Canadian News

News and events from across the country.

Bishop Danylak was always there for people

October 15, 2012

Toronto - Bishop Roman Danylak, retired bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy of Toronto, was remembered for never turning away a person in need. "He was very much a pastor," said his sister Olga Danylak. "He was very much a people person." The bishop passed away at age 81 on Oct. 7. He was laid to rest at St. Volodymyr Cemetery in Oakville, Ont., on Oct. 11 following a funeral service at St. Jospahat's the same day. Danylak, who kept her maiden name after marrying, would frequently be asked if she was Bishop Danylak's sister. When people found out she was, many would share with her "how he affected their lives, what he'd done for them, how he brought them to the faith or how he had helped them." The bishop had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother, she said, recalling a trip the siblings made to Germany years ago. Danylak had just finished university and was heading to Europe to study, and the bishop was going to Rome. "We were travelling a little bit before he dropped me off in Belgium before he went on," Danylak said, recalling one hectic trip to the airport. "We'd just got the electrical train, we'd just got the bus, we'd just got to the airport," she said. "So when we were finally on the plane flying to Brussels, I said, you know Roman, weren't you concerned that we would lose our flight? And his answer, and he said this very matter-of-factly, (was) 'I placed our trip in the hands of the Blessed Mother, and she's looking after us.' ” Bishop Danylak was born in Toronto in 1930 and ordained to the priesthood in 1957 at St. Josaphat's Seminary Chapel in Rome. He was a Doctor of Canon Law. Bishop Stephen Chmilar, of the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada, recalled to mourners that 50 years ago the then Fr. Danylak was present at the Second Vatican Council in Rome. After completing his studies, Bishop Danylak returned home and became pastor at St. Jospahat's, as well as chancellor of the Toronto eparchy for 25 years. In 1992 he was appointed Apostolic Administrator of the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada and ordained as Titular Bishop of Nyssa in 1993 at St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto. He returned to Rome in 1998. He fulfilled “his commitment to the portion of the flock of Jesus Christ entrusted to him,” said Archeparch Lawrence Huculak. When his health began to fail, "Bishop Roman returned to his native Toronto. During this time, although unable to dedicate himself to active ministry due to health reasons, he developed the apostolate of prayer at his home," Chmilar said. Bishop Danylak's sister owned and lived in a sixplex and gave her brother an apartment downstairs. "We set up one of his rooms, when he came back, as a chapel," she said. "He had Mass there everyday, and there were always people coming for Mass." She recalls her brother’s talent for listening and for reaching out to youth. “I’m a social worker by profession. I didn’t listen the same way he did,” she said. “He never tried to force anything down anybody. He just knew how to reach them.”

Defund abortion rallies focus on needed health care reform

October 15, 2012

OTTAWA - Pro-lifers targetted 44 Ontario MPPs Oct. 13, including Premier Dalton McGuinty, holding Defund Abortion mini-rallies outside their provincial riding offices to urge them to redirect money from abortion to real health care needs. “It is illogical to have a health care system that is cash-starved and yet continues to allocate scarce dollars towards the killing of children,” Campaign Life Coalition lobbyist Johanne Brownrigg told 55 to 75 people outside McGuinty’s Ottawa office, which appeared to be closed, with its blinds drawn. Delisting abortion from Ontario’s health insurance plan would save taxpayers up to $50 million, she said. That could hire more than 200 family doctors to address Ontario’s doctor shortage, 400 nurses to cut hospital wait times, treat 500 additional autistic children, buy 20 new MRI machines every year or make palliative care available in communities that lack it now, Brownrigg said. “Let’s be clear about this elective procedure,” she said. “It is disingenuous to claim that abortion is necessary for a woman’s health.” A 2011 Abacus poll revealed 91 per cent of respondents did not know Ontario spends $30 million to $50 million on abortion, she said. “The more Ontarians know the figures, the less they want to see this waste on an elective procedure.” Brownrigg said momentum is growing after MP Stephen Woodworth’s Motion 312 revealed “the ugliness of the pro-abortion position” and the unwillingness to even talk about the humanity of the unborn. Unregulated abortion and the underlying lack of humanity attributed to the unborn are spilling over into the “horrifying prospect” of infanticide being treated the same way in the courts, she warned. Demonstrator Tom Rooney said he was incensed by Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten’s recent remarks that the pro-abortion position could not be taught in Catholic schools. “I resent my tax dollars going to pay for abortion because I’m a father, a grandfather and a great grandfather,” said Frank Barrett, who added there are many ways to help women with unwanted pregnancies that do not involve killing the unborn child. Anne Dareys called the funding of abortion unjust. “Our whole society is getting old,” she said. “We need young people to replace them to be able to support our social programs.” Her husband Bruno said women lack information on the health and psychological impact of abortion on the mother. We only know it is a choice, but we know more about second-hand smoke than about abortion’s effects, he said. The mini-rallies were organized by Campaign Life Coalition youth organizer Allisa Golob, who estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people took part in the cross-province mini-rallies. “The majority of organizers were young people. However, there were others who stepped up in their communities despite their full-time jobs and taking care of their children and so on,” she said in an e-mail. Campaign Life is organizing a larger Defund Abortion Rally for Oct. 30 at Queen’s Park, she said.

