{mosimage}TORONTO - What are the chances an illiterate, alcoholic, drug addicted, bipolar, paranoid schizophrenic woman is going to pull it together, learn to read, hold down a job, stay on her medications and begin a mini-career as a stand-up comedian?

Linda Chamberlain is that woman, and at 60 she looks back at her 25 years of fear, despair and homelessness with disbelief. She also knows precisely what saved her life.

Religious retailers seeing the Christ in Christmas

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{mosimage}TORONTO - The Christmas season always brings an upswing in sales for stores specializing in religious items as the public scrambles to buy Christmas cards and wreaths, gifts and Nativity sets for their home.

But for some religious suppliers, this year brought some interesting surprises.

“This year, surprisingly, we’ve been doing really well with Nativity sets. The general public has been buying full Nativity sets, adding pieces to their existing ones and also little baby Jesus’ on their own,” said Sal DiCarlo, head of DiCarlo Religious Supply Centre in Toronto.

Making the case for larger families

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{mosimage}AJAX, Ont. - It was only their second date when Patrick Douglas asked his future bride how many children she would like to have in her family.

Her first answer was “however many children God gives me,” Carissa Douglas, 31, recalls. Her second answer, she adds, was 12.

“Then (Patrick) hugged me tighter because it was an odd thing,” she says with a smile.

Red tape cut on generic AIDS drugs

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{mosimage}Adding Canadian-made generic drugs to the mix of affordable HIV and AIDS treatments could be good news for Africa, but it’s probably not enough to make a serious dent in the disease which kills more than two million people each year, says a Canadian Jesuit who works on AIDS in Africa.

“If Canadian sources are going to provide second-line generics at an affordable price — something few or no others are doing — it would be a reason for hope in Africa,” Jesuit Father Michael Czerny, executive director of the African Jesuit AIDS Network , told The Catholic Register in an e-mail, adding, however, that “Universal access to antiretrovirals (ARVs) is still a distant dream.”

Helping patients face a 'good death'

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{mosimage}TORONTO - A 13-year-old girl is battling cancer, but after nine years of treatment, her doctor has run out of medication options to beat the illness and help her stay alive.

An 85-year old woman suffers internal bleeding after taking medication for a long-term skin condition and asks her doctor to stop treatment and “let her die.”

Venerable Mary Ward's path of sainthood

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{mosimage}TORONTO - A congregation founded 400 years ago received a surprise ending last month to its year-long anniversary celebration.

On Dec. 19, Pope Benedict XVI recognized the “heroic virtues” of Sr. Mary Ward, the English founder of the Congregation of Jesus and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary —  also known as the Loretto Sisters — declaring her “venerable.”

2009 In Review

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A review of the past year from the pages of The Catholic Register.

Catholic groups make promise to sponsor world refugees

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{mosimage}At a retreat centre just east of Toronto, a promise has been made on behalf of Canadian Catholics to the 10.5 million refugees around the world. At the first ever National Catholic Conference on Refugee Sponsorship, Jan. 13-15, 80 representatives of dioceses from Prince George, B.C. to Cornerbrook, Nfld., promised that the world’s refugees would no longer be just more misery on the evening news.

From now on, refugees will matter to Catholic parishes and religious orders, and Catholic communities will sponsor refugees in greater numbers.

Immigration and Muliculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has already taken Catholic refugee workers at their word, increasing the target for Iraqi refugees sponsored out of Damascus, Syria from 1,300 to 2,500 this year.

Bishop must mirror Jesus, says archbishop Collins

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TORONTO - Toronto’s Archbishop Thomas Collins says being a bishop means being a good spiritual father and shepherd of the community.

Collins is entering his third year as archbishop of Canada’s largest archdiocese.

Ordinations bring change to managing of archdiocese

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{mosimage}TORONTO - As the brotherhood of bishops for the archdiocese of Toronto grows, it will bring change to how the archdiocese is managed by its shepherds.

Before the ordinations on Jan. 12 and 13, respectively, of Bishop William McGrattan and Bishop Vincent Nguyen, Toronto’s three auxiliary bishops looked after three distinct geographical regions of the widespread archdiocese comprising more than 220 parishes. Now that there are four auxiliaries, the pie has been divided into four regions with the creation of a new eastern region.

Bishop Nguyen's coat of arms

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{mosimage}The shield of Bishop Vincent Nguyen’s coat of arms is on a standard bearing a cross with the five wounds of Christ.

The shield is divided into two main sections. The top section is based on the Book of Revelations 7:9, where the multitude of martyrs, with palm branches in their hands, stand before the throne of the Lamb. The drop of blood flanked by two palm branches has special family significance for Nguyen as his great-great-grandfather is one of the Vietnamese Martyrs.