Feature

Foster kids shut out from education grants

September 1, 2010

Aisha Aberdeen [images/stories/features/feature10/aishacover.jpg]TORONTO - Aisha Aberdeen wasn’t born on third base, and she doesn’t imagine she hit a triple. But as the school year starts, the former foster child is ready to trot home. Aberdeen has done what almost no kid who has been through foster care ever does. She’s graduated from the University of Toronto with a double major in forest conservation and Caribbean studies. Now she’s planning graduate studies in the forests of Kenya this year. Fewer than 44 per cent of children who wind up in foster care complete high school before they’re 21. Only 20 per cent of those (8.8 per cent of the total) go on to any form of post-secondary education.

Ontario rolling the dice with online gambling

August 26, 2010

Online gambling [images/stories/misc/misc10/gambling.jpg]Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is about to unleash a new dimension in a spiritual crisis that already grips nearly 80,000 problem gamblers in Ontario, addiction counsellors say. Duncan announced in August that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation will be “extending its brand” into the Internet. By 2012 the province will deal poker, sell lottery tickets and run bingo games online. The province worries its citizens already spend $400 million a year on unregulated, off-shore gambling sites. It expects the provincial take from OLG-run web sites will be in the neighbourhood of $100 million. Charities may be given the opportunity to fundraise directly by running online bingo games. But the toll in addiction will be high, particularly for young males most at risk for Internet gambling addictions, said Christiana Ashabo, Southdown Institute’s addiction and relapse prevention therapist.

Mother Teresa: A life of selfless devotion and holiness

August 26, 2010

Mother Teresa [images/stories/features/feature10/theresacover.jpg]It’s been 13 years since Mother Teresa died of a heart attack at age 87 on Sept. 5, 1997 in Calcutta. Aug. 26 marks her 100th birthday. How well I remember those days . . . my own father died on Aug. 27 that year. One week later, Mother Teresa was called home to God. I provided commentary of her funeral for several networks in Canada. The pomp, precision and sombre majesty of Princess Diana’s London farewell one week earlier were hardly visible in the turbulent scenes of Mother Teresa’s simple wooden casket riding on a gun carriage through the streets of Calcutta for her state funeral. Mother Teresa’s life was not a sound byte, but rather a metaphor for selfless devotion and holiness. Her most famous work began in 1950 with the opening of the first Nirmal Hriday (Tender Heart) home for the dying and destitute in Calcutta. Her words remain inscribed on the walls of that home: “Nowadays the most horrible disease is not leprosy or tuberculosis. It is the feeling to be undesirable, rejected, abandoned by all.”

Mother Teresa still resonates with Canadians

August 12, 2010

Mother Teresa of Calcutta [images/stories/features/feature10/teresa.jpg]Canada is not like Calcutta. Mother Teresa was not like most Canadians. But somehow the life of the tiny Albanian nun who ministered to the abandoned, the forgotten and the dying in Calcutta speaks to Canadians. August 26 is the centenary anniversary of the birth of Blessed Mother Teresa and events are taking place worldwide to honour the occasion. At a July showing of relics of Mother Teresa at St. Barnabus parish in Toronto, Sr. Mary Frank of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity saw people standing in line with tears in their eyes.

.xxx domain won't stem porn web sites

July 14, 2010

xxx [images/stories/misc/misc10/xxx.jpg]A new Internet domain exclusively for pornography was approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in June. Although some proponents of the domain say this will make it easier for people to block pornographic content, critics say that unless regulations make the .xxx domain a requirement, explicit content online will grow since people won’t be required to shut down porn sites on other domains.