Supreme Court reserves judgment on humanity of unborn cases

October 15, 2012

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has reserved judgment in two cases that involve mothers who abandoned their babies because they believed they were born dead. On Oct. 10, the court heard the case of Ivana Levkovic who left the corpse of her baby girl on her apartment balcony wrapped in blankets inside a bag. The next day, Canada's highest court heard the case of A.D.H., who gave birth to a baby boy in a toilet at a Wal-Mart in Saskatchewan. Thinking he was dead, she fled the store and left him behind. The baby was discovered and resuscitated. Both women were acquitted by their respective trial judges. Levkovic told the court she had fallen down, precipitating labour and the baby was born dead. Because the body was so decomposed, the coroner could not tell whether the infant girl, who was near full term, died before birth, so the judge acquitted her. A.D.H. claimed to be surprised to discover she was pregnant and shocked by the delivery, which took place during a 14-minute visit to the store. Her case hinges on whether one's subjective belief — i.e. that the baby was dead — should override an objective standard of what a reasonable person would do under the circumstances. Both cases touch on the contentious issue of when a child becomes a human being, since the Criminal Code has sections that seem to contradict each other. MP Stephen Woodworth's Motion 312, recently defeated in the House of Commons, sought to address the definition in Section 223.1 of the code which says the unborn child does not become a human being until the process of birth is completed. Levkovic was charged under section 243 of the Criminal Code which makes it illegal to conceal a dead child's body whether the "child died before, during or after birth," while A.D.H. was acquitted of child abandonment. On Oct. 10, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlan wouldn't use the word "child" since the terminology is "under contention." At one point she referred to the unborn child as the "thing" or "object" expelled from the mother's body during the process of delivery. Attorney Jill Copeland and Delmar Doucette argued the law is too vague and creates too great a "zone of risk" for women who may not know whether they might have violated it simply by having a miscarriage. They also argued the section violates the security of the person and the rights of women to make decisions concerning a failed pregnancy as well as violates her privacy rights by forcing her to disclose that pregnancy. They wanted Levkovic's acquittal recognized. The Criminal Lawyers' Association of Ontario intervened in the case, arguing that section 243 was criminalizing behaviour that is not a crime. "The act of having a miscarriage is not illegal," attorney Marie Henein told the court. The right of a woman to control her own body is constitutionally protected and sacrosanct, she said, noting societal norms see these rights as settled. Many of the questions from the bench concerned issues of viability and how likely an unborn child would be able to live outside the womb. Arguing for the Attorney General of Ontario, Jamie Klukach argued the section has an investigatory purpose. "The state has an interest in seeing the child and investigating" the cause of death, Klukach said. Societal values on proper respect to the dead also apply, she said, noting that proper burial and the duty of dignity to human remains have a long common law history. So does the concept of the sanctity of life and the preservation of life. The state must be notified about deaths, she said, and a body "cannot be concealed at the whim of an individual." Section 243 compels a woman to disclose the fact of the birth, she said. The conduct it proscribes is the intentional concealment and disposal of a body because it could involve the destruction of evidence, akin to the obstruction of justice. Intervening on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada, Robert Frater said the law was not too vague, nor did it create too wide a zone of risk. "A woman has to ask herself, 'If I dispose of a dead body and someone finds it might someone conclude that a crime has taken place?' ” Frater said.

