It is impossible to teach about faith to students if the teachers themselves are not formed in the Catholic faith, says education consultant Patricia Dal Ben.

EDMONTON – Betty Letendre recalls a time when Indigenous elders didn’t want to come into Edmonton, feeling tired of the discrimination and misconceptions that they faced on a daily basis. 

In 1989 Ontario’s Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter, “This Moment of Promise,” in the wake of legislation to fully fund the province’s Catholic school system. The document set the groundwork for Catholic education in a new era and was followed in 1993 by a pastoral letter titled “Fulfilling the Promise.” Now, 31 years after the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutional legitimacy of full funding of Catholic education, the bishops have issued a third pastoral letter.

The recess bell rings and a child dives for cover underneath her desk. A teacher is at the front of the classroom but a student is wandering from desk to desk starting conversations of his own. The lunch bell rings and several pupils have arrived without lunch, or uniforms, or gym clothes. A six-year-old turns up in school mid-morning, but doesn’t have enough English to tell the school secretary who she is, where she’s from or where she’s supposed to be.

A new, three-year pastoral plan will drive Toronto’s 195 Catholic schools and 91,000 Catholic students to a deeper sense of who they are and what they are meant to be, even as campaigning Ontario politicians promise to tinker with school curricula to gain votes.

The kids at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener, Ont., are breaking down walls with science, or more accurately, one particular wall in the middle of their school gym. 

To the boys on the senior high school soccer team, it was only natural to reach out to people their age who were suffering in the northern part of the province. 

A small handmade gift can have a big impact. 

Michelle Dubre cried with joy when she heard the news.