The chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board has issued an open letter to parents and media that is a frank rebuke to Ontario's education minister.

In her letter dated Oct. 30, board chair Ann Andrachuk declared that Toronto schools will remain committed to a curriculum "that affirms the value of all human life and forms the foundation of our Catholic education system."

Andrachuk's letter came three weeks after Eduction Minister Laurel Broten sparked outrage by comments that equated pro-life teaching with misogyny and suggested that pro-life activities were in contravention of Bill-13, the government's anti-bullying legislation.

"Taking away a woman's right to choose could arguably be one of the most misogynistic actions," Broten told reporters on Oct. 10.

Andrachuk did not name Broten in her letter. But it is clear her comments were directed at the education minister. Andrachuk mentions how events of recent weeks have sparked a debate about the place of Catholic values in a publicly funded school system.

"By remaining faithful to Catholic Christian principles, we not only meet, but far exceed the expectations of the policies of the Ministry of Education," Andrachuk wrote. "Indeed, the focus on these values allows us to go beyond government legislated mandates."

Andrachuk pointed out that respecting the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death is a fundamental Catholic tenet and forms a key component of a curriculum that teaches "the values of peace, justice and respect for the sacredness of human life."

"This Christian anthropology or world view embraces and cherishes the dignity and worth of each and every person," she wrote. "Are these not universal human values that should be shared and cherished by everyone on this precious planet?

"Ours is an inclusive learning community rooted in the love of Christ. We educate students to grow in grace and knowledge, and to lead lives of faith, hope and charity."

Andrachuk also pointed out that Catholics are not alone in respecting all human life.

"Acknowledging that human life begins at conception is a deeply held tenet of many world-wide religions including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism," she wrote.

Andrachuk also highlighted programs operated in Catholic schools that provide extensive social, academic and spiritual supports for pregnant teens. That support includes ensuring maternity uniforms "to reinforce the message of inclusivity."

Additionally, said Andrachuk, schools "do not abandon teens who make other choices," but instead offer counseling and "unconditional love and support."

"The measure of any civilized society is the way it deals with its most vulnerable and those in need, especially in times of crisis," she wrote.

Andrachuk said that Catholic schools will continue to reinforce the belief that "we are our brother’s keeper based on the universal values of peace, hope, love, respect and social justice."

"If the educational environment of a school is not the appropriate place for the teaching of these intrinsic human values – then where?"

Below is the complete text of the open letter from Ann Andrachuk, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Toronto Catholic District School Board

Oct. 30, 2012

Catholic Values are Human Values

The events of recent weeks have renewed the debate on whether religious, and in particular Catholic values, have any place in a publicly-funded school system.

But, whose values are these really?

At the Toronto Catholic District School Board we inspire excellence by educating the hands, hearts and minds of students to create responsible citizens who give witness to Catholic social teachings through the values of peace, justice and respect for the sacredness of human life. This Christian anthropology or world view embraces and cherishes the dignity and worth of each and every person.

Are these not universal human values that should be shared and cherished by everyone on this precious planet?

Ours is an inclusive learning community rooted in the love of Christ. We educate students to grow in grace and knowledge, and to lead lives of faith, hope and charity. As members of one of Canada’s largest school boards, our staff and students are challenged to transform the world through faith, innovation and action. This is consistent with the distinctive expectations of all Ontario Catholic Schools. These expectations are determined and shaped by the vision and destiny of the human person emerging from our faith tradition.

TCDSB schools deliver a curriculum that affirms the value of all human life and forms the foundation of our Catholic education system. The sanctity and respect for human life from conception onwards to every stage of life is a fundamental teaching for both men and women. We are not alone in this belief. Acknowledging that human life begins at conception is a deeply-held tenet of many world-wide religions including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.

