OTTAWA - The family of assassinated Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti remains committed to its Catholic faith and the fight to improve the plight of persecuted Christians.

Though Bhatti’s family knew of the death threats their brother faced as an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy law, his March 2 assassination still came as a shock, said his older brother Peter Bhatti, who lives in the Toronto area. The immediate reaction was a sense there is no place for us to live, and no hope, he said.

But his mother blessed him at the funeral service and told him, “Don’t worry, he lost his life for Jesus Christ. He chose a faith which our Jesus Christ chose. He is a martyr.”

Bhatti’s mother asked Peter and other family members to “please continue in his service and mission so our people will not lose their rights and be able to live in dignity and honour,” he said.

Peterborough, Ont. - The faith of Catholic youth in Peterborough, Ont., will be out in the open during Good Friday’s seventh annual Way of the Cross on April 22 with a re-enactment of Christ’s Passion.

“It’s a way of evangelizing in a unique way,” said Mary Helen Moes, program manager for youth for the diocese of Peterborough and director of this year’s re-enactment.

“They’re certainly not pushing their faith on top of anybody. They’re just demonstrating their faith in a very public way and I don’t think there’s many opportunities for that any more.”

Run by the diocese of Peterborough’s Vocations, Evangelization and Youth Office, the Way of the Cross has about 100 youth participating this year, up from the 30 participants of seven years ago when it originated, said Moes.

OTTAWA - Pro-family groups are delighted to see a focus on family issues in the election campaign platforms of all three national parties.

But some social conservative leaders have expressed disappointment that Stephen Harper refuses to reopen the debate on abortion or marriage even if the Conservatives win a majority.

Past elections have seen the “odd snippet” of platform policy directed at family issues so it’s encouraging to see the major parties addressing family matters in this campaign, said Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC) executive director Dave Quist.

“It’s good,” he said. “It’s time they looked at the foundation of our society and that is the family.

“We may disagree on the solutions, that is what democracy is all about, but it’s important that we be discussing these things.”

TORONTO - In the face of cultural pressure to accept abortion, contraception and euthanasia, Catholic doctors can respond by affirming the inherent human dignity of the person and appealing to human reason in explaining the “culture of life,” Catholic experts said at the third annual conference of the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies.

This year’s gathering was organized by the St. Joseph Moscati Catholic Doctors Guild and held at Toronto’s University of St. Michael’s College April 8-10.

“If we allow abortion, suicide and euthanasia, the ‘culture of death’ means death is a way to solve problems,” Prof. Janet Smith, the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and consultor to the Pontifical Institute of the Family, told more than 120 doctors and medical students in her keynote speech.  

TORONTO - When last year's ShareLife campaign did a little better than the organization's cautious projections, local charities benefited to the tune of $305,000.

Catholic Charities distributes the largest portion of ShareLife money to 31 Catholic agencies at work in and around Toronto. It allocates the money in November, long before ShareLife raises the bulk of the money during Lent.

"People say, maybe we've got this backwards. Maybe we should raise the money and then make the commitment," said Catholic Charities executive director Michael Fullan. "I've called the ShareLife campaign an act of faith, because it really is."

Coming in a bit higher than projections last year allowed Catholic Charities to distribute one-time extra grants to a number of agencies at the beginning of 2011.

The number one demand churches are making from campaigning federal politicians is a concrete plan to reduce and end poverty in Canada.

The Canadian Council of Churches reiterated the ecumenical priority in a letter to all the national party leaders March 31.

"The issue of poverty, certainly our Scriptures call us to that over and over and over again," Canadian Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton told The Catholic Register.

The eight priority issues listed in the CCC letter largely repeat the priorities laid out last year by international faith leaders gathered in Winnipeg just before the G20 Summit in Toronto.

TORONTO - Domenico Pietropaolo has been appointed the new principal at Toronto’s University of St. Michael’s College. His five-year term is effective July 1.

“St. Michael’s already has a very distinguished history of scholar- ship and students,” Pietropaolo told The Catholic Register. “And I hope to be able to continue to develop that further to help the St. Michael’s community reach a higher level of excellence than they already enjoy.”

Pietropaolo said he’s very pleased to be taking on the position.

“For me, I’ve never really left the college,” he said. “I’ve always been a member of it. I was a student there and I have been teaching on the campus of St. Michael’s College for many years.”

OTTAWA - A delegation with members from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, East Timor and Sierra Leone have embarked on a tour of Ontario and Quebec cities to tell Canadian Catholics how much their nations have benefited from Canadian generosity.

Among them was the president of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo, Tshumbe Bishop Nicolas Djomo, who spoke of the work the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (D&P) has done in his country.

“Development and Peace has been helping us a lot,” said Djomo, who spoke of the work the Canadian bishops’ development agency did first in addressing emergency needs in the aftermath of the country’s civil war, and now in helping the central African nation address justice and human rights, fair elections and concerns over mining.

When the diocese of London says their doors are always open, they’re not kidding. At least that was the case on April 6 when more than 120 parishes across Southwestern Ontario participated in the dioceses Confession Campaign.

“It’s an invitation to people that the doors are open for them to come back to the sacrament of Confession,” London Bishop Ronald Fabbro told The Catholic Register.

The campaign was modelled after the “Light is On for You” campaign that originated in the archdiocese of Washington and has since spread across the United States, said Mark Adkinson, director of communications for the London diocese.

The American campaign runs Confessions on a particular day for a couple hours every week throughout Lent.

OTTAWA - Anthony Sales’ childhood passion for stamp collecting has become a “Philatelic Tribute to Pope John Paul II” that tells an astonishing story of the “pilgrim pope” in stamps from nations around the world.

“He was really loved,” said Sales, who lives in Richmond, B.C. “He was a man people were just attracted to.”

Sales brought his collection to Ottawa April 1-4, which straddled the sixth anniversary of John Paul’s death, and only a month before John Paul’s beatification in Rome May 2, a circumstance Sales described as “providential.”

The exhibit had originally been slated for last October, and was moved to April before the beatification was announced.

Sales described the late pope as “a man from Galilee” because when he spoke, Sales was reminded of accounts of St. Paul in Acts speaking to the people.