NEWS

TORONTO - The archdiocese of Toronto has launched an online donation portal that will now give parishioners the opportunity to donate to their parish and Catholic charities with the click of a button.

"It's pretty exciting because a parishioner can go online and make a donation to either their offertory, building fund or capital campaign," said Quentin Schesnuik, manager of planned giving and personal gifts with the archdiocese.

OTTAWA - Canada’s Parliament has called on Pakistan to release a Christian woman who faces a possible death sentence under that country’s onerous blasphemy laws.

On Dec. 8, the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion “calling upon the Government of Pakistan to immediately release Ms. Asia Bibi, to ensure her safety and well-being, to hear the outcry of the international community and to respect the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

The motion, tabled by Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, was welcomed by International Christian Voice, a religious freedom organization founded by Peter Bhatti, the brother of the former Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti who was assassinated March 2 this year.

Bhatti was the second highly ranked Pakistani official who was assassinated for speaking against the blasphemy laws. On Jan. 4, Punjab province governor Salmaan Taseer was killed by his own bodyguard for defence of Bibi. Bhatti, a Roman Catholic, was the only Christian in the Pakistani government. His brother Dr. Paul Bhatti, was appointed as an advisor to the Pakistani Prime Minister on minority issues in late March.

“International Christian Voice along with the religious minorities of Pakistan, strongly appreciate the Canadian government for approving a motion calling upon the Government of Pakistan for the immediate release of Asia Bibi and to repeal its blasphemy laws,” said Peter Bhatti in a news release. “We feel very proud and blessed to be a part of a country that fights for justice and religious freedom not only for Canadians but for all. Canada continues to stand as a champion of human rights, democracy and religious freedom.”

On Dec. 9, as Canada marked Human Rights Day, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird called 2011 a “landmark year” for human rights, but noted many innocent people continued to be persecuted for their sexual orientation, politics or religion. He reiterated the government’s pledge to establish an Office of Religious Freedom. “The history of humanity has proven that religious freedom and democratic freedom are inseparable,” Baird said in a statement.

On Dec. 5, in a statement to the House, Conservative MP Bob Dechert, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, reminded the House of Baird’s response last November to Bibi’s incarceration.

“At the time, the Government of Canada registered its concerns with Pakistan at high levels,” Dechert said. “We have also called on the Government of Pakistan to repeal laws criminalizing blasphemy, which restrict religious freedom and expression and have disproportionately targeted religious minorities.”

Dechert said human right promotion and protection remain integral to Canada’s foreign policy.

The Foreign Affairs ministry has been conducting consultations on the Office of Religious Freedom but no date has been announced for its establishment.

TORONTO - Toronto’s budget chief says the city will be rethinking proposed cuts that some saw as a threat to the 685 nutrition programs at the city’s public and Catholic schools.

The committee is “rethinking everything,” Councillor Mike Del Grande told The Catholic Register.

And Councillor Doug Ford, in media interviews, reassured students and parents that kids “aren’t going to go hungry.”

DARBY, Pa. U.S. Cardinal John P. Foley, who spent more than two decades leading the Church's social communications council and later worked for the Church in the Middle East, died Dec. 11 after a battle with leukemia.

The cardinal, who had been residing at Villa St. Joseph, the home for retired Philadelphia archdiocesan priests, was 76. Cardinal Foley's media-friendly style and quick sense of humour shone in person and throughout the numerous speeches and homilies he delivered around the world. He often spoke of the joys of working for the Church, telling his audiences that while the pay often is not great "the benefits are out of this world."

HAVANA - The Cuban bishops announced that 2012 would be a Marian jubilee year and that Pope Benedict XVI would come to Cuba as a "pilgrim of La Caridad," the popular name for the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, the country's patroness.

In a Dec. 8 pastoral letter, they declared a jubilee year from Jan. 7, 2012, through Jan. 6, 2013, and said Cubans need the joy of faith, the strength of Christian love and the light of hope that can come from "a reunion with our Christian roots" and with the "enthusiastic reception of the teachings of Jesus Christ."

WASHINGTON - The U.S. bishops' pro-life spokeswoman said she was relieved that the Obama administration has decided not to allow the Plan B One-Step "morning-after pill" to be sold without a prescription to those under 17.

"Luckily, things did not go from bad to even worse," Deirdre McQuade, assistant director for policy and communications at the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, told Catholic News Service Dec. 8. "We're pleased that they did not expand access to this very powerful drug."

McQuade said Plan B One-Step, known generically as levonorgestrel, "is 40 times more potent than comparable progestin-only birth control pills for which a prescription is required" even for adult women.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI tapped a tablet computer and successfully lit the world's largest electronic Christmas "tree" located in the Italian town of Gubbio.

Before turning on the tree with a tap on the Sony S Tablet, the pope addressed the citizens of Gubbio via a video link from his apartment in Vatican City Dec. 7, calling on Christians to serve as a light in the lives of others.

In his talk, the pope said that just as the tree design in Gubbio was made up of tiny individual lights, each person needs to bring light to the people and places in their lives, to their family, workplace, neighborhood, town or city.

MOOSE FACTORY, ONT. - Poverty. No clean water supply. No electricity. No heating. Lack of proper housing. Lack of education. Minimal health resources. Suffering. Hopelessness. Loud cries for help. And yet no one is listening. No one is paying attention. No one is showing care and compassion.

This may sound like a Third World, developing country, but, no, this is Canada. This is the Canada that so many people do not know exists and is ignored. Until recently, I was one of these people.

I am a registered nurse who has served in impoverished villages in Nigeria and the shantytowns surrounding the cities of Lima, Peru, and Guayaquil, Ecuador. I have experienced much poverty in my travels, but I have also experienced hope, courage and love. Although these people may seem to lack the basics, they have so much more. It is a poverty of material, not of spirit.

The Town of Midland's Planning and Development Committee won't be talking over plans for a metal and industrial waste recycling facility next to the Martyrs' Shrine at its Dec. 7 meeting.

The Recycling Specialties Inc. proposal for an open-air waste sorting facility on the doorstep of the shrine is off the agenda while the company continues to work on its plans.

Meanwhile, Midland Mayor Gord McKay tells The Catholic Register relocating the Recycling Specialties yard away from the Wye Marsh, Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons and the Martyrs' Shrine is a distinct possibility.

It’s a good thing the federal government wants to know where millions of dollars given to the Attawapiskat community has gone, Fr. Rodrigue Vézina told The Catholic Register on the phone from the Northern Ontario reserve. Since 2007, the government has given more than $90 million to the struggling community.

“All of us want to check where all of our tax money is going,” said Vézina, an Oblate missionary and pastor of St. Francis Xavier parish in Attawapiskat, supported by Catholic Missions In Canada.

The small isolated town near the western shore of James Bay received international attention when Chief Theresa Spence declared a state of emergency in October as temperatures began to drop. For at least the past two years, many residents have lived in makeshift tents and shacks without heat, electricity or indoor plumbing.