{mosimage}HARTFORD, Conn.- The cause for sainthood of Fr. Michael McGivney has been moved forward by completion of a supplemental report on a possible miracle attributed to the founder of the
Knights of Columbus.

On Sept. 22 officials of a supplemental tribunal of the archdiocese of Hartford sent the new report to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The contents of the report remain secret. The tribunal gathered more testimony from additional witnesses, including several medical doctors, about the circumstances of a reported miracle.

{mosimage}Charges against an American refugee advocate for bringing 12 Haitians to the U.S.-Quebec border where they claimed refugee status were quietly dropped in November.

Janet Hinshaw-Thomas — founder of Prime — Ecumenical Commitment to Refugees in Pennsylvania and niece of the late theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles — was arrested in Lacolle, Que., Sept. 28, 2007. She had called ahead to say she was bringing 12 Haitian asylum-seekers. She had often brought refugees to Canadian border posts to file for refugee status.

{mosimage}Filipinos will be happy to see the back of 2009. As Christmas approaches the Filipino community is bracing for another natural disaster in their home country.

The Mayon volcano, a 2,460-metre mountain in central Philippines, has been spewing lava, smoke and ash in a mild state of eruption since mid-December. Volcanologists expect the mountain to erupt more severely any day, and state authorities have called out police, soldiers and others to try to keep 47,000 evacuees in temporary shelters from sneaking back into their homes for Christmas.

TORONTO - From his beginnings as a teen prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp to becoming pastor and leader of 1,800 Jewish families at Toronto’s Adath Israel Synagogue, Rabbi Erwin Schild has led one of the most remarkable lives in Toronto.

On Nov. 24, keynote speaker Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa and the many friends of Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Toronto will honour Schild and his wife Laura with a charity dinner.

Below is the compete text of the address given Oct. 28 by Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins at the annual Cardinal's Dinner in Toronto.

On behalf of Cardinal Ambrozic, I am happy to welcome you to the 31st annual Cardinal’s Dinner. Let us all keep Cardinal Ambrozic in our thoughts and prayers, asking God’s blessing upon him in his years of retirement.

This dinner is an occasion for all of us from within the Archdiocese of Toronto, and from the wider community, to come together in fellowship, and to help raise money to support many worthy charitable organizations. Over the years, more than $5.5 million dollars has been raised to help those in need. I thank Mr Daniel Sullivan for chairing this year’s Cardinal’s Dinner.

 

TORONTO - With an emphasis on transparency, clarity and compassion, revised policies and procedures regarding allegations of misconduct, released Oct. 15 by the archdiocese of Toronto, now explicitly include misconduct by lay employees and volunteers.

According to the much-anticipated document — “Policy and Procedure for Cases of Alleged Misconduct” — all employees and volunteers of the archdiocese are subject to the same strict policies that govern clergy and religious. The revised regulations also reiterate the archdiocese’s zero-tolerance policy for abuse, unequivocally define what constitutes abuse and underscore that the policy extends to all vulnerable persons, including minors or “persons of any age” afflicted with physical, mental, emotional or spiritual handicaps.

The Catholic Register is pleased to welcome Fr. Raymond de Souza to our stable of talented columnists.

Fr. de Souza, whose debut column appears on Page 19 of this issue, has established his credentials as an accomplished journalist while writing for several publications over the past decade. He is a regular contributor to The National Post and a past Rome correspondent for the U.S.-based National Catholic Register.

TORONTO - Toronto’s new rules for what to do when a priest or Church employee is accused of sexual misconduct will be revealed in early October.

Over the summer a panel of experts, working with the archdiocese’s judicial vicar Fr. Brian Clough, reviewed and revised Toronto’s Church law governing sex abuse cases, bringing it in line with the latest directives from the Vatican.

TORONTO - The very last day in the life of the old Nathan Phillips Square Peace Garden will commemorate the 65th anniversary of the first use of an atomic weapon on a civilian population.

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, Hiroshima atom bomb survivors Setsuko Thurlow and Joe Ohori, Juno Award nominee Tom Barlow, the Yakudo Drummers and other community groups will be featured Aug. 6 at the 65th anniversary of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki. Aug. 7 the city will begin decommissioning the old Peace Garden.

TORONTO - Forty communities of Catholic nuns were among 21 “Affordable Housing Champions” honoured by the City of Toronto June 3.

The sisters were singled out for their WRP Neighbourhood Housing project, which created 38 units of subsidized housing in southeast Scarborough.

The project began as a millennium jubilee project in 1999.