TORONTO - We live in a sick society and the illness can be measured by the depth and the prevalence of poverty across Ontario, faith leaders who run shelters, food banks and counselling services heard on a visit to Queen’s Park March 29.

They weren’t talking about sickness as a metaphor for moral corruption. Rabbis, imams and bishops were discussing the epidemiology of diabetes, cancer, depression, hypertension, addiction, obesity and a dozen other conditions.

“The poor and the vulnerable are always the sickest,” Dr. Phil Berger, St. Michael’s Hospital chief of family and community medicine, told Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition delegates at a day-long exploration of health and poverty.

JERUSALEM - With Easter in full swing, it can be a daunting task to find a quiet moment of contemplation at any of Jerusalem's holy sites, but it is especially so at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Throngs of pilgrim groups and tourists with cameras pack the church, posing for photos at the spots where Jesus was crucified or laid in the tomb. Some place souvenirs on the sacred sites for a blessing.

But at the Stone of Unction, which commemorates the anointing of Jesus before burial, some faithful find the noise from other visitors fades away. The smell of rose water with which the stone is periodically bathed permeates the immediate vicinity.

Cuts, freezes and protections for education introduced in the 2012 Ontario provincial budget are not sitting well with some of the province’s partners in education.

While the province has chosen to protect small class sizes, full-day kindergarten and almost 20,000 teaching and support staff jobs in its austerity budget presented March 27, the government is also calling for the closure of under-utilized schools and potential board amalgamations to maximize resources.

Nancy Kirby, Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association president, acknowledges the importance of early childhood education, but said going “ahead with full-day kindergarten on the same timeline ... is an expensive decision.”

MONTREAL - Francois Gloutnay is stamping out poverty — one stamp at a time.

Gloutnay, communications officer at the Montreal office of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, the official international development organization of the Catholic Church in Canada, is an avid stamp collector. He also sells them. Every year he helps organize stamp sales at Montreal-area shows to raise money for D&P.

The stamps sell for a few cents each, but it all adds up. Since 1992, when Gloutnay became involved in the fundraising effort, he has helped raise over $335,000 for D&P programs around the world.

TORONTO - Toronto’s St. Michael’s Choir School topped the list in the Fraser Institute’s Ontario high school rankings for the second consecutive year. 

The semi-private Catholic school — famed for its music program — earned a 9.6 out of 10 ranking, soaring above the provincial average of six. These figures are based on the provincial Grade 9 math and Grade 10 literacy test results.

The Fraser Institute — an independent think tank that conducts peer-reviewed research into economic and public policy — released its rankings April 1. The annual school report cards offer tables showing how well schools perform in academics over a number of years.

TORONTO - It may have been lights out for an hour at 95 Toronto Catholic schools during Earth Hour on March 30, but St. Ambrose Catholic School went three steps further by encouraging students to participate in the morning announcements, bring a littlerless lunch and dress in black.

“This year we are focusing on the theme of 60-plus, going beyond just Earth Hour,” said Kathleen Sztuka, Grade 4-5 teacher and school science representative. “We see the awareness of the kids growing.” 

Sztuka, a 20-year educator, organized this year’s event and wanted to do more than simply flick a switch, which she did note is the equivalent of removing 43,000 cars from the road for an hour when done collectively. Making students stand out was the thinking behind ditching the school uniform for funeral wear.

The Ontario Liberal government's anti-bullying legislation, Bill 13, is more about social ideology than bullying, some 2,000 protesters were told outside Queen's Park on March 29.

"Bill 13 ignores the number one cause of bullying — body shape and image," said Jack Fonseca of Campaign Life Catholics.

"Dalton McGuinty's ignoring of the number one cause of bullying is proof that this (legislation) is not about bullying. This bill was not written by people who want to reduce bullying. It was written by people who want to change social views about human sexuality.

DUBLIN - Europe today is a culture in which God appears to be "silent and unmissed in the lives of many" the Irish bishops warn in a new pastoral letter issued March 29.

The 12-page document, "Repent and Believe the Good News," deals with the importance of repentance for the Irish Catholic Church.

In their discussion of the European context in which the Irish church is forging its path, the bishops said that today there are "many spheres of life in which even believers rarely recognize the relevance of the Gospel."

Mother Mary has gone mobile in the form of an app on iTunes.

To coincide with the release of the VisionTV documentary “Our Lady,” Tell Tale Productions has released an iMary app that locates all 83 Marian shrines across Canada.

- Download the app on iTunes now

“These two productions kind of evolved together as sister productions,” said Tell Tale Productions’ president Edward Peill. “There are a number of apps for the rosary and there are a number of apps available for devotions and there are probably a number of apps for the calendar. We decided to combine all of these into one package so you wouldn’t need three or four apps.”

Brazil is now the world’s sixth largest economy and economists project it will be the fifth largest by the end of this year. It has an advanced aerospace industry, some of the most sophisticated telecommunications companies in the world and more billionaires than Japan. It also has slaves.

Between 25,000 and 40,000 Brazilians every year are trafficked into slavery. On average, government anti-slavery teams free 4,500 people per year.

“When I went to Brazil for the first time (in the 1990s) I was far from imagining that slavery was still existing,” said French-born Dominican Brother Xavier Plassat. “For me it was a discovery.”