Faith

Move to Canada awakens a pair of vocation calls

April 20, 2011

Hezuk Shroff [images/stories/faith/faith11/hezukshroffregister.jpg]Hezuk Shroff says he has been blessed with not one, but two vocations. Born in Calcutta, India, in 1971, Shroff was raised in the Zoroastrian religion. When he came to Canada to attend McGill University in Montreal, he discovered the first of those vocations, a conversion to the Catholic faith. While exploring his faith and the possibility of becoming a religious brother, Shroff was sent to Cebu in the Philippines to do missionary work. It was there he found his second and deeper vocation, a call to the priesthood. “Father doesn’t have time for us,” said the youth of Cebu, according to Shroff. “Father is too busy running the parish.”

Seders give Christians the Passover experience

April 16, 2011

A rabbi holds up matzos during a Passover Seder. More Christians are experiencing this at interfaith Seders. (CNS photo) [images/stories/features/freature11/rabbiseder.jpg]Christians can’t think of the Easter Triduum, let alone live through it, without thinking of the Passover. Increasingly, Christians are letting that thought lead them to an authentic experience of the Jewish Passover in interfaith Seders. A Seder is a family meal that ritually re-enacts the Exodus story. It’s the beginning of the Jewish celebration of Passover. Foods served at the Seder are connected directly with the Exodus and the story of Israel’s escape from Egypt is retold, reading the Haggadah aloud through the course of the meal. The Haggadah is a sort of expansion of the Bible story with roots in the Mishnah, a collection of Jewish writings based on oral tradition. “It’s a story of liberation,” explains Beth Porter. “We’re really meant to appropriate that story for ourselves as we sit at the Seder table — to think about our own journey from bondage to freedom.”

Pope earmarks Holy Thursday collection for disaster relief in Japan

April 15, 2011

Men sit amid debris in an area that was destroyed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture, in northern Japan, April 6. (CNS photo/Toru Hanai, Reuters) [images/stories/international/internation11/japandisasterreliefpope.jpg]VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has decided the collection taken up at his Holy Thursday evening Mass will be used to help those affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan. The March 11 disaster left more than 13,000 people dead and another 13,700 unaccounted for. More than 150,000 were made homeless and many lost their jobs, especially in the fishing industry. Each year, the Pope chooses where to send the collection taken up during the Mass of the Lord's Supper at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the diocese of Rome.

'Silent Night' gains World Heritage List recognition from UNESCO

April 10, 2011

'SIlent Night' has been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in recognition of its role in fostering cultural diversity. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemit z) [images/stories/arts/arts11/christmaschoirsilentnight.jpg]WARSAW, Poland - The world's most popular Christmas carol, "Silent Night," has been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in recognition of its role in fostering cultural diversity. "This is a song of freedom for the world, whose beautiful melody and text have inspired versions in more than 300 languages," Michael Neureiter, president of Austria's Silent Night Society, told Catholic News Service. "Although it comes from the Catholic tradition, its calm, harmonic sound has made it accessible internationally. As such, it's not just a Christian song, but also a human song." "Stille Nacht," or "Silent Night," was written as a poem in 1816 by Fr. Joseph Mohr in Mariapfarr, where he was assigned as an assistant parish priest. It premiered as a carol for two solo voices on Christmas Eve 1818 at the newly established St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, near Salzburg, with music composed by the church organist, Franz Gruber.

Truth still matters

April 7, 2011

Lack of honesty the root cause of most problems [images/stories/features/freature11/truthstillmatters.jpg]With campaign jets soaring over the land and campaign buses rolling down highways, it’s sometimes easy for Canadians to be cynical about the honesty of politicians. But truth in politics still matters to Canadians, and politicians recognize it, said Prof. Richard Feist, dean of the faculty of philosophy at Ottawa’s Saint Paul University. “The incumbent party certainly does not say something like, ‘Well, so what if we were defeated on non-confidence, or not providing (information).’ ” said Feist. “They want to talk as if ‘No, we were defeated on the budget.’ ” Feist runs the Masters in Public Ethics program at Saint Paul, training civil servants in the philosophy of honesty. Truth, who tells the truth and whether citizens can recognize it, is important in how we run our politics and how we run our country, he said.