Mi'kmaq keep the faith for 400 years

June 30, 2010

Mi’kmaq christianity [images/stories/features/feature10/mikmaq.jpg]On June 24, 1610 Mi’kmaq Grand Chief Henri Membertou, hoping to solidify relations with Nova Scotia French settlers, became the first native Canadian baptized into the Catholic Church. He was joined that day by 20 family members and within 50 years the entire Mi’kmaq nation had become Christians. The 400th anniversary of that historic baptism was celebrated in a public showcase June 24-28 that paid homage to Mi’kmaq culture and the important contribution made by Membertou and the Mi’kmaq nation to the spread of Catholicism in Canada. To this day, virtually every Mi’kmaq is a baptized Christian.

Wedding vows will be sealed with first kiss

June 17, 2010

After getting my B.A., M.A. and M.J., I sometimes wondered if I’d ever be a “Mrs.” But here I am busily preparing for my wedding in less than two months. On that day, I will share my first kiss with the first man I fell in love with, when he is my husband. I know there’s absolutely nothing wrong with kissing while dating. For us, early on in our relationship, we decided that if we were called to be together, we would like our first kiss to be something special between the two of us. We’d hoped that this would also help us focus on getting to know each other first.

Marriage prep about the vision

June 17, 2010

Marriage preparation [images/stories/misc/misc10/precana.jpg]TORONTO - Couples planning to marry shouldn’t look at marriage preparation courses as a place to “grease their wheels” but rather a time to discern if they’re actually ready, experts say. Clint Tyler, director of the marriage preparation and family life office at the archdiocese of Toronto, said its multi-week course is much more than a “happy weekend where couples can feel good,” but a real chance to discuss important issues that many couples don’t address on their own. “It’s about having them explore if they are ready to commit to a Catholic vision of marriage,” Tyler said. “It’s our job to present that vision of Catholic marriage.” About 20 per cent of couples who take the archdiocesan marriage prep course decide not to go ahead with a wedding, Tyler said, adding it’s better that they realize ahead of time if they have the same vision for their marriage and understand that it’s not just a commitment but a covenant.

Children need to have a relationship with Jesus

June 17, 2010

Jesus and children [images/stories/misc/misc10/jesuschildren.jpg]On an evangelical television program some time ago, a married couple who had remarried after being divorced for five years shared their story. While I really enjoyed it, one thing the woman said really bugged me. Their marriage had failed because she had an affair (or two), didn’t show any remorse and was caught repeatedly lying. When she was asked about her faith journey she said: “I was raised a Catholic, and as Catholics we are not taught that Jesus Christ wants to have a personal relationship with us. It wasn’t until I started having a personal relationship with Jesus (as taught to her by evangelicals) that I started to realize that Jesus cared about me and what I did and thought personally.” My initial response to that comment was anger, then a question popped into my head. The woman was blaming the Catholic Church for not teaching her to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but why was she not sharing the blame with her parents? Whose duty is it to teach our children the importance of having a relationship with Jesus? More than one pope has said parents are the primary educators of children and have a responsibility to pass down the precepts of the faith.

Time hasn't dimmed allure of marriage

June 17, 2010

Wedding Rings [images/stories/misc/misc10/ringswedding.jpg]Tiger Woods has been in the public eye recently for all the wrong reasons, and his marital predicament has spurred many joking comments. I suspect the jocularity masks (as humour often does) a deep concern society has for marital fidelity and, indeed, the overall health and well-being of marriage. Almost all of society — Christians and non-Christians, young and old, traditionalists and non-traditionalists — really are disappointed when infidelity becomes front-page news. Despite all the cultural changes of this era we still hold marriage in high esteem and believe it is worthy of every sacrifice. In an unexpected way, society’s high regard for marriage is even evident in the campaign for same-sex marriage. Isn’t it odd that gays and lesbians have fought long and hard to gain access to a social institution that some have denounced as outmoded and anachronistic? Even many who until recently had never expected to don the “shackles” of marriage are now clamouring to be allowed to do so. While Catholics continue to believe (for sound theological reasons) that same-sex marriage is a contradiction in terms, the fact that marriage has become a life goal for many who historically have been excluded from it is more testimony to its abiding appeal.