News/Canada

OTTAWA - An alliance of Cambodian advocacy groups has asked Canada to urge the Royal Government of Cambodia to rescind a proposed law that would severely restrict the work of non-governement organizations in that country.

A representative of the civil society groups engaged in democracy building, land reform and human rights in Cambodia came to Ottawa Sept. 14 to appeal for help in preventing a law that will require Cambodian NGOs to register with the state, allowing the government to restrict or shut down NGOs without an appeals process.

“The law is not passed yet but we have already seen how it will work,” said Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of Cambodia’s NGO Forum, an umbrella group representing 87 NGOs, various civil society groups and about 200 additional members.

Saskatchewan two dads case "troubling" say CCRL

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TORONTO - A court ruling that a surrogate mother can be legally removed from a birth certificate so two men in a same-sex relationship can be registered as the parents of an adopted baby is redefining the definition of motherhood in a "troubling" way and ignores the child's best interests, says the Catholic Civil Rights League.

At the request of a same-sex male couple, a Saskatchewan judge ruled in mid-September that the name of a surrogate mother who gave birth to a baby girl in 2009 be stricken from the baby's birth certificate. Instead of naming a mother, the birth certificate will name two men as the child's parents.

“One aspect of these cases that often gets overlooked is the interest of the child," said CCRL Executive Director Joanne McGarry. "What entitlements will this baby girl have as a teenager or as an adult to have access to medical or other records of the anonymous biological mother, or the surrogate mother?”

Scarboros mourn loss of well-liked Fr. Veltri

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TORONTO - Fr. Richard Veltri of the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society was a good friend who loved to laugh and a compassionate pastor who knew how to listen.

In recent years Fr. Veltri had struggled with a number of ailments. He died Sept. 12 at the age of 77.

As a man who spoke his mind freely and forcefully, Fr. Veltri was never unnoticed in the Scarboro Missions community, said Scarboro Mission priest Fr. Roger Brennan.

"He was a character, one of those people who adds a certain flavour to the community — a little something different," he said.

ISARC's end-poverty campaign launched

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TORONTO - As campaign-style signs went up at Toronto's Anglican St. James Cathedral and other churches around Ontario Sept. 15, Ryerson University political science professor Myer Siemiatycki suggested provincial politicians look to the prophet Isaiah for a crucial plank in their platform.

"Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free... share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house," reads Isaiah 58:6-7, the traditional reading in Siemiatycki's synagogue for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Oct. 8 this year).

"That's a hell of a political platform," Siemiatycki told a crowd of Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition supporters gathered outside the cathedral to erect signs that read "Let's Vote for a Poverty Free Ontario." Siemiatycki was there on behalf of Toronto's Darchei Noam synagogue, a member of ISARC.

Quebec enters new era as two new bishops ordained

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MONTREAL - When Montreal Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Dowd came to the microphone after his Sept. 10  ordination, he paused, his smartphone in hand, pressed “Send,” and announced: “I just updated my Twitter account: It’s official. I’m a bishop.”

One day shy of his 41st birthday when Montreal Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte ordained him, Dowd already had established himself as a blogging priest, adept in social media and the new evangelization. His blog and Twitter account now follow his service in the episcopate.

Turcotte also ordained Auxiliary Bishop Christian Lepine, 59.

OECTA provincial election ads influencing few

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TORONTO - As the partisan rhetoric ramps up for the Ontario election, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association’s attempts at influencing the vote seem to be having little impact so far.

OECTA’s “Who Speaks for Children” campaign was launched on YouTube in March. It highlights the successes of Ontario students since 2003, when the Liberal government came to power. It lauds Ontario’s recent education successes and refers to the tumultuous period of the Mike Harris years when unions clashed constantly and bitterly with Harris’ Conservative government.

Billboard ads have also gone up across the province. In Toronto, the ad can be prominently found throughout Union Station where thousands of commuters from across the GTA pass through daily. At the end of August, the campaign moved into major shopping malls and is running in community newspapers.

Canada's ‘vulnerably housed’ face chronic health conditions

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TORONTO - The health of those who are “vulnerably housed” is just as poor as the homeless, says a recent study from researchers at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital.

The study found that more than 85 per cent of homeless people have chronic health conditions and more than half have a mental health problem. But those who are “vulnerably housed” — meaning they live in unsafe, unstable or unaffordable housing — have equally poor or worse health than those with no housing at all, found the study published in the International Journal of Public Health last month.

“It’s something that’s not as visible to us because we don’t see them on the street,” said Dr. Stephen Hwang, principal investigator of the study and a physician-researcher at the hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health.

Youth turning to Twitter and Facebook in search for work

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TORONTO - Noelle Munaretto knew it was time to find a full-time job after graduating from Ryerson University.

Influenced by the sudden media hype Twitter was attracting, she decided to sign up and, within 24 hours, was following about 300 people.

By following the people that her existing contacts followed, Munaretto, a Catholic, was led to a tweet advertising a position she was interested in. And by August, she had a job as operations manager at the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance.

The Internet and social media are critical in the job hunt, said Friar Richard Riccioli, former pastor at St. Bonaventure Church in Toronto and current director of Francis Corps, a young adult volunteer experience in Syracuse, N.Y.

St. Thomas More College celebrates 75 years

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SASKATOON - This fall, St. Thomas More College is celebrating 75 years of Catholic higher education as a federated college on the University of Saskatchewan campus.

The college was founded by the Basilian Fathers of Toronto in federation with the University of Saskatchewan, a relationship modelled on St. Michael’s College with the University of Toronto.

Established in 1936, the first school year saw a total of 39 students being taught by four faculty.

Local Catholics had been trying to establish such a college since 1913, but couldn’t get all Saskatchewan bishops to sign on. Early in 1936, with the province in the grip of drought and economic depression, the bishops of Saskatchewan finally gave their approval, although they also stated that action on the college was “absolutely impossible” at that time.

New missal continues Vatican II reforms

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OTTAWA - Fr. Bill Burke notices a similar pattern in the workshops he has held over the past year on the new English translation of the Roman missal.

At first those attending greet the changes with anger, trepidation and fear the new translation will take back the reforms of Vatican II, he said. They’ve heard rumours from the blogosphere or elsewhere that the “translations is terrible.”

But as Burke exposes priests, music directors and diocesan staff to the new texts, they warm up to the richness of the new translation. He’s travelled to 27 dioceses so far, and plans to visit four more before the new missal is to be used everywhere in English-language parishes in Canada beginning the first Sunday of Advent, Nov. 27.

During his workshops, Burke gives attendees copies of the collects for Advent and Christmas according to the new translation and asks them to follow the new turns of phrase while he reads aloud the current translation.

Bishop must submit to questioning in priest’s lawsuit against LifeSite

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OTTAWA - In a decision with potentially serious ramifications for the Church, a Quebec bishop has been ordered to submit to questioning and hand over internal Church documents to defence lawyers acting in a lawsuit filed by a Quebec priest.

A Quebec judge has granted leave for lawyers to question Joliette Bishop Gilles Lussier as they prepare a defence in a defamation lawsuit filed last December by Fr. Raymond Gravel.

The priest is seeking $500,000 in damages from two pro-life organizations, LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) and Campagne Quebec-Vie, (CQV), and six journalists.

Gravel claims his professional reputation as a politician and Catholic priest was damaged as a result of 29 articles that described him variously as “pro-abortion,” “pro-homosexual marriage” or as a “renegade priest” who has made “heretical and anti-life statements.” Gravel contends he has “always been faithful to the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church.”