Exorcist boot camp: preparing for battle with the devil

April 1, 2011

A priest performing the rite wears a purple stole. A crucifix and holy water are among the religious items used in the rite. (CNS Photo) [images/stories/international/internation11/exorcismapr1.jpg]VATICAN CITY - A call to arms — to take up the weapons of the rosary and prayer — rang out at a recent international conference on exorcism in Rome. The Church needs more training of both priests and laypeople in fighting the influence of the devil and bringing spiritual healing to those in need, attendees said. "This is warfare. We've gotten way behind. We've lost the concept of spiritual warfare," said Msgr. Marvin Mottet, the official exorcist of the diocese of Davenport, Iowa. The 80-year-old retired priest said that about once a month he sees a serious case of possession and "tons" of cases of demonic influence in which people are being "bothered or attacked by evil spirits." Those kinds of cases, he said, are "a daily thing."

Nuncio says priests targeted in Cote d'Ivoire; Caritas priest missing

April 1, 2011

A refugee from Ivory Coast carries her belongings as she walks through Grand Gedeh County in eastern Liberia. (CNS photo/Simon Akam, Reuters [images/stories/international/internation11/cotedivoirerefugees2.jpg]WARSAW, Poland - The Vatican's representative to the Cote d'Ivoire has said Catholic priests have been targeted by armed groups during the current conflict, but added that he still hopes "full-scale civil war" can be avoided in the West African country. In Rome, officials of Caritas Internationalis, the Church's charitable aid agency, said one of the priests kidnapped was Fr. Richard Kissi, diocesan director of Caritas in Abidjan, who was kidnapped March 29 by an armed group. In a March 30 telephone interview, the nuncio, Archbishop Ambrose Madtha, told Catholic News Service, "I wouldn't call it a civil war as yet — the rebel army has been trying to attack certain cities, and this is why the violence is continuing." He said students at the main Catholic seminary in Abidjan, the country's largest city, had been evacuated after its buildings were occupied by rebel soldiers. He added that a Catholic priest had been abducted while helping supervise the evacuation, while another had been attacked while returning from a late-night radio broadcast and had been hospitalized. He would not identify the priests by name.

A return to Poland ‘saved’ seminarian’s vocation

March 30, 2011

Paul Hrynczyszyn will be ordained a priest in the spring. [images/stories/toronto/toronto11/paulhryn.jpg]Editor’s note: This is one in our series of profiles on the men who will graduate from St. Augustine’s Seminary this spring and be ordained to the priesthood for various dioceses. When Paul Hrynczyszyn was 15, his mother forced him to attend a Catholic youth retreat over the March break. Now, 11 years later, he is about to be ordained a priest. “I thank God and I thank her to this day for forcing me to go, because it was life changing,” he said. “It was at that moment I rediscovered my faith. I fell in love with Jesus Christ.”

God poses no danger to society, individuals, pope says

March 29, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI waves after leading the Angelus prayer from the window of his apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. (CNS Photo) [images/stories/faith/faith11/godposesnodanger.jpg]VATICAN CITY - Asking questions about God is not a threat to individuals or society, just as a secular society that respects freedom of conscience is not a danger to religion, Pope Benedict XVI said. "If we are to build a world of liberty, equality and fraternity, then believers and nonbelievers must feel free to be just that: equal in their right to live as individuals and in community in accord with their convictions, and fraternal in their relations with one another," he said. The pope's remarks were broadcast in a video message to thousands of people attending the launch of the Vatican's "Courtyard of the Gentiles" initiative March 26 in Paris. The video message was shown in the square in front of the city's Cathedral of Notre Dame. The initiative, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Culture, aims to promote friendly and respectful discussions between Christians and atheists or nonbelievers.

With patience, Asch finds his calling

March 23, 2011

Russell Asch [images/stories/toronto_people/russellasch.jpg]Editor’s note: This is the first in our series of profiles on the men who will graduate from St. Augustine’s Seminary this spring and be ordained to the priesthood for various dioceses. Russell Asch’s life has been filled with travel, music and culture. Now, it will be filled with the Catholic faith. The son of opera singers, Asch was born in Montreal but was raised in England. He was an active member of Bevis Marks Sephardic Synagogue during his formative years, as he studied Restoration stone-carving. It wasn’t until 1997 that Asch, 39, was baptized into the Catholic faith.