Catholic values can help with Alzheimer's, says Dr. Bill Sullivan
By Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - For people struggling with Alzheimer’s Disease, the experience can be painful, bewildering and frightening.But the journey can also be one filled with hope when we apply Catholic values like the inherent human dignity of all and justice for the most vulnerable, said leading Catholic bioethicist Dr. Bill Sullivan at the annual Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute lecture on Nov. 24.
More than 100 people came to hear Sullivan deliver his talk “Ethical and Loving Care of Persons Living with Progressive Cognitive Impairments and Their Families.” The lecture took place at the University of St. Michael’s College.
The Jan. 12 earthquake was over in minutes, but the disaster will be with the Haitian people for many years. While people find a way to get by, there are more tests of faith, hope and charity to come as time passes. Living in tents, carrying water in buckets, walking past mounds of rubble and garbage Haitians have to find the strength each day to carry on.
A tour of churches in Port-au-Prince shows how the destruction left by the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake remains undistrubed. The earthquake killed Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot inside his cathedral instantly, and Vicar General Charles Benoit later. Bodies remain under much of the rubble around the capital city because Haiti lacks the heavy equipment and other resources to clean up.
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Don Trembley started committing armed robbery when he was 12. He grew up to be an honest-to-God Montreal bank robber. The last time he was incarcerated he split seven years between Joyceville Institution in Kingston, Ont., and Warkworth Institution near Campbellford, Ont., for armed robbery, weapons dangerous and assault causing bodily harm.He’s a big guy in a leather vest with a long grey ponytail and a silver cross hanging by a silver chain around his neck. In a Toronto halfway house now, he will remain under the supervision of the prison system for years to come.
Editor’s note: Restorative Justice Week has been marked for the past 20 years by the ecumenical organization that co-ordinates Christian chaplaincy in Canada’s federal prisons. This year, the Nov. 14-21 event comes on the heals of sweeping changes in how criminals are sentenced and how they are reintegrated into society. The Catholic Register looks at how the Church works with prisoners as they re-enter our world.As he sat in jail month after month trying to make sense of his life, Bruce Rowe one day knew he wasn’t quite so interested in freedom.
“I realized when I was inside all of that didn’t matter if I didn’t become a better person,” said Rowe.
American basilica's beauty ranks with European cathedrals
By Lorraine Williams, Catholic Register Special
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - The picturesque city of Asheville in North Carolina is nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. Among its many tourist attractions is a remarkable spiritual gem — the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Located in the city’s core, its striking copper-covered dome, which is the focus of attention when first viewing the basilica, and exquisite interior give it a place of honour among American houses of worship.
PETOSKEY, Mich. - Off the picturesque tourist town of Petoskey lays a beautiful white marble crucifix. But you won’t find it in or even near any church.That’s because it is submerged offshore, in Lake Michigan, in the waters of Little Traverse Bay where it has been since 1962.
How it came to be there is an interesting story.
TORONTO - Michael Carrera knows how vanity driven the fitness industry is. Having worked in gyms for more than a decade, he sees showoffs all the time. And since you can’t change vanity by focusing on vanity, he decided to focus on his faith, pairing it with his profession.Carrera is a certified exercise physiologist and personal trainer with a masters in exercise physiology. He’s also a parishioner at St. Benedict parish in Toronto.
TORONTO - On TV serious, scientific crime scene investigators appear within hours of a murder to gather minute, detailed evidence. Fr. Patrick Desbois of France and his team of micro-historians show up three generations after 1.5-million murders committed by Nazi Einsatzgruppen soldiers to piece together precisely who was killed, when, how and by whom.“Each time when we land in Belarus or Ukraine or Russia I tell my team, ‘They are waiting for
us,’ ” Desbois said in an interview from Paris. “Very frequently people ask me, ‘Father, why do you come so late?’ ”
TORONTO - He endured permanent estrangement from most of his relatives after converting to Catholicism and faced suspicions from some of his fellow bishops. But these crosses couldn’t dim the light of faith that guided Cardinal John Henry Newman in living out his ministry as scholar, preacher and teacher.
Today, Newman’s light and legacy are embodied in the Newman Centres and clubs on campuses across North America and Australia which bear his name.
Newman lived a life of prayer, study and sacrifice and his example of faith was to be celebrated and recognized on Sept. 19 when Pope Benedict XVI was to beatify the 19th-century English cardinal in Birmingham, England.
In the hustle and bustle of the University of Toronto’s downtown campus, one of the places students can seek refuge is at the Newman Centre and its chapel just across from the Robarts Library.
Today, Newman’s light and legacy are embodied in the Newman Centres and clubs on campuses across North America and Australia which bear his name.
Newman lived a life of prayer, study and sacrifice and his example of faith was to be celebrated and recognized on Sept. 19 when Pope Benedict XVI was to beatify the 19th-century English cardinal in Birmingham, England. In the hustle and bustle of the University of Toronto’s downtown campus, one of the places students can seek refuge is at the Newman Centre and its chapel just across from the Robarts Library.
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Dominicans on the side of the underdog for 500 years
By Vanessa Santilli-Raimondo, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - This year marks 500 years of the Dominicans fighting for the rights of the underdog in the Americas. “The Dominican order in the Americas has promoted justice, education and intellectual life all over the Americas,” said Dominican Friar Marcos Ramos, superior of the Dominicans’ Aquinas House in Toronto.
Actor and director Emilio Estevez reluctantly went to Spain to tell a story about how faith, hope and walking are all part of the American way of overcoming hard times. Estevez told The Catholic Register his new film The Way is about American spirituality. The story follows four characters walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela through Spain.
The pilgrimage is to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galacia, where tradition has it the remains of the apostle St. James are buried.
TORONTO - Aisha Aberdeen wasn’t born on third base, and she doesn’t imagine she hit a triple. But as the school year starts, the former foster child is ready to trot home.Aberdeen has done what almost no kid who has been through foster care ever does. She’s graduated from the University of Toronto with a double major in forest conservation and Caribbean studies. Now she’s planning graduate studies in the forests of Kenya this year.
Fewer than 44 per cent of children who wind up in foster care complete high school before they’re 21. Only 20 per cent of those (8.8 per cent of the total) go on to any form of post-secondary education.
Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is about to unleash a new dimension in a spiritual crisis that already grips nearly 80,000 problem gamblers in Ontario, addiction counsellors say.Duncan announced in August that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation will be “extending its brand” into the Internet. By 2012 the province will deal poker, sell lottery tickets and run bingo games online. The province worries its citizens already spend $400 million a year on unregulated, off-shore gambling sites. It expects the provincial take from OLG-run web sites will be in the neighbourhood of $100 million. Charities may be given the opportunity to fundraise directly by running online bingo games.
But the toll in addiction will be high, particularly for young males most at risk for Internet gambling addictions, said Christiana Ashabo, Southdown Institute’s addiction and relapse prevention therapist.