TORONTO - An all-girls Toronto Catholic high school is looking to raise $20,000 this school year to help sustain South Sudan’s first secondary school for girls.

“We are trying to raise enough funds to help (the Loretto Sisters) open that school so young women can continue to be educated,” said Loretto Abbey High School principal Alda Bassani.

Toronto’s Loretto Abbey is partnering with another Loretto Abbey in Dublin, Ireland, to raise funds for the Loreto Secondary Boarding School in South Sudan. The school is run by the Irish province of the Loretto Sisters, also known as the Institute of the Blessed Virgin May (IBVM). Students and staff will be donating proceeds from charity events throughout the school year. Planned so far are a pasta night, Christmas concert and multicultural event.

TORONTO - The Toronto Catholic District School Board voted unanimously to look into creating the board’s first independent ombudsperson.

Vice-chair Jo-Ann Davis, who sponsored the motion at the Nov. 24 board meeting, said an independent ombudsperson would “ensure further transparency” and a system that’s “responsive and accountable.”

The TCDSB policy and governance committee will be looking into the motion and will be inviting experts to speak on the issue, she said.

WASHINGTON (CNS) - As U.S. nutritionists cringe over the prospect of an overweight nation indulging in a two-month binge of "season's eatings" -- from Halloween candy to Thanksgiving dinners to Christmas feasts to New Year's parties -- there are millions of Americans who aren't sure they're going to get enough to eat this day or the next.

The problem is made worse by lack of access to nutritious food, as residents of America's poorest cities and neighborhoods have little choice but to make do with fast food or convenience stores that don't stock fresh produce.

TORONTO - Incarnation is the art of God. But the art that Ballet Creole practises has the same inspiration.

This year will be the 10th time the Toronto company dances the Soulful Messiah. It will also be its 10th version of the Christmas favourite set to Quincy Jones’ jazz-gospel-funk reinterpretation of Handel’s masterwork.

Each year the dance piece grows a little, sheds some skin, discovers a new wrinkle in the music, said choreographer and artistic director Patrick Parson.

TORONTO - Mozart called the organ the “king of instruments” for good reason, said Gordon Mansell, music director at Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Toronto. Beginning Dec. 7, Mansell intends on showcasing the instrument’s beauty through a free lunchtime concert series running every Wednesday at the west-end parish.

“What happens in most parishes is that the organ is not used to its fullest potential so the people do not really have a good perspective on the instrument,” said Mansell. “So when they hear organ music played professionally… their every sense is engaged. It is quite an experience unlike any other.”

TORONTO - Canadians' support for the only Catholic university in the former Soviet Union — which was recently backed up by a $1.2 million donation from businessman James Temerty — sends a strong message that promotes democracy and religious freedom in Ukraine, said Fr. Borys Gudziak.

“After the Orange Revolution hit, we had very high hopes for fully democratic prospects of an independent Ukraine,” the rector at Ukrainian Catholic University told The Catholic Register while in Toronto as part of a six-week tour of Canada, the United States and some European countries.

“We have (since) turned towards authoritarianism and some politically motivated trials.”

TORONTO - It’s a cool autumn night, and Robert Kinghorn begins his downtown ministry as night falls on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto. Amid the hustle and bustle of night life near a local hamburger joint, Kinghorn stands out sporting a white Roman collar.

But here on these streets, Kinghorn, the 26-year deacon with a background in prison ministry, seems at ease.

Toronto’s unofficial red light district isn’t where you’d expect to find hope and a prayer. But here on “the track,” the notorious downtown area with a well-earned reputation for crime and prostitution, is where Kinghorn has been ministering to people once a week for the past six years.

Kinghorn lends a sympathetic ear and offers prayers for the women and men on the track who seek his counsel, the prostitutes and drug dealers, many of whom are wrestling with broken childhoods and drug addictions.

TORONTO - Fear has silenced the voice of Pakistani Christians since the political murder of Shahbaz Bhatti last spring, said the retired archbishop of Lahore.

“People are very sad, very bitter. They said, ‘If that happens to him what happens to us?’ ” Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha said.

Bhatti’s killers remain at large. The convicted murderer of former Punjab Province governor Salman Taseer was greeted in court with rose petals and garlands. In an atmosphere of impunity for anyone who kills a Christian, educated Pakistani Christians are getting out of the country. Those who remain are keeping their heads down and their mouths shut, said Saldanha.

TORONTO - He’s a Third Order Franciscan friar with an iPhone.

And through his music ministry, top-selling Catholic musician John Michael Talbot embraces new ways of evangelization while keeping his ministry grounded in the roots of prayer and Catholic tradition.

One of the ways Talbot is part of the “new evangelization” is through his latest album Worship and Bow Down. Seventeen tracks include choral background harmonies and the songs for the new “Mass of Rebirth” which he composed in contemporary chant style for the new Roman Missal. (Talbot is one of several musicians around the world who have been commissioned to compose new settings for the new Missal which will be launched at Masses the first week of Advent.)

WASHINGTON - Past studies have shown that those who attend religious services at least weekly tend to live longer and healthier lives. Now, new research indicates that frequent churchgoers also face those additional years with more optimism and greater social support than other people.

A study involving more than 92,000 postmenopausal women showed that those who reported weekly attendance at religious services were 56 percent more likely to be above the median in terms of their optimism level. They also were significantly less likely to be depressed or to be characterized by cynical hostility.