OTTAWA - Canadians must stand together to oppose Christian persecution that is increasing around the world, said religious and political leaders at an event hosted by a prominent Jewish leader.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said it has become almost politically incorrect to discuss the persecution of Christians. He noted a disturbing trend that blames the actions of Christians in the past for the present persecution.

OTTAWA - The Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) is monitoring the plight of Christians in Syria and is poised to help should their position deteriorate.

CNEWA Canada national secretary Carl Hétu said the agency is carefully sifting reports from the Syria, especially in the city of Homs, a key battleground between Syrian and rebel forces. Many Christians live in Homs, Hétu said, and many have fled the city because of the shelling.  

“We heard some reports that people were actually forced to leave,” whether by forces supporting the Assad government or rebel forces, he said. “Some say it was Islamists. It’s not clear. There are different stories coming out.”

CNEWA, as well as Caritas Lebanon and the Islam Relief Fund of Canada, is accepting donations to help Syrian refugees, Hetu said.

For more information, see www.cnewa.ca.

OTTAWA - Rapper Fresh IE could be pursuing a lucrative recording career, but instead the two-time Grammy nominee is “flying in the world’s smallest planes” to some of the most remote communities of the North.

He’s also finding his way to venues in the toughest sections of cities to spread the Gospel.

The message that Fresh, whose real name is Robert Wilson, brings is one of hope and radical conversion and that one does not have to become a slave to drugs or gangs or succumb to temptation of suicide or violence. God can transform the most unlikely person, bring forgiveness and hope.

OTTAWA - If you dream your dream alone, you may make a splash but you will not make a real difference in peoples’ lives, Fr. Ron Rolheiser told Saint Paul University graduates April 13 after receiving an honorary doctorate.

After accepting the award, the popular author, speaker and columnist told the Saint Paul graduates to dream in community if they want to make a real difference in peoples’ lives. He told the story of the founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Eugene de Mazenod, who dreamed of serving the poor.

OTTAWA - Bishops in Ottawa and Victoria received two groups from the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) into the Roman Catholic Church April 15, including two former ACCC bishops and about a half dozen clergy.

"Today, the Body of Christ is a little more healed, a little more unified," Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast told more than 700 people who packed St. Patrick's Basilica. "Today, after half a millennium, separated brethren are separated no more. We are brethren, rejoicing at the same banquet table. Hallelujah."

OTTAWA - Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Secretary Bob Dechert expects the Canadian government will soon name  an ambassador to head the Office of Religious Freedom.

Dechert, who has been overseeing consultations for the new office that have been taking place across Canada, told the Second Parliamentary Forum on Religious Freedom and Governance April 2 the Canadian government is committed to making religious freedom a pillar of foreign policy. He did not announce a date for the office’s establishment, but said it will have an initial budget of $5 million.

OTTAWA - The Conservative government’s elimination of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development has put an underlying ideological debate about human rights into the spotlight.

Created in 1988, the agency known as Rights and Democracy has been embroiled in controversy described in the news media largely as a conflict between human rights advocates on the staff and Conservative appointees on the Montreal-based agency’s board.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird cited “challenges” within the organization as the reason why he decided to close it.

OTTAWA - Society’s changing attitudes towards gender and sexuality are creating serious problems, primarily for children, a psychoanalyst priest warned the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) at its annual seminar.

“We need a social revolution,” said Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a psychoanalyst and specialist in social psychiatry based in Paris.

Speaking to about 110 people on the theme “Men and Women, Spouses and Parents: Forming Christian Citizens,” Anatrella said one of the pillars of civilization — objective recognition of sexual difference — is disappearing. Instead, it is being replaced by radical notions of sexual orientation that are based on gender theories developed in the 1950s.

OTTAWA - Amid challenges Catholics are facing in the area of marriage and human sexuality, the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) gave John Paul II’s teachings on the Theology of the Body (TOB) top billing at its third “Seminar on the Family.”

Catholic weddings have decreased 74 per cent in Canada over the past 34 years. The picture is similar in the United States and other Western countries, said Christian and Christine Meert, directors of the office of marriage and family life in the Colorado Springs diocese.

Among Catholics who choose a church wedding, 90 per cent of engaged couples are already sexually active, using artificial contraception and planning to continue using it after marriage, the couple said. They said Catholic priests and marriage preparation leaders may be reluctant to bring up the Church’s teachings on human sexuality for fear of scaring away young people.

OTTAWA - On the Octave Sunday of Easter, two bishops of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) — Bishop Peter Wilkinson in Victoria and Bishop Carl Reid in Ottawa — will lead their clergy and people into the Catholic Church.

Other congregations and fellowships across the country, part of the ACCC’s temporary Pro-Diocese of Our Lady of Walsingham, will follow on April 22 or dates soon to be announced. They will become Ordinariate parishes-in-waiting in their respective Roman Catholic dioceses, including groups in Edmonton, Oshawa, Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Montreal and possibly Vancouver.

Victoria Bishop Richard Gagnon and Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast will receive the groups at special Masses. Afterwards, the bishops will provide spiritual oversight and priests to celebrate the Anglican Use liturgy for the new Catholics until their own priests are ordained and the parishes can join the American Ordinariate.