TORONTO - The Paulist Fathers don’t want to leave Toronto, they have to. That strange uptick in vocations after the Second World War has now worked its way through the system and there aren’t enough priests left to staff the ambitious little empire of Paulist ministries that once dotted cities across North America. So, after a century in Toronto, the U.S.-based Paulists are going home.

Paulist priests preached their first mission in Canada 156 years ago. Fifty-six years later they arrived in Toronto where they came to operate St. Peter’s parish and open the Newman Centre on what is now the campus of the University of Toronto. Due to declining numbers they are being forced to cease Canadian operations and return home. Here is a timeline of their years in Canada.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has formally approved the Canadian delegates to October's world Synod of Bishops on the family.

WINDSOR, Ont. - Our Lady of Assumption Church has been placed on Canada’s 2015 Top Ten Endangered Places list.

OTTAWA - As Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) Canada marks its 10th anniversary this year, it is making an urgent appeal for continued help for imperilled families under Islamic State siege in Iraq and Syria.

OTTAWA - Canada's Catholic bishops and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (D&P) have launched a joint emergency campaign to help earthquake victims in Nepal.

In 1964, when Jean Vanier quietly launched L’Arche, he says he had “no idea that this would be a revolutionary reality . . .  that it would grow.”

VATICAN CITY - Twelve Chaldean religious men and priests living in the United States, Canada, Australia and Sweden have been suspended from exercising their priestly ministry for not receiving permission from their superiors before emigrating from Iraq.

OTTAWA - Dennis Savoie has been chosen as Canada's new ambassador to the Holy See.

OTTAWA - Canadian doctors who refuse to prescribe birth control pills have become the focus of a debate over physicians' rights to freedom of conscience and religion when practising medicine.

As we celebrate Canada Day we may not have a team in the exciting World Cup soccer tournament this month, but events surrounding it remind us that we’re so fortunate to live here. One news story really drove this point home: people in soccer-mad Africa are being killed by Islamist extremists for watching the games on television. 

Despite committing Canada’s churches and volunteers, unasked, to welcoming 1,100 Syrian refugees before the end of this year, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has so far received just 145 applications to sponsor Syrian refugees. None of them have reached Canadian soil. 

Pressure is building on the federal government to get busy on a national palliative care strategy.

Catholic Voices is looking for Canadians to speak up for their Catholic faith.

ROME - Getting into St. Peter’s Square for the canonization Mass of Sts. John XXIII and John Paul II was not for the faint of heart.