Article has been amended for updated information on Fr. Carl Matthews' wake

TORONTO - Fr. Carl Matthews, S.J., a former publisher and editor of The Catholic Register, died Sept. 26. The 80-year-old Fr. Matthews was in his 62nd year of Jesuit life.

Fr. Matthews died peacefully at Rouge Valley Hospital in Ajax, Ont. He had been at the Rene Goupil Jesuit Infirmary as his health deteriorated since his retirement from parish life in 2010.

It is Fr. Matthews' dedication to Catholic education where he made his name. He served for 14 years as a trustee with the Metropolitan Separate School Board, the predecessor of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, and is among those most responsible for full funding being extended to Catholic schools. Along with the late Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter, Fr. Matthews worked tirelessly in the halls of Queen's Park to bring equal funding to Catholic high schools, which up until 1984 were only fully funded up until Grade 10.

In the early 1990s, Fr. Matthews was publisher and editor of The Catholic Register before returning to parish life. He spent 16 years, from 1994-2010, as pastor of St. John the Evangelist parish in Waubaushene, Ont., on the shores of Georgian Bay in the northern reaches of the archdiocese of Toronto.

Born in Kingston, Ont., in 1932, Carl Joseph Damien Matthews attended Regiopolis College in his hometown before entering St. Stanislaus Novitiate in Guelph, Ont., in 1951. After first vows and two years of Juniorate, he went on to Regis College in Toronto. He returned to Regiopolis to teach for two years before returning to the University of Toronto to study education.

Fr. Matthews was ordained a priest June 4, 1966. He served in a number of parishes in the archdiocese, including Martyrs' Shrine in Midland, Ont., Good Shepherd parish in Thornhill and St. Michael's Cathedral.

A wake will be held for Fr. Matthews on September 30th from 2-4 p.m. (service at 3 p.m.) at Manresa Retreat House in Pickering, Ont., and from 7-9 p.m. at Rosar Morrison Funeral Home, 467 Sherbourne St. in Toronto. The funeral will be held at 10:30 a.m. on October 1st at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, 520 Sherbourne St. Burial is at the Jesuit Cemetery in Guelph.

OTTAWA - Despite his motion to reopen the debate on when life begins being defeated Sept. 26, MP Stephen Woodworth has vowed to "fight on against the denial of the worth and dignity of every human."

The Conservative MP's Motion 312 would have set up a parliamentary committee to examine the 400-year-old definition of when human life begins. It was defeated by a vote of 203 to 91 in the House of Commons.

“I will be there to encourage and to speak out in defence of the Canadian values championed by Motion 312,” Woodworth said in a news release after the vote. “If possible, I’ll travel the country to talk about the very, very grave importance of enshrining in Canadian law the equal worth and dignity of every human being.”

Woodworth came under fire from Opposition MPs, and even some within his own party, as they claimed the motion was just a backdoor route to reopening the abortion debate. It's a claim Woodworth denied throughout the process. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the government's chief whip, MP Gordon O'Connor, were among the more prominent Conservative members who made it clear early in the process that they would not support Motion 312.

However, eight cabinet ministers, including Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Rona Ambrose, the Minister for the Status of Women, were among the 87 Conservative MPs — more than half the caucus — that supported Woodworth's motion.

Woodworth called on Canadians to redouble their efforts to promote the view that democratic institutions, honest laws and every human being are more important than preoccupation with abortion or any other agenda or ideology.

TORONTO - Being on the side of the poor means working to make sure the poor won’t always be with us — still poor, still desperate, trapped from generation to generation in a dispiriting cycle, said Society of St. Vincent de Paul Ontario president Jim Paddon.

The St. Vincent de Paul provincial regional council representing some 350 parish councils emerged from its annual meeting in Peterborough in early September recommitted to lobbying all three levels of government on behalf of the poor, pressing particularly for affordable housing.

“We have an obligation. We’re there to serve Jesus in the poor,” said Paddon. “The poor are suffering because of improper or lack of legislation. It (advocacy) is just an extension of what we do.”

Pushing the federal government to have a national housing strategy — Canada is the only industrialized country in the world without one — the provincial government to allow municipalities to zone for more subsidized housing through inclusionary housing by-laws, and municipal governments to incorporate more affordable housing in their official plans doesn’t mean the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is turning into a political player.

“We certainly don’t want to align with a political party. I don’t envision us ever doing that,” said Paddon.

