PORT ROYAL, N.S. - Canada's Jesuits returned to the scene of their earliest footsteps in Canada to help mark 400 years of service in Canada May 22.

About three dozen Canadian Jesuits and some 100 guests gathered to mark the landing, 400 years to the day, of Jesuit Fathers Pierre Biard and Ennemond Massé at Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia. Halifax Archbishop Anthony Mancini presided at a jubilee Mass that was part of the day-long celebrations at Port Royal National Historical Site.

The reconstructed Habitation on the shores of the Annapolis Basin, near the Bay of Fundy, provided a back drop for a brief dramatic re-enactment of Biard and Massé’s landing at the site. The original Habitation had been built by French fur traders in 1604 but had been abandoned to Mi’kmaq control when the Jesuits arrived. It became the base for two years of missionary activity before the Jesuits returned to France.

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments May 18 in a religious freedom case that pits parental rights against Quebec’s mandatory Ethics and Religious Culture program (ERC).

The case was brought by a Roman Catholic couple from Drummondville, Que., who requested their two children be exempted from the ERC. Their name is protected by a publication ban.

Mark Phillips one of the two lawyers representing the parents, said the government insists the ERC is “about teaching tolerance and diversity.” The parents have nothing against those objectives, he said, but they say the course is “a form of indoctrination,” seeking to cultivate worldview and a framework for ethics that is different from their Catholic faith.

Co-counsel Mark Pratt told the court “the state has no right to program people” in arguing for the prior rights of parents to educate their children and to choose how that education is delegated. Many of the questions from the bench concerned whether the onus should be on the parents to prove harm, or whether the state had the onus to prove its course was neutral on religion.

TORONTO - A leaked private e-mail between two Australian bishops that was critical of Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins briefly threatened to halt the process of forming a Catholic Anglican ordinariate in Canada.

The message from Traditional Anglican Communion primate Archbishop John Hepworth to Melbourne’s Catholic Bishop Peter Elliott accused Collins of “the wanton destruction of their (Anglican Catholic Church of Canada) communities, the absolute disregard for their ecclesial integrity, and the brutish manner in which these edicts are being communicated.” Hepworth said that he and Anglican Catholic Church of Canada Bishop Peter Wilkinson would immediately place “on hold” further steps toward creating an ordinariate in Canada.  

Collins has been put in charge of the processes of forming an ordinariate for ex-Anglicans in Canada under the terms of the 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

In a statement posted to the archdiocese of Toronto’s web site May 16, Collins said his job was to offer the terms of Anglicanorum Coetibus to any and all former Anglicans, not just the Traditional Anglican Communion, of which the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada is a member.

TORONTO - The United States failed the most basic test of the Golden Rule in its reaction to the 9/11 attacks, but killing Osama bin Laden could be justified on the basis of the do-unto-others rule, Fr. Harry Gensler told a gathering of Golden Rule enthusiasts at Scarboro Missions May 11.

The Jesuit author of 14 books on ethics and logic would have preferred that bin Laden be captured. And the American priest is appalled by celebrations over his death. But an argument for killing bin Laden could be made using the Golden Rule as a starting point, he said.

“You have to be able to say that if I do all those things, the acts of terror, etc., then I’m willing that I should be killed,” said Gensler, a philosophy professor at John Carroll University in Cleveland.

On the broader question of all of the ways the United States has employed its military in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, America can’t claim a Golden Rule justification for its actions, according to Gensler.

TORONTO - He once was lost but now is found.

A new statue of St. Francis of Assisi was unveiled and blessed May 13 at St. Francis of Assisi Elementary School in the heart of Toronto’s Little Italy. The previous statue was stolen and vandalized in mid-November.

The original statue was a white garden statue of St. Francis not more than three feet tall. The new statue stands at four feet and features the distinctive Franciscan brown habit in colour.

The driving force behind replacing the statues was an an anonymous donor, whose initial donation sparked an outpouring of generosity from the school community, says principal Connie Giordano.

The Hamilton, Ont., businessman came to the school and spoke with Giordano about making a $200 donation to replace the statue. Although he wasn’t Catholic, he made the donation because he had an admiration for St. Francis, Giordano said.

During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga lost 80 members of his family and 45,000 members of his parish. He later found the people who murdered his family and despite the pain they inflicted on him, Rugirangoga was able to forgive them for their crimes.

And then he went one step further — he paid for the education of the daughter of the man who murdered his mother. Otherwise, the girl would have had no opportunity of going to school.

Rugirangoga said he has discovered the secret of peace is through forgiveness.

And so, he set about creating the Centre for the Secret of Peace in Rwanda as part of his vocation to bring peace, reconciliation and forgiveness to the Rwandan people.

“I want to build a centre of peace because I am engaged in the peace process after the genocide in Rwanda,” Rugirangoga told The Catholic Register.

TORONTO - Wafi Shara lived through the attack on Baghdad’s Syriac Catholic cathedral Oct. 31, 2010, but the bullet Italian doctors removed from her leg still holds her captive.

Shara spends all day in a tiny, two-room apartment in midtown Toronto praying, crying and wishing to be reunited with her brother Wafi Youssif. The damage to her leg has left her with limited mobility. She’s in a strange city with few friends, working hard to improve her English.

