OTTAWA - Canada's Catholic bishops have published a defense of freedom of conscience and religious freedom as these universal rights come under increasing threat around the world.

The Catholic community and other religious groups are "experiencing a worrisome erosion" of these freedoms, said Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops president Archbishop Richard Smith in an open letter introducing the "Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religious freedom" published May 14 at www.cccb.ca.

(Right-click and save-as to download the letter as a PDF)

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick is about to join Toronto's team of bishops with the credentials of a lawman. But he's a canon lawyer who has never forgotten that canon law has a purpose.

"Canon law is very pastoral," Kirkpatrick told The Catholic Register  May 18, the day his appointment as auxiliary bishop was announced. "The law of love is supreme. And that's reflected in our canons. The (1983) Code (of Canon Law) is developed from the teachings of the Second Vatican Council."

The 54-year-old Kirkpatrick studied canon law at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, taking his licentiate in 1990. His studies in canon law prepared him for work as  judicial vicar, chancellor of the diocese of St. Catharines and his current job as moderator of the St. Catharines' curia.

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick, a priest of the Ontario diocese of St. Catharines, has been appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Toronto.

Pope Benedict XVI made the announcement May 18. Bishop-designate Kirkpatrick will be ordained to the episcopate in St. Catharines at a date to be determined before commencing his duties with the archdiocese.

OTTAWA - Raymond Lahey, the former bishop of Antigonish, has been dismissed from the clerical state.

His dismissal comes due to his conviction last year of possessing child pornography for the purposes of importation to Canada. He pleaded guilty in an Ottawa courtroom May 4, 2011 to the charges and served eight months in prison before being released Jan. 4.

TORONTO - Parishes, food banks, shelters and other services to the poor are going to be hit with bills for garbage pickup in Toronto starting July 1.

They're all part of 1,100 entities that were previously exempt from the garbage fees the city charges to businesses. City Hall will raise an extra $2.9 million per year by 2015 when the new fees are fully implemented.

MONTREAL - It is rare to meet a real-life knight today. It is even rarer to meet someone knighted by the Pope. So it is truly extraordinary to meet a papal knight — who is also Jewish.

Canada can now boast of one Jewish papal knight. Montreal interfaith pioneer Victor Goldbloom was welcomed into the Vatican’s Order of St. Sylvester on May 10 at a reception organized by the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism.

Banning cluster bombs but then allowing Canadian pilots to drop them, Canadian soldiers to transport them and Canadian commanding officers to order them into the battlefield makes no sense, says the man who negotiated Canada’s participation in the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Former arms treaty negotiator Earl Turcotte, who led Canada’s effort to negotiate the Convention on Cluster Munitions, is warning Canada has misrepresented its signature on the 2010 treaty by proposing enabling legislation with very wide exceptions.

OTTAWA - The Catholic Civil Rights League has written to the Canadian Heritage Minister to ask him to review the funding of a controversial sex exhibit aimed at adolescents at the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology.

Sex: A Tell-all Exhibition, opened May 17 at the Ottawa museum and runs till year’s end.

“Based on information from the museum’s own web site (www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca), as well as on information provided to a local contact during a preview, I find this material is far too advanced and detailed for the age group for which it is intended, and in any case has little if anything to do with the museum’s stated mandate ” wrote League executive director Joanne McGarry to Heritage Minister James Moore.

TORONTO - Big families, big dreams, big faith and big love all came together  at St. Michael's Cathedral May 12 for two men chosen from the Catholic faithful for a lifetime of service to the sacraments and the body of Christ.

Francesco Marrone, a 30-year-old originally from Verona, Italy, and Chris Lemieux, a 40-year-old from Georgetown, Ont., received holy orders at the hands of Cardinal Thomas Collins, the archbishop of Toronto, before 1,000 people on a sun-drenched spring Saturday morning.

OTTAWA - The National March for Life drew almost 20,000 people to Parliament Hill May 10, making it the noisiest, youngest and most densely packed gathering in the March’s 15-year history.

An estimated 60 per cent of marchers were under 30, marching on the theme “Abortion Hurts Everyone.”

Marchers arrived on the Hill around noon to find police had barricaded about one-quarter of the lawn, reserving it for pro-abortion demonstrators. This forced the March for Life participants to crunch together, shoulder to shoulder, though only about 50 people appeared to represent the other side. The lawn reserved for pro-abortion demonstrators remained empty, as the counter-demonstrators formed a thin but noisy line along a section of the metal barricade.