But St. Vincent de Paul members, who visit the poor and help them out with small amounts to buy groceries and other essentials, see how expensive or inadequate housing is crushing families, Paddon said.

The Daily Bread’s Sept. 19 report, “Who’s Hungry: Faces of Hunger,” found that on average food-bank clients spend 71 per cent of their income on rent. The waiting list for subsidized housing in Ontario stands at 150,000.

St. Vincent de Paul members get discouraged when they see not only that they are serving the same people month after month and year after year, but also that they are serving second- and third-generation clients.

“Our members get just as frustrated as anyone,” said Paddon. “You tend to get a little cynical. What we need to do is direct feelings like that toward things like systemic change.”

For more than three years, St. Vincent de Paul has been part of the steering committee for the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition, working with religious leaders of all faiths to keep issues of poverty in front of provincial legislators.

Up until now, most of the St. Vincent de Paul advocacy efforts have fallen to its Toronto council.

“It’s a good fit. When you want to talk to politicians, you find them at Queen’s Park,” said Paddon. “And there’s so many government offices located there.”

There are always a few worries that talking to politicians and demanding action for the poor will somehow distract Vincentians from direct service to the poor. But that sort of squeamishness about anything political was not part of the origins of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Paris in the 1830s. Founder Frederic Ozanam used his position as one of the most prominent intellectuals of his time to advocate for the poor and to push for a kind of Catholic democracy which could provide the social justice the French Revolution had failed to produce.

“Our system is always charitable works, addressing what you would call the end results of poverty,” said Paddon.

But by patterning its program more closely on the vision of Ozanam, Vincentians can add a kind of advocacy that is backed up by real, concrete charitable involvement in the lives of poor people, he said.

And there’s more to campaigning for affordable housing than just an economic calculation. The value of a home goes beyond family finances.

“Having a home, what does that mean to a family? I think it plays a huge part,” Paddon said.

TORONTO - The University of St. Michael's College is less than two weeks away from a strike or lockout with no further negotiations scheduled.

University administration negotiators walked away from the bargaining table Sept. 24. Faculty of theology professors and librarians will be in a legal strike position, or could be locked out by management, as of midnight Oct. 8.

The graduate theology school at St. Michael's, part of the Toronto School of Theology consortium at the University of Toronto, has been working toward a first contract since 18 theologians and librarians sought union certification in 2010. There have been 24 bargaining sessions since January.

Larry Bertuzzi, chief negotiator for the university administration, told The Catholic Register he has "no idea" whether there will be further negotiations.

"Nor do I have any intention of discussing it in public," said the labour lawyer for Miller Thomson LLP.

The sticking point is not money, said Michael Attridge, the unit chair for the University of Toronto Faculty Association — University of St. Michael's College, which is part of the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

"There's no monetary issue on the table that is a problem," said Attridge, a professor of systematic theology. "What it is, essentially, is job security."

St. Michael's has asked for the right to declare programs redundant and eliminate professors' positions without regard to tenure, Attridge said.

"For us as an academic institution, tenure is for us obviously an important thing," he said. "And its relationship to academic freedom. Tenure helps to ensure the integrity of academic freedom."

Attridge believes negotiations have bogged down because no management representatives in the negotiations have academic backgrounds.

"One of our problems has been to try to explain what we need as academic staff at the University of St. Michael's College to individuals who don't really understand what academics require on the one hand and the particular nature and culture of St. Michael's College and the distinctiveness of that institution," he said.

Since there's never been a strike or lockout before at any of the theological colleges in the Toronto School of Theology, there's no telling how a work stoppage would hit students, Attridge said. Given that students from any of the seven member colleges may be enrolled in St. Michael's courses, labour strife could frustrate more than St. Michael's students.

Some undergraduate courses are taught by members of the bargining unit at St. Michael's and would be affected.

The academic faculty at the theology school sought union certification when St. Michael's administration decided against matching a pay raise negotiated between the University of Toronto and similar faculty across the rest of the campus in 2010. For 25 years there had been a "good faith understanding" that St. Michael's faculty would be paid what professors and librarians in the rest of the university are paid, said Attridge.

"The unilateral decision on the part of administration not to give us the salary increases was a break," he said. "For us it exposed a whole bunch of other issues having to do with transparency and equity in the workplace... For our members these are core issues to what it means to be a university and what it means to be a Catholic university — transparency, fairness, equity — to me they are social justice issues."

