{mosimage}TORONTO - In setting out to protect a Toronto heritage home, Mary Fay discovered the story of a man so fascinating she spent years researching his life and deeds.

Four years ago, while walking by Senator O’Connor College School, Fay fell in love with a stately old home that sat boarded up on the school’s property, surrounded by a wire fence. Moved by its Colonial Revival-style architecture, she thought it deserved a second chance at life and began to research its history and its pending fate.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Mary White-Reel remembers when St. Theresa’s Shrine of the Little Flower parish was the only parish in her area. In fact, she had to be baptized at St. Augustine’s Seminary because the church was not yet built.

“I remember when we first came here, there were only three or four families (in the parish),” she said.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Living without fear is the theme of Toronto’s first Catholic Conference on Awareness of Abuse Against Women, to be held Oct. 18

Workshops for both youth and adults will provide a chance to reflect and learn about woman abuse and the Catholic Church’s response.

Conference organizer Virginia Koehler told The Catholic Register the event is a day of information for everyone in the community.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Serra House in Toronto has reached its 25th birthday and continues to welcome young men who are in the “pre-seminary” stage of their life.

Here, men can discern a vocation to the diocesan priesthood while studying or continuing in the work force, all the while supported by a community of peers striving for personal and spiritual growth.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Deborah Sinclair’s first introduction to the reality of women’s abuse happened when she was 12, while having lunch at a friend’s house. The friend’s father lifted up the kitchen table in rage despite the fact she, the other six kids and their mother were all present.

“I wondered if he knew I was there,” she said. “And you know I didn’t tell my parents because I was fearful they wouldn’t let me go back.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - One hundred years have passed for St. Leo’s, the first church established in Etobicoke, but the small parish is showing a quicker pace. With repairs and purchases planned to restore the church’s beauty, involvement from its community has increased, said Margaret Innes, a parishioner for 35 years.

“There’s lots of hope for St. Leo’s,” she said. “It’s like we’re building it again. It’s neat to go into the 100th like this.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - A small poster has cropped up in parishes around the archdiocese of Toronto in ShareLife’s latest change to ensure transparency and accountability.

As the fund-raising arm for the archdiocese for more than 30 years, staff at ShareLife decided it was high time to publish the breakdown of how funds are spent in its 2008 Annual Update.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Care providers need to be animated by a deep compassion for their patients, be present in the moment but also learn to take care of themselves, says Dr. Mary Vachon.

Vachon delivered the keynote address Nov. 6 to a room of more than 60 attendees at the Practical Ethics in Home-based Care conference in honour of St. Elizabeth Health Care on its 100th anniversary. St. Elizabeth’s provides community and home care services as a charitable, not-for-profit organization.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Male survivors of sexual abuse will be able to receive counselling from the Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness (CCAA) thanks in part to the archdiocese of Toronto.

The archdiocese donated $30,000 to the CCAA, based in Newmarket, for its Help and Hope Project which focuses on helping men who were sexually victimized in their childhood.

{mosimage}TORONTO - In the opening credits of The Simpsons — where Lisa goes off with her saxophone, playing a tune of her own — is not what Catholic lay movements should model in their attempts to effect change, Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins told nearly 200 people attending the archdiocese’s annual Catholic Symposium for the Laity.

“That’s the very world we’re fighting against — where ‘I have my little tune to play and so forget about you,’ ” he said.