Cardinal Collins defends the rights of Catholic Education

October 11, 2012

[Updated at 12/10/12, 10:30 a.m.] In a rebuke to comments made by Education Minister Lauren Broten, Cardinal Thomas Collins told a packed audience that the identity of Catholic schools must be respected and the mission of Catholic schools includes engaging in pro-life activities. Collins made his comments to 1,700 people at the annual Cardinal's Dinner on Thursday night a day after Broten suggested that under the province's new anti-bullying legislation Catholic schools should not be teaching that abortion is wrong because "Bill-13 is about tackling misogyny." "Taking away a woman's right to choose could arguably be considered one of the most misogynistic actions that one could take," she said at a press conference. "I don't think there is a conflict between choosing Catholic education for your children and supporting a woman's right to choose." Collins did not specifically mention Broten, and neither she nor Premier Dalton McGuinty attended the dinner at Toronto's Metro Convention Centre. The Ontario government was represented by Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Charles Sousa. He heard the cardinal defend the rights of Catholic education in no uncertain terms. Collins said the Catholic identity of Catholic schools is "recognized and protected" by section 93 of the constitution and by section 1 of the Education Act. "Both the constitution and the Education Act make it clear that the Catholic identity of the school must be respected," he said. Then, referring to Bill-13, the government's anti-bullying legislation, he said: "This is true when it comes to the establishment of anti-bullying groups designed to make the school a better place for all, and in Catholic schools that means following the method outlined in the document Respecting Difference, of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association. It is our mission to speak up for all those who suffer, and especially those who are voiceless, for those who are forgotten. "It is also true when it comes to protecting the freedom of all in the school community to engage in pro-life activities in order to foster a culture of life in which the most vulnerable and voiceless among us are protected and honoured throughout their whole life on earth from the moment of conception to natural death. "Defending the voiceless is our mission." Collins reminded the audience that Catholic education has been an integral component of Ontario schooling since before Confederation. He said the province was blessed to have a religious and non-religious education system that "work together in co-operation to make education a treasure for which all Ontarians may truly be thankful." "There is more beauty in the variety of a garden than in the uniform, undifferentiated, monotony of the dull flat surface of a parking lot," he said. "The complementary variety in our educational system is an advantage for all, producing not only a healthy competition from which all benefit, but also a fruitful collaboration, and the richness of different approaches to the key issues of life. "That diversity reflects the reality of the differences that exist in our province. The system works." Broten, who doubles as the minister responsible for women's issues, made her comments on Oct. 10 after Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) held a press conference at Queen's Park to promote weekend rallies that will demand the province stop funding abortion through Ontario health insurance. The CLC press conference was sponsored by three Conservative MPPs. In posing a question to Broten, a reporter said "the Catholic school system in this province is teaching the kind of intolerant thought that we saw coming out of that (CLC) press conference. They let kids out of school to go to anti-abortion rallies. Is that appropriate?" When Broten dodges that question, a reporter again asked: "Should schools be encouraging kids to go to anti-abortion rallies?" "In Ontario, we support Catholic education, support the teaching of love and tolerance in our schools and at the same time we support the right to chose." she replied. "I am one that supports Catholic education and has been adamantly inn support of women's right to chose for many years and I do not see a conflict in those."

