MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Catholic teachers, in their “noble and ethical task” of educating youth about the Catholic faith, can help create a more “just” Canadian society by welcoming refugees, social justice activist Mary Jo Leddy told the 15th annual When Faith Meets Pedagogy conference. 

The Oct. 27 to 29 conference, which was sponsored by the Catholic Curriculum Corporation, featured workshops for Catholic school teachers across the province.

In keeping with the conference's theme “Room for all at the table: Gathered, Nourished and Sent Forth,” Leddy spoke on welcoming refugees in Canada.

VATICAN CITY - A holistic education of children and young people must include religious education in accordance with the wishes of the children's parents, Pope Benedict XVI told Brazil's new ambassador to the Vatican.

The teaching of religion in public schools, "far from signifying that the state assumes or imposes a specific religious creed, indicates a recognition of religion as a necessary value for the holistic formation of the person," the Pope said Oct. 31.

Along with every university in Canada, the nation’s Catholic colleges are stuffed to the gills with undergraduates. More than 90,000 Ontario students showed up for first-year classes this fall, almost 2,000 more than the double cohort year 2003, when the province’s universities were accepting two-years’ worth of high school graduates because Grade 13 had been eliminated.

“When I run a principal’s orientation session at the beginning of the year, I can only fit 250 into the room. We have 900 first-year students,” said David Sylvester, principal at King’s University College in London, Ont. “We can’t even fit them into a room to talk to them.”

Sylvester looks forward to running a more efficient orientation session in the fall of 2013, when the new $11-million Daryl J. King Student Life Centre will be completed. The new complex, designed to meet stringent environmental standards, will include a theatre, student union offices, informal meeting space, a cafe and games area and a learning commons.

Peterborough’s first Catholic liberal arts college is responding to the need for solid Catholic education for youth in the diocese, says Fr. Joseph Devereaux, chancellor of the Peterborough diocese.

“The focus is to provide something for youth that will help them,” said Devereaux.

“(It’s about) what can we do for youth intellectually, spiritually, socially. A well-rounded education can help provide that.”

OTTAWA - A new research centre at Ottawa’s Saint Paul University will study the contribution Canadians made to Vatican II as well as how the Council has shaped religious communities here.

A year before the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the Research Centre for Vatican II and 21st Century Catholicism launched Oct. 13. It will examine ecumenism and interreligious dialogue in contemporary society and look at issues of progress and decline in the Catholic community.

EDMONTON - Basilian Father Terry Kersch is a walking enigma, previously living the life of a soldier and then another as a man of the Gospel.

“The religious life and the military life, in some fundamental ways, are not all that different,” said Kersch. “In the military life, it’s the mission that takes precedence and part of your identity is putting yourself at the service of an overall mission.

OTTAWA - Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins urged Catholic school trustees not to compromise fidelity to the Catholic faith as they face government pressure to adopt policies contrary to Church teaching.

Speaking to the annual conference of the Canadian Catholic School Trustees’ Association in Ottawa Sept. 23, Collins exhorted everyone involved in Catholic education to become disciples of Christ and to fully participate in the New Evangelization, which he described as proclaiming the Word in places where the Gospel has been forgotten and God has been squeezed out.

“We are marinated in secularism,” he said, urging those present to take a look at the working document for the upcoming Synod on the New Evangelization called by Pope Benedict XVI.

TORONTO - New Toronto Catholic District School Board’s director of education Bruce Rodrigues hopes to bring the “strong work ethic” and “humble leadership” he learned in Toronto Catholic schools to his new role as head of Canada’s largest Catholic school board.

Rodrigues, associate director at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, begins his new job on Oct. 3.

“The things that I learned (as a TCDSB student) were strong Catholic values. I learned about having a strong work ethic and the importance of diversity,” he told The Catholic Register.

Rodrigues attended St. Francis Xavier Elementary School and Chaminade College High School in Toronto. He also taught summer school at Don Bosco High School and a few months at Cardinal McGuigan High School.

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Grade 7 and 10 students in Dufferin-Peel west of Toronto are about to welcome 400 years of history on 252 glossy pages into their classrooms, and they have a couple of former students to thank for it.

Our Story. Our Tradition. Our Journey: Celebrating the Church-School Connection in Dufferin-Peel is the first book published in more than 30 years by the Catholic school board that covers Mississauga and Brampton. It’s a history of Catholic education in Ontario and the region. The timeline stretches back as far as the Jesuit martyrs of the 17th century.

Former students Daniel Francavilla and Jennifer Paul were asked to work on the book by their media studies teacher, Peter Fujiwara. What began as a little design and layout project ended up stretching out for a year. The pair graduated from St. Marguerite d'Youville Secondary School in Brampton, Francavilla in 2008 and Paul in 2009.

KEARNEY, ONT. - With the start of a new school year, the sight of school buses picking up students in the small (pop. 837) town of Kearney, Ont., brings back precious memories to retired Catholic teacher Dolores White.

White, now 82, is among a dwindling group of Ontario educators who taught in one-room schoolhouses. She recalls fondly the days of teaching Grades 1-8 in a classroom of up to 30 students.

One-room schoolhouses were once common in Northern Ontario. Some were housed in railway cars — a school on wheels — that would travel between communities. Part of the train was the classroom, the other the travelling teacher’s residence.

White’s teaching space was more stable. She taught in a large room, complete with desks, blackboards and heating, that had been the original St. Patrick’s Catholic pioneer church. In 1910 the church became the Kearney Separate School. Kearney is about 250 km north of Toronto.

“I had to be well organized to make sure I covered the curriculum for each grade,” said White. She also relied on student tutors. “If I was busy teaching someone, and someone else needed help, I’d tell them, ‘Take your work to one of the older classmates.’ And the older ones responded.”