By remaining faithful to Catholic Christian principles, we not only meet, but far exceed the expectations of the policies of the Ministry of Education. Indeed, the focus on these values allows us to go beyond government legislated mandates. Real world examples of these include: our integrated approach to equity and inclusivity and the TCDSB’s three-decade long integrated and holistic respecting differences approach to deal with bullying.

The personalized and unconditional support given to every student who is faced with an unplanned pregnancy is typical of this Catholic values-based tradition. We place their physical and emotional health at the very center of our care. Chaplaincy team leaders, guidance counselors, principals and classroom teachers collectively play a crucial, non-judgmental role to help the individual student feel supported, cared for and loved in a situation that is often emotionally and physically challenging.

Students dealing with this personal crisis naturally feel scared and isolated. We work to bridge this gap by helping join the student and parents together to discuss next steps. In many cases this involves a staff member accompanying the student home to help break the news. For our students over 18, we advise them of their rights to privacy and share information about confidential resources like Birthright.

We also ensure they are aware of the special services offered by Rosalie Hall and the Massey Centre.

Our message is that they do not need to travel this journey alone and that an entire caring community is here to help both academically and spiritually. From social workers and pastors to specially trained counselors and educators, we reassure the student that she is welcome to stay in the school as long as her health allows. Accommodations are offered to her schedule, including home instruction or other ways to continue her studies. The Board has asked school uniform suppliers to provide maternity-sized apparel to reinforce the message of inclusivity.

Also true to our Catholic values, we do not abandon those who make other choices. Students in this circumstance generally return to school traumatized, with solitary feelings of guilt and despondency. One-to-one support is of even greater importance to these students and their future success. Similarly, we extend our arms out to serve as a security blanket of unconditional love and respect. We work hard to ensure they are not stigmatized in the eyes of their peers or the school community and that they have the same access to social support networks.

Some critics will delight in pointing out the apparent contradiction that we treat those who make other choices in the same open and generous manner.

We see no such contradiction. The measure of any civilized society is the way it deals with its most vulnerable and those in need, especially in times of crisis.

For our part, Catholic values guide the TCDSB’s profound reverence for each individual, and a commitment to live the message of love in the Gospel. This is our obligation to all those entrusted to our care in Catholic education. Whether they are students or educators, we strive to offer our school community an authentic pathway of faith, hope, love and charity, reinforced with the virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude.

We live in a cynical, modern, secular and often cruel world dominated by a narcissistic “me first” value system. At this critical tipping point in the life of our planet, is this not the right time to reinforce the belief that we are our brother’s keeper based on the universal values of peace, hope, love, respect and social justice for all?

If the educational environment of a school is not the appropriate place for the teaching of these intrinsic human values – then where?

And if not now – when?

For us at the TCDSB the answers are self-evident. As the world’s largest Catholic school board we do not take this leadership role lightly. Supported by a new multi-year strategic plan, the TCDSB will proudly forge ahead with our global vision to transform the world through witness, faith, innovation and action.

A rally that was to be held by advocates of defunding abortion in Ontario has been blown off course by Hurricane Sandy.

The rally, organized by Campaign Life Coalition Youth, was to be held at Queen's Park on Tuesday. But it has been postponed due to predictions for Toronto of high winds and heavy rains from the hurricane that is battering the U.S. eastern seaboard.

Organizers said the event will be held at a date to be determined.

The rally was intended to pressure politicians to cease paying for abortions and start treating it like other elective medical procedures that are not funded by OHIP.

Discover Your Divine Investment: The path to spiritual joy
By Fr. Stan Chu Ilo

Discover Your Divine Investment is an inspirational book of joy and hope. By sharing his own personal stories in a very human and compassionate manner, Fr. Stan Chu Ilo calls us to unlock the key to true happiness by identifying God's unique plan for our lives and our purpose for living. He explains that God has a divine investment in each of us. He endows us with gifts and calls us to discover those treasures and use them to maximize our spiritual health and for God's glory. That is no easy task. But Fr. Stan shows us that by being open to God's unconditional love, by spreading that love and by becoming stewards of God's investment, He will lead us onto a path of spiritual joy.