Ste. Adele, Que. - In the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades, "there is no miracle cure," a Montreal-based economist told the Canadian bishops Sept. 25.

Governments do not have much leeway to help those affected, though economies that are more flexible will suffer less, Pierre Piché, an expert in international investment and advisor to the Power Corporation of Canada, told the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops annual plenary.

“There is not much choice,” Piché told the gathering of more than 90 Canadian bishops. “Either we suffer or we need to adjust. We’re going to suffer even if we adjust.”

The crisis affects the whole world economy, especially its key engines: North America, Europe and Japan.

“It goes really bad when you’re on a plane and you have three of the four engines not working,” he said.

He gave a macro view of the problem through key indicators: unemployment that is more and more structural and composed of people who have been looking for work for a longer time than previously or have abandoned looking for work altogether; sluggish rates of growth; and rising government debt.

Piché said fears of inflation have been replaced by fear of deflation where prices go down in a generalized manner. This explains the behaviour of central banks in trying to pump money into the economy.

“Deflation is horrible,” he said. “It’s very serious because it changes the behaviour of people. When they know prices are going down, they won’t spend. It creates a vicious circle.”

Now there is a cycle where governments and individual households are rejecting a pattern of heavy indebtedness that preceded 2007, he said.

We’re facing what economist John Maynard Keynes called the “paradox of thrift,” he said, noting while it is good and ethically right for households and corporations to be thrifty, “if nobody consumes, then nobody sells anything and everyone goes broke.”

Fr. Bill Ryan of the Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto offered a theological reflection on the crisis, pointing out Pope Benedict XVI calls for the logic of profit to be replaced by the logic of gift “that is the opposite of putting a price on everything.”

At the basis is the right relationship we must develop between God and human, among humans and with creation, including a preferential option for the poor, Ryan said, stressing the “essential relationship between faith and justice and justice and evangelization.”

“The whole planet is our neighbourhood and in need of evangelization,” he said, noting the Pope’s social justice encyclical Caritas in Veritate also concerned itself with evangelizing and civilizing the global economy.

Faith and justice cannot be separated, nor can evangelization and justice, he stressed.

Ryan call a “new and global humanism” a “sign of the times,” saying the secular world is coming to a “growing consensus we need a new mindset.”

“Our models and tools are proving inadequate; we seem to be walking with no clear purpose,” he said.

Montreal Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Dowd said the “logic of the gift ties in with our preoccupation with the family.”

“The family is an economic unit, but its internal relations are supposed to be based on the logic of the gift,” he said. “You don’t have kids just because you want someone to look after you in your retirement.”

Families’ internal relationships are becoming “atomized,” he said, and less and less based on the logic of the gift, Dowd said.

“That’s the canary in the coal mine, a sign the whole thing is disordered.”

Ryan said it is important to not always look at big economic structures but at the problems of the small ones. One problem attacking families is the level of family debt which is higher in Canada than elsewhere. 

“If we don’t have strength at the bottom,” needed values “won’t come into institutions,” he said.

Ste. Adele, Que. - The Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church told Canada’s bishops Sept. 25 Western secularism challenges Ukraine’s post-Communist future and underlies the worldwide economic crisis.

“The current economic crisis is merely the symptom of a much deeper spiritual and cultural crisis,” Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk told the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ annual plenary. “As Western society rejects old moral structures and values, it finds that its moral GPS has no fixed and stationary points of reference.”

The first head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church to address the plenary, Shevchuk said the Church must find “new courage” to proclaim the truth of the Gospel to contemporary society to provide “an anchor and compass.”

“We live in societies where virtue and goodness are frequently a veneer for religious intolerance, personal gratification and moral decay,” he said. “Secularism would like us to be closed in a little box of Sunday worship.”

The former Soviet Union used that approach to religion, he said.

“Separation of Church and state has become separation of faith values from society, yet our mission is to preach the Word of God to all, and to be a constant sign of God’s loving presence through social ministry,” he said. “Let us not be afraid of the totalitarianism of political correctness and speak the truth regardless of whom we might offend, whether it is on same-sex marriage or on the genocide of abortion.”

He called to mind the suffering of his Church during the Communist era, that witnessed to Christ both “in the catacombs” as well in in open defiance to the regime.

“So many martyrs and confessors have suffered for the faith in the last century. Let their example and witness be an inspiration for all of us,” Shevchuk said.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church is “experiencing a period of resurrection” in Ukraine, he said.

