A woman’s studies professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., is within her rights to criticize and badger volunteers who work at a Catholic-inspired social justice program on campus, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ruled.

The decision was the latest episode in a five-year war of words between the university’s women’s studies program and Solidarity Experiences Abroad, a program that places students from the school in volunteer jobs in Latin America and is administered by the university’s Roman Catholic chaplaincy.

Women’s studies and sociology professor Ana Isla alleges that the SEA program has ties to “far right” and “cult-like” Catholic organizations in Peru. She claimed in a motion passed by the women’s studies program committee in 2011 that “there have been documented cases of physical and psychological abuse, classism, sexism, racism and homophobia in activities related to Solidarity Experiences Abroad.”

German McKenzie, who ran the SEA program at Brock for eight months in 2010 and continues to volunteer with the chaplaincy office, complained of Isla’s rhetoric to the Human Rights Tribunal in January. In his Oct. 9 decision, Ken Bhattacharjee said the tribunal should not intervene in the internal affairs of the university where issues of academic freedom are at stake.

“In my view, given the importance of academic freedom and freedom of expression in a university setting, it will be rare for this tribunal to intervene where there are allegations of discrimination in relation to what another person has said during a public debate on social, political and/or religious issues in a university,” Bhattacharjee wrote.

McKenzie claims he wasn’t trying to limit anyone’s academic freedom, only protect his reputation.

“I respect academic freedom, but academic freedom has to be exercised responsibly,” McKenzie told The Catholic Register. “How do you balance that in a university? That’s a big thing. I’m not saying it’s easy.”

He had asked the tribunal to suspend the case while the university’s own human rights committee looks into the case. But once started, the tribunal decided to render its decision.

“From my side, it makes sense for everybody to solve this grievance at the lower level than at the higher,” said McKenzie. “That’s what common sense tells me.”

Brock University chaplain Raoul Masseur expects the university’s human rights committee to issue a report very soon. University administration refused to comment on the committee report.

McKenzie is a doctoral candidate at Catholic University of America who expects to graduate with a PhD in secularization theory in the coming months. He hopes to launch an academic career in Canada and felt Isla’s campaign against SEA and himself were poisoning his chances.

Brock administration has already once ruled that Isla’s accusations are unfounded and that the relationship between the university and SEA has been beneficial to the university. The university’s “internationalization committee” investigated Isla’s allegations against SEA in January and found “there was no compelling evidence to support such an action (severing ties with SEA) and further affirms its support for this partnership.”

The committee, headed by university provost Murray Knutila, said that consenting adults should be trusted to make an informed choice about whether or not to participate with SEA, so long as the program was clear about its affiliations. While inspired by Catholic social teaching, the program is a non-denominational invitation to the whole Brock community, said Masseur, the SEA founder.

Isla’s campaign against SEA was bolstered last year by the CUPE-financed Occupy Brock movement on campus.

“We ask to take a stand and only officially sanction volunteer opportunities with non-religious organizations,” associate dean of social sciences June Corman told an Occupy Brock rally Sept. 17, 2011. “And that in fact, all course work opportunities at Brock also not be involved with specific religious organizations.”

SEA has more than 360 Brock students, faculty and alumni preregistered for solidarity trips in this academic year. As the movement to cut ties to SEA gained ground last winter it took Masseur less than a week to gather 200 letters of support from more than 1,200 past participants in SEA trips.

E-mails and phone calls to Isla for this article were unanswered.

Cardinal Thomas Collins will meet and pray with faith leaders from across Toronto to start a more public conversation about violence against women in the spring of 2013.

Catholic Family Services is organizing the interfaith service, which Collins committed to attending in a message to the third annual Mass to End Woman Abuse celebrated at Blessed Trinity Church in Toronto Oct. 16.

Collins called violence against women a “terrible evil.”

“Often this happens out of the sight of the world, but those who experience it experience enormous grief and pain,” Collins wrote.

The idea that faith leaders are ready to publicly talk and pray about how women suffer at the hands of men is “a very good thing,” said Canadian Women’s Foundation president and CEO Bev Wybrow.

“What we would like to see come out of it is looking at the most effective ways to address violence in the context of faith communities,” Wybrow said. “That is very, very important to some women in particular and it hasn’t always been as appropriate as it should be.”

