NEWS

{mosimage}TORONTO - Making a budget is about making moral choices, the social justice coalition sponsored by Canada’s Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches said in a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the provincial premiers.

The global financial crisis happened because governments and corporations failed to take moral responsibility for the economy, according to a Jan. 23 letter from KAIROS to Harper and the premiers.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The federal budget proved disappointing for social justice organizations hoping for more direct help for the poor and more focus on renewable energy.“There were tax cuts that help a number of Canadians,” said Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) executive director Joe Gunn after the government introduced its budget Jan. 27. “But for the poorest and most vulnerable, those too poor to pay taxes, there’s not much for them. These are the people the Christian community serves and hold dearest in our hearts,” he said, noting that “at time of recession they will suffer the most.”

Laurel Rothman, national co-ordinator for Campaign 2000, a national anti-poverty campaign aimed at eliminating child poverty said the budget contained “virtually nothing for low-income families,” especially 760,000 children living in poverty and their mothers.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said he learned "with joy" of the election of Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad — a prelate he has met three times — as the new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Patriarch-elect Kirill, 62, who had been in charge of ecumenical relations for the Russian Orthodox Church for the past 20 years, was elected patriarch of Moscow Jan. 27 on the first ballot cast by members of the church's local council. He will be enthroned Feb. 1 in Moscow as the successor of Patriarch Alexy II, who died in December after more than 18 years as head of the church.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the excommunication of four bishops ordained against papal orders in 1988 by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The move was considered a major concession to the archbishop's traditionalist followers.

The Vatican said the decree removing the excommunication, signed Jan. 21 and made public three days later, marked an important step toward full communion with the Society of St. Pius X , founded by Lefebvre in 1970. It said some questions remain unresolved with the society, including its future status and that of its priests, and that these issues would be the subject of further talks.

{mosimage}WASHINGTON - Pro-life activists quickly denounced U.S. President Barack Obama's Jan. 23 signature on an executive order reversing the Mexico City policy, a move that clears the way for the federal government to provide aid to programs that promote or perform abortion overseas.

The Associated Press reported late in the afternoon that Obama signed an executive order reversing the ban that was first instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Obama signed the order with no fanfare and with no news media in the room, a marked contrast to signings of executive orders earlier in the week.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI asked young Catholics to use their computers, Facebook accounts, blogs and Internet video posts to share with their peers the joy of faith in Christ. And to underline his message, he launched a new Vatican site on YouTube, the world's largest on-line source of videos.

"Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm," the Pope told young people in his message for the 2009 celebration of World Communications Day.

{mosimage}TORONTO - As millions converged on Washington to see Barack Obama swear the oath of office and begin a new chapter in black history Jan. 20, schools and parishes in Toronto were preparing for a month of celebrations to commemorate African-Canadian contributions to Canada and the world.

Even if Black History Month or African Heritage Month are annual events with a history stretching back to the 1920s in the United States, the inauguration of the first black president of the United States makes this year special.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Standing at the ambo of Toronto’s grand and historic St. James Anglican Cathedral in his impressive academic robes, Rev. Dr. Brian Stiller, Canadian Evangelical leader and president of Tyndale University College and Seminary, frankly confessed his pharisaical tendencies.

He was quick to point out that the Pharisees are the “good guys” — decent, honest, thoughtful, law abiding, tax-paying, religious people not unlike most regular church-goers in our own society.

{mosimage}MADRID, Spain  - A Spanish judge has decided to open an investigation into the case of 14 members of the Salvadoran army accused of involvement in killing six Jesuit priests and two of their employees in 1989, during El Salvador’s civil war.

High Court Judge Eloy Velasco also decided not to try former Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani, accused of concealment of the crime, because of insufficient evidence.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It was a road trip of a lifetime for Newman Centre parishioner Monique Ferdinand.

The 26-year-old consultant made the 10-hour drive to Washington, D.C., with two friends for the inauguration of the United States’ first African-American president, Barack Obama, Jan. 20.