Rise in tech use by congregations mirrors that in society, survey shows
By Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON - The rise in congregations' use of technology over the past decade mirrors its use in the wider society, according to the results of a survey released March 14.
Email usage by congregations, gauged at 22 percent in 1998, had soared to 90 percent by 2010, according to the study, "Virtually Religious: Technology and Internet Use in American Congregations."
TORONTO - Screams of support welcomed the Toronto Marlies March 7 as 4,500 Catholic students from the GTA cheered an 11 a.m. faceoff against the Binghamton Senators at the Ricoh Coliseum.
Students were allowed to cut class to catch the American Hockey League game between the minor-league affiliates of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators, learn about healthy living and raise money for the Angel Foundation for Learning. Attending schools raised about $10,000 as a portion from each ticket sold went to the charity.
Most Quebeckers oppose mandatory nature of Ethics and Religious Culture program
By Deborah Gyapong, Canadian Catholic News
OTTAWA - Most Quebeckers oppose the compulsory nature of the province's controversial Ethics and Religious Culture program (ERC), with 29 per cent saying it should be "scrapped altogether" in favour of improved mathematics or French-language courses.
In a Leger Marketing poll conducted for the Coalition for Freedom in Education (CLÉ), only four out of 10 Quebeckers want the controversial course to stay mandatory. A quarter would keep the course but make it optional.
The poll also discovered 55 per cent of Quebeckers would prefer the government introduce school vouchers that would allocate a fixed amount for educational funding per child that parents could use to choose the school they wish, whether public or private, CLÉ said in a March 7 news release.
Catholic blogosphere is out there — and that’s a good thing
By Deborah Gyapong, Canadian Catholic News
OTTAWA - Colin Kerr used to believe Catholic bloggers in Canada were “a bunch of cranks.” But then he looked more closely and had to think again.
Kerr, an assistant professor of theology at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy in Barry’s Bay, Ont., found more than 100 English- language blogs in his investigation of the Canadian Catholic blogosphere. They included blogs by bishops (Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast and Montreal Bishop Thomas Dowd), blogs by priests and religious, blogs by organizations such as the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Catholic Register and Salt + Light TV, blogs by homeschooling moms, blogs by pro-lifers, blogs on liturgy, theological reflections, parenthood and religious life inside a monastery.
TORONTO - The Ontario Divisional Court has cleared Toronto Catholic school trustee Angela Kennedy of conflict-of-interest charges.
The court overturned a 2010 Ontario Superior Court verdict that found Kennedy guilty of a conflict stemming from a May 2008 school board budget meeting where she had voted against staff layoffs. The 2010 decision ruled her vote may have affected two of her sons who were employed by the Toronto Catholic District School Board.
The appellate court ruled March 5 that any economic interests Kennedy may have gained by voting against the cuts were minimal and unlikely to influence her vote.
Beamsville, Ont.'s St. John Catholic Elementary School is one of 12 schools from across the country that will enhance its technological capabilities thanks to a $20,000 grant from Best Buy Canada.
The money will be used to upgrade outdated technology at the school in the small town located just west of St. Catharines, Ont.
"We are very excited and we think it is going to be very beneficial to our students," said Michael Maiorano, Grade 5 teacher at St. John. "Technology is always going out and you always need new technology and we think that is beneficial to our students."
Moving beyond the Mideast headlines in "Persecuted Christians"
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - Every reporter wants what Martin Himel has — a story that could shift how people think and talk about global politics, a story rich with human drama, suffering, heartbreak and redemption.
Himel found that story among Christian refugees in Toronto and among the huddled and fearful Christians of Cairo and Baghdad where he filmed Persecuted Christians. The hour-long documentary will get its world premiere on VisionTV March 14.
Vilmos Csikja, his wife Beata and their four children from Hungary are the kind of people Immigration Minister Jason Kenney calls “bogus refugees.”