This year’s Mass to End Woman Abuse, organized by Catholic Family Service of Toronto, attracted about 200.

“I would want it to be standing room only,” said Kelly Bourke, who directs the Faith Connections youth program for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto. “I find it challenging that it’s not.”

Though the Church may not be full, the annual event is giving a higher profile to the issue, said Virginia Koehler, director of Catholic Family Services woman abuse programs. With each Mass Catholic Family Services has seen an increase in referrals and volunteers.

“Priests are calling — priests we haven’t heard from,” she said.

The Mass particularly concentrates on thanking and honouring survivors of spousal abuse who volunteer as mentors in Catholic Family Services’ Women Helping Women program.

The impulse to keep silent about violence within marriages is exactly the cover abusers need, said Lucia Furgiuele, Catholic Family Services of Toronto executive director.

“We stand united in breaking the silence that accompanies this issue,” she said.

Women should never be told to be obedient and pray in the face of violence, said Furgiuele.

“Our Church teaches that women should leave abusive situations that persist,” she said.

Prayer is not irrelevant, said Wybrow.

“Prayer can be accompanied by concrete action as well and help make sure action is appropriate as possible,” she said.

EDMONTON - The Edmonton archdiocese and the diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith have entered into a twinning arrangement that may lead to more co-operation between the two dioceses.

Edmonton has sent a priest to Mackenzie-Fort Smith and will give half the proceeds from its Nov. 21 Jubilee Gala to this northern diocese to help pay for a new church.

“This is sort of a partnership of mutual support and mutual enrichment,” said Archbishop Richard Smith, who will visit Mackenzie-Fort Smith in March.

In an Oct. 15 interview, the archbishop said this type of twinning arrangement goes back to the 1990s when Blessed John Paul II in his apostolic letter Ecclesia in America encouraged the dioceses of the Western Hemisphere to consider ways that they may enter partnerships with one another of mutual support.

As the question arose about a partnership between Edmonton and another diocese, Smith said his thoughts naturally turned towards South America.

“But as we talked internally about this more and more the question came up what about the needs of our people in the North of Canada?” he said.

The idea of Edmonton, the gateway to the North, twinning with Mackenzie-Fort Smith resonated with local Catholics, he said. Smith said the twinning also recognizes that the Edmonton archdiocese was established through the efforts of missionaries.

“We are the result of a missionary effort and that’s a reminder to us that the Church is and must always be missionary in its outreach.”

Mackenzie-Fort Smith Bishop Murray Chatlain said he is pleased with the twinning. Apart from the sharing of human and material resources, it “will give people (in the Edmonton archdiocese) a chance to understand more who we are, what our life is like and what are some of our blessings and challenges.”

The wheels of the twinning agreement are already in motion. Last June, youth leader Andrew Papenbrock visited Mackenzie-Fort Smith to lead a workshop on youth ministry. Since then, Papenbrock has helped the northern diocese with other youth ministry issues, Chatlain said.

As well, Fr. Arlan Parenteau, an Edmonton priest, was recently sent to serve the northern diocese. “Obviously this is a sacrifice on our part because we certainly need every priest that we can have, but at the same time we have to recognize that the Lord calls us to be generous,” Smith said.
Smith said the two dioceses will ask what gifts they can share. When Chatlain spoke in Edmonton at the archdiocese’s Nothing More Beautiful event, Smith recalled, he talked about the great importance that is placed in the North on silence in the encounter with the other.

“That’s something our busy Western culture needs to learn — the value of silence and, within silence, encountering the reality of the other and encountering the reality of God in our midst.”

Chatlain said many people in his diocese travel to Edmonton, especially when facing serious medical issues, and end up attending the city’s parishes. The partnership may enable a deepening of those relationships, he said.

Chatlain said Mackenzie-Fort Smith and Edmonton are also encouraging the twinning of parishes from the dioceses. Funds from the Jubilee Gala, which he will attend, might be used to help renovate the church in Tuktoyaktuk and build a new church in Fort Simpson.

The Mackenzie diocese has 11 priests to cover about 38 communities.

“If we have 10 or 11 healthy priests, I think for the size we are it’s okay,” he said.