“Fully embracing its identity of being ‘Orthodox in faith and Catholic in love’ we are aware of our role in allowing the Catholic Church to breathe with both its lungs, East and West,” he said.

Ukraine is experiencing social and economic challenges and has changed dramatically even in five years, he said. The country seems “torn between old influences and new attempts to integrate with the broader European community.”

Contemporary Ukrainian society mistrusts government, politicians and civil institutions, but the Church, especially the Ukrainian Catholic Church, “holds great moral authority.”

“The majority of Ukrainian citizens do not identify with any of the existing Churches, but have a hunger for God and are open to the missionary work of the Church,” he said. “In such circumstances the experience of new evangelization, which we are gradually acquiring, may become a precious treasure, which we would hope to share with the entire Catholic Church.”

The Ukrainian Catholic Church is marking the 100th anniversary of the arrival of her first bishop in Canada. Shevchuk had presided at a Synod of Bishops for the worldwide Ukrainian Catholic Church in Winnipeg the previous week to mark that centennial.

Concerns that the establishment of a prayer room, requested by Muslim students, at a London, Ont., Catholic high school will water down the school’s Catholic faith are just plain wrong, says the school board’s education director.

“First of all it’s a prayer room, it’s not named after a particular faith,” said Wilma de Rond, director of education for the London District Catholic School Board (LDCSB). “When a request comes from another faith there is no request for us to provide any sort of accommodation for them that in some way impacts our faith.”

Although de Rond dismisses the concern, it has been circulating in the media since news about the second floor prayer room at Mother Teresa Catholic Secondary School broke earlier this month.

Earlier this year about 25 students at the southwestern Ontario school, with a student body of about 1,400, submitted a request to the principal for a room for Islamic prayer during lunch period on Fridays. This is the first religious accommodation request of its kind for the board, said de Rond.

The Ministry of Education’s Developing and Implementing Equity and Inclusive Education Policies in Ontario Schools requires all publicly funded schools in the province to provide religious accommodations when requested by students or their parents, provided that doing so does not cause excessive grievance to the school. As long as it does not place burdensome costs on the school, interrupt instructional time or directly conflict with existing policies/practices, the school is obliged to do so, as is the case in London.

“We are trying to work  in a way that is respectful for our own faith, our Catholic faith, but also respectful of the fact that these young people have made a request that they want to be able to follow their faith,” said de Rond.

The goal, according to de Rond, is to outfit the room in a way that will satisfy the requirements for the Muslim students while maintaining an atmosphere where other students can use the room. Although no other groups have requested use of the room, it will be available outside the time allocated to the Muslim group.

De Rond sees this as nothing more than a learning experience. She did admit, though, that not everyone views this matter through that lens.
“Unfortunately there have been some concerns expressed in terms of racial comments which again is most unfortunate and is not in keeping with who we are as Catholic in terms of beliefs of our call to love one another,” she said. “There has also been expressions of very positive affirmation of this decision as well.”

The prayer room at Mother Teresa was expected to be completed by the end of September, although de Rond stressed there were still details to be worked out.

“It’s interesting for us to learn about a particular faith so it’s been a good thing for us to be able to have these conversations with the students and their parents and so we are proceeding forward in terms of our understanding of what will occur, how they pray, what they pray for (and) what the words of the prayers will be,” she said. “It’s increasing our own understanding, which is a good thing.”

Other Catholic boards are sure to receive similar requests, and are also seeing this as an opportunity. 

“It’s not an imposition on us at all,” said Michael Way Skinner, co-ordinater of religion, family life and equity at the York Catholic District School Board. “It is an expression of who we are as Catholics. When we as a Catholic community accept that call to be welcoming to people of other faiths we are actually putting into practice what we are trying to teach the kids in the classroom and it’s by what we do, it’s by our fruits that they’ll judge us, not by what we say to them and what we try to teach to them off chalkboards or smartboards.”

Although he supports the idea, Way Skinner did admit his board might not be able to fulfill similar requests. It’s not that the board is unwilling, rather, most York Region schools are already pushing capacity and allocating an entire room for a weekly prayer service would cause excessive grievance.

“It might be a space like in the library or somewhere like that that is a quiet space for the students to gather to pray if they wanted to,” said Way Skinner.

Ste. ADÈLE, Que. - At their annual plenary Sept. 24-28 the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) are examining the prevention of clerical sexual abuse as part of its packed five-day agenda.

