INUVIK, N.W.T. - The Church in the north can help native people recover their languages and cultural identity, but it won't be easy, said Oblate Archbishop Sylvain Lavoie at the conclusion of four days of testimony about the damage residential schools did to native families, communities and culture.

Justice Murray Sinclair, chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada with a five-year mandate to investigate the history of the schools, wrapped up the TRC's Northern National Event in Inuvik July 1 with a warning to aboriginal participants in the Commission's hearings that they will have to take responsibility for the future of native culture.

"The Church can't give you back your language. The Church can't give you back your culture," Sinclair told about 400 people who attended the closing ceremonies for the event.

Sinclair told churches they would have to tell people they don't have to be Christian if they really want reconciliation.

Covenant House youth trained for food industry work

By

TORONTO - Bo has a passion for food. And thanks to Cooking for Life, a new culinary arts program for homeless youth offered at Covenant House, he can pursue this passion.

"The program has got great potential for employment opportunity and it's helped me so much with my kitchen skills, my knife skills and safety in the kitchen," said the 24-year-old, a member of the program's first graduating class.

The program's public launch took place June 29 at the downtown youth shelter's newly renovated kitchen, which was made possible with the help of federal government funding. MP John Carmichael, David Garcelon, executive chef at Toronto's Fairmont Royal York Hotel, and Ruth daCosta, executive director of Covenant House, all addressed a crowd of about 50 people.

"Participants learn the professional conduct required to work in a fast-paced restaurant environment," daCosta said. "Graduates can earn a safe food handling certificate and receive support to find a job. They will be better equipped to cook for themselves when they move out on their own."

Catholics, Anglicans make reconciliation gesture to aboriginal people

By

INUVIK, N.W.T. - In the midst of a gathering which seeks reconciliation and healing from the 130-year history of residential schools in Canada, Catholic and Anglican bishops from the north took responsibility for the 400-year-old division between the churches and pledged continued dialogue, co-operation and reconciliation.

"This is a road we're on and there are no exits," said Bishop Gary Gordon of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.

The gesture of reconciliation and healing came on June 29, day two of the five-day Northern National Event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in Inuvik. About 1,000 native people from all over the far north have gathered with Church and government officials to review the history of the residential schools, hear the stories of school survivors and imagine a new future for native Canadians.

Anglican and Catholic missionaries brought their rivalry with them to northern communities, often dividing communities and families along denominational lines. Catholics couldn't attend the funerals of their Anglican family members. Anglican and Catholic residential school students fought each other on the basis of religious labels.

"These are things we offer regret for, and we want to put them in our past," said Bishop Murray Chatlain of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, N.W.T.

D&P's union chafes under tighter rules

By

OTTAWA — The union representing Development and Peace employees says tighter supervision by the Canadian bishops threatens the democratic nature of the lay-run organization and undermines the prophetic vision that motivates their work.

The union report, prepared for a recent meeting of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace’s (D&P) National Council in June, said the world “ is increasingly turning towards a conservative ideology.”

“There is clearly a turn to the right in several societies, as well as in the Universal Church,” it said.

The 7-page document, published June 25 on the blog Soutenons Developpement et paix (soutenondetp.wordpress.com), claims the shift “runs counter to the prophetic vision that gave rise” to D&P’s creation 45 years ago.

Lahey’s sentencing postponed to August

By

OTTAWA - Bishop Raymond Lahey’s sentencing hearing for importing child porn has been postponed to Aug. 4 and 5.

The sentencing hearing had been scheduled for June 24, but the Crown had not received the report from forensic psychiatrist Dr. John Bradford, who assessed the former Antigonish bishop.

Lahey, 71, the former bishop of Antigonish, N.S., faces a minimum of one year in prison and could receive up to 10 years. In August, Bradford will be cross-examined concerning the bishop’s mental state and likelihood of reoffending.

Lahey pleaded guilty to importing child porn May 4, 18 months after a Canadian Border Services agent stopped the bishop at Ottawa airport and pulled him aside for a secondary search of his laptop. A more serious charge of possession for the purpose of distribution was dropped by the Crown. The bishop opted to go to jail immediately, pending his sentencing hearing.

Spiritual conversion leads away from gay lifestyle

By

TORONTO - Alan Yoshioka chose God over his homosexual inclinations.

Before his conversion to the Catholic Church, Yoshioka says he lived an “out and proud gay lifestyle.” The 48-year-old Toronto-based freelance editor says after many years of rejecting the Church’s views on homosexuality, he experienced a spiritual conversion leading him to “interior freedom” when he embraced a life of chastity.