“What we are trying to do is to encourage the local leadership.”

Lay people, Chatlain said, lead services, funerals, Baptisms and even perform marriages.

(Western Catholic Reporter)

OTTAWA - A Conservative MP who came under fire for awarding Diamond Jubilee Medals to pro-life activists who have served time in prison has garnered plenty of support from those who see the activists as prisoners of conscience.

OTTAWA - Ottawa’s All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus continues to search for nonpartisan solutions to poverty — but it won’t be easy.

The caucus marked International Day for the Eradication of Poverty Oct. 17 with a panel discussion entitled “Ending Poverty Together: Real Stories, Real Solutions.” It brought together NDP, Liberal and Conservative MPs and Senators, representatives from anti-poverty groups, and two panelists who shared their lived experience of poverty.

“We’re good at raising awareness,” said NDP human resources critic Chris Charlton, caucus co-chair. “We’re not so good at moving the yard sticks.

“Government programs can make a difference if we design them right.”

Though Charlton would like to see greater tax fairness, she acknowledged higher taxes were not likely to find all-party support. She praised a Tory program, however, that helps the working poor rise out of poverty as one example of a program all parties support.

Caucus co-chair Liberal Senator Art Eggleton decried the fact one in 10 Canadians live in poverty and one out of four are children. Poverty costs Canada about $30 billion, according to a recent study, he said, with health care costs alone consuming about $7.5 billion.

“The social welfare system treats the symptoms, but leaves the disease untouched,” he said.

It is less expensive to give someone a home and support services than to leave him or her on the street, he said, because street people drive up hospital costs through use of emergency rooms.

They can also end up costing the justice system money.

“We know the facts; we know the answers,” said Eggleton, the former Toronto mayor and Liberal cabinet minister.

“Why isn’t something happening?”

It is a matter of political will, he said, noting the caucus is trying to build it.

Eggleton also raised concerns about growing income inequality that is affecting not only the poor but also the middle class, calling the gap a threat to Canada’s social cohesion.

Conservative Senator Don Meredith, who is caucus treasurer, said he grew up poor in Jamaica, arriving in Canada at the age of 12. He lived with his family in social housing in the tough Jane-Finch area of Toronto. He credited his family, religious faith and hard work in “overcoming adversity and finding success.”

“This is not about partisan lines,” he said. “It is about the lives of Canadians.”

He stressed entrepreneurship, job creation and reaching at-risk youth.

Geraldine King, a young First Nations woman, said intergenerational poverty had become normalized to the extent she did not realize she was poor until peers started making fun of her when she reached age seven or eight. She thought going to food banks and wearing second hand clothes from a bin was something everyone did.

King credited a federal program with helping her get out of poverty. A new employment insurance (EI) rule allowed her to resign from her lower paying job to seek more training by attending university while still receiving EI benefits. This program helped her survive her first year in university. After that she qualified for bursaries and scholarships.

King said she was lucky to find out about the program because systemic barriers keep people like herself from finding out about them, especially those without computer access or living in First Nations communities.

Linda LeBlanc, an anti-poverty advocate who raised two children on and off social assistance, depending on her health or employment status, spoke of the isolation and marginalization she experienced.

Many poor people cannot leave their homes for lack of money and transportation, disability issues or pregnancy or small children, she said. Being poor means constantly juggling, never knowing what is going to come at you, just struggling to get through the day.

Though many say the best social program is a job, without supports like housing, child care and transportation the job will not do much good, she said.

Then there are many who can’t take a job even if the supports are in place.

LeBlanc said the best consultants on poverty are those who have lived it, but they often cannot find the money to attend meetings like this.

For as long as Cobourg, Ont., has existed, St. Michael’s parish has been there for its citizens.

St. Michael’s parishioners were to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the town’s original Roman Catholic parish with an anniversary celebration on Oct. 27.

“We just want to celebrate the wonderful gift of a parish, a Catholic parish, that’s 175 years (old),” said Fr. Andrew Ayala, St. Michael’s pastor.

Ayala was to kick off the day of celebration with a 5 p.m. Mass, with a sold-out dinner to follow at Cobourg’s historical Victoria Hall.

