Quinton Amundson, The Catholic Register

Quinton Amundson, The Catholic Register

August 24, 2023

The crime stops here

Imparters of knowledge. Nurturers of potential. Exemplars of integrity. Educators are called to live up to these important tasks each day they go to work. But they are also charged with another key imperative: safeguarding the students in their care from harm.

Wildfires wreaking devastation across British Columbia and the Northwest Territories have apparently spared Catholic churches, though numerous other buildings cannot say the same thing.

Catholic churches have thus far been spared from the more than 200 wildfires sweeping through the Northwest Territories, according to Bishop Jon Hansen of the Mackenzie-Fort Smith diocese.

An Ottawa Catholic District School Board teacher was arrested Aug. 10 and charged with five counts of sexual assault and sexual exploitation.

Nine priests. Four professed religious sisters. Four seminarians. Three novitiates. Two transitional deacons. One sister poised to profess her final vows.

A deconsecrated Catholic Church in Digby County, N.S., facing the grim prospect of demolition for months has been afforded a new lease on life.

Winnipeg Archbishop Richard Gagnon said his 40 years of service to the Canadian Catholic Church, first as a priest and then as a bishop, “has gone by so quickly and is so full of events and people.”

A 33-year-old Catholic priest is charged with sexual assault and sexual interference with a minor as a result of an investigation by Peterborough Police Service’s Sexual Offences Unit.

The second half of the 2023 Lac Ste. Anne Pilgrimage in Alberta, which was scheduled from July 21-27, has been cancelled due to “extreme weather.”

One year after the historic papal visit to Canada, positive signs abound.