I’m not a big believer in “Hallmark holidays” that force us to acknowledge our love for someone. However, I cringed when I learned my husband was going to be away for work on Mother’s Day this year.

Then I was immediately disappointed in myself for being disappointed. After all, who needs that one mandatory day where your husband and kids are required to treat you extra nice, make the meals and maybe offer a gift? Apparently I do.

TORONTO - The idea of family can take on any number of connotations. One might think that the most immediate understanding of the word is filled with thoughts of our biological relatives.

However, for some families, the meaning is a much more fluid one, as parents take on the challenge of providing for children in our society who are in need.

Kim O’Neill has been a foster parent for two years and with her husband Mike provides for two brothers, ages six and seven, in their Whitby, Ont., home. After some encouragement from another foster parent in the area, the couple decided to restart their lives as parents after their own biological children had grown up and left the nest.

Funny how carefully we choose our words. Working in the hospital, I see it all the time. If a woman is excited about the life in her womb, we call it a baby. With my own unborn child, my doctor, the ultrasound technician, a lady who greets me at the grocery store, they all use the same word: baby. Its very name implies it is human and it has worth. If it is not wanted, we call it a fetus.

It makes us feel better to talk to the post-abortive mother and ask, “How many weeks was the fetus?” rather than using the word baby. Somehow using the technical word removes us from the personhood of what it really is, but it doesn’t change anything.

TORONTO - Heresy is, as the 13 previous books written by author, columnist and TV host Michael Coren have been, nothing but the truth, about 75,000 words of it.

“It’s responding, as the last book did, to the most common and toxic attacks on Christianity, the ones you hear all the time,” said Coren before the April 24 launch of Heresy: The Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity. “I’m not talking about debating certain issues. Agree or disagree . . . people tell lies about Christianity.”

LONDON, ONT. - It might seem perverse to think of someone so well connected and accomplished as Christopher Monckton, the third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, as an “odd man out,” but he certainly does go his very own way.

He is a British politician and world famous puzzlist, a newspaper editor, a millionaire, a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a Cambridge-educated architect, a Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a member of the Royal Yachting Association, a lecturer and consultant who is on the payroll of no university, think tank, government or corporation. Monckton is regularly invited to address and take part in debates with university and political groups around the world (including the U.S. Congress), where he is valued and not infrequently reviled for the sturdy independence of his views.

At first it seemed only Italians could possibly care about petty office politics in the Vatican. But three months into the Vatileaks scandal, non-Italians are beginning to wonder.

The Vatican raised eyebrows when in late April Pope Benedict XVI established a three-cardinal commission to investigate a series of leaks of letters exchanged among Vatican officials and between these officials and the Pope himself.

TORONTO - Toronto’s St. Michael’s College School is revamping its Senior Division 1 hockey program with the aim of improving student grades while maintaining a competitive hockey program.

“The program we had, as it was, wasn’t working because the student athletes were asked to juggle too many commitments,” said Paul Forbes, the midtown Toronto private Catholic school’s athletic director, noting that many players were committed to the school team as well as their community team.

“The reality of it is that they don’t really have time to play for two competitive teams in this day and age.”

TORONTO - Frank Cosentino, who parlayed his start in coaching with the Catholic Youth Organization to the Canadian university ranks, will be honoured by York University for being the most successful football coach in school history.

The Toronto university will be holding a dinner to honour Cosentino on May 11.

“I’m honoured and very pleased that a group of people got together and thought I contributed something to their lives,” said Cosentino, a 10-year Canadian Football League quarterback, from his Eganville, Ont., home.

TORONTO - Two university level student leaders, yet to be chosen, will soon be the first of many to benefit from the elevation of the Toronto’s archbishop to the College of Cardinals.

The University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto has created a scholarship fund in honour of Cardinal Thomas Collins, as well as to recognize “all the work he has already done to bring the Church and the faith closer together,” the school said in a statement. 

TORONTO - Six of the province’s 21,000 principals were recognized April 27 by the Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario for their contributions to the education community.

The 2012 Principal of the Year Award recipients are Nola Collins from the Bruce-Grey Catholic District School Board, Janet Demaiter from the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board, Andrea Iserhoff from the Northeastern Catholic District School Board, Romolo Villani from the York Catholic District School Board, and Odilia Pariselli and Maria Pereira from the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

Selected by their respective principal associations, winners were honoured with a gala dinner and a spherical glass trophy.