News/Canada

Canadian bishops are welcome to advise Development and Peace about overseas partnerships but D&P members are asserting their right to make final decisions about which organizations are funded.

D&P’s national council passed a unanimous resolution at a June 10-12 meeting that essentially reaffirms that funding decisions will be made by the council and its 12,000 strong predominantly lay members.

The national council consists of 20 elected, volunteer representatives from across Canada, plus bishops Richard Grecco of P.E.I and Claude Champagne of New Brunswick. D&P acts as the international development organization of the Catholic Church in Canada.

The national council resolution came in the wake of a recent decision by the D&P executive, acting on abortion-related allegations expressed by a Mexican cardinal, to revoke the funding of the Mexican human rights organization Centro PRODH. That decision prompted a defiant resolution from D&P members in Quebec and New Brunswick in support of Centro PRODH and calling for restoration of its funding.

OTTAWA - The Conservative Party has given a ringing endorsement to traditional marriage, to family life and the rights of parents to raise children according to individual conscience and beliefs.

At its 2011 policy convention, held June 9-11, the Conservatives resolved to support legislation “defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” They also stressed that Parliament, not the courts, should determine the definition of marriage through a free vote.

“This is a party that’s not afraid of being conservative,” said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, a Catholic, in an interview.  “It’s a dramatic change from the days of the old Progressive Conservative Party where social conservatives were not made to feel welcome.”

The party passed a resolution on family and marriage that affirmed the family unit is “essential to the well-being of individuals and society, because it is where children learn values and develop a sense of responsibility.” The resolution also stressed “the right and duty of parents to raise their own children responsibly according to their own conscience and beliefs.”

TORONTO - Prostitution is an economic activity, not a constitutionally protected right, and public policy regarding prostitution is the responsibility of Parliament, a federal lawyer has argued in the Ontario Court of Appeal.

On the opening day of an appeal into a lower-court decision that struck down some sections of Canada’s prostitution laws, federal lawyer Michael Morris told the five judges that the state has no requirement to ensure a safe work environment for prostitutes.

“The ‘security of their person’ argument is based upon the argument that prostitution should be made more safe,” he said. “We say that requires they have a right to engage in prostitution in the first place.” No such right exists, he said.

Morris was challenging an Ontario Superior court ruling by Judge Susan Himel that said Criminal Code provisions that prohibit living off the avails, keeping a common bawdy house and soliciting for purposes of prostitution infringed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

WINDSOR, ONT. - Father William Hodgson Marshall was sentenced to two years in prison for sexually abusing 16 boys and one girl in Ontario high schools while he was a teacher, coach and principal from the early 1950s to the mid-1980s.

Marshall, 88, was also given three years probation and his name will be added to the national sex offender registry. He pleaded guilty to charges of indecent assault that occurred in schools and private residences, from Windsor to Toronto, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie.

For the victims, it was an emotional two days in Superior Court where the priest pled guilty prior to numerous victims giving pre-sentence statements.

Ken Hills, one of Marshall’s earliest victims, was abused at Toronto’s St. Michael’s High School in 1953. His assault occurred in an office by the gymnasium where Marshall coached basketball.

“You began stalking me when I was in Grade 8,” he told the court. “This predatorial action continued through grades nine and ten and eleven.”

In 2003, Zofia Szaflarski was invited by a friend to join a weeklong walking pilgrimage to the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland, Ont. Hesitant but curious, Szaflarski agreed and since then she has been “addicted.”

Several walks later, Szaflarski now helps organize and promote the annual pilgrimage.

“It’s very religious and very spiritual,” she said of the walking pilgrimage, particularly popular among Polish Catholics. “But what a lot of people forget is that it’s also a lot of fun.”

With about 1,000 other people, Szaflarski spent a week trekking  125 kilometres from St. Patrick’s parish in Wildfield, Ont., to the Shrine. The group celebrated Mass each morning and then walked, prayed, and sang until they lit a bonfire after they stopped for the night. This year’s pilgrimage will culminate at the Shrine on August 13.

The leaders of the Canadian pro-life movement will examine strategies for effective change when they gather June 24-25 for the Toronto 2011 Pro-Life Forum.

