OTTAWA - Fr. Bob Bedard, founder of the Companions of the Cross, was entombed in Ottawa’s Hope Cemetery May 6 in a mausoleum one admirer expects will become a pilgrimage site.

As the sun was setting, about 200 people gathered on the grass as Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast celebrated the Eucharist on the altar of Bedard’s mausoleum. The entombment’s date, the first Friday in May, also marked the anniversary of the order’s founding 27 years ago.

“Fr. Bob let the Holy Spirit energize his faith, and he was then able to proclaim the joy of our Risen Lord Jesus, as the apostles did in today’s first reading,” said Prendergast in his homily. “A breath of renewal became present in his life and ministry.

TORONTO - There’s only one union in Ontario demanding layoffs, willing to accept a wage freeze and hoping to be declared obsolete. The brand-new Freedom 90 Union of Food Bank and Emergency Meal Program Volunteers launched its demands at a downtown Toronto church May 7.

The Freedom 90 group of middle-aged and elderly veteran volunteers of Ontario’s food banks are asking Ontario’s government to “make Ontario’s food banks obsolete — before we volunteers reach the age of 90.”

OTTAWA - Contentious issues about human rights, even those of unborn children, can be discussed in public in a civil, intelligent way, said Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth. And you need look no further than the recent debate in the House of Commons on his private member's Motion-312 for proof.

On April 26, Woodworth was the only MP who spoke in favour of his motion that would establish a Parliamentary committee to examine the latest medical evidence on whether a child in the womb is a human being. Other MPs from across the political spectrum — including his own Conservative Party — spoke against it.

TORONTO - Africans still want the kind of genuine partnership with Canadians the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has fostered over the last four decades, the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Eastern Africa said — even if CIDA has cancelled funding to every D&P partner in Africa outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"It matters," Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator told The Catholic Register. "It's not only about Canadians giving to Africa. There's an element of mutuality there. It's not just about the money. It is important to keep that contact."

OTTAWA - Human rights activist and former beauty queen Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay told hundreds of religious leaders she felt blessed to be able to stand at a podium and share her faith without reprisals.

“This is not the case in all parts of the world,” she said, noting that in her native Iran, “we would be facing persecution for gathering like this.”

An American community of Loretto Sisters and its allies lost a shareholder vote in South Porcupine, Ont., that would have forced Goldcorp Inc. to set aside almost $50 million to pay for post-mining clean-up at a major gold mine in Guatemala.

Management at the Canadian mining giant had opposed the Loretto Sisters’ motion at the company’s Annual General Meeting April 26. The motion asked Goldcorp to revise its mine closure plans in San Marcos, Guatemala, in light of an independent study which pegged mine closure costs at $49 million.

TORONTO - When religion bumps up against somebody's human rights, the best safeguard of religious freedom is reasoned, calm and respectful dialogue, said Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall said.

More than two years of consultations with religious and other groups has produced a new OHRC position on how to decide cases where the rights of one party conflict with the equally recognized rights of another. The commission's 65-page "Policy on Competing Human Rights" is aimed at encouraging employers, institutions and other groups to resolve conflicts before they wind up in a tribunal hearing or a court room.

OTTAWA - Archbishop Christian Lépine’s installation April 27 as archbishop of Montreal inaugurates a new era for the Quebec episcopacy, said a McGill University historian.

“Now there’s a new generation of bishops who are very much in tune with the needs of young people in their dioceses, and this is crucial for the new evangelization,” said John Zucchi.

A generation of bishops who were in their 70s, “many of them concerned with a 1970s and ’80s way of looking at the Church,” have retired, replaced in recent years by a new age cohort that has “rejuvenated” the episcopacy and brought fresh perspective, Zucchi said.

OTTAWA - Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s motion proposing a committee study the legal definition of when life begins is not likely to gain much traction in the House of Commons.

The Kitchener, Ont., MP’s Motion 312 was debated in Parliament April 26, but gained no support from other MPs, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper who has said repeatedly that he will not support the motion, which most believe is aimed at getting Parliament to reopen the abortion debate.

Chief Government Whip Gordon O’Connor made the case for the status quo — which is no legal protection for the unborn from birth until the baby leaves the birth canal.

OTTAWA - A bill that would make it possible for Canada to prosecute human trafficking offenses committed by citizens or permanent residents outside the country has passed in the House of Commons.

Conservative MP Joy Smith's private member's Bill C-310 passed a third reading vote April 27 and has gone on to the Senate.