News/Canada

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Should doctors who object to abortion on religious or conscience grounds be forced to refer patients seeking to terminate their pregnancies? Should abortion be a required procedure for all medical students?

{mosimage}TORONTO - As two 17-year-old boys prepare to face a judge over the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners in a Toronto school hallway, the ecumenical Church Council on Justice and Corrections continues its fight against mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - After more than an hour of mainline Protestant and Catholic consternation and deep thinking over the declining influence of Christians in Canada’s political life, Jeremy Bell had had enough.

{mosimage}WINDSOR, Ont. - Despite numerous predictions of its demise, religion is very much a part of the world, and perhaps more alive and vital now than it has ever been, speakers told delegates at a conference at Assumption University here May 16-18.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Since he arrived in 1989, Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais has done a deft job of maintaining unity in the bilingual diocese covering Canada’s capital where national concerns like same-sex marriage become a unique challenge.

{mosimage}One of Canada’s most outspoken Catholic bishops is going to the nation’s capital, where legislators, judges, policy makers and media will be counted among his flock.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., 63, to replace Archbishop Marcel Gervais as head of the archdiocese of Ottawa May 14. Prendergast will take possession of Ottawa’s cathedral in late June or early July. Gervais submitted his resignation when he turned 75 last September, as required by canon law.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Concern for human rights and the growing use of abortion for sex selection dominated the annual March for Life May 10.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Sometimes religious people are the biggest reason why their opinions get short shrift in public debates on controversial issues, says Preston Manning, an Evangelical Christian and former leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.

TORONTO - Scripture scholar Archbishop Thomas Collins is taking on a new role as liaison between the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Biblical Association of Canada.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Another story about garment workers forced into 24-hour shifts, beaten and fired for joining a union, paid less than Philippine minimum wage (between 51 and 68 cents an hour) to produce women’s shirts for Wal-Mart shoppers wouldn’t shock anybody.