While her brother would prefer to come to Canada, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees staff are recommending him for the United States. Youssif is now trying to decide whether to remain in Jordan and hope someone in Canada can sponsor him, going back to Baghdad where he fears for his family’s safety or going to the United States where he knows no one.

In Toronto living on about $600 a month, Shara carries with her the fears that became part of life in Baghdad as the city descended into rounds of violence and sectarian cleansing of neighbourhoods. She asked us not to photograph her face  for this article.

As she lay wounded underneath a pew in Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral, Shara saw her niece Raghda escape into the vestry. Shara thought perhaps her niece had been smart to get out of the main part of the church. In the end, Raghda was the only one of about 50 people crammed into the vestry who was killed.

Shara now finds herself in the country her niece dreamed about in Baghdad. The 61-year-old single Shara finds it a bit cruel that she is now in Canada in her niece’s place.

“She is the bridge for me to come to Canada. She wished to come to Canada,” said Shara.

The former school teacher lived with her brother in Baghdad and helped raise Raghda. Separated from the city she once loved and from almost all of her family, Shara wants nothing more than to be reunited with her brother.

“I am alone here. I live alone. I want him here with me.”

With her wound still fresh, Shara was evacuated from Baghdad to Italy for surgery and physiotherapy. There she met with Pope Benedict XVI before Canada stepped in to sponsor her as a refugee. Until and unless she has her brother back at her side, safely here in Canada,  Shara remains in limbo — the journey still not completed and so many left behind.

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AMMAN, JORDAN - Wafi Youssif asked his daughter Raghda not to go to church because churches had been bombed for years. She told her dad: “If I have to die, I don’t mind dying in church.”

Raghda did. She bled to death in Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic Church, Oct. 31 last year, only 40 days after her wedding day. Terrorists stormed the church during Mass, locked the doors, cut the electricity and began their killing spree.

Wafi and Jinan Youssif told me the story of their 22-year-old daughter in their Amman apartment where they lived since fleeing Baghdad. They showed me the near-perfect grades she earned studying for her PhD in chemical engineering, the plaque she was given for representing the Syriac Catholic youth community at a National Eucharistic Congress in Amman and the photos of her crowning the statue of Mary in May at their church in 2008.

TORONTO - Ontario’s first Italian Heritage Month kicks off on June 2 and will pay homage to the Italian Canadian community’s cultural and religious heritage.

Michael Tibollo, president of the National Congress of Italian Canadians, formally introduced the line-up of Italian Heritage Month featuring exhibits, lectures, concerts and other festivities throughout the GTA at a May 11 press conference at Queen’s Park.

“One of the pillars of the Italian culture has always been the religious aspect of it,” Tibollo told The Register after the announcement.

TORONTO - In a matter of seconds, with the hands of Archbishop Thomas Collins placed on their heads, three men saw more than five years of preparation and discernment finally come to fruition as they were ordained to the priesthood.

This year’s new priests were welcomed to the archdiocese of Toronto on May 14 at St. Michael’s Cathedral, in front of a congregation of about 1,000.

“The purpose of a priestly witness is to serve,” said Collins, who celebrated the ordination Mass.

The newly ordained priests are Eric Mah, a former lawyer, who was assigned to Blessed Trinity parish in North York; Russell Asch, born in Montreal and raised in England, who will serve at St. Patrick’s parish in Markham; and Allyn Rose, a former accountant, who will be associate pastor at St. Isaac Jogues in Pickering.

“If you ever sense you’re not worthy of the priesthood, you’re correct. None of us are,” said Collins to the ordinandi and a group of young men gathered before the Mass. “Jesus Christ is the only priest.”

The archbishop, as he has done for the past eight years, hosted a group of young men for breakfast before the ordination, where he explained the ceremony’s procedures and the nature of the priesthood.

“Priests, bishops, popes, all of us are interchangeable,” he said. “The priesthood is forever.”

Once at the cathedral, the three men processed to the altar as deacons for the last time. Following the Gospel, the men were ordained and received their garments as well as a Kiss of Peace from each of the clergy members in attendance. The new priests then participated in their first eucharistic preparation.

In his homily, the archbishop emphasized the role of the priest as a witness to Jesus Christ who is called to serve others in their own witnesses to the Lord.

“We may be the only Bible our neighbour reads,” said Collins, who was also celebrating the 14th anniversary of his ordination as a bishop.

Collins also used Pope Benedict XVI as an example of the obedience priests must have and of the sacrifices they must make. Before the death of Pope John Paul II, Benedict had planned on retiring to a quiet home where he could write books. He, however, obeyed the papal call, calling himself “a humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord,” said Collins.

The archbishop asked for the friends, family and the rest of the congregation to pray for the new priests as they began a new stage of their lives.

“This is not a job,” said Collins. “This is a consecration forever.”

Read the Catholic Register's profiles of the three new priests:

Eric Mah:A decade of ignoring his call was wiped out in one Confession
Russell Asch:With patience, Asch finds his calling
Allyn Rose:Misery came in accounting, leading to his joyful call