160 pages / Paperback / $12.00 plus S&H / ISBN: 978-0-9784389-7-5 / © 2012 Catholic Register Books

The Catholic Register is proud to continue our Year of Faith coverage by celebrating the canonization of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native North American woman to become a saint. We have produced this special section that highlights her life of faith, courage and hope.

There are two ways to read the articles.

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Since the late Pope John Paul II coined the phrase in an address to Latin American bishops in the late 1970s, Catholic thinkers, writers, theologians and pastors have debated what the new evangelization really means. In the lineamenta sent to more than 200 bishops earlier this year in advance of the synod, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic offers several definitions. Among them:

o The new evangelization is primarily addressed to those who have drifted from the Church in traditionally Christian countries.
o There should also be a dialogue with those to whom religion is something foreign.
o The new evangelization is primarily a spiritual activity to recapture the courage and forcefullness of the first Christians and first missionaries.
o As an evangelizer, the Church begins by evangelizing herself.
o Evangelization is facing new challenges which are putting accepted practices in question and are weakening customary, well-established ways of doing things.
o The Church does not give up or retreat into herself; instead, she undertakes a project to revitalize herself.
o The new evangelization is a frame of mind, a courageous manner of acting.
o A new evangelization means, then, to work in our local churches to devise a plan... to transmit the Gospel of hope in a practical way.... becoming more and more the artisan of the civilization of love.
o A new evangelization also means to have the boldness to raise the question of God in the context of these problems.
o In the end, the expression new evangelization requires finding new approaches to evangelization so as to be Church in today’s ever-changing social and cultural situations.

[Updated at 12/10/12, 10:30 a.m.]

In a rebuke to comments made by Education Minister Lauren Broten, Cardinal Thomas Collins told a packed audience that the identity of Catholic schools must be respected and the mission of Catholic schools includes engaging in pro-life activities.

Collins made his comments to 1,700 people at the annual Cardinal's Dinner on Thursday night a day after Broten suggested that under the province's new anti-bullying legislation Catholic schools should not be teaching that abortion is wrong because "Bill-13 is about tackling misogyny."

"Taking away a woman's right to choose could arguably be considered one of the most misogynistic actions that one could take," she said at a press conference. "I don't think there is a conflict between choosing Catholic education for your children and supporting a woman's right to choose."

Collins did not specifically mention Broten, and neither she nor Premier Dalton McGuinty attended the dinner at Toronto's Metro Convention Centre. The Ontario government was represented by Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Charles Sousa. He heard the cardinal defend the rights of Catholic education in no uncertain terms.

Collins said the Catholic identity of Catholic schools is "recognized and protected" by section 93 of the constitution and by section 1 of the Education Act.

"Both the constitution and the Education Act make it clear that the Catholic identity of the school must be respected," he said.

Then, referring to Bill-13, the government's anti-bullying legislation, he said:

"This is true when it comes to the establishment of anti-bullying groups designed to make the school a better place for all, and in Catholic schools that means following the method outlined in the document Respecting Difference, of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association. It is our mission to speak up for all those who suffer, and especially those who are voiceless, for those who are forgotten.

"It is also true when it comes to protecting the freedom of all in the school community to engage in pro-life activities in order to foster a culture of life in which the most vulnerable and voiceless among us are protected and honoured throughout their whole life on earth from the moment of conception to natural death.

"Defending the voiceless is our mission."

Collins reminded the audience that Catholic education has been an integral component of Ontario schooling since before Confederation. He said the province was blessed to have a religious and non-religious education system that "work together in co-operation to make education a treasure for which all Ontarians may truly be thankful."

"There is more beauty in the variety of a garden than in the uniform, undifferentiated, monotony of the dull flat surface of a parking lot," he said.

"The complementary variety in our educational system is an advantage for all, producing not only a healthy competition from which all benefit, but also a fruitful collaboration, and the richness of different approaches to the key issues of life.

