Michael Swan, The Catholic Register

Michael Swan, The Catholic Register

Michael is Associate Editor of The Catholic Register.

He is an award-winning writer and photographer and holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University.

Follow him on Twitter @MmmSwan, or click here to email him.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It isn’t rocket science, just sweat and elbow grease. But the result is families with a home.

Habitat for Humanity is gearing up for another summer of constructing homes for families who are under-housed — giving parents and their children a place in the community and a secure environment where they can grow up.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It’s not a job, it’s a mission. The seven Toronto men ordained to the priesthood May 10 were sent out on their respective missions even before Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins laid hands on them to make them eternally priests in service of the sacrament of the church.

{mosimage}TORONTO - After 35 years the men ordained to the permanent diaconate for the archdiocese of Toronto are still discovering new ways to be deacons — new ways to serve God and the church.

Deacon Rob Kinghorn does it by walking some of the most dangerous streets in Toronto on Thursday nights between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. and praying with the people he meets – transvestite prostitutes, crack dealers, the lost and the lonely.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Toronto is 14,000 kilometres from Sri Lanka, but the war between Tamils and Sinhalese on the island nation is never far away for Toronto’s 100,000-strong Tamil community.

Margaret Jegasothy found herself standing at the end of a memorial Mass April 26 to thank the community for their prayers for her brother, Fr. M.X. Karunaratnam. He was killed in a roadside bomb attack April 19.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Fr. Pier Giorgio di Cicco wants everybody to get out of the house and play. He swears it will be good for us.

The “play” he’s talking about is the ordinary creativity of living with neighbours, friends, family — even strangers. It is a form of creativity which creates “civil encounter,” he said.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Toronto Mayor David Miller wants churches and other faith communities to stick their necks out on behalf of the urban poor who live in the city's most violent neighbourhoods.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Though nobody’s exactly sure what it will look like after it has been shifted about 200 metres west, redesigned and reconceived, the defenders of the old Peace Garden in Nathan Phillips Square are cautiously optimistic they will still recognize their beloved landmark after the square in front of city hall has been revamped.

“It started off that they were going to tear everything down, you know? And then we started to scream and holler,” Fr. Massey Lombardi told The Catholic Register.

{mosimage}TORONTO - As happened so often in his lifetime, St. Paul was under arrest when he wanted to be on another missionary journey — this time to Toronto.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Rogers Centre (still SkyDome to many in Toronto) is not heaven, but on Nov. 1 thousands will gather there to rehearse for the heaven that lives in the hopes and dreams of Christians.

Though it’s a project of the Evangelical television company Crossroads Ministries, producers of 100 Huntley Street, Heaven’s Rehearsal promises to be an inclusive, ecumenical gathering of Christians — Evangelical, Pentecostal, Protestant and Catholic — representing every nation on Earth. Last year the first ever Heaven’s Rehearsal was at the Air Canada Centre with 16,000 attending, representing 127 nations. With 48,000 tickets on sale at $15 each, organizers of this year’s event hope for representation from more than 200 nations.

{mosimage}TORONTO-Growing up in Japan, Sachiko Yasue never particularly noticed Hiroshima Day. Now living in Toronto, the carnage of Aug. 6, 1945 suddenly seemed very real as she surveyed a photo and art exhibit mounted in Toronto City Hall.