TORONTO - Over its 10-year history, the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute has developed into a particular kind of voice in the Catholic world, said the institute's founding director, Dr. Bill Sullivan.

As a serious, scholarly and multidisciplinary enterprise, the University of Toronto-based think tank has the potential to engage debate at the leading edge of medical science on the highest levels, Sullivan told the audience attending the institute's 10th anniversary lecture Nov. 16 at Toronto's University of St. Michael's College. Constitutional lawyer Iain Benson delivered the lecture on diversity, accommodation and the law.

But the future depends on the CCBI deepening and broadening its contacts and collaborators, said Sullivan. Housed inside St. Michael's faculty of theology, the CCBI has plenty of philosophers and theologians contributing to its conferences and publications. Sullivan would like to see more scientists and doctors.

TORONTO - Fear has silenced the voice of Pakistani Christians since the political murder of Shahbaz Bhatti last spring, said the retired archbishop of Lahore.

“People are very sad, very bitter. They said, ‘If that happens to him what happens to us?’ ” Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha said.

Bhatti’s killers remain at large. The convicted murderer of former Punjab Province governor Salman Taseer was greeted in court with rose petals and garlands. In an atmosphere of impunity for anyone who kills a Christian, educated Pakistani Christians are getting out of the country. Those who remain are keeping their heads down and their mouths shut, said Saldanha.

TORONTO - One MPP at a time, face-to-face, ISARC wants every one of Ontario’s 107 newly elected or re-elected legislators to answer a few questions.

The Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition is forming interfaith committees across the province, arming them with studies and statistics and sending them into MPP’s offices to get clear answers on poverty. They want to know about each MPP’s commitment to the 2009 Poverty Reduction Act, welfare rates, minimum wage, affordable housing and support for community agencies.

The riding level lobbying blitz will take the place of the usual fall meeting of religious leaders at Queen’s Park.

TORONTO - Nadir Shirazi calls religion "the black sheep of the diversity family."

Getting corporate Canada to sit down and talk about accommodating religion at work is a tough sell compared to other diversity-in-employment seminars, said Skills For Change executive director Cheryl May.

"It's more of an edgy topic," she said.

TORONTO - Just as more churches across Canada have geared up to sponsor more refugees, Citizenship and Immigration Canada is planning to cap the number of new applications it will accept in the private sponsorship program.

Private Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAH) do not yet know what their limits will be as of Jan. 1. The government claims it needs to stop the annual flood of new applications to clear a backlog of 23,200 refugees with sponsors waiting in Canada.

“In some missions, refugees sponsored through the SAH stream must wait for almost five years before coming to Canada,” a CIC spokesperson wrote in an e-mail to The Catholic Register. “Limiting new applications will allow us to draw down the backlog and improve wait times.”

TORONTO - With a title like “The Future of Religion in a Secular Age” the evening of high-minded talk on the campus of the University of Toronto might have been an invitation to religious hand-wringing.

The new atheists, religious illiteracy, technology, loneliness, multiculturalism and community breakdown were all on the agenda. But with humour and insight two of the most prolific and thoughtful religious writers alive used the evening to affirm that faith requires intelligence.

“Think of me as a lapsed heretic,” said England’s Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.

TORONTO - The Commonwealth decision to let Catholics marry into the Royal Family but still exclude them from the throne doesn’t much impress Tony O’Donoghue.

“Big deal,” said an underwhelmed O’Donoghue as he works away on a book about everything that’s wrong with Canada’s constitutional monarchy. “Just allowing whoever is in line for the throne to marry a Catholic, is that a big deal? I think that’s a lot of B.S.”

O’Donoghue managed to get the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2003 to rule on the constitutional validity of the 1701 Act of Settlement, one of several laws that determine who may or may not be monarch. He wanted the Act of Settlement, which forms part of Canada’s Constitution, declared unconstitutional and invalid.

TORONTO - They won’t all agree, but they will acknowledge the common ground, if only because they’ve walked it together.

Franciscan Friar of the Atonement Father Damian MacPherson, Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton and Imam Abdul Hai Patel travelled together with an interfaith band of pilgrims to the Holy Land in September. Now they’re ready to report back.

The four leaders will present a panel discussion called “Walking the Path of Abraham” at the Scarboro Missions headquarters, 2685 Kingston Rd., in Toronto Nov. 29, at 7 p.m. 

TORONTO - Perhaps they weren't all saints. But they're all together in Toronto's historic St. Michael's Cemetery.

A touring Irish choir from County Galway got a glimpse at Toronto's Irish history touring the monuments at the mid-town cemetery on All Saints Day, Nov. 1. The Dunmore Church Choir was in Toronto to perform a benefit concert for L'Arche Toronto and a concert at St. Paul's Basilica. But time out to investigate the part of Irish history that had reached across the ocean in the 19th century was welcome, said tenor Martin Silke.

"We survived. They were the pioneers," said Silke. "They must have been horrendously brave people, if you can imagine crossing the ocean in a 20-metre boat into the unknown. It's important to remember."

TORONTO - The future of getting buried is all about choice, but the more choices you have to make the greater the need for planning.

“Pre-planning your estate and final burial options is important,” said Amy Profenna of Catholic Cemeteries, Archdiocese of Toronto.

“You’re taking a lot of important decisions out of an emotionally stressful time (for your family).”

The majority of Catholic Cemeteries funerals are still caskets buried in the ground. This may sound straight-forward, but there are still choices to be made, said Profenna.