The 90-plus bishops gathered from across Canada will receive the updated guidelines prepared for submission to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, conference president Archbishop Richard Smith said in his annual president’s address at the Mont-Gabriel Hotel here Sept. 23.

“Of course our ongoing response must extend far beyond the articulation of protocols and procedures to an embrace in love and compassion of any person, family or community affected by this scourge,” Smith said.

The reflections will also deal with the impact of the clerical sexual abuse crisis on the ministry of priests and how bishops can provide better support. It will also look at the conditions that increase the risk of sexual abuse with an eye to prevention, according to the CCCB program for the week, most of which is closed to visitors and news media.

“How do we foster healing? How do we ensure safe environments? What are the situations that could facilitate boundary violations?” Smith asked, stressing that those in ministry must provide an “unblemished” example.

For the first time, a federal cabinet minister will address the plenary assembly. The off-the-record discussion with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney arose out of suggestion by previous CCCB president Bishop Pierre Morissette that there be more conversation with government representatives, said Smith, now in his second year of a two-year term as president.

“Over the last few years particularly, a number of you have posed questions about Canadian immigration and refugee policies,” Smith said, noting the bishops “as pastors of the Church are to give particular care for refugees and others displaced because of violence and poverty.”

The relationship between Kenney and the bishops has been contentious in the past, with Kenney firing back at a letter from the CCCB’s justice and peace commission critical of anti-human smuggling legislation the commission feared risked harming refugees more than smugglers. Kenney accused the bishops of relying on bureaucrats who “cut-and-pasted” talking points from immigration advocacy groups.

The session with Kenney will also give bishops an opportunity to talk about the difficulties they have with bringing priests in from foreign countries to serve in their dioceses.

The bishops will also reflect on a pastoral response to the suffering caused by the economic downturn.

“We often hear it said that Canada has not been impacted as seriously as other countries,” Smith said. “While that may be true, nevertheless it is of cold comfort to the unemployed or those struggling to find affordable housing.”

Smith used a theme of unity to organize the many initiatives and programs of the CCCB over the past year, noting the mission of bishops is to serve the Church’s unity.

The CCCB adopted a national plan for life and family that is now underway, that is another sign of unity “in our witness to the beauty and sanctity of life,” he said, noting respect for life continues to erode in Western society.

“Every society needs the assurance its caregivers can be entrusted with the lives of its vulnerable members — those in the womb, children, the elderly, the handicapped and the infirm,” he said. “The grave crimes of abortion, euthanasia and assisted-suicide seriously undermine that trust. These are real threats not only to the individual but also to the common good.”

The bishops are summoned to find ways to “reinforce the central ideals of Christian family life, and to celebrate the love and nurturing that many families today achieve despite difficulties,” he said. Smith said the CCCB would be calling on diocesan life and family offices as well as the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) for help in this endeavour.

The meetings on the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace have an hour dedicated to reports by the bishops on the agency's board and from the Standing Committee for Development and Peace.

OTTAWA - To a nearly empty House of Commons Sept. 21, Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth made a final impassioned final plea for an “open-minded, evidence-based study” of the 400-year-old Criminal Code definition of a human being.

He spoke last, after MPs on both sides of the House spoke against or in favour of his private member’s Motion 312 that would establish a parliamentary committee to examine the Criminal Code’s subsection 223(1) that says a child is not a human being until the moment of complete birth. Opposition MPs argued the Motion represented a “backdoor” to re-criminalizing abortion and violating a woman’s right to control her own body.

But Woodworth disagreed.

“About abortion, I say this: recognizing children as human before the moment of complete birth will not resolve that issue,” Woodworth said.

“Even Justice Bertha Wilson, who championed abortion rights in the Morgentaler decision, wrote that Parliament should ‘inform itself from the relevant disciplines’, the very proposal embodied in Motion No. 312.

“Recognizing the reality that children are human beings before complete birth will affirm the hallowed principle that human rights are universal, not a gift of the state that can be cancelled by subsection 223(1),” he said.

Only between 30 and 35 MPs attended the final hour of the House of Commons' agenda dealing with private member’s business on a rainy and gloomy Friday afternoon, with members coming and going.

But the diplomat’s gallery was surprisingly full with several members of the pro-life movement present, including Linda Gibbons, a grandmother who has spent a total of nine years in prison for silently praying outside abortion clinics in Toronto.

The government’s chief whip, MP Gordon O’Connor, sat in the House as if taking careful note of Conservