Catholic Register Staff
ShareLife expects to reach $12-million goal
Heading into the final week of the annual campaign to raise essential funding for a host of charitable agencies, ShareLife organizers are heartened that parish donations are on par with last year. There were fears the recession might cut into donations.
Justin Trudeau to speak at Toronto Peace Garden anniversary
Trudeau’s presentation — “Peace and Harmony in our Communities and the World” — will highlight a day dedicated to peace, race relations and multiculturalism that has been organized by the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Archbishop Thomas Collins, Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne and Toronto Mayor David Miller will also speak. A special address will be given by Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow.
Pennies for life raise $100,000
Twenty-five ago, when Mary Hughes was a youthful 75-year-old, she heard her grandchildren teasing their father about having a sore back because he couldn’t pass a penny on the sidewalk without bending to pick it up. It got her thinking about all the stray pennies people pass by without notice or exile to their piggy banks. What if all those pennies could be collected and put towards a good cause, she wondered.
Church must be diligent in selecting priests, bishops, Collins says
TORONTO - Archbishop Thomas Collins, in his first public comment on the scandal following the arrest of Nova Scotia Bishop Raymond Lahey on child pornography charges, challenged church leaders to be diligent in selecting suitable priests and bishops and to uphold their “solemn obligation” to act immediately when an offence occurs.
Speaking to 1,700 people at the 30th annual Cardinal’s Dinner Oct. 29, he called pornography “a scourge upon our society” and said he is enraged by the proliferation of this multi-billion-dollar industry. And society’s outrage is more intense when a priest or bishop uses pornography, and “rightly so,” he said, because they are entrusted by God so “any abuse of that trust is a betrayal of our vows to God.”
“To me, as a bishop, the pain of any priestly scandal is a sharp personal reminder that I need to do all that I can to be sure that those who are ordained, for all their inescapable human frailty, are living their vocation with integrity.”
Flu restrictions for Mass in Toronto lifted
As the threat of the H1N1 flu virus retreats, Archbishop Thomas Collins has removed temporary restrictions that asked people to bow or otherwise make the sign of peace without shaking hands. He’s also cleared the way for people to begin receiving communion directly on the tongue again.
Archbishop Collins blasts Ignatieff's pro-abortion stance
It is astonishing and sad that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is advocating that Canada fund overseas abortions, charged Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins.
Collins released a statement on Feb. 4 in response to Ignatieff's public calls for the government to include contraception and abortion funding as basic components of a new foreign aid strategy to improve maternal and childhood health.
Cardinal Ambrozic turns 80
Ambrozic, a resident at Providence Healthcare in Scarborough, has always valued his privacy and no public celebrations are planned for his birthday. The 5:30 p.m. Mass at St. Michael’s Cathedral on Jan. 27 will be offered for the intentions of the Cardinal.
Toronto Mass for new bishops
"I hope you experience a shepherd's love in the ministry I bring," Bishop Bill McGrattan told about 60 employees of the archdiocese.
Bishop Lacroix to succeed Cardinal Ouellet in Quebec City
Lacroix, 53, had been acting as diocesan administrator to the archdiocese since Pope Benedict XVI named Ouellet the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and transferred the cardinal in August to Rome. Among Ouellet’s duties is to advise the Pope on the appointment of bishops.
Oda admits to doctoring KAIROS memo
The Conservative Minister now stands accused of lying to a committee of MPs when she testified on Dec. 9 that she did not know who altered the memo that was drafted by executives at the Canadian International Development Agency.
The original CIDA memo indicated that its president and a vice-president approved a KAIROS request for a four-year funding grant. But after the memo had been signed by CIDA executives the word “not” was inserted by hand to change a key sentence to read “not approve,” creating the impression that CIDA had rejected the request.
On Feb. 14 Oda admitted in the House of Commons that she ordered that the “not” be inserted, contradicting statements she had made two months earlier.