Feature

London Catholics praise newly ordained Bishop McGrattan

January 15, 2010

LONDON, Ont.- It was hard to tell friends, family and supporters apart at Bishop William McGrattan’s Jan. 12 ordination. Close to 1,000 joyful people, including 150 priests, nearly 35 bishops and archbishops and about 40 relatives, packed St. Peter’s Cathedral in London to give a hug and their congratulations to a long time friend, associate pastor, teacher, seminary leader and now auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Toronto. He is also titular bishop of Furnos Minor.

Bishop Nguyen ordained a bishop for all

January 15, 2010

TORONTO - Bishop Vincent Nguyen has slipped on the ring, donned his mitre, taken hold of his staff and become a shepherd in the church he loves with all his heart. Tears flowed in the pews occupied by Nguyen's family — eight siblings, six of whom flew in from their Vietnamese homeland — and friends at St. Michael's Cathedral Jan. 13 as Nguyen was ordained Canada's first non-white bishop.

Toronto celebrates two new Shepherds

January 15, 2010

2BishopsCover [images/stories/features/McGratten_Nguyen/2BishopsCover.jpg]On January 12 in London and January 13 in Toronto, Bishops William McGrattan and Vincent Nguyen were ordained to serve as auxiliary bishops for the archdiocese of Toronto. Each event was attended by more than 1,000 people and The Catholic Register was on hand to provide full coverage. The following links are to the articles which appeared in our special section on their ordinations on January 17, 2010.

Venerable Mary Ward's path of sainthood

January 8, 2010

TORONTO - A congregation founded 400 years ago received a surprise ending last month to its year-long anniversary celebration. On Dec. 19, Pope Benedict XVI recognized the “heroic virtues” of Sr. Mary Ward, the English founder of the Congregation of Jesus and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary — also known as the Loretto Sisters — declaring her “venerable.”

2009 In Review

December 30, 2009

A REVIEW OF THE PAST YEAR FROM THE PAGES OF THE CATHOLIC REGISTER.

Religious retailers seeing the Christ in Christmas

December 18, 2009

TORONTO - The Christmas season always brings an upswing in sales for stores specializing in religious items as the public scrambles to buy Christmas cards and wreaths, gifts and Nativity sets for their home. But for some religious suppliers, this year brought some interesting surprises. “This year, surprisingly, we’ve been doing really well with Nativity sets. The general public has been buying full Nativity sets, adding pieces to their existing ones and also little baby Jesus’ on their own,” said Sal DiCarlo, head of DiCarlo Religious Supply Centre in Toronto.

Making the case for larger families

December 11, 2009

AJAX, Ont. - It was only their second date when Patrick Douglas asked his future bride how many children she would like to have in her family. Her first answer was “however many children God gives me,” Carissa Douglas, 31, recalls. Her second answer, she adds, was 12. “Then (Patrick) hugged me tighter because it was an odd thing,” she says with a smile.

Red tape cut on generic AIDS drugs

December 11, 2009

Adding Canadian-made generic drugs to the mix of affordable HIV and AIDS treatments could be good news for Africa, but it’s probably not enough to make a serious dent in the disease which kills more than two million people each year, says a Canadian Jesuit who works on AIDS in Africa. “If Canadian sources are going to provide second-line generics at an affordable price — something few or no others are doing — it would be a reason for hope in Africa,” Jesuit Father Michael Czerny, executive director of the African Jesuit AIDS Network , told The Catholic Register in an e-mail, adding, however, that “Universal access to antiretrovirals (ARVs) is still a distant dream.”

Helping patients face a 'good death'

December 11, 2009

TORONTO - A 13-year-old girl is battling cancer, but after nine years of treatment, her doctor has run out of medication options to beat the illness and help her stay alive. An 85-year old woman suffers internal bleeding after taking medication for a long-term skin condition and asks her doctor to stop treatment and “let her die.”

Finding shelter at St. Clare Inn

December 4, 2009

TORONTO - What are the chances an illiterate, alcoholic, drug addicted, bipolar, paranoid schizophrenic woman is going to pull it together, learn to read, hold down a job, stay on her medications and begin a mini-career as a stand-up comedian? Linda Chamberlain is that woman, and at 60 she looks back at her 25 years of fear, despair and homelessness with disbelief. She also knows precisely what saved her life.