The parish hasn’t always gone by the name St. Michael’s. When it was established in 1837 by Fr. A. Kernan, the parish took the name of St. Polycarp. The original church building opened on William Street, about three km from the current location at 379 Division St., two years later. When the doors opened, the small wooden church served a congregation of 50 souls.

By 1859 the capacity of the 1,029-square-metre church was deemed inadequate by the parish’s third pastor, Fr. Michael Timin, who served for 33 years at St. Michael’s. So construction began on a brick addition to double the building’s size.

Four years later a fire destroyed the original wooden structure. Restored in brick to match the addition, Bishop Patrick Phelan rededicated the parish to St. Michael, who remains the namesake to this day.

On June 9, 1895 the cornerstone of the current church was laid. The new building was finished in less than one year.

The spirit that helped establish the parish and keep it going for 175 years can be seen in today’s parishioners, said Ayala, and in the planning for the milestone celebration in particular. Planning for the anniversary celebration began in August. This is where parishioners really stepped up to the plate to make the celebration come to fruition.

“God is giving this parish a great gift in the people it has,” said Ayala. “If I have to say something about this parish it’s that the lay people take very seriously their mission in the parish.”

The entire event, organized in less than two months, is a testament to the large impact a small community can have when they come together, said Ayala.

“At the end of August I shared this idea first with my secretary and my secretary told me about one person in the parish, the former mayor of the town, who would be able to organize that,” said Ayala.

That person was Peter Delanty who Ayala asked to establish an organization committee. Before the pastor knew it Delanty gathered seven others to work on the celebrations.

“In math one plus one is two but in my mission we say one plus one equals 2,000 because we can do much more when we come together,” said Ayala.

This was a great help to Ayala. A native of Argentina, English is his second language. And as pastor of a parish that sees about 900 visitors between the three Sunday services alone, Ayala’s time is limited. When the four high schools, hospital, youth correctional centre, five retirement homes and countless house calls, which absorb much of his non-preaching time, were factored in Ayala needed the help.

By early September the committee began holding meetings and relaying their plans to Ayala for approval.

“A wonderful committee of parishioners were able to organize it so well, I’m very happy with that,” he said. “There’s so much spiritual work to do I would have never been able to organize it if it wasn’t for the lay people,”

Along with dinner, those in attendance will also be entertained by the local jazz band from St. Mary’s Catholic Secondary School, receive a history lesson from Delanty and hear from Peterborough’s Bishop Nicola De Angelis.

OTTAWA - Individuals living alone without family ties form a new growing risk-group for poverty, says a new study by Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) released Oct. 17.

At a news conference, CPJ executive director Joe Gunn blamed the rise of “precarious employment” for the growing risk to unattached working individuals of falling into poverty. Don’t believe the line that simply getting a job will get one out of poverty, he said.

“It has to be a good job,” he said.

“Working-age individuals living on their own are now much more likely to be poor than individuals living in family situations,” says CPJ’s Poverty Trends Scorecard—Canada 2012, released to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The study shows poverty among households with two or more workers accounted for a “shocking” 12 per cent of Canada’s poor. Households with one worker make up 39.1 per cent of Canada’s poor.

“Inadequate income support programs for working-age individuals and families ensure a life of poverty for almost one million Canadians,” the study says.

The study also identifies young adults as “more likely to be poor today than they were three decades ago,” noting fewer young people are working in 2012 than at the peak of the 2008-2009 recession.

Other groups that face higher risk of poverty and the likelihood of long-term poverty are aboriginal peoples, recent immigrants, the disabled and “racialized communities,” the study says.

The study shows the higher poverty levels caused by the recent recession were largely overcome by 2010, though Alberta and British Columbia have not fully recovered.

Not all the news is bad, Gunn pointed out. The study shows that over the past 15 years, Canada has seen a decline in overall poverty rates, “especially among children and seniors.” Gunn said this result shows government support programs can work to reduce poverty.

CPJ reported progress in reducing poverty in Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan and Quebec.
“Poverty among lone-parent families has fallen as women’s position in the labour market has improved, and their average duration of poverty has decreased,” the study says.
Supports for working age and unattached people have “weakened” since the 1990s, the study says.
“Lack of support is a critical issue with the loss of middle-income jobs in Canada.”
Gunn said the House of Commons has pledged twice to overcome poverty and the House HUMA committee developed a plan that still needs to be implemented. That it has not been shows “a failure of our commitment to show we are here for the common good of all.”