Mission priest gets his view of justice from pre-Vatican II Nova Scotia

October 11, 2012

TORONTO - A lot of people don't know that God is Brazilian, but Scarboro Mission priest Fr. Ron Macdonell has had 26 years of working with indigenous people in the Amazon River basin to learn just how Brazilian God can be. "Deus é Brasileiro," is a popular saying among Brazilians. "To me it says that the Brazilians are very close to God and God is their creator. God made them," said Macdonell. God made Brazilians even if it's hard to say what exactly a Brazilian is. Brazilian identity is a constant puzzle that goes much deeper than soccer and samba, bikinis and coffee. For a missionary, the question of identity is worked out in faith. "You can be Catholic in Brazil. You can be Chinese Catholic. You can be Nigerian Catholic. You have to look at what's cultural and what isn't," said Macdonell. "Looking at Brazil, Brazil is a mishmash of all the world's cultures." Macdonell has lived most of the last 26 years among Macuxi native people in the rainforests of the Amazon, straddling the equator. Macdonell doesn't think of himself as a missionary to Brazil. Rather, he is a missionary with the Macuxi people. He was living with the Macuxi in the northern Brazilian state of Roraima until the Scarboro Missions called him back this year to serve on its leadership council. Though now based in Toronto, Macdonell will return to his Macuxi community a couple of times a year for extended visits. The 54-year-old identifies himself as a child of Vatican II, but traces his vocation back to pre-Vatican Council roots in Antigonish, N.S. "This vision of justice was one feature of the pre-Vatican Church in Nova Scotia — the Antigonish Movement, the co-op credit union movement, Moses Coady and Fr. Jimmy Tomkins. I heard about all that from my parents," he said. "Then the second experience that was formative for me was the Antigonish diocesan priests who were working in Honduras as part of the Church's call to aid Latin America. I would hear about them." A talent for languages also en- couraged Macdonell's vocation. He isn't just fluent in English and Portuguese. He has of course learned the indigenous languages of Roraima — Macuxi and Yanumami. Japanese was fun to learn. And when he did his PhD in linguistics it just seemed more intreresting to do it in French at Université de Laval in Quebec. In the context of the Brazilian Church, Macdonell has a very clear sense of the Second Vatican Council as a living and breathing force. "In Brazil we have a very strong component of the Church that works along social lines and the social Gospel," he said. "Any study of the catechism is not just a call to personal conversion and learning about the Catholic faith. It is also a call to missionary involvement in the local community." Which means he's not the only missionary when he meets with his Macuxi parishioners. They're all missionaries. The priest's job is to give them the tools and the confidence to be missionaries in their own communities, even their own families. "So the importance of leadership training is vital. And this is with people who do not have a lot of schooling — perhaps four years of school," he said. "A lot of our work — the sisters and the other priests I work with — is to form teams that will give spiritual training in how to read and interpret the Bible." Macdonell sees the 19th-century missionaries as driven by sheer numbers of baptisms and the establishment of new parishes. Around the Second Vatican Council the emphasis shifted to institutions — clinics, hospitals, schools, labour centres. But today's missionaries are focussed on formation so that people can really take ownership of their faith. "It's sort of an invisible, unmeasurable mission," he said. There will be no neat statistics that show how confident and wise parish leaders have become. But in regions where there are few priests spread out over huge territory with many inaccessible communities, where Mass is celebrated as little as two or three times per year, lay leadership is essential. There's more to leading an indigenous Church in Brazil than liturgies and Bible study. People expect the Church to be close to them in their lives. "We're working with people in poverty, so we're trying to analyse what are the sources of this poverty," said Macdonell. Whether the issue is local drinking water or rampant alcoholism tearing apart families, groups Macdonell works with expect their religion to help them live a better life. Meetings that start with prayer quickly move on to deal with health, employment and social issues. Brazil's national conference of Catholic bishops encourages and supports the connections between societal challenges and religion with annual fraternity campaigns during Lent and some 30 pastoral commissions that work on land rights, homelessness, workers' rights, women, ecology and more. "There's already a structure that has been created within the Brazilian Church that calls people to this engagement, so that their personal faith is lived out in some way," Macdonell said. As he settles back into life in Canada for a while, Macdonell is aware that at 54 he's one of the younger priests in the Scarboro Missions. He also knows the hope Scarboro Missions once placed in lay missionaries who make three-year commitments has been hard to achieve, with few people able to abandon jobs, families and mortgages. But he doesn't believe we're living through a twilight for missionary vocations. "The Church will always produce missionaries and we look to where they are to find them," he said. "We see people coming to Canada from Asia, from Latin America, from Africa to be missionaries here among us. Our Church is more and more universal. That's where the catholicity comes in. It's a common language."

ROM leads tour of Toronto’s ‘Sacred Stones & Steeples’

