News/Canada

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Abortion remains a heated subject, despite the attempts of Justice Minister Rob Nicholson to keep it out of the federal election.

“The Canadian public does not have any viable political option to advance its grave and serious concern to promote and protect human life in the womb,” said St. Catharine’s Bishop James Wingle.

{mosimage}The Jesuits’ new home for novices is exactly where it needs to be, according to novice master Fr. Eric Oland.

“Something that has been a hallmark of the Jesuits from the very beginning is that we go to places where there is the greatest need. Yes, the church is very challenged in Quebec at the moment. But I can say from personal experience there are glimmers of hope and glimmers of change,” Oland told The Catholic Register during the opening week of a new combined novitiate for English and French Canada in Montreal’s Cote-des-Neiges district.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Forty years after the release of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Canada’s bishops are working on a new document on marriage and family that will try to bring together the Catholic Church’s teaching in this area.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - An apparent attempt by the Conservative government to keep abortion out of the next federal election has shocked and disappointed pro-life Canadians.

Amid rumours of an October federal election, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson distanced the government from Conservative MP Ken Epp’s Unborn Victims of Crime Bill.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Canada’s bishops have launched an awareness campaign in advance of the annual collection to support the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The collection, taken during the weekend of Sept. 27-28, will go towards each diocese’s per capita calculation the bishops approve in the bishops’ annual budget. The calculation is based on the number of Catholics living in a diocese.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - REAL Women of Canada was conceived in 1981 during the debate over Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Gwendolyn Landolt and her friends grew disturbed when the only voices representing women were “just a bunch of feminists” with government funding, she said.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Signatures of 30,000 Canadians demanding that abortionist Henry Morgentaler’s Order of Canada be revoked were delivered to the Governor General’s residence Aug. 20.

“I am here to say there is nothing heroic or award winning about taking the life of an unborn child,” said Silent No More Awareness Campaign national co-ordinator Angelina Steenstra on behalf of Campaign Life Coalition. “As a woman who has suffered an abortion, I know that to be true."

{mosimage}The Catholic Women’s League of Canada (CWL) adopted a resolution this month to “urge the federal government to take action to prevent human trafficking at the 2010 Olympics.”

The resolution was made at the CWL’s 88th annual national convention in Winnipeg Aug. 10-13. The convention drew more than 750 delegates, representing nearly 98,000 women from across Canada.

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY - The Loomis family of Goshen, N.Y., was honoured earlier this month as the Knights of Columbus Family of the Year.

The Knights of Columbus awarded the Loomis family the lay order’s International Family of the Year Award during its 126th annual Supreme Convention’s awards ceremony Aug. 7 for best displaying the Knights’ main principles of charity, unity and fraternity.

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY - At its inception in 1882, the Knights of Columbus played an important role in supporting poor Catholic immigrant families in Connecticut. During a difficult social period for Catholics in America, the Knights of Columbus, started by Fr. Michael J. McGivney, offered financial aid benefits and fraternal encouragement in daily life, soon after expanding to Canada in 1897.

Over the years, the Knights have grown to include more than 13,000 councils and 1.7 million members throughout the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Guatemala, Guam and Saipan. And while the order continues to provide Knights and their families with life insurance, the Knights of Columbus have a lot more to offer in today’s society as an organization that raises millions of dollars yearly for charitable causes.