Features

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 - 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.

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.

WASHINGTON - While studies have long shown the negative effects on children of divorce compared to those from two-parent households, a new study has determined that children born to cohabiting couples fare even worse than children from divorced families.

Despite a drop in the divorce rate, “family instability continues to increase for the nation’s children overall, mainly because more than 40 per cent of American children will now spend time in a cohabiting household,” according to the study, “Why Marriage Matters,” issued recently by the Centre for American Families at the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage Project, based at the University of Virginia.

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.