TORONTO - The mentally ill occupy the streets of Toronto. They sleep there. They beg. They buy drugs. They rave, cry out in pain and frighten people. They pass through drop-ins, shelters, jails and the emergency wards but somehow almost always wind up back on the same little patch of urban territory.

Seeds of Hope Foundation executive director Kimberly Curry thought there must be something we can do for homeless, schizophrenic women. Sr. Susan Moran, co-founder of Out of the Cold program almost 25 years ago, had the same thought. She never thought giving people a mattress in a church basement one night a week fulfilled our Christian duty.

KINGSTON, ONT. - A simple yet dignified ceremony held May 19 on the waterfront of this southeastern Ontario city marked a tragic local anniversary: The death of more than 1,400 Irish immigrants fleeing the 19th-century potato famine.

Ireland’s Ambassador to Canada, Ray Bassett, laid a wreath on behalf of the Irish government in commemoration of the estimated 50,000 Irish immigrants who came through the area in 1847 fleeing Án Gorta Mór, “The Great Hunger.” Of those, an estimated 4,300 arrived in Kingston after contracting typhus on crowded “coffin” ships, with 1,400 dying after coming ashore to what was then a town of only 10,000 residents.

OTTAWA - Consumers should ensure products they buy are not produced by modern-day slaves, said the American Ambassador-at-large who monitors and combats human trafficking.

“It takes a cultural shift,” Ambassador Luis CdeBaca told a gathering of MPs, senators, diplomats and NGOs on May 17.

CdeBaca, who works under U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said consumers must ask themselves: “Where did the shrimp come from that I’m eating? Where did the chocolate come from that I’m eating?”

OTTAWA - The Catholic Organization of Life and Family (COLF) has called the status quo on abortion “intolerable” and calls not only for “legislative reform” but also a “great cultural renewal.”

In its latest publication, “The Unborn Child: a gift, a treasure and a promise,” COLF describes respect for life as a “gauge of civilization” and warns that when the right to life is not fully protected “other rights are sooner or later mocked.”

It points out that in Canada there is no legal protection for the unborn child.

OTTAWA - Canada's Catholic bishops have published a defense of freedom of conscience and religious freedom as these universal rights come under increasing threat around the world.

The Catholic community and other religious groups are "experiencing a worrisome erosion" of these freedoms, said Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops president Archbishop Richard Smith in an open letter introducing the "Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religious freedom" published May 14 at www.cccb.ca.

(Right-click and save-as to download the letter as a PDF)

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick is about to join Toronto's team of bishops with the credentials of a lawman. But he's a canon lawyer who has never forgotten that canon law has a purpose.

"Canon law is very pastoral," Kirkpatrick told The Catholic Register  May 18, the day his appointment as auxiliary bishop was announced. "The law of love is supreme. And that's reflected in our canons. The (1983) Code (of Canon Law) is developed from the teachings of the Second Vatican Council."

The 54-year-old Kirkpatrick studied canon law at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, taking his licentiate in 1990. His studies in canon law prepared him for work as  judicial vicar, chancellor of the diocese of St. Catharines and his current job as moderator of the St. Catharines' curia.

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick, a priest of the Ontario diocese of St. Catharines, has been appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Toronto.

Pope Benedict XVI made the announcement May 18. Bishop-designate Kirkpatrick will be ordained to the episcopate in St. Catharines at a date to be determined before commencing his duties with the archdiocese.

OTTAWA - Raymond Lahey, the former bishop of Antigonish, has been dismissed from the clerical state.

His dismissal comes due to his conviction last year of possessing child pornography for the purposes of importation to Canada. He pleaded guilty in an Ottawa courtroom May 4, 2011 to the charges and served eight months in prison before being released Jan. 4.

TORONTO - Parishes, food banks, shelters and other services to the poor are going to be hit with bills for garbage pickup in Toronto starting July 1.

They're all part of 1,100 entities that were previously exempt from the garbage fees the city charges to businesses. City Hall will raise an extra $2.9 million per year by 2015 when the new fees are fully implemented.

MONTREAL - It is rare to meet a real-life knight today. It is even rarer to meet someone knighted by the Pope. So it is truly extraordinary to meet a papal knight — who is also Jewish.

Canada can now boast of one Jewish papal knight. Montreal interfaith pioneer Victor Goldbloom was welcomed into the Vatican’s Order of St. Sylvester on May 10 at a reception organized by the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism.