OTTAWA - An alliance of Cambodian advocacy groups has asked Canada to urge the Royal Government of Cambodia to rescind a proposed law that would severely restrict the work of non-governement organizations in that country.

A representative of the civil society groups engaged in democracy building, land reform and human rights in Cambodia came to Ottawa Sept. 14 to appeal for help in preventing a law that will require Cambodian NGOs to register with the state, allowing the government to restrict or shut down NGOs without an appeals process.

“The law is not passed yet but we have already seen how it will work,” said Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of Cambodia’s NGO Forum, an umbrella group representing 87 NGOs, various civil society groups and about 200 additional members.

TORONTO - It was a triumph of the cross at Neil McNeil Catholic High School.

A seven-by-five-foot cross that was built and designed by two of the east-end school’s students and teachers has been chosen to travel to each of the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s 201 schools over the next two years.

The cross is part of the board’s celebration of “The Year of Witness,” the third year of the board’s pastoral plan focusing on “Word, Witness and Worship.”

TORONTO - A court ruling that a surrogate mother can be legally removed from a birth certificate so two men in a same-sex relationship can be registered as the parents of an adopted baby is redefining the definition of motherhood in a "troubling" way and ignores the child's best interests, says the Catholic Civil Rights League.

At the request of a same-sex male couple, a Saskatchewan judge ruled in mid-September that the name of a surrogate mother who gave birth to a baby girl in 2009 be stricken from the baby's birth certificate. Instead of naming a mother, the birth certificate will name two men as the child's parents.

“One aspect of these cases that often gets overlooked is the interest of the child," said CCRL Executive Director Joanne McGarry. "What entitlements will this baby girl have as a teenager or as an adult to have access to medical or other records of the anonymous biological mother, or the surrogate mother?”

TORONTO - Fr. Richard Veltri of the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society was a good friend who loved to laugh and a compassionate pastor who knew how to listen.

In recent years Fr. Veltri had struggled with a number of ailments. He died Sept. 12 at the age of 77.

As a man who spoke his mind freely and forcefully, Fr. Veltri was never unnoticed in the Scarboro Missions community, said Scarboro Mission priest Fr. Roger Brennan.

"He was a character, one of those people who adds a certain flavour to the community — a little something different," he said.

TORONTO - As campaign-style signs went up at Toronto's Anglican St. James Cathedral and other churches around Ontario Sept. 15, Ryerson University political science professor Myer Siemiatycki suggested provincial politicians look to the prophet Isaiah for a crucial plank in their platform.

"Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free... share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house," reads Isaiah 58:6-7, the traditional reading in Siemiatycki's synagogue for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Oct. 8 this year).

"That's a hell of a political platform," Siemiatycki told a crowd of Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition supporters gathered outside the cathedral to erect signs that read "Let's Vote for a Poverty Free Ontario." Siemiatycki was there on behalf of Toronto's Darchei Noam synagogue, a member of ISARC.

MONTREAL - When Montreal Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Dowd came to the microphone after his Sept. 10  ordination, he paused, his smartphone in hand, pressed “Send,” and announced: “I just updated my Twitter account: It’s official. I’m a bishop.”

One day shy of his 41st birthday when Montreal Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte ordained him, Dowd already had established himself as a blogging priest, adept in social media and the new evangelization. His blog and Twitter account now follow his service in the episcopate.

Turcotte also ordained Auxiliary Bishop Christian Lepine, 59.

TORONTO - The Canadian Augustinian Centre for Social Justice is part of a multi-faith partnership that will sponsor an upcoming forum on housing and homelessness.

Taking place Sept. 20 at the Multifaith Centre at the University of Toronto, the centre is partnering with the North American Muslim Foundation and the MultiFaith Alliance to End Homelessness to activate and model peaceful and collaborative multi-faith approaches to social justice in Toronto, said Augustinian Centre director Brian Dwyer.

“We want to open up dialogue among diverse religious groups about shared experiences with homelessness and poverty,” said Dwyer.

TORONTO - As the partisan rhetoric ramps up for the Ontario election, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association’s attempts at influencing the vote seem to be having little impact so far.

OECTA’s “Who Speaks for Children” campaign was launched on YouTube in March. It highlights the successes of Ontario students since 2003, when the Liberal government came to power. It lauds Ontario’s recent education successes and refers to the tumultuous period of the Mike Harris years when unions clashed constantly and bitterly with Harris’ Conservative government.

Billboard ads have also gone up across the province. In Toronto, the ad can be prominently found throughout Union Station where thousands of commuters from across the GTA pass through daily. At the end of August, the campaign moved into major shopping malls and is running in community newspapers.

TORONTO - Noelle Munaretto knew it was time to find a full-time job after graduating from Ryerson University.

Influenced by the sudden media hype Twitter was attracting, she decided to sign up and, within 24 hours, was following about 300 people.

By following the people that her existing contacts followed, Munaretto, a Catholic, was led to a tweet advertising a position she was interested in. And by August, she had a job as operations manager at the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance.

The Internet and social media are critical in the job hunt, said Friar Richard Riccioli, former pastor at St. Bonaventure Church in Toronto and current director of Francis Corps, a young adult volunteer experience in Syracuse, N.Y.

TORONTO - The health of those who are “vulnerably housed” is just as poor as the homeless, says a recent study from researchers at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital.

The study found that more than 85 per cent of homeless people have chronic health conditions and more than half have a mental health problem. But those who are “vulnerably housed” — meaning they live in unsafe, unstable or unaffordable housing — have equally poor or worse health than those with no housing at all, found the study published in the International Journal of Public Health last month.

“It’s something that’s not as visible to us because we don’t see them on the street,” said Dr. Stephen Hwang, principal investigator of the study and a physician-researcher at the hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health.