October 11, 2012

(UPDATED 17/10/2012) TORONTO - It’s not common knowledge the Catholic Church in Toronto originally owned a plot of land at the northeast corner of George and Adelaide Streets. At that time in 1806, Toronto, then called York, had a Catholic population of about 37 people. Nor do most people know the chapel built on this spot was taken over by soldiers during the War of 1812. The land was eventually sold in order to buy the property where St. Paul’s Basilica stands today. “The only research is in the deeds to the land which was bought by a priest and it was recorded there to be left entrusted to the Roman Catholic Church,” said Paul Vaculik, a ROMwalks volunteer tour guide. On Oct. 7, more than 60 people gathered to take part in the Sacred Stones & Steeples ROMwalks guided tour, led by volunteers of the Royal Ontario Museum. The two-hour walk covered landmark religious buildings in Toronto at the tine of the War of 1812, whose bicentennial takes place this year, as well as general historical factoids as time marched onwards. Along with the origins of St. Michael’s Cathedral, the tour also stopped at St. James Cathedral, Metropolitan United Church, Mackenzie House, St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church and the First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Toronto. St. Michael’s Cathedral, the oldest church on the tour, was built to accommodate the Catholic population which was growing along with the overall population of Toronto, said Vaculik. St. Paul’s, the first Catholic church in Toronto, was originally fairly small, unlike the basilica Torontonians know today. “The population really grew because of the famine in Ireland,” he said. “The population of Toronto was 20,000 and, within five months, 38,000 Irish came over.” Unlike the Anglicans, the Catholic Church’s main base wasn’t the affluent. It was the labourers. “When they started building around 1847, it was like a barn-raising,” said Vaculik. “A lot of the labourers contributed their labour to building the church so they excavated the land and they started to build the church.” The base material was ballast material from ships, he added. Bishop Michael Power received a lot of flak for choosing St. Michael’s location, Vaculik said. “It was at the northern end of Toronto and it was starting to get into the boonies, but now it’s well in the heart of Toronto.” Vaculik also pointed out the often overlooked fact that the galero of Cardinal James McGuigan is hanging above the altar at St. Michael’s Cathedral. “The tradition was that when the cardinal’s received their hat when they were made cardinals, when they died they would hang their hat up by the ceiling (until) it rotted and fell down.” This practice has been discontinued, and so, the galero of McGuigan will be the last to hang in the cathedral, he said. Amidst a backdrop of organ practice, the group was led into the Anglican St. James Cathedral, where a white bust of Bishop John Strachan greeted visitors. A major influence in Toronto, Strachan played a role in the 1813 surrender of York, negotiating directly with the Americans despite having no official diplomatic authority. In the area of education, Strachan was responsible for establishing King’s College at the University of Toronto. Unbeknownst to the average churchgoer, the Gothic architecture of the cathedral displays windows in groupings of three to represent the Holy Trinity, said Vaculik. At Metropolitan United Church, another prominent name in post-secondary education in Toronto is mentioned: Methodist minister Egerton Ryerson. “Ryerson laid down the framework for the educational system as we know it today,” said Vaculik, including the now standard notion that teachers must complete training colleges. For more on ROMwalks tours, see www.rom.on.ca/programs.

Catechism, at 20, maintains importance as a resource for Catholics

October 11, 2012

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the best comprehensive presentation of the Catholic faith in hundreds of years, said Vancouver Archbishop Michael Miller. "It's the distillation of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council," said Miller. The 20th anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church runs parallel to the Year of Faith, which kicked off Oct. 11. Today, the catechism is used in various settings, including RCIA programs, upper- level high school or college courses, study groups and as a personal reference tool, said Miller. "And references are constantly made to it in books that you read on homiletics and preaching." It's an important resource because it brings together the core teachings of the Catholic Church under three categories: the Church's doctrinal positions, Christian practices and worship, said Michael Attridge, a theology professor at Toronto's University of St. Michael's College. But if people believe the only thing necessary to live a good, full Catholic life is to read the catechism, that is a downside, said Attridge. "People need to study the Bible, they need to involve themselves in parish organizations, organizations that promote social justice, they need to educate themselves by going to theological school and to ask questions that relate to faith and Christian living." Since its creation, the publications service of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has sold 222,787 copies of the catechism in English and French, said René Laprise, director of media relations for the CCCB. In addition, 45,673 copies of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church have been sold through the CCCB. "A number of copies have been sold through Canadian bookstores and direct sales from publishers in the United States and France, although we have no way of determining how many," said Laprise. Miller added that in the archdiocese of Vancouver, there's currently a big push on YOUCAT: The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church. "We've distributed more than 10,000 copies of YOUCAT to parishes because it's in some ways far more accessible and user-friendly for the level of knowledge of religion that most people have." Had it not been for the anniversary of the catechism, Miller doesn't think the arch-diocese would have come up with such an initiative. And while the catechism is the standard, he said he believes YOUCAT is more in tune to how people today learn and read. "As much as we might lament the loss — as I do — of plunging through big books, most people today read in small bits and they're used to more pictorial representations... It's just the way things are. I think it's far more effective."

