It’s no trick that students at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School in Hamilton, Ont., aren’t looking for treats this Halloween. Instead, they want non-perishable food items so they can surpass a half-million pounds of food collected since the school’s first Halloween 4 Hunger campaign began in 2000.

Toronto - The Office for Refugees Archdiocese of Toronto is hosting its next refugee settlement workshop Oct. 26 for parishes with an interest in helping relocate people fleeing some of the world’s most troubled areas.

As a Manitoba pro-life campus group celebrated the defeat of an attempt to have its club status revoked, it was cautiously awaiting word on further attempts to censor its message.

“We were encouraged to hear members of the (student) council defend free speech on campus and see the motion to revoke our student group status defeated soundly,” said Cara Ginter, vice-president of University of Manitoba Students for a Culture of Life (UMSCL), in a press release. “Unfortunately, two other motions were passed that could be used to censor our student group and others in the future.”

The school’s student council tried to revoke the pro-life group’s club status after it displayed the controversial Genocide Awareness Project on campus. The GAP shows photos of aborted fetuses and likens them to victims of historical genocides.

Now the UMSCL is awaiting, indefinitely, the consequences of motions passed by the University of Manitoba Student Union.

According to a National Campus Life Network press release, the first motion is looking at having the student council and university administration reconsider and review the process to approve public displays on campus. The second motion is meant to review and clarify the policies surrounding penalizing clubs and revoking club status.

“The policies in place right now are very vague to... the reasons why the student group status would be revoked,” said Agnus-Mariae Lucas, UMSCL president. 

“We’re in our fourth year as a student group and throughout those years it’s been very apathetic, (the) attitude towards our events. We’ve been holding low-key events for a while, and so GAP was the first really big event that we’ve had that really stirred things up.

“We’ve met upset people, but there were no violent reactions, no really big, explosive arguments,” said Lucas, who adds that she was surprised to learn of complaints to administration.

Toronto - In high school, the ladies loved Branden Gordon, and he loved them back.

But Gordon always felt restless and unsatisfied, a feeling he assumed is typical of youth. Yet he persistently searched for what was missing, for the truth. Eventually, he says, God revealed Himself, and so Gordon eventually found his way to religious life. Men entering religious life with the Salesians have the option to become permanent brothers or priests, and though there is still time to change his mind, Gordon has entered the discernment process with the intention of becoming a priest.

TORONTO - After more than a century of serving the poor in the heart of the city, the Yonge Street Mission will be selling its flagship Toronto location in the hope of expanding its outreach and ministry to street- involved youth.

TORONTO - Sr. Marie Paul Curley is bringing the saints to life in her two newly launched books.

The Sister Adorers of the Precious Blood are defying trends among women’s religious communities with an upswing in candidates interested in joining the order.

The Church is not on a mission, it is a mission.

TORONTO - Salt + Light, Canada’s Catholic broadcaster, is launching The Church Alive, “a series for the New Evangelization on the New Evangelization,” says co-host Sebastian Gomes.

Maggie Wang apologized to God as she stood at the side of the freeway. She awaited the transport trucks known to frequent the route near her home. That night, there was only one. And as she was about to jump, she heard a voice say, “There’s more than this.”