Anna Farrow

Underdog, Catholic, champion… with a ‘sprinkle of Jesus’

A Montreal hospice is under pressure to perform medical assistance in dying (MAiD) contrary to the legal agreement between the Archdiocese of Montreal and the hospice, a source has told The Register.

Fr. Thomas Rosica wasn’t in Rome last month for the first session of the XVI Synod of Bishops, but to hear him tell it, it was almost as if he was there.

In a surprise announcement, prominent Canadian human rights lawyer Julius Grey told a group of anti-euthanasia protesters he is prepared to launch a legal action against the law that allows Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) for those with mental health problems.

In a week that saw Montreal Jewish institutions targeted in multiple acts of violent intimidation, Quebec bishops have issued a message of solidarity with the Jewish community.

On Oct. 26, two American professors on opposite ends of a buzzy political philosophy called “Catholic integralism” gave lectures to separate, eager audiences at McGill University. Though the men are more than primed for a public sparring, Montreal didn’t prove to be a site for Adrian Vermeule and Kevin Vallier to meet in the ring.

A woman standing in a church wearing a white dress and veil is an instantly recognizable image, but for a small yet growing number of Catholic women, the groom that awaits them at the altar is not a nervous young man but Jesus Himself.

Benedict Labre House, a Montreal non-profit that was once a Catholic “house of hospitality,” is at the centre of controversy over plans to operate a novel form of supervised injection site (SIS) at its new centre meters from a day-care and elementary school.

A top-level directive ordering military chaplains to be gender-sensitive and include atheists in “spiritual reflections” on Remembrance Day is sparking unexpected emotional backlash, says Bishop Scott McCaig of the Military Ordinariate of Canada.

It is a long way from his native Igboland in Nigeria to the Newman Centre at McGill University, but Fr. Anthony Atansi finds himself as “at home” in one as the other.