VANCOUVER - The archdiocese of Vancouver is inviting Catholics to come back to their faith this holiday season with a “Catholics Come Home” (CCH) initiative, Archbishop J. Michael Miller announced during his fundraising dinner Oct. 25.

CCH is a multi-faceted campaign that combines media and parish outreach to bring fallen-away Catholics back to the Church. The media component involves commercials produced that will air between Dec. 13 and Jan. 20 on major TV stations in Vancouver. Parishes have been preparing outreach plans to welcome those inspired by the commercials.

“In the archdiocese of Vancouver there may be as many as 250,000 Catholics who need us to reach out and welcome them,” said Miller. “Every one of us has family members, friends or co-workers who once were active Catholics and now are no longer.”

“With the upcoming Catholics Come Home initiative we have a wonderful opportunity to reach out to others and be spiritually renewed in the process,” said Kyle Neilson, director of the office of evangelization for the archdiocese and part of the CCH Vancouver team.

Hundreds of parish representatives gathered at St. Patrick’s, Our Lady of Fatima and St. Matthew’s parishes Sept. 28 to 30 to hear Ryan Hanning, director of parish leadership for the diocese of Phoenix, discuss some of the ideas on how to welcome Catholics back. Hanning’s diocese was the pilot for Catholics Come Home in 2008. The diocese helped produce commercials which later ran in several U.S. dioceses and in other countries.

“When we ran the campaign we didn’t know what to expect and didn’t know who our audience was,” Hanning said.

He shared some of the CCH findings and described the state of Catholicism in Vancouver, saying the west coast city is second only to Berlin as the most secular city in the world.

“Thirty-six per cent of people that live in Vancouver say they are atheist or agnostic,” Hanning reported. “There is a huge mission field here.”

He said there are more than 450,000 registered Catholics in the archdiocese, 17 per cent of the population. Of those, 22.5 per cent attend Mass every week, 12 per cent attend Mass monthly and 42 per cent attend Mass occasionally.

Hanning also talked about the “inactive Catholics” that make up 25 per cent of the Catholic population. He went over some reasons why those Catholics are inactive.

“When we prepared for the campaign we expected the vast majority of those who had left the faith did so because they were angry or mad,” Hanning said. “The opposite was true.”

He said reasons such as the sex-abuse scandal were not actually as statistically high as many had predicted. He said of the 6,000 people who contacted them in the Phoenix diocese, only a few claimed the reason they left the Church was the sex-abuse scandal.

Most people he encountered left for social reasons.

“They live in a society that doesn’t always respect the role of, and the importance of, religion in life.”

Hanning said the challenge for parishes will be to find their own unique way of welcoming returning Catholics.

“I’ve been in parish life and know the challenges,” Hanning said. “I know there is a temptation to respond (to the campaign) with a program; a one size fits all. People don’t want to come back to a program; they want to come back to a person: Christ.”

TORONTO - About 300 people from the pro-life community filled a banquet hall at Spirale Restaurant Oct. 18 to honour Fr. Alphonse de Valk, the recently retired editor of Catholic Insight magazine.

“He was ahead of his time with his warning of legalizing abortion,” said Steve Jalsevac, managing director of LifeSiteNews. “In all the years I’ve known Fr. de Valk he’s been faithful, faithful, faithful.”

Jalsevac first got to know de Valk in 1984 when the Basilian priest moved to Toronto from the Prairies, where his pro-life journalism began shortly after penning Morality and Law in Canadian Politics: The Abortion Controversy. Both members of Campaign Life Coalition, which de Valk joined in 1978 while principal of St. Joseph’s College at the University of Edmonton, the two were always able to look past their personal differences in the name of life.

“Both being Dutchmen, actually I’m only half Dutch, we’ve had our differences,” said Jalsevac at The Testimonial Dinner for Fr. Alphonse de Valk, which was sponsored by a number of pro-life organizations. “But I prefer a man who isn’t lukewarm.”

As a post-secondary educator in both Saskatoon and Edmonton during 1970s and early ’80s, de Valk published more than 200 articles addressing abortion issues in papers which circulated on the campus. These writings helped to recruit young pro-life support.

