Shahbaz Bhatti, declared Servant of God by Pope Francis in 2012, has a special place in the hearts of thousands of Pakistani Canadians who fled their country to find safety and freedom of religion here. 

Without the suffering and bloodshed of the Passion of Christ, we could not receive His mercy and forgiveness. For the last 27 years, St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Brampton, Ont., has put on a outdoor Stations of the Cross throughout the city.

BRAMPTON, ONT. – St. Anthony of Padua youth group hosted a charity concert on Sept. 23 with London-born worship singer Chris Bray to help mark the parish’s 40th anniversary.

BRAMPTON, ONT. – The material world is temporary, and the congregation at St. Elias Ukrainian Catholic Church knows this better than most.

BRAMPTON, ONT. - The Dufferin-Peel community celebrated 50 years of Felician education on May 29-31. The milestone anniversary was held in honour of the Felician Sisters’ groundbreaking contribution to Catholic education in Ontario.

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - Brampton, Ont., will be home to the first Catholic school in the Greater Toronto Area named after Pope Francis.

Brampton, Ont. - Polish Catholics flocked to St. Eugene de Mazenod parish in the early morning to celebrate the canonization of St. John Paul II, a son of Poland and beloved pope of the universal Church.
St. Eugene’s houses a first-class relic of St. John Paul II, three drops of his blood located below a statue of the pontiff.

On April 27, by 3 a.m. parishioners had already begun to arrive to pray. They listened to broadcasts from local priests who were present at the canonization in Rome.

Fr. Peter Nowak celebrated mass at 4 a.m. in both English and Polish. He opened mass by giving thanks to both popes — St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II — being canonized on this Divine Mercy Sunday.

“We are, for the most part, people of the head,” he said. “Yet both of these saints spoke to the heart, spoke from the heart.”

Nowak called St. John XXIII someone who simply felt the call of God in his heart. This “caretaker pope,” he said, stretched out his arms to welcome the 20th century and tear down barriers between the faithful and clergy. He wanted the basic language of the Church to be the language of love, said Nowak.

He went on to say that St. John XXIII was the beginning and St. John Paul II was the natural progression, carrying out what the former pope started.

By 5 a.m., parishioners lined up to venerate the relic of St. John Paul II before walking out into the sunrise on this historic day.
More to come from The Catholic Register.

BRAMPTON, ONT. - The two men who will be ordained priests in the archdiocese of Toronto this spring were honoured at the annual Ordinandi Dinner March 5 at the Pearson Convention Centre in Brampton, where they shared the stories of how they were called to the priesthood.

BRAMPTON, ONT. - Nine high school students in Brampton learned this week that while talk may be cheap, tweeting isn't.

"Over the weekend it came to the attention of the administration at the school that some disparaging, offensive and totally inappropriate comments were directed at specific teachers at St. Marguerite d'Youville School," said Bruce Campbell, director of communication for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. "The school investigated and found nine students involved in a Twitter discussion."

While Campbell wasn't able to say exactly how the school became aware of the comments, he did say in the past students, parents and staff members have brought similar comments to the attention of school administration.

In this case the remarks made ranged from sexually explicit comments to messages of violent aggression directed specifically at three of the school's teachers — two female and one male.

Punishments varied in severity based on the degree in which each student participated in the "extremely derogatory" conversation. The nine were sent home Nov. 21, with five students receiving suspensions — two students hit with seven-day suspensions, the others with two-day suspensions.  

"The remaining two students, who's remarks were the most outrageous, received seven-day suspensions, they have to write letters of apology and they have been removed from the classrooms of those teachers whom these disparaging remarks were directed," said Campbell. "Peel police were actually called in to speak with a couple of them regarding the tone of the remarks. No charges were laid but two students were given a warning."

Campbell said none of the students were known for causing trouble in the past.

"These were good kids who made a bad decision."

Although the board is still developing a policy specifically regarding social media, these comments fall under the Catholic Code of Conduct's section on conduct injurious to the moral tone of the school.

Campbell said there is a good lesson to be learned out of all of this, which the school's principal has been echoing in the morning announcements during Bullying Prevention and Awareness Week in Ontario.

"Bullying, cyber-bullying or any kind of bullying is wrong," said Campbell. "Once you use social media it's not a conversation directly between you and two or three or four friends; it's out there.

