Former Prime Minister John Turner, environmentalist David Suzuki and former Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin all share something in common with long-time Catholic educator Msgr. Dennis Murphy.

They have all been honoured with a National Leadership Award from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School in Guelph, Ont. On May 3, Murphy joins the impressive list of the school’s past honourees. He will also be the first clergy to receive the award.

Murphy, 75, said he was surprised by the award because he retired from the Catholic education scene about eight years ago.

Sudbury Catholic Schools’ native language teacher Verna Hardwick combines her aboriginal roots and Catholic faith in the classroom, sharing her gift of song and First Nations culture to students who have lost touch with their own language and roots.

Hardwick, 57, recently released a CD entitled Aanii (which means “hello” in Ojibwe) with songs featuring drumming and sung in the native language. This CD is now a teaching tool in her classes at St. David and St. Raphael Catholic School.

TORONTO - Ontario’s public Catholic schools will always assert their right to teach students Catholic doctrine on matters of faith and morality, says the Institute of Catholic Education.

“When it comes to matters of faith and morality, denominational rights accorded to the Catholic schools of Ontario supersede any Government of Ontario directives which are at variance with the teachings of the church,” said ICE executive director Sr. Joan Cronin.

After Pope John Paul II’s death in 2005, students in Joe Tersigni’s Grade 10 history class reminisced via webcam with teens from the Pope’s former high school in Poland about his legacy.

It’s this kind of interactive teaching style that has left an impact on students, earning the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School teacher in Guelph, Ont., a Premier’s Award for Teaching Excellence as one of the province’s “teachers of the year” in 2008-2009.

Durham Catholic District School Board teacher Catherine MacDonald didn’t expect to bump into anyone she knew, particularly one of her students, while visiting a Viking exhibit in Ireland.

But a few years ago, the archeology and history teacher at Fr. Leo J. Austin Catholic High School in Whitby, Ont., heard someone call out for “Ms. MacDonald” and turned around to see a former student on a graduation trip.

WINDSOR, Ont. - Ontario Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky was taken to task by Catholic principals and vice principals here over her government’s recent budget bill which could hit them in the wallet.

Bill 16 proposes that non-bargaining employees across the public sector — about 350,000 employees altogether — have their wages frozen for two years as part of an austerity move by the province to cope with a severe deficit.

Dombrowsky was speaking before more than 300 delegates at the annual meeting of the the Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario in Windsor April 22.

TORONTO - Sr. Helen Prejean, the American nun renowned for her opposition to the death penalty and for accompanying those about to die in their final steps, captivated a Toronto audience April 20 with the story of her continuing journey.

Prejean’s first experience spiritually accompanying a convicted killer, Patrick Sonnier, was chronicled in a book and made into the 1995 feature film Dead Man Walking.

CALGARY - Just five months after trespassing charges were stayed for members of a pro-life club at the University of Calgary, eight student members are now facing charges of non-academic misconduct.

The charges resulted from a Genocide Awareness Project display the group hosted April 8 and 9. Its display, which compares abortion to atrocities such as the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust, had been hosted without incident eight times since 2006. On April 8, campus security allegedly asked the students to turn their signs inward or leave the campus grounds. They refused.

TORONTO - The Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario has welcomed Premier Dalton McGuinty''s decision to rethink a controversial sex ed curriculum for elementary school students.

“We certainly welcome this new round of consultations and the Catholic community will offer its input. We will continue working with the Ministry of Education as we always have,” Lou Piovesan, the Assembly's general secretary, told The Catholic Register.

TORONTO - Well-known capital punishment opponent Sr. Helen Prejean, C.S.J., will be giving the inaugural lecture honouring the prison ministry of the late Fr. Martin Royackers, who was murdered in Jamaica nine years ago.

Royackers was 41 when he was gunned down in front of his parish in Annotto Bay, Jamaica.