Manitoba releases Canada’s first spiritual care plan

October 11, 2012

WINNIPEG - Manitoba’s department of Healthy Living, Seniors and Consumer Affairs has released what it says is Canada’s first spiritual health care strategic plan. Minister Jim Rondeau said the plan, entitled Health and the Human Spirit, “will promote opportunities for Manitobans to experience spiritual health through better awareness, understanding and healing.” The four-year strategy was developed in sessions involving a range of community and professional stakeholders, including spiritual care providers, volunteers, counsellors, physicians, psychiatrists, policy analysts and individuals who have experienced spiritual care in a health care context. Rondeau said research has shown that higher levels of spiritual well-being, along with a sense of inner meaning and inner peace, are associated with better health outcomes, lower levels of depression and anxiety and a better quality of life. Fr. Vince Herner, chair of the Manitoba Multifaith Council and director of spiritual care at the Misericordia Health Centre, said Manitoba “has taken an important step forward with the release of this plan. It sets out a vision and goals for Manitoba and recognizes the increasing awareness that spirituality is an important part of human wellness.” The plan builds on the province’s previous strategies for spiritual health care, including a province-wide spiritual health care volunteer education course called the Spirit of Caring, core competencies for spiritual health care practitioners and the incorporation of traditional aboriginal healing spaces at a number of health facilities. The new document states that there is a growing awareness that spirituality, or the way a person searches for and finds meaning, “is part of human wellness and spiritual health care must become part of health care theory and practice.” It quotes from English authors Mark Cobb and Vanessa Robshaw’s 1998 book, The Spiritual Challenge of Health Care, which concludes, “there is what many people recognize as a spiritual quality to life, which, in suffering, confronts people with questions and possibilities that reach beyond the immediate dilemmas of physical insult.” Also in 1998, the World Health Organization endorsed a proposal to include the word “spiritual” in its description of overall health. Health and the Human Spirit states that the connections between spiritual beliefs, practices and mental and physical health “are a growing area of research that is finding its way into practice. The discipline of spiritual health care brings together our thinking, beliefs, behaviour and culture to address the many ways human beings seek to be well in body, mind, relationships and soul.” The authors of Health and the Human Spirit conclude that the four-year strategic plan “enables new understanding, relationships, connections and directions for health care providers to offer quality care based on leading practice.” A copy of the spiritual healthcare strategic plan is available at the Province of Manitoba’s web site under Healthy Living.

St. Michael's faculty reach contract deal

October 11, 2012

Theology professors and librarians at the University of St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto have a new deal. After a 10-day break in negotiations, unionized faculty and St. Michael's administration finalized their first-ever labour contract in early October. "What we ended up with is something that reflects the uniqueness of the University of St. Michael's College and upholds the best of what we have in our sector across Canada," said theology professor Michael Attridge, who participated in the 18 months of negotiations on behalf of 18 members of the faculty association. The sticking point in negotiations had been how and when the college would declare programs and courses redundant. The union feared a system which would allow administration to unilaterally cancel programs and lay off faculty without regard to tenure. The administration proposal was a threat to academic freedom, Attridge said. "Tenure and permanent status guarantees the integrity of academic freedom," he said. Under the new agreement, faculty members will sit on committees that decide when budget realities at St. Michael's require that programs be trimmed. They will also sit on separate committees that decide which programs should be cancelled. Faculty will not have a majority vote on either committee. "What we've put back in place is the collegiality of the governance of the institution," Attridge said. "Members of our association will participate in that decision making." Theological faculty association members primarily deliver courses to graduate theology students of the Toronto School of Theology, a consortium of three Catholic and four Protestant theological schools at the University of Toronto. The St. Michael's faculty also teach a small number of undergraduate classes. A statement e-mailed to The Catholic Register from the St. Michael's College administration called the agreement "a solid working document within which the parties can continue to conduct their collegial relationship." The agreement covers three years from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2014.

D&P raises $1.8 million for African relief

October 11, 2012

Millions of Africans have food today thanks to $1.8 million Canadian Catholics have given to their development agency. The federal government will kick in about $1.3 million in matching funds to top up five months of fundraising by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. As drought struck the six-country region in May, Development and Peace saw famine on the horizon and began raising money. By August Ottawa stepped in to announce a matching funds program. A final tally of how much of Development and Peace's Sahel region fundraising is eligible for matching funds is pending, but so far the organization has identified approximately $1.3 million that Ottawa should match. The total Development and Peace commitment in the region comes to almost $8 million, including a $5-million food distribution program the Canadian bishops' development agency is working on with Canadian Foodgrains Bank in three Sahel countries. In Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad and Senegal Development and Peace is working with longstanding partner agencies and the Caritas Internationalis network on seed and food distribution, cash-for-work programs, subsidized food sales and nutrition clinics. The federal government matching program ended Sept. 30.