“(I am) so grateful for having discovered what it is like to live a life of chastity because there is an interior freedom that I never knew during all my years seeking liberation, seeking freedom in a worldly sense,” he told The Catholic Register.

His blog, “The Sheepcat,” is “a Catholic commentary by a former gay activist and his wife” where Yoshioka writes of his spiritual and personal conversion.

Tears flow as native people relive years of abuse

By

INUVIK, N.W.T - It was a day of tears in Inuvik as Inuit, Dene and Metis gathered to remember and count their losses from years spent in residential schools.

"For the life of me, I can't remember the years from five years old to ten years old," said John Banksland, a representative of the northern survivors committee.

The second major hearing in the Truth and Reconciliation process opened on June 21 with approximately 1,000 survivors of residential schools turning out to tell their stories or listen to others tell theirs.

The federally funded commission is crossing the country to document the abuse that was rampant in the Indian residential school system that ran in Canada for more than a century.

Banksland's hope for the four-day meeting of residential school survivors, church representatives and government officials was for a better future.

"We've had 130 years of this stuff," he said. "It's time to let it go."

Vigil rallies support for torture victims worldwide

By

TORONTO - Christians should be lobbying their Members of Parliament to put pressure on countries that exercise torture, Jesuit Father Valerian Shirima told a small group gathered at a 12-hour prayer vigil held by the Toronto chapter of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT).

Commemorating the United Nations’ International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, about 15 people attended the vigil at the University of St. Michael’s College, which ran from 7 p.m. June 25 to 7 a.m. the following morning, for various lengths of time.

“We are collectively praying together, meditating and thinking of victims of torture,” Stephen Scharper, director of ACAT-Toronto, told The Catholic Register.

ACAT is an ecumenical organization that campaigns for the abolition of torture throughout the world and lends support to victims. First established in Paris in 1974, the organization is now active in 30 countries. The Toronto chapter was founded in October 2010 by Scharper with help from his PhD student, Simon Appolloni.

Parishes gearing up for launch of new Missal

By

TORONTO - Toronto Catholic parishioners will be getting a sneak peek at the new Roman Missal in their parishes as early as this summer.

A number of parishes will be preparing their flocks for the third edition of the Roman Missal which is set to launch in Canada on Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent.  

Msgr. Brad Massman, pastor of St. Paul’s Basilica, said the parish’s musicians are already taking courses in preparation for the new Missal. And parishioners will receive more information this summer through parish announcements.

“We’re going to talk to people about the new Missal. It’s a good time to refresh all of us as far as the Mass is concerned,” said Massman.

According to the new Missal, the structure and order of the Mass will not change, but there will be new texts for prayers and new observances for saints in the Church calendar. Other additions include a Mass in thanksgiving for the gift of human life and an extended vigil for Pentecost.

Father prepares daughters for the dating world

By

TORONTO - Dating is the farthest thing from nine-year-old Aramayah Ocol’s mind. She prefers walking to the ice cream store with her dad. No one matches up to “Daddy.”

That’s just how Noel Ocol hopes it will be, that is until Aramayah is old enough to be courted by potential suitors.

Ocol, a 39-year-old parishioner at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in downtown Toronto, started a blog “Like Father, Like Daughters” for Our Kids Media, an online magazine for private schools.

“So how can I as a dad be proactive against a world where modern pop-culture causes girls to see themselves as a sexual objects and packages love as something from a vending machine where you put your money in, get what you want and throw the rest out?” he asks in his blog.

Teopoli students will experience Sr. Carmelina

By

TORONTO - About 80 young Catholics attending this year’s Teopoli Summer Experience will be doing more than outdoor sports, making new friends and the usual summer camp fare.

They’ll also be introduced to Sr. Carmelina Tarantino of the Cross, the late Passionist Sister of St. Paul whose cause for sainthood is underway.

At the Teopoli camp in Gravenhurst, Ont., students will learn about Sr. Tarantino’s story “in a gentle way” and how she was able to endure her trials through her faith in God, says Luca Mirenzi, a Teopoli youth minister. Sr. Tarantino suffered unexplained illness but maintained a devout life of prayer through it all. For 24 years, she was bed-ridden at Toronto’s Riverdale Hospital (now known as Bridgepoint Health) and was visited by thousands of people seeking spiritual direction. She died in 1992 at the age of 55. The official inquiry into her cause for sainthood began two years ago.

Youth will also visit the memorial at the camp built in Sr. Tarantino’s honour, said Mirenzi.