"Regardless of whether it's during the day, off time, the weekend or in the summer, if somebody makes remarks directly related to somebody at the school — whether it be faculty, staff, admin or student — they should be aware that that has impact on the moral tone of the school and if we find out about it we're going to act on it."

BRAMPTON, ONT. - A group of Brampton high school students are finding out if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen — and away from the cameras.

Rogers TV is going into the kitchen at Brampton’s Cardinal Leger Secondary School where hospitality and tourism students star in a new reality TV series, Cardinal’s High School Cafe. The show features Grade 12 students operating all aspects of an upscale bistro, and it’s not just the kitchen that gets heated.  

The show first aired on Sept. 3, the opener of a six-episode season that features mainly five students, one per episode, and the challenges and struggles they encounter on the job and with each other. Episode six is the season finale where the students cook at their principal’s house for administrators. It airs Oct. 8.

“I want to keep the suspense, but all sorts of things go wrong on that episode,” said Kerry Greco, the show’s community producer and the school’s hospitality and tourism teacher.  

Greco, after 20 years experience in the hospitality and tourism industry, including owning her own pub and restaurant, started teaching English when she first entered the education field. But when she realized that tourism and hospitality would be offered, she wanted to make students aware of the opportunities available to them.

She had approached Rogers about giving students a chance to show off their culinary skills, which landed students the gig of cooking demonstrations on daytime. Then Greco pitched the idea of reality TV.

“Students who are not always successful in the traditional academic environment can really thrive in the hospitality program,” Greco said.

The first student to be featured on the show, Chris Kelloway, discovered the joy of cooking at age 10.
In Grade 10, he enrolled in the Hospitality and Tourism Specialist High Skills Major program and stayed until Grade 12.

“I just had a passion for cooking and putting all my creativity into dishes I had made,” he said.

At the bistro, Kelloway and the students in the program served students, faculty and local community members, including seniors from a nearby residence.

Greco tapped into funds available for students enrolled in the Specialist High Skills Major in hospitality and tourism, and that’s how the cafe, equipped with an industrial kitchen, was built.

“They learn what it is to actually serve in the exact same manner that they would if they were working in a high-end restaurant,” Greco said, a lesson that includes dealing with conflict in the kitchen.

But Kelloway’s favourite aspect of the experience is how they “all co-existed together in one team” to ensure “customers had a great experience.” He has no regrets.

The biggest challenge the students faced, running a fast-paced restaurant, remains the same whether or not they were on camera, said Greco.

“There’s always challenges with making sure that the food is executed to the tables properly and the service is executed properly.”

But the cameras did cause additional stress.

“The best part of the program is that it forces students to really be the star of their own life.

“If you’re there and you’re on camera doing the show, you’re accountable for everything you do,” Greco said.

Off-camera, one of Greco’s past students went on to attend Chef Gordon Ramsay’s culinary academy in London that offers a Cordon Bleu diploma. And since filming season one of the show between February and June, his last semester at Cardinal Leger, Kelloway has graduated and is now beginning his career in culinary management at George Brown College.

“My most treasured story, the very first graduate from the program was the first from her entire family to graduate from high school.

“And I think that’s why the program is there, because she was able to visualize the success that she could have in a very real way,” Greco said.

The bistro is open every Friday at the school for all three lunches, with quality meals such as New York steak on the menu for about $7 or $8.

Cardinal’s High School Cafe airs Monday nights at 11 p.m.

BRAMPTON, ONT. - Catholic social workers in Brampton and Mississauga have found a new way to stand up for marriage by standing with as many allies as they can find.

Catholic Family Services Peel-Dufferin, a Catholic social work agency at the service of all families in the suburbs west of Toronto, is the lead agency for the Safe Centre of Peel, a family justice centre in the William G. Davis Centre for Families in Brampton.

“As Catholics, we can’t be afraid to lead,” said Mark Creedon, executive director of Peel-Dufferin Catholic Family Services.

Creedon has pulled together eight critical agencies that serve women and families faced with violence. Rather than being referred from one location to another to obtain housing, counselling, legal aid, medical advice, child care and more, at the Safe Centre it all happens in the same place. The idea is to deliver more effective and timely help and prevent women from giving up hope and returning to life with their abuser.

“Our purpose (at Catholic Family Services) is to preserve true marriages,” said Creedon. “If somebody goes into a marriage thinking his wife is his punching bag, well that’s not really a marriage.”

