GATINEAU, Que. - Hundreds packed the Gatineau cathedral on All Saints’ Day to bid farewell to Archbishop Roger Ébacher, who is retiring after having served the diocese for 23 years.

“Brothers and sisters, during these years of walking with you, I have received much from you,” Ébacher said in his homily, flanked by the bishops of Ottawa and Gatineau’s suffragan bishops from Amos, Mont Laurier and Rouyn-Noranda. “Every service in the Church is an exchange: we give and we receive.

“I received from you so many inspiring examples, encouraging support, generous solidarity, as well as challenges,” he said. “For this, I thank you with all my heart.”

OTTAWA - The fifth Ottawa 40 Days for Life prayer vigil ended Nov. 6 with signs the movement is stronger than ever.

Twenty-six parishes or groups participated in the vigil outside the Morgentaler abortion facility on Bank Street, a 20-per-cent increase over the last campaign. It also marked the first time the Bible was read out loud during the campaign.

Each day, for two hours straddling the busy noon hour, the Bible was read out loud with the help of a microphone and speaker set up at the site. 

TORONTO - The Commonwealth decision to let Catholics marry into the Royal Family but still exclude them from the throne doesn’t much impress Tony O’Donoghue.

“Big deal,” said an underwhelmed O’Donoghue as he works away on a book about everything that’s wrong with Canada’s constitutional monarchy. “Just allowing whoever is in line for the throne to marry a Catholic, is that a big deal? I think that’s a lot of B.S.”

O’Donoghue managed to get the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2003 to rule on the constitutional validity of the 1701 Act of Settlement, one of several laws that determine who may or may not be monarch. He wanted the Act of Settlement, which forms part of Canada’s Constitution, declared unconstitutional and invalid.

TORONTO - They won’t all agree, but they will acknowledge the common ground, if only because they’ve walked it together.

Franciscan Friar of the Atonement Father Damian MacPherson, Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton and Imam Abdul Hai Patel travelled together with an interfaith band of pilgrims to the Holy Land in September. Now they’re ready to report back.

The four leaders will present a panel discussion called “Walking the Path of Abraham” at the Scarboro Missions headquarters, 2685 Kingston Rd., in Toronto Nov. 29, at 7 p.m. 

TORONTO - Pro-life activist Linda Gibbons was freed from a maximum security Ontario prison on Nov. 4 after charges of disobeying a 17-year-old temporary court injunction prohibiting protests at several downtown Toronto abortion clinics were dismissed.

Gibbons’ lawyer, Daniel Santoro, told The Catholic Register the charges were dismissed by Ontario Justice Alphonse T. Lacavera because the sheriff read an outdated injunction to Gibbons when he arrested her on Aug. 4 for breaching the 1994 temporary injunction.

TORONTO - Perhaps they weren't all saints. But they're all together in Toronto's historic St. Michael's Cemetery.

A touring Irish choir from County Galway got a glimpse at Toronto's Irish history touring the monuments at the mid-town cemetery on All Saints Day, Nov. 1. The Dunmore Church Choir was in Toronto to perform a benefit concert for L'Arche Toronto and a concert at St. Paul's Basilica. But time out to investigate the part of Irish history that had reached across the ocean in the 19th century was welcome, said tenor Martin Silke.

"We survived. They were the pioneers," said Silke. "They must have been horrendously brave people, if you can imagine crossing the ocean in a 20-metre boat into the unknown. It's important to remember."

OTTAWA - Human trafficking may soon join the list of crimes such as terrorism or child sex tourism that can be prosecuted in Canada even if the offence was committed in another country.

Conservative MP Joy Smith has multi-party support for her latest anti-human trafficking private member’s bill C-310, which had its first of two hours of debate Oct. 25. It would amend the Criminal Code to add human trafficking to the list of offences by Canadians or permanent residents that can be prosecuted here if committed abroad.

The countdown is on to a Dec. 1 D-Day for the next five years of funding for the Canadian bishops’ international development agency.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has been quietly working the past two years on its proposal to spend almost $50 million of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) money over the next five years. Development and Peace has been combining CIDA funding with donations almost since the organization was founded in 1967.

OTTAWA - Representatives of 30 faith communities and organizations have asked politicians to mine the world’s religious traditions for the spiritual resources to meet the climate change crisis.

“Climate change is a global crisis and requires global solutions that put the well-being of all people first — especially the most vulnerable,” said the Canadian Interfaith Call for Leadership on Climate Change, issued after a meeting here Oct. 23 and 24 organized by Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ).

OTTAWA - Christian observers with an interest in Canada’s courts are pleased — so far — that the latest picks for Supreme Court of Canada justices have shown no record of judicial activism on the bench.

Justice Michael Moldaver, a former Ontario appellate judge, and Justice Andromache Karakatsanis, a former Ontario government civil servant, were sworn in Oct. 27. A public ceremony will take place Nov. 14.

“They don’t have a judicial history of being activists,” said REAL Women of Canada national vice president Gwen Landolt, a former Crown prosecutor. REAL Women frequently intervenes in cases involving moral issues. “They have been strictly interpreting the law in their decisions.”