"That diversity reflects the reality of the differences that exist in our province. The system works."

Broten, who doubles as the minister responsible for women's issues, made her comments on Oct. 10 after Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) held a press conference at Queen's Park to promote weekend rallies that will demand the province stop funding abortion through Ontario health insurance.  The CLC press conference was sponsored by three Conservative MPPs.

In posing a question to Broten, a reporter said "the Catholic school system in this province is teaching the kind of intolerant thought that we saw coming out of that (CLC) press conference. They let kids out of school to go to anti-abortion rallies. Is that appropriate?" When Broten dodges that question, a reporter again asked: "Should schools be encouraging kids to go to anti-abortion rallies?"

"In Ontario, we support Catholic education, support the teaching of love and tolerance in our schools and at the same time we support the right to chose." she replied. "I am one that supports Catholic education and has been adamantly inn support of women's right to chose for many years and I do not see a conflict in those."

Millions of Africans have food today thanks to $1.8 million Canadian Catholics have given to their development agency.

The federal government will kick in about $1.3 million in matching funds to top up five months of fundraising by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

As drought struck the six-country region in May, Development and Peace saw famine on the horizon and began raising money. By August Ottawa stepped in to announce a matching funds program. A final tally of how much of Development and Peace's Sahel region fundraising is eligible for matching funds is pending, but so far the organization has identified approximately $1.3 million that Ottawa should match.

The total Development and Peace commitment in the region comes to almost $8 million, including a $5-million food distribution program the Canadian bishops' development agency is working on with Canadian Foodgrains Bank in three Sahel countries.

In Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad and Senegal Development and Peace is working with longstanding partner agencies and the Caritas Internationalis network on seed and food distribution, cash-for-work programs, subsidized food sales and nutrition clinics.

The federal government matching program ended Sept. 30.

Things changed with the Second Vatican Council. No one disputes that the Catholic faith remained what it has always been. The Church still teaches what the Church always taught. But the Council did not assemble 2,860 bishops to recite the catechism. The fact that the bishops commissioned the first authoritative catechism in 350 years was just one of many changes initiated at the Council.

Among the most important changes:

- Liturgy: Vernacular languages were encouraged, especially for Scripture readings at Mass, which became far more extensive with added Old Testament readings and a cycle of three years which focusses on each of the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Luke and Mark). By 1969 the Novus Ordo Mass allowed priests for pastoral reasons to face the assembly, gave the celebrant a variety of eucharistic prayers, restored the sign of peace to the entire congregation, allowed for distribution of both the body and blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine and moved tabernacles off the altars to a noble and prominent location elsewhere in the church or a separate chapel. By 1973 the International Commission for English in the Liturgy produced the first official translation of the New Mass, though various provisional translations had been circulating since the end of the Council.

- Ecumenism: Unitatis Redintegratio declared the ecumenical movement a good thing, encouraged Catholics to be part of it and referred to Eastern, Oriental and Protestant Christians as "separated brethren." In 1928 Pope Pius XI had condemned the ecumenical movement. From the Council of Trent until the Second Vatican Council Protestants were officially referred to as heretics.

- Democracy and religious liberty: In Dignitatis Humanae the Church for the first time recognized the conscience rights of all people to freedom of religion, and declared it was the responsibility of states to protect religious freedom with stable laws. The idea that the state should be neutral in religion, or that liberal democratic states could be entrusted to protect human dignity or even that there was any such thing as a right to religious freedom, had been condemned by Pope Pius IX.

- Relations with Jews: "The Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God," said Nostra Aetate. The charge of deicide was unfounded. The New Covenant is not possible without Abraham's stock.

- Relations with other religions: "The Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions," said Nostra Aetate.

- Religious Life: Sisters, brothers and religious order priests were to do two things — rediscover the original purpose of their religious order and adapt it to the modern world, said Perfectae Caritatis.