News/Canada

TORONTO - Poverty kills just as surely as smoking or living off burgers, fries and ice cream, and the church leaders who run Ontario's food banks, emergency shelters and family counselling programs are prepared to back that claim up with science.

The companies that sell ethically screened mutual funds are asking Parliament to clean up the Clean Air Act.

TORONTO - The United Church of Canada has launched a $10.5-million media campaign that will span the next three years. It will consist of an interactive web site, national magazine, newspaper advertising featuring a cheeky bobble-head Jesus and other provocative images, and a grassroots campaign all aimed at engaging Canadians, specifically those age 30-45.

OTTAWA - More than 40 religious leaders from all the major faiths have signed an historic Declaration on Marriage, affirming its crucial role as a heterosexual social institution for the procreation and nurturing of children.

TORONTO - The Catholic Church and Canada's public institutions seem to be on a collision course, according to the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL).

OTTAWA - The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace are cutting their combined contribution to KAIROS by approximately $75,000 next year.

OTTAWA - Religion and politics have often been associated with the so-called religious right, but now a group of New Democrat MPs and party members want to revive the religious left. To that end, they have established a Faith and Justice Caucus.

Joliette Bishop Gilles Lussier has said that by deciding to run for political office, one of his priests has given up his right to perform any sacramental ministry.

Fr. Raymond Gravel's decision to become a candidate for the Bloc Quebecois in a federal byelection is a "painful situation for the church," Lussier said in a press release issued Oct. 31.

CORNWALL, Ont. - The primate of the Catholic Church in Canada has released the foundational theological document for the 2008 Eucharistic Congress, saying its “message brings as a main concern the memory of our Christian roots.”

WINDSOR, Ont.  - Former Reform Party and federal Opposition Leader Preston Manning says people of faith need, as Jesus said, to be as “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” in bringing religious perspectives to the political arena.