{mosimage}A social networking site will offer humour as part of its Lenten program beginning Feb. 25.

Members of Xt3.com will be able to access a daily calendar that will include “daily readings, podcasts and music to give inspiration — and some laughter — during the 40 days of Lent,” according to a press release from the site.

{mosimage}Famille Marie Jeunesse will welcome 300 youth to join them for its 20th Youth Council — a bilingual weekend of prayer, skits, teachings and more, taking place June 26-29.

Famille Marie-Jeunesse is a movement of lay and consecrated young people living in community in Sherbrooke, Que. The community follows a Marian and eucharistic spirituality and is one of five similar households around the world.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Youth Speak News (YSN), a program run by The Catholic Register to bring you news about Catholic youth across the country.

Every year, YSN has featured a team of talented young writers from coast to coast, who provide our readers insight into youth events and issues, while sharing the challenges and triumphs they encounter in each of their personal faith journeys. In return, YSN offers them guidance in their writing, information gathering, photography and interviewing techniques.

{mosimage}Sarah Robinson of Port Dover, Ont., has taken first prize in the eighth annual Friars’ Student Writing Award contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The Grade 11 student from Holy Trinity Catholic School was awarded an iPod touch for her essay that focused on the biblical passage “You are witnesses to these things.”

“For those who participated, it does send them back to the Scripture which is an important experience for the youth of today, and it’s one of the goals the archbishop has cited for Catholic education,” said Fr. Damian MacPherson, SA, director for ecumenical and interfaith affairs for the archdiocese of Toronto.”

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. -  Government-appointed overseer Norbert Hartmann announced Feb. 5 that he is seizing control of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

A timeline of changes to Catholic education throughout Canada's history.

{mosimage}MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - A bruising battle over funding with the provincial government behind it, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board is now embarking on a thorough re-examination of its Catholic mission for the first time in 15 years.

Editor's note: After a bruising provincial election campaign that revealed deep dislike among Ontario voters for any form of government-funded religious schools, Catholic education supporters have a right to be nervous. Their own system came under attack and will now be under an unfriendly microscope. In these stories, we explore some of the issues and possible solutions.

Public funding for Catholic schools varies from province to province. Some are fully funded — Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories — while Manitoba and British Columbia receive 50-per-cent funding.

The rest of the provinces, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nunavut, receive no funding for Catholic schools.

{mosimage}BRADFORD, Ont. - Catholic high school students in Bradford will get a little taste of Ontario’s $4-billion Good Places to Learn fund in the form of a $5.1-million renovation at Holy Trinity High School. And in another sign of the education boom outside Toronto, the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board has named its newest elementary school now under construction in Barrie’s south end.