Mississauga and Brampton. It’s a history of Catholic education in Ontario and the region. The timeline stretches back as far as the Jesuit martyrs of the 17th century.
Former students Daniel Francavilla and Jennifer Paul were asked to work on the book by their media studies teacher, Peter Fujiwara. What began as a little design and layout project ended up stretching out for a year. The pair graduated from St. Marguerite d'Youville Secondary School in Brampton, Francavilla in 2008 and Paul in 2009.
OTTAWA - Many people find that getting away for a retreat is impossible due to time, money or family reasons. Even finding a free weekend can be difficult in our busy lives.
Aside from a day at my church during Advent and Lent, where parishioners gather for lectures, quiet time and a silent meal, I haven’t attended a formal retreat in more than a decade.
Instead, I have discovered the simplest, most flexible way for me to make a retreat is to find my way to the nearest adoration chapel and stay there for an hour or two. Over the past year, I have done this frequently. I have also been blessed with the grace to pray three novenas that included a minimum of an hour of adoration for every one of the nine days.
VANCOUVER - Every May, the graduating class of St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary School in North Vancouver, B.C., attends a three-day retreat organized and facilitated by school staff and alumni. My Grade 12 retreat four years ago is one of my fondest memories of high school. So it was a blessing this past May to be invited to help lead the 2011 class in this spiritual exercise.
The objective of the retreat, held at Camp Stillwood (about a two-hour drive from Vancouver), is to help students open up to God and to each other. Students begin from varying levels of spirituality; we had to ensure they understood that.
The retreat had all the activities that a large-scale retreat should have: a morning of team building exercises and games, a campfire, free time and an evening devoted to hilarious skits (making fun of teachers is encouraged). As a leader, I was responsible for leading some of these games, leading small group discussions and helping lead worship.
The first thing Fr. Phil Hurley makes clear is that when he is speaking about Hearts on Fire he is not referring to a popular line of engagement rings.
“This is not the world’s most perfectly cut diamond,” he jokes.
The priest is the national youth and young adult director of the Apostleship of Prayer, a Jesuit association leading the Hearts on Fire retreats. The retreats are for young adults ages 18-39, married or single, based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer.
“It’s a crucial time for people in their lives,” Hurley told Catholic News Service. “They are at a place in their life that they can make decisions soon and take action on it right away and make a big difference.”
Does Super Mario go to Mass? Catholic gamers and the video game industry
By Adam Shaw, Catholic News ServiceNEW YORK - Is it possible to be a faithful Catholic and a video gamer?
That's a question all Catholic gaming enthusiasts -- including the young adults at whom many of the industry's offerings are primarily targeted -- must ask themselves as this medium continues to develop and expand its influence over contemporary society.
Once upon a time, back in the 1980s and early 1990s, classic games such as "Pac-Man" and "Super Mario Bros." raised few if any moral issues. So youthful Catholics could casually -- and comfortably -- pick up whatever new release was available at the local store. There was no need for them to worry that the sensitivities of their faith would be assaulted or that troublesome opinions would be aggressively foisted on them by game developers.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has made the dangers of secularism a major theme of his pontificate.
And it's a battle both sides take seriously.
On the one hand, the pope warns that societies without the moorings of Christian values will be lost at sea, unaware of or indifferent to the truth that anchors humanity to justice, peace, respect and solidarity.
On the other side are groups and individuals that hold so tightly to the democratic tenet of church-state separation, they don't want any voice tied to religion to be let loose onto the public square.
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When Jesus predicted His disciples would always have the poor with them, He didn’t mention they would be invisible — unseen, unheard and unthinkable in the political arena.
Ontario’s bishops have again identified poverty as an essential issue facing voters as they go to the polls Oct. 6.
“Jesus directly connects our salvation to how we have tended to the needs of the poor, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the least among us,” wrote the Assembly of Catholic Bishops in its pre-election message. “We face that judgment personally and also as a society.”
In “Your Right to Be Heard: A Guide to the Ontario Election — 2011” (download the full statement here), the bishops urge Catholics to ask candidates about poverty reduction strategies, homelessness, unemployment and “basic income that is sufficient for food and housing.” They also remind Catholics of their duty to vote. “It is inconceivable that people would consciously decide not to vote,” the guide said.
When Fr. James Mallon adopted Monsi from a local animal shelter years ago, he never expected his shepherd mix pup would inspire theology lessons.
“I’d take him out for a walk and he’d do something and a Scripture passage would pop into my head,” the Halifax-based Mallon said.
For example, he’d notice Monsi straining on his leash so hard he was choking himself and Mallon would remember how St. Paul wrote about how “we strain forward and we forget what lies behind.”
The priest would see Monsi (short for monsignor) running in the park and experience such joy watching him that he’d think to himself, “If I get such pleasure watching my dog being a dog, I wonder how much God gets pleasure in our being who we’re supposed to be.”
TORONTO - There are lots of numbers associated with Sept. 11, 2001. More than 3,000 people were killed including 19 hijackers. Another 6,000+ people were injured. There were nearly three million square metres of Manhattan office space damaged or destroyed. New York’s gross domestic product declined $27.3 billion in the 15 months following the attacks.
Nobody counts the number of prayers.
At the Newman Centre at the University of Toronto, Fr. Pat O’Dea watched in horror at the face of evil revealed on television — “That’s all it is, pure evil,” he said. But he also watched in wonder at the outpouring of prayer on the downtown campus.
All week long the St. Thomas Aquinas Church remained open for anyone who wanted to pray, and hundreds did, recalled O’Dea, who was pastor at the Newman Centre at the time.
On a recent lecture tour around the world, I experienced the universality of the Catholic Church in the local culture through the sacred mystery of the Eucharist. On four successive Sundays attending Mass in Beijing, New Delhi, Stockholm and London, I felt a unity with people I did not know, infused by liturgy that embraces us all. How different in each locale; how the same. Christ, I realized anew, binds us all wherever we are in the world.
The first Sunday, I attended the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the oldest Catholic church in Beijing. It was first erected in the middle of the 16th century and has twice been rebuilt. Shut down during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, the church is now in good repair. Though the Mass in English attracted foreign visitors, there were many Chinese present. Most Masses are, in fact, in Chinese.
Standing guard outside the cathedral was a bronze statue of Matteo Ricci, the Italian Jesuit scientist who was one of the first Catholic missionaries to China. He arrived there in 1582 and became famous for his mastery of Chinese language, his erudition and adaptation of Chinese customs. He explained the Catholic faith not as something foreign but as the most perfect manifestation of the existing faith of the Chinese people, who believed in “the Lord of Heaven.”