Features/Features

{mosimage}TORONTO - Toronto’s Catholic school board may or may not hold an election to replace a trustee accused of passing off personal spending as board expenses then turfed for failing to show up for four meetings in a row.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Just because provincial education bureaucrats and top union officials are sitting down together  in meeting rooms talking about wages and benefits with an eye toward another four-year deal doesn’t mean Ontario has embraced province-wide bargaining with teachers’ unions, said Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Senator Romeo Dallaire wants teachers to save Canada. According to the retired general who led United Nations peacekeepers during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the only thing that can save this country from cynicism, apathy and petty regionalism is leadership.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Ontario Education Minister Kathleen Wynne put a positive spin on the bitter debate over confessional education during the fall election campaign in a speech to Catholic teachers at their annual union meeting in Toronto March 9.

{mosimage}What does it mean to be an Easter people? The Creed will give us some clues. Crafted as a testimony to the far-reaching significance of the presence in our midst of the Risen Lord, the Creed is our particular take on reality that in turn sets the course of our lives. It makes categorical claims about how we understand God, creation, humanity, the culmination of human history and the ultimate meaning of existence.

{mosimage}Editor's note: Canada's Catholic bishops have waded into the national debate over global warming. On March 7, the social affairs commission of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops released its new statement called Our Relationship with the Environment: The Need for Conversion. In this document, the bishops insist that Christians must lead a global effort to curb mass consumption and our governments must develop concrete plans to reduce pollution.

For the complete text of the statement can be downloaded in pdf format here. For our own report on the issue, read below.

{mosimage}MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - Where Halton opted for a ban, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board has decided to go with a note.

Over 1,500 years ago, a young man named Benedict (480-547) abandoned his life of wealth and privilege in a morally decaying Rome and went in search of the kind of pious existence exemplified in the Gospels. For years he took refuge in a cave, living a life of discipline, prayer and contemplation. In time, Benedict, who would later be canonized, established a community of monks based on a set of rules of conduct that focused on devotion to God. What would be known as The Rule of St. Benedict became the foundation for monasticism and monastery life within the Catholic Church and played a crucial role in the expansion of Christianity throughout Europe.

{mosimage}TORONTO - University of St. Michael’s College president Richard Alway is moving along, but his replacement at the head of English Canada’s biggest Catholic college isn’t quite settled.

{mosimage}Christians have debated Mary almost as long as they have been devoted to Mary. A renewed effort to persuade Pope Benedict XVI to declare a fifth Marian dogma may be setting the stage for a renewed tussle over Our Lady.