{mosimage}TORONTO - If you want to meet the standard for Grade 4 religion in Toronto’s Catholic schools you had better know the other name for Candlemas.

No vote to replace fired trustee

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{mosimage}TORONTO - With three-years-plus remaining on the current term, Toronto’s Catholic school board is appointing a replacement trustee rather holding an election to decide who will represent Catholic school supporters between Bloor Street and Highway 401 west of Bathurst and east of Jane.

Community anger boils over downsized rec centre

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TORONTO - Amid vocal community opposition, a controversial $2.7-million community centre at Etobicoke’s Father John Redmond Catholic High School is set to begin construction this fall.

Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee Ann Andrachuk said the agreement between the City of Toronto and the board to complete the Ken Cox Community Centre is “moving forward.”

Specialized religious teaching program now offered

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TORONTO - The first concurrent program to prepare religion teachers for Ontario Catholic high schools will be launched this fall.

The program is in response to the lack of qualified high school religion teachers currently working in Catholic schools.

New text relates Catholicism to the other world religions

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TORONTO - A new world religions textbook being prepared for Ontario high schools will offer a distinctly Canadian and Roman Catholic perspective on different faiths, according to one of its authors.

The textbook, with the working title World Religions: A Canadian Catholic Perspective, will be the first of its kind specifically geared towards Grade 11 world religion students in Catholic schools.

Catholic school partners to join in ‘national conversation’

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{mosimage}TORONTO - It’s touted as the first “national conversation” on Catholic education in Canada.

The Catholic Education: A National Conversation conference is expected to draw 400 parents, students, teachers, school administrators, clergy and trustees to Ottawa Sept. 26-27 for the inaugural conference.

Our schools are communities of faith

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Dear Readers,

{mosimage}Among Pope Benedict’s many thought-provoking speeches during his spring visit to the United States was a particularly important one on Catholic education. Though it received some coverage, the Pope’s insights into the role of Catholic schools were too often lost among the attention given to the most visual and spectacular aspects of his visit.

Catholic schools top public counterparts 

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{mosimage}TORONTO - In separate research, two economists with ties to the C.D. Howe Institute have found Catholic schools are outperforming public schools in Ontario on standardized tests.

The economists believe competition between the two publicly funded systems may, in part, explain higher success rates for Grade 3 and 6 pupils in Catholic schools when compared with their public school counterparts.

African AIDS orphans to get a new school

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{mosimage}A Catholic high school in which every student has lost at least one parent to AIDS has turned the sod on a new permanent home on the edge of Africa’s second largest slum.

Education integral to church

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{mosimage}Editor’s note: The following is the complete text of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech to American Catholic educators in Washington, DC, on April 17.

“How beautiful are the footsteps of those who bring good news” (Rom 10:15-17). With these words of Isaiah quoted by St. Paul, I warmly greet each of you — bearers of wisdom — and through you the staff, students and families of the many and varied institutions of learning that you represent. It is my great pleasure to meet you and to share with you some thoughts regarding the nature and identity of Catholic education today.

Catholics schools threatened by hostile secularism, bishop says

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{mosimage}OTTAWA - The threat to the existence of publicly funded Catholic schools in Ontario is a symptom of an even greater and growing hostility to religion in the public square, warns Bishop Paul-André Durocher.

“If we want to save our Catholic schools, what we have to save is the place of religion in Canadian society,” the bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall diocese said Sept. 28.