TORONTO - War, history and ecumenism are perhaps not the first associations Christians have with table-top models of baby Jesus nestled in the manger. But the Friends of the Creche intend to take on all three serious subjects at a three-day international convention in Toronto Nov. 10 to 12.

It’s the first time the American branch of the La Universalis Foederatio Praesepistica (known in Canada and the United States as the Friends of the Creche) has held it’s biennial convention in Canada. It’s expected to draw 350 conventioneers, plus hundreds more who will visit a display of rare, historic creches on display at the Royal York Hotel.

TORONTO - Before he was ordained, the young Jesuit Peter Larisey learned to take no for an answer. Practice makes perfect.

Drawn to art since childhood, Larisey wanted to study art in a serious way. Starting about 1959, each year Larisey would ask Father Provincial of the English Canadian Jesuits if he might be allowed to study art. Each year he was told, “No.”

“One of the good things about Jesuit superiors is that they have terms,” explains the 81-year-old priest, who continues to teach at the Toronto School of Theology and Regis College.

In 1966 Larisey showed the new Father Provincial his scrapbook filled with his published writing about art and the successes of his groundbreaking art exhibitions at Regis College.

“He carried the scrapbook in his hands and said, ‘You take this as far as you can,’ ”  recalls Larisey.

OTTAWA - An internal background document distributed to members of the Conservative caucus about the KAIROS funding controversy reveals another clue why a $7-million funding request from the ecumenical social justice organization was denied.

The document’s first talking point states: “Our government supports funding to deliver aid and tangible results for the people of developing countries, not subsidizing advocacy.”

In other words, funding is not available for what might be considered community organizing and activism, such as supporting advocacy groups in the developing world whose mandate is to empower disadvantaged people, push for better living conditions or lobby for indigenous rights or environmental protection.

TORONTO - The 40 Days for Life campaign is making a difference, said Nicole Campbell, 40 Days for Life Toronto co-ordinator. In fact, she said nine abortion facilities throughout North America have closed as a result of the campaign.

“The thing is with the 40 Days for Life, and with abortion in general, is that it’s not enough to be personally pro-life,” Campbell told The Catholic Register. “It’s great but it does nothing to actually end abortion. It’s only when we’re publicly pro-life that we can impact and change our culture one person at a time through prayer and through our public witness.”

TORONTO - The Supreme Court of Canada is expected to hear jailed activist Linda Gibbons' appeal of a temporary injunction banning protest at downtown Toronto abortion clinics later this year.

Her lawyer, Daniel Santoro, expects the Supreme Court could hear her case in the fall.

Gibbons, a 62-year-old great-grandmother, has been arrested 20 times over the last 16 years, spending half of that time in maximum security prisons for different offences under the Criminal Code. This for violating a temporary 1994 civil court injunction protecting downtown Toronto abortion clinics from protesters such as Gibbons, an injunction that has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Ontario. She is not permitted within 60 feet of the clinics. Gibbons has violated the injunction each time by praying within the no-go zone.

The Catholic mayor of Saguenay, Que., is appealing for donations to help him fight a Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ruling that ordered him to stop opening council meetings with a prayer.

Mayor Jean Tremblay said he will appeal the decision all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“We make a prayer, all the council, since the beginning of the city 150 years ago,” said Tremblay in an interview from Saguenay of the 20-second prayer said before the opening of council meetings.

Tremblay has also refused to heed an order to remove a crucifix and a small statue of the Sacred Heart from council chambers.

“We don’t agree with that because those objects for some people that means our faith, for some others our culture, for some other our tradition,” he said.

TORONTO - A new private Catholic high school that wants to open its doors to youth from low-income families in Toronto is taking flack from critics who argue the plan would “economically segregate” students.    

David Livingstone, director of the University of Toronto OISE Centre for the Study of Education and Work, has concerns about the proposed model for the 500-student Toronto Cristo Rey School, which will be run by the Basilian order. The project is “well-intentioned but ill-informed,” said Livingstone, author of How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. He said research since the 1960s has found that mixing low-income and high-income students together suggests “low-income students are going to gain and high-income students are not going to lose.”

TORONTO - John M. Cassaday, president and chief executive officer of Corus Entertainment Inc., has been named as chair of the 32nd annual Cardinal’s Dinner.

The dinner, founded by the late Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter and continued to this day by Archbishop Thomas Collins, has raised more than $5 million since its inception, with many business and political leaders attending each year. It will be held Oct. 27 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

With only a few, small projects in the Middle East, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace is carefully watching the changing political landscape before it makes any changes to its programming in the region.

“Our current program, which is mainly focused on peacebuilding, is quite small and we are not present in any of the countries experiencing protests,” Development and Peace spokeswoman Kelly Di Domenico told The Catholic Register.

Most of the $935,000 a year Development and Peace designates for the Middle East is in fact spent in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where partner agencies receive $385,000 and $120,000 to run programs that help women earn money.

QUEBEC CITY - The search for Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s replacement came to an end on Feb. 22 when the Vatican announced that Bishop Gerald Lacroix will become the new archbishop of Quebec.

Lacroix, 53, had been acting as diocesan administrator to the archdiocese since Pope Benedict XVI named Ouellet the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and transferred the cardinal in August to Rome. Among Ouellet’s duties is to advise the Pope on the appointment of bishops.