Hosted by Campaign Life Coalition, the two-day conference will kick off at a dinner with keynote speaker Brian Lilley of Sun TV News, followed by a full day of panels and speakers. The forum will take place at Hotel Novotel Toronto Centre.

“Be informed, be inspired, be active,” said Alisa Golob, youth coordinator for the Campaign Life Coalition, echoing the conference’s theme. “First you have to know what’s going on… and hear the other side of the story.”

Canadians seldom see pro-life issues reported in the media, said Golob, and when they do, it’s usually negative coverage. This, according to Golob, is why CLC chose Lilley, host of Byline, as keynote speaker for the opening night dinner.

OTTAWA — The June 3 Throne Speech reiterates modest campaign promises and the June 6 budget is virtually identical to the budget tabled Mar. 22. However, these little changes could have a huge impact on Canadian society, observers say.

Though the 400-page budget document emphasizes stability, a think tank concerned about a flourishing civil society says the Conservative government is “preparing for a coming storm in Canadian politics: one which they intend to shape and survive.”

That storm involves the aging of Canadian society that will see 2.5 workers for every retiree, up from the present 4.7 workers per retiree; a coming health care crunch that has not been publicly addressed; and the ways an increased free trade environment might hurt some sectors of the economy, Cardus warns.

“The increased emphasis on expenditure review and the advanced targets for returning to surplus are just two indicators that this budget is really about battening down the hatches and rolling out the foundations for shaping tomorrow’s social architecture,” said an analysis by Cardus, a think tank that now incorporates the former Centre for Culture Renewal.

TORONTO - Campaign Life Coalition says the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association’s choice of prominent gay rights advocate Ilana Landsberg-Lewis to speak at its upcoming conference is “outrageous” and “undermines” Catholic values.

Landsberg-Lewis will be one of the guest speakers at OECTA’s “Common Good Conference: The Soul of Teaching — Changing the Human Condition” which runs July 6 to 8 in Toronto. She is the executive director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation and daughter of Stephen Lewis, a former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and a renowned abortion advocate.

Landsberg-Lewis is not an appropriate speaker at a Catholic teachers’ conference because her views on abortion and same-sex marriage reject core Catholic teachings, said Jim Hughes, Campaign Life president.

“Every time one of the Lewises shows up, it undermines who we are as Catholics. There are many other speakers who can speak up on other positive topics that don’t outrage Catholic parents,” said Hughes. “This is another example of why Catholic parents feel they are being undermined by the Catholic teachers.”

TORONTO - When it began more than 30 years ago, Prison Fellowship International was only a handful of national prison ministries that shared a common vision of sharing Christ with the incarcerated. In 2011, representatives from more than 115 countries who now share that vision will gather in Toronto for the fellowship’s international convocation.

From June 28 to July 2, the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel will play host to the ninth quadrennial PFI Convocation, where prison ministers will explore their mission of bringing Christ to prisoners, ex-prisoners, victims and their families.

“It’s really a forum for people from various backgrounds, experiences and types of programs to share their stories, their best practices, program models and ideas,” said Ron Nikkel, the president and CEO of PFI. “It becomes a gigantic mixing bowl of creativity and ideas.”

PFI, the world’s largest criminal justice ministry with more than 50,000 volunteers, will feature a variety of speakers throughout the five-day conference, including Rev. Pierre Allard, prison chaplain and former president of the International Prison Chaplains’ Association, and Philip Yancey, Christian author and journalist. Participants will also take part in a number of workshops teaching effective practices and leadership skills for use in prison ministry.

TORONTO - A study from researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital has found that female prisoners who did not participate in a drug treatment program after their release were 10 times more likely to return to prison within one year than those who did.

Published in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the study showed that more than one-third of women  who didn’t participate returned to prison within six months, said Flora Matheson, a medical sociologist at St. Michael’s Hospital who led the study.

“The good news story is that if we can get women into the program and keep them there, then they have a great chance of success,” said Matheson, a scientist in the hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health who collaborated on the study with the research branch of the Correctional Service of Canada.

Researchers examined the Community Relapse Prevention and Maintenance (CRPM) program, developed as part of a continuum of treatment of women offenders under federal supervision in Canada. CRPM is the after-care component of Women Offenders Substance Abuse Programming (WOSAP), which was implemented by Correctional Services Canada in May 2003. The community based program is offered to women on parole.