The Brampton Safe Centre isn’t the first Canadian family justice centre led by a Catholic agency. The former Catholic family services agency in Kitchener-Waterloo, now known as Mosaic, took the lead in establishing the Family Violence Project of Waterloo Region in 2006.

The idea of pooling and co-ordinating services to battered women in a single location started in San Diego, Calif., in 2002. Former City Attorney Casey Gwinn brought together police and social work agencies to form a united child abuse and domestic violence unit. To date, Gwinn’s National Family Justice Alliance has fostered and encouraged 80 family justice centres in the United States and 30 internationally from Amman, Jordan, to Sonora, Mexico.

“The fundamental issues are the same whether you’re in Canada, Mexico, Europe or anywhere else in the world,” Gwinn told The Catholic Register.

In the case of Canadian centres, having religious agencies lead the conglomerate of services is an advantage, he said.

“That spiritual care piece does make the Canadian model more vibrant. We struggle in the United States to get the spiritual care piece addressed in family justice centres,” he said.

Though it’s a Catholic agency that acts as landlord and instigator at the Safe Centre of Peel, the centre is able to connect clients with spiritual care for people of all faiths. The other agencies may not be Catholic, but they share values and a common purpose with Catholic Family Services, said Creedon.

“We’re dealing with excellent partner agencies that have great values which we share,” he said.

While Creedon has been able to get most of the critical services to buy in, he has struggled to get Peel Regional Police onside. The police are part of the Safe Centre’s steering committee and have worked out a protocol for getting victims from the Safe Centre to the police station. But they refuse to station officers already dedicated to domestic violence cases at the centre.

Peel Police claim their “best practice business model” involves working with the Safe Centre of Peel, but “does not involve the permanent stationing of officers within the facility,” Staff Sergeant Rob Higgs told The Catholic Register in an e-mail.

“It’s very shortsighted for law enforcement to say, ‘Oh, this isn’t really our thing,’ ” said Gwinn. “Law enforcement officers around the world are realizing they can’t do the job alone. They’re never going to arrest their way out of the problem.”

Peel Police responded to 2,042 criminal intimate relationship incidents in 2011 and another 6,554 verbal domestic occurrences. Overall, domestic calls in Peel have increased 13.99 per cent between 2008 and 2011, according to Higgs.
The more police come to the house and do no more than record the incident or negotiate temporary quiet, the more abusive men feel the law won’t touch them, said Gwinn.

“Empowered batterers are more likely to fight with police officers. Empowered batterers are more likely to kill police officers,” said Gwinn.

The repeat visits also cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in police resources that don’t produce convictions, said Gwinn.

Creedon would like to persuade police to station officers at the Safe Centre, but for now hopes working effectively with police will convince the next chief to assign officers to the centre.

Getting this right is about much more than saving the police budget or getting more convictions. For Creedon, it’s about changing the direction for the next generation.

“One of the things we know about domestic violence is how much it is a generational thing,” he said. “So if you grow up in a family where your mother is getting abused — or it could be the father, but somebody is getting abused in that family — you are three times more likely to grow up to be an abuser or to be abused.”

Nationally the scale of the problem is immense. In 2007 there were more than 40,000 incidents of spousal violence reported to police, about 12 per cent of all police-reported violent crime in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. Women were the victims 83 per cent of the time.

“I totally believe there is something about being a Catholic family service agency that following the Catholic social justice values forces us to not walk away when we see tremendous injustice,” said Creedon.

A suspected pipe bomb thrown through a window at 3:45 a.m. set off sprinklers and filled Brampton’s St. Jerome’s Church with smoke Tuesday, May 29.

There are early reports that one person was treated for smoke inhalation and the bomb squad was called in. Police sent a robot into the church to investigate a suspicious package. The explosive device was put in a secure container to be detonated later.

TORONTO - Ten years ago, Chris Lemieux sat amidst a crowd of Catholics listening to the vocation stories of a group of young men on the brink of entering the priesthood. Though it was only a few months after his baptism, he knew then that he was being called to religious life.

So on March 6, it was only fitting that Lemieux would follow in the footsteps of those men and become one of this year's four priestly candidates to share their stories with a crowd of more than 1,900 at the 22nd annual Ordinandi Dinner. Serra International, an organization promoting vocations to Catholic religious life, hosted the evening, which was held at the Pearson Convention Centre in Brampton, Ont.