TORONTO - The process is underway for the archdiocese of Toronto to sponsor the Hermez family, Iraqi Christians currently residing in Lebanon, Fr. Edward Curtis told a group of about 30 people at the Catholic Pastoral Centre on Jan. 10.

“The archbishop is the one who is technically sponsoring them,” said Curtis. “He’s signed the papers himself. It’s all been sent to begin the process but no individual can sponsor a family, it always has to be done by a group according to immigration laws.”

TORONTO - Exorcisms have always piqued the Hollywood imagination and provided a steady source of material for filmmakers in the horror genre. And with a new movie set for release Jan. 28, plus a reality-TV series on exorcists, Hollywood is once again entering the battleground of good versus evil.

The Rite, a horror film featuring Anthony Hopkins, is based on a book by journalist Matt Baglio about the accounts of an American exorcist. Meanwhile, the Discovery Channel is working on a reality show called The Exorcist Files.

Fr. John Horgan, a scholar on exorcisms and pastor at Vancouver’s Sts. Peter and Paul parish, was a consultant to the 2005 movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a movie loosely based on an actual case in Germany.

He cautions that Hollywood versions of exorcism usually provide a “liberal” interpretation of the actual rite. Scenes of “being chained and tied up has nothing to do with the Catholic rite of exorcism,” he said.

TORONTO - Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins will meet with abuse victims and lead a penitential service in the course of a two-week visit to the archdiocese of Cashel and Emly in Ireland.

Collins’ apostolic visit to Ireland, which began Jan. 13, was mandated by Pope Benedict XVI’s March 19, 2010 pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland. Along with Collins’ visit to Cashel and Emly, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., has visited the archdiocese of Tuam, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop emeritus of Westminster, England, will visit Armagh and Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley is visiting Dublin. The program of apostolic visitation to Ireland also includes a trip by New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan to Ireland’s seminaries, and a delegation of religious visiting the religious orders.

Collins will lead a penitential service in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Thurles on Jan. 16 at 3 p.m. Thurles is about an hour-and-a-half drive west of Dublin.
 
All of the apostolic visitors to Ireland will meet with victims, with a particular emphasis on meeting individuals and families.

TORONTO

Mining and banking helped end 2010 on a positive note for investors who care about the environment, labour and community standards and transparent corporate governance. But over-all, ethical investors lost ground relative to conventional stock indices.

The Jantzi Social Index grew 11.95 per cent in 2010. That trailed the 13.84-per-cent growth in the S&P/TSX 60 and 17.61 per cent in the S&P/TSX Composite.

CATHOLIC REGISTER STAFF

The right of gay couples to be married free from discrimination trumps the freedom of religion and conscience rights of Saskatchewan’s marriage commissioners, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has ruled.

A unanimous decision released by the court Jan. 10 said any scheme that would allow marriage commissioners to refuse service to gay couples “would perpetuate disadvantage and involve stereotypes about the worthiness of same-sex unions.”

AJAX, Ont.- A crisis response team is helping students at Ajax’s St. Francis de Sales Elementary School cope with the news that one of their teachers has been accused of trying to kill his wife while on a pre-Christmas Jamaican vacation.

Tracy Barrill, superintendent of education for the Durham Catholic District School Board, visited the school Jan. 3, the first day of classes for students returning from the Christmas break, along with the board’s crisis response team led by the board’s chief psychologist, Dr. Ian Brown.

“This is a type of situation that no one can anticipate. We certainly are shocked and saddened by what has occurred and are praying for them, praying for everybody who has been affected,” Barrill said.

TORONTO - Toronto’s Catholic Copts are just as worried as their Orthodox brethren about Internet threats of an Al Qaeda operation in North America.

The much larger Coptic Orthodox community has initiated meetings with police to discuss security in the wake of a New Year’s Eve bombing in Alexandria, Egypt, that killed 21 and wounded about 100. Fr. Bishoy Y Anis of Toronto’s Holy Family Coptic Catholic Church, however, is just as worried about the safety of the 250 to 300 families in his Catholic parish.

“Now I don’t think there is empty talk,” Bishoy told The Catholic Register. “They talked before in Alexandria and they did it. They talked in Iraq and they did it. They talked in Nigeria and they did it.”

Though the archdiocese of Toronto has yet to receive a request for additional security from the Coptic parish (without a bishop of its own, Toronto’s Catholic Copts fall under the authority of the Roman rite archbishop), it plans to provide Holy Family with whatever security may be necessary.

TORONTO - Spiritual leaders, agency directors, government officials, community leaders, educators and corporations will be some of the groups gathering together for the Jan. 12 launch of the Canadian Augustinian Centre for Social Justice.

Spearheaded by the theology and spirituality of St. Augustine and sponsored by the Order of St. Augustine, the goal of the centre is to open up dialogue between community groups and leaders to make social justice a reality, said Brian Dwyer, director of the centre and a parishioner at St. Brigid’s parish in Toronto.

“We believe that through partnerships and collaboration between groups in the community and the decision makers that a dialogue and agreement (on social justice issues) could occur,” said Dwyer.

The launch is an effort to get the dialogue started and establish partnerships with community leaders. In addition, the centre wants to get community groups that are interested in similar social justice issues working together to approach decision makers.

TORONTO - Fr.  Sauveur Content remembers the day of Haiti’s devastating earthquake last January. One year later, he says an investment in education will help Haiti rebuild from the tragedy that destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, including a Catholic university in Jacmel serving the “poorest of the poor.”

“Even before the earthquake, the situation in Haiti was terrible. Now, after the earthquake, Haiti is on its knees,” the dean of the University of Notre Dame in Jacmel told The Register through an interpreter during a late December visit to Toronto.

“We realize that if there is something we need in Haiti, we need to focus on education, the education of the youth. They can provide the new generation of leaders in Haiti.”

OTTAWA - A new Quebec policy that prohibits religious instruction, prayer, singing or ritual in state-funded daycares is imposing the state’s ideological approach to religion on religious education, warns a Catholic parents’ group.

Catholic-run daycares will no longer be allowed to have “specific Catholic teachings, which in itself is a great deprivation to the children,” said Jean Morse-Chevrier, chair of the Association of the Catholic Parents of Quebec (APCQ).

Children who believe in Jesus love to say prayers or sing songs to Jesus, she said. “They won’t be allowed to do that. They can’t say grace together.”

“Children spend a lot of time in daycare, but they can’t sing little Christmas songs. At Easter they can’t talk about Jesus rising from the dead, nothing, even if the parents want that,” she said.