Lenten alms-giving to Canada’s Catholic international development agency is getting turbo-charged by religious orders.

This year Development and Peace knows what it’s up against. 

For Development and Peace and the entire global Caritas network, it’s time to get political, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle told a Zoom meeting of dozens of Caritas officials around the world Nov. 12.

In the middle of the second wave of COVID-19 sweeping Canada, Development and Peace-Caritas Canada is making its second attempt to raise the money and awareness its partners in poor countries desperately need.

A nearly three-year process of investigation and review at the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has resulted in a slimmed-down national council with four bishops appointed to the development agency’s governing body.

A nearly three-year process of investigation and review at the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has resulted in a slimmed-down national council with four bishops appointed to the development agency’s governing body.

Staring down the barrel of a $5 million deficit, Development and Peace is laying off its 70 employees for eight weeks over the summer while management takes unpaid leaves of absence or reduces their working hours to two or three days a week.

Canada’s bishops and Development and Peace hope to end years of accusations, suspicions and investigations with a new governance structure that is transparent, streamlined and gives bishops closer oversight of Canada’s development agency.

Dire predictions of a worldwide famine due to COVID-19 are already coming true, according to organizations in Africa and Asia that work with Canadian Church partners.

As a young aid worker, Christian Champigny spent weeks confined to his house in poor countries while war and revolution raged in the streets outside.

OTTAWA -- An organization associated with the Catholic Church in Canada is happy to see the issue of slave labour being addressed within the Canadian government, but says that a proposed bill introduced in the Canadian Senate falls short of taking meaningful steps to actually have a real impact.

For the first time in a half-century, Development and Peace will appeal for funds during Lent without an explicit letter of support from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. 

Victoria Filibus and her nine children have suffered the terrorism of Boko Haram and seen their lives upended as displaced persons living in a camp.

The Laudato Si’ Generation and young members of Development and Peace marched again among more than 5,000 protesters who rallied in front of Queen’s Park and streamed down Toronto’s Yonge Street Nov. 29. 

For the second time in five months the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is being criticized by a Development and Peace partner caught up in an ongoing inquiry.