Features

{mosimage}TORONTO - Fifty years have passed since Irish priests from the Spiritan order founded Neil McNeil Catholic High School, an all-boys’ Catholic school in Toronto’s east end.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Having spent $900,000 on questionable expenses in 2007, Toronto’s Catholic school trustees face a political crisis.

“If the perception is that the board is frittering the money away on things that aren’t prescribed under the legislation it makes it difficult for us to win the public relations battle with the Minister (of Education) over underfunding. That’s a given,” said newly appointed Ward 6 trustee Rob Davis.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Jazz isn’t just the American art form. It’s also the art of the possible.

Nobody knows whether the Paulist Fathers got rhythm, but for 150 years this quintessentially North American community of priests has been riffing on themes laid down by St. Paul the Apostle 1,900 years ago. “It’s not I who live but Christ who lives in me,” wrote St. Paul. That nugget has led Paulists to conclude Christ expresses himself in the individuality of every Christian — that the charisms bestowed by the Holy Spirit are the essence of who we are.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It isn’t always teachers who are critical to education. Among the annual education awards handed out by Ontario’s Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne April 30, an award to the special needs education assistants at Ottawa’s Sacred Heart High School honoured a team that does far more than teach.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Though there have been droughts and wars and corrupt governments, since the fall of the Berlin Wall millions have been lifted out of dire poverty, and millions more from moderate poverty into the middle class, by markets and globalization. Muhammad Yunis and the Grameen Bank bank have shown how a little capital and access to markets can transform lives and communities in the two-thirds of the world where poverty is normal. Indian economist Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that in democracies with open markets people do not starve.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Catholic doctors are scrambling to have an influence nationally in coming debates over pro-euthanasia legislation.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Pope Benedict XVI’s recent comments on academic freedom during his speech on Catholic education has come under close scrutiny from Canada’s university presidents and teachers.

After the April 17 speech at Catholic University of America, they wanted to know whether the Pope would try to crack down on dissent on college campuses. To most, though, it appeared that he was encouraging Catholic universities, not criticizing them.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Lining the sidewalk across from a crisis pregnancy centre and its abortion clinic neighbour in downtown Toronto April 18, 24 people held signs up to passing traffic with messages related to abortion.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Earth needs to be treated as a sacrament given to each other because “time is running out,” said Fr. Pier Giorgio di Cicco.

{mosimage}THORNHILL, Ont. — Students and staff from St. Elizabeth Catholic Secondary School will host a festival dedicated to productions by youth featuring spirit and religious faith.