They have been in Canada three years. Their application for refugee protection was denied by the Immigration and Refugee Board, an appeal to the federal court was unsuccessful, the IRB’s appeal division turned them down and the Federal Court has now declined to overturn that decision. Their last hope is an appeal to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Only about three per cent of Hungarian Roma refugee applications are successful at the IRB. Roma refugee cases have exploded over the last five years. In 2007 there were just 34. In 2011 there were almost 5,000. The Roma refugee boom coincides with two factors — the 2007 lifting of visa requirements for Hungary and increasing prominence of the extreme right wing Jobbik party in the Hungarian parliament.
Premier Dalton McGuinty’s public call for the province’s teachers to “do their part” in helping slay Ontario’s deficit will only harm the bargaining process, says the head of the Catholic teachers’ union.
In a recent YouTube video appearance, McGuinty asked Ontario teachers to accept a two-year wage freeze and a modified sick-leave plan in an effort to reduce the $16 billion provincial deficit in a way that preserves small class sizes and all-day kindergarten.
OTTAWA - The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) warns that Ontario’s anti-bullying Bill 13 could violate the rights of Catholic and private religious schools if it requires them to act contrary to their beliefs.
In an 18-page resource for parents, the EFC praises the approach taken by the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association’s Respecting Difference policy because it “addresses all forms of bullying equally” and complies with existing federal and provincial human rights laws.
Bill 13 requires all publicly funded schools to have gay-straight alliances, it says. Though the schools may use a different name, the groups must be issue-specific.
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Researcher's advice to pastors: Spend more time on church suppers
By Nancy Frazier O'Brien, Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON - Harvard public policy professor Robert D. Putnam has a tongue-in-cheek suggestion for pastors: "Spend less time on the sermons, and more time arranging the church suppers."
That's because research by Putnam and Chaeyoon Lim, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shows that the more church friends a person has, the happier he or she is.
"Church friends are super-charged friends, but we have no idea why," Putnam told a Feb. 16 summit on religion, well-being and health at Gallup world headquarters in Washington. "We have some hypotheses, but we don't know for sure."
Opening student minds to Canada's aboriginal experience [w/ slideshow]
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - In his Grade 9 art class at Fr. John Redmond Catholic Secondary School in west end Toronto, Roman Makuch is drawing beavers, turtles and geese, trying to see through aboriginal eyes and express himself with First Nations’ symbols. The semester dedicated to studying aboriginal art is not easy, Makuch tells a visitor. But he believes it’s valuable.
“We’re all Canadian,” he said. “We’re all proud of being Canadian and part of our past is aboriginal.”
Grade 12 student Radiyah Chowthury spent last year reading aboriginal authors in her Grade 11 University Enriched Natives Studies English class at Blessed Mother Teresa Catholic Secondary School in Toronto’s Malvern community. She can’t imagine not studying aboriginal authors. As an immigrant kid, she’s unwilling to settle for a history of Canada that begins and ends with European sailors bumping into a big, cold land mass on their way to India.
Fatima students witness to Christ in aiding Attawapiskat brethren
By Brenda Stewart, Catholic Register Special
TORONTO - There is the poverty, the high cost of food, lack of clean water and acceptable housing, the lack of concern for the people’s wellbeing, the high rate of disease and of course the whole situation around the school. Nobody has the silver bullet that will fix education in Attiwapiskat in northern Ontario.
But that doesn’t mean we do nothing. Mother Teresa most often gets credit for telling us that we’re not called to be successful. We’re called to be faithful.
As a Toronto Catholic District School Board teacher, I’ve been working with Attawapiskat for 10 years. It started when I was a literacy resource teacher heading up our early reading intervention program. The principal of Attiwapiskat’s JR Nakogee School contacted me. The challenge at his school was and still is raising the literacy skills.
MONTREAL - Alisha Ruiss knows very well that the performing arts community needs Jesus.
But while Catholics need to realize that God is calling out for people to evangelize the arts community, Ruiss believes He is also calling just as loudly for Christians to discover His presence in the arts.