{mosimage}TORONTO - What can a penny buy today? More than you think.

Twenty-five ago, when Mary Hughes was a youthful 75-year-old, she heard her grandchildren teasing their father about having a sore back because he couldn’t pass a penny on the sidewalk without bending to pick it up. It got her thinking about all the stray pennies people pass by without notice or exile to their piggy banks. What if all those pennies could be collected and put towards a good cause, she wondered.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Canada’s Catholic bishops will release funds to the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (D&P), at the same time increasing their oversight of the agency.

“Aware that Development and Peace is already engaged in this process of renewal, the bishops decided, in the interval, to support Development and Peace and its 2010 Share Lent collection,” said a statement released Oct. 23, at the close of the five-day Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops annual plenary in  Cornwall, Ont.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Christopher West introduced a thousand adults, young and old, to Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body at a weekend conference in Toronto Oct. 16-17.

West, a spokesman for the Theology of the Body Research Institute, a non-profit educational organization based in Philadelphia, delivered a dynamic introduction over the two days on a series of 129 short talks the late pope gave between September of 1979 and November of 1984 on human embodiment and erotic love.

TORONTO - Close to $2 million has been donated to Salt + Light Television , Canada’s only national Catholic television network.

“To have raised $1.9 million at one event, especially in such difficult economic times, is a vivid sign of God’s providential care for Salt + Light Television,” Fr. Tom Rosica, CEO of Salt + Light, said in an e-mail to The Register.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) has written a strongly worded letter to Parliamentarians and Senators opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“Keeping in mind that Canada has rejected the death penalty, it would be a contradiction and an injustice to consider allowing some people to directly and intentionally kill others, especially at a time when they are most vulnerable,” wrote COLF director Michele Boulva in an Oct. 15 open letter.

{mosimage}CORNWALL, Ont. - The primate of Canada’s Catholic Church has welcomed the groundbreaking news that the Vatican has established a special canonical structure to bring disgruntled Anglicans into the church, but the primate of Canada’s Anglican Church predicted tensions may emerge.

The Vatican surprised Catholics and Anglicans alike on Oct. 20 with a bold announcement of a new apostolic constitution that will open the Catholic Church to Anglicans who are disenchanted by a liberal theology that permits women priests and a growing acceptance of gay marriage and openly gay bishops. Under the historic arrangement, Anglican priests who are married may be ordained Catholic priests, but married Anglican bishops will not be able to function as Catholic bishops. Anglicans will also be able to retain much of the Anglican liturgy that has been developed since Henry VIII split from Rome in 1534.

{mosimage}CORNWALL, Ont. - The child pornography charges laid against Bishop Raymond Lahey cast a pall over the weeks leading up to the annual gathering of Canada’s Catholic bishops.

In his last report to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops as president, Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber said it “might be tempting” to use the phrase Annus horribilis to describe them. But the phrase is not part of our Catholic tradition, he said.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The Second Vatican Council represents a "paradigm shift" in the Catholic Church that remains irreversible despite conservative efforts to undermine it.

That was the message of “hope” two living witnesses of the council brought to the Vatican II in Canada conference at Saint Paul University Oct. 15.

{mosimage}In response to a poll showing three-quarters of Quebec medical specialists would likely favour legalized euthanasia, Catholic groups say Canada must improve its end-of-life care.

The groups were responding to an Oct. 13 survey by the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists which suggests that a majority of those surveyed are in favour of supporting legalized euthanasia.

{mosimage}TORONTO - He’s been “beat up in the media” about a $2.7-million severance payout, but former Sick Kids Foundation president and deacon-in-training Michael O’Mahoney says he’s been given a bad rap and is turning to his Catholic faith to help him get through this “complete misunderstanding.”

O’Mahoney told The Catholic Register from Portland, Ore., that he has put “a lot of faith and trust in God that even when that’s happening, it’s going to turn out OK.”