While living in Edmonton de Valk had gathered enough supporters to begin publishing booklets, 12to 24-pages long, focusing on issues facing the pro-life movement. The group produced 36 editions over a 15-year period before de Valk moved eastward and joined Campaign Life Coalition fulltime.

“It was a wonderful thing to find a group of people whom we could associate with and who shared the value of human life, who shared the teachings of the Church,” said de Valk.

He also began writing for The Interim, a Toronto-based pro-life newspaper, that same year and eventually became editor, a position de Valk held from 1987 to 1992.

As a reporter, de Valk made the transition from advocate to activist when, in 1985, he was arrested for chaining himself to the Morgentaler Clinic’s gate. One night in the Don Jail was all de Valk served thanks to the province’s Attorney General withdrawing the charges after hearing a priest was imprisoned.

The arrest didn’t scare off de Valk who continued to be a regular, slightly less radical, picketer outside the clinic every Friday for almost five years — even after the 1989 injunction prohibiting such protests. Over these years he was arrested another eight times and fined $750 or two weeks in jail for trespassing — a fine he hasn’t paid, jail time he has not served.

“Fr. de Valk could always be counted on to state the blunt truth about controversial goings on,” Jalsevic wrote in the evening’s program.

De Valk continued to do just that after leaving The Interim with the launch of Catholic Insight in 1993.

Following a stroke, and his 80th birthday this March, de Valk decided that Catholic Insight’s publisher, the Board of Directors of Life Ethics Information Centre, should seek a new editor.

Although no longer a member of the editorial team, de Valk continues to sit on both the advisory and publishing boards of Catholic Insight.

“God’s grace has allowed us to withstand the sexual revolution,” de Valk said during the dinner’s closing speech.

“Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being. Do it for the Lord rather than for me since you know fully well that you will receive an inheritance from Him as your reward.”

TORONTO - Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Toronto has begun celebrations of its 100th anniversary.

The organization functions as an umbrella charity for Catholic social service agencies in the province of Ontario. In it’s inaugural year the charitable organization funded eight agencies, a number that has since grown to 29 serving about 250,000 people.

“We make a real positive difference in the lives of people,” said Michael Fullan, Catholic Charities’ executive director for the past 19 years. “Often when there isn’t hope we help to re-instill that ... hope.”

These agencies include Providence Healthcare, Covenant House Toronto and Natural Family Planning Association. Among those who benefit from these agencies are impoverished youth, the elderly and those suffering from illness ranging from disabilities to substance abuse issues.

“Those most at risk of falling through the cracks of the service agencies is typically where the Catholic agencies have been responding,” said Fullan. “(They’re) the most vulnerable in society.”

Currently Catholic Charities injects about $8.5 million into the province’s social service network. While most of the money comes from ShareLife, Fullan said a lot of outside funding comes as a result of Catholic Charities’ contributions.

“Our funding is like a catalyst to attracting other funding,” he said. “Governments and other funders recognize the contributions that the Catholic agencies make.”

During his speech at the 33rd Annual Cardinal’s Dinner on Oct. 11, Toronto’s Cardinal Thomas Collins made a point of acknowledging the milestone year for the organization started a century ago by then Archbishop Neil McNeil.

“When it comes to helping others, whether it is those suffering from a natural disaster across the ocean, or those closer to home, faith-based organizations are the first in and last out,” said Collins, adding that centenary celebrations will culminate with a special Mass next September.

Collins praised both the agencies supported by Catholic Charities and parishioners whose donations make the agencies’ work possible.

But Catholic Charities is more than a money allocator.

“Catholic Charities historically had a direct contribution to the development of the present universal health care system in this country,” said Fullan. “That’s something that we should be very proud of.”

That kind of government lobbying continues today, although the area of attention has shifted. Catholic Charities is currently attempting to have the government address child poverty, affordable housing and social service funding.

“We’re trying on the systematic level to make changes that need to happen,” said Fullan. “We’re making some people expendable in our culture and there’s something very wrong with that.”

What the next 100 years will look like for Catholic Charities is unclear to Fullan. What he does know is that demands will change, as always, and Catholic Charities will respond, as always.