March 8, 2020
It’s been a slow process for the Green Churches Network in its aim to be a truly national chain of faith-based organizations bent on improving environmental practices, but it is making small gains every day, said its new director.
March 7, 2020
EDMONTON -- Angie Frizzell’s chance trip to an Edmonton antique mall has uncovered a treasure trove of priceless Catholic artifacts that were mistakenly sold to a dealer and put up for sale.
Temptations indulged, temptations resisted. On the first Sunday of Lent we heard about the devil’s tempting of Adam and Eve in the garden, to catastrophic effect, and the devil’s tempting of the Lord Jesus in the desert, to salvific effect.
OTTAWA -- The federal government is touting recent statistics that indicate that the poverty rate in Canada is on a downward spiral, but social justice and anti-poverty groups say the statistics don’t tell the whole story and there is still a lot of work to be done if Canada is going to reduce poverty levels for Indigenous Canadians and those who live in remote areas of the country.
EDMONTON -- Alberta’s Catholic community is sharing in the anxiety over the United Conservative Party (UCP) government’s 2020 budget.
March 6, 2020
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, five weeks after a French appeals court overturned his conviction for failing to report clerical sexual abuse.
That Jean Vanier preyed on women who thought of him as their spiritual director is obviously a serious case of spiritual and sexual abuse. It’s also an illustration of the difference between real spiritual direction and mumbo jumbo, said Montreal-based spiritual director Jesuit Br. Dan Leckman.
The number of hate crimes motivated by religion are down, according to the latest statistics, but that doesn’t bring much comfort to those who are targeted.
Driving downtown, the weather forecast came on the radio: “The temperature tonight is expected to plummet to a low of minus-14 degrees with a windchill factor making it feel like minus-25. The health department has issued a warning that at these temperatures frostbite to exposed skin can occur within minutes.”
The job of helping people on welfare in Ontario’s Peel Region to find a job has fallen to the Canadian subsidiary of an Australian multinational.