{mosimage}TORONTO - Whether Canadian officials in Afghanistan knew that Afghan detainees would be tortured once handed over to the Afghan army, or merely suspected that they might be, Canadians may have involved themselves in the intrinsic evil of torture, according to Catholic theologians.

Government denials which claim Canadians had no concrete evidence of specific cases of Canadian detainees being tortured don’t absolve Canadian officials of moral complicity in torture, said Lee Cormie, professor of Christian ethics at Toronto’s University of St. Michael’s College.

{mosimage}The axe that landed on KAIROS , ending 35 years of Canadian International Development Agency funding, has left Canada’s Catholic development organization and others wondering, who’s next?

“It gives all organizations in the development community... pause right now to wonder what’s going on,” said Michael Casey, executive director of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - An ad hoc committee of four bishops has been named to help the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace in a renewal process.

“The focus of the committee is to help Development and Peace to review its mandate and to see how they can adjust to the last encyclical letter of the Pope, Caritas in Veritate,” said Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops president Bishop Pierre Morissette Dec. 3. “We think that there is a lot of very helpful insight in this letter for Development and Peace.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - Heavy condemnation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government for its pick-and-choose approach to protecting Canadians facing the death penalty abroad came up repeatedly during the third annual Cities for Life protest in Toronto.

“We now have, for the first time in more than 50 years, a Prime Minister and a government who support the death penalty, who believe in the death penalty,” said James Lockyer, director of the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted . 

{mosimage}Order of Canada recipient Frank Chauvin has said thanks, but no thanks, to the country’s highest civilian honour.

Chauvin will be returning his Order of Canada after a federal court judge dismissed his application on Nov. 24 challenging abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler’s appointment to the order.

“The Order of Canada is nice and all, but give it to somebody who deserves it and wants it,” Chauvin told The Catholic Register from Windsor, Ont.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Amanda Inglis and Milton Silcus say they’re getting their “daily bread” and spiritual nourishment at St. Patrick’s Church’s Out of the Cold program.

“St. Patrick’s Church gives us some grounding and support,” Inglis, 40, said.

Inglis and Silcus are part of a growing trend at some Out of the Cold centres in the city. At least two Catholic-affiliated centres at St. Patrick’s Church and the First Interfaith group at St. Matthew’s United Church are reporting an increased demand for their services during the economic downturn.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Canada should urge other governments at next summer’s G8 summit to fight child poverty and improve children’s health around the world, says World Vision advocate and Canadian singer-songwriter Tom Cochrane.

“Five years should not be a lifetime for a child,” Cochrane told The Catholic Register.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Mary Hatch is comfortably retired from a career in banking that saw her take on various managerial roles. Her kids are in university and starting careers. She lives in one of Toronto’s leafy old neighbourhoods where the houses sell for un-godly sums.

In the normal course of her day, or her year, Hatch’s life would never intersect with the life of a single mother who can’t afford a bath mat or towels or a microwave. In Hatch’s parish and neighbourhood mothers don’t fear Christmas because they have no chance of fulfilling Christmas wishes. In Hatch’s world standardized sheets for a crib,  a winter coat from Wal-Mart or winter boots are basics, not Christmas gifts.

{mosimage}“It’s a very exciting time in our work,” said Margaret Smith, a nurse, Creighton Model System practitioner and the centre’s program director. “And we already have plans for future education programs in other areas of Ontario and Canada.”

As Toronto’s Marguerite Bourgeoys Centre is the largest of its kind in Canada, practitioners in London, Ont., and Calgary have asked the centre to provide the training program locally, which the Toronto centre hopes to do in 2010 and 2011.

{mosimage}Order of Canada recipient Frank Chauvin has said thanks, but no thanks, to the country's highest civilian honour.

Chauvin will be returning his Order of Canada after a federal court judge dismissed his application on Nov. 24 challenging abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler's appointment to the order.

“The Order of Canada is nice and all, but give it to somebody who deserves it and wants it,” Chauvin told The Catholic Register from Windsor, Ont.

Chauvin said he and Morgentaler have a “different purpose in life.” The retired Windsor police detective said he is working towards helping orphaned girls through the Holy Name of Mary Food Fund, a charity he founded in Haiti 20 years ago, in stark contrast to Morgentaler's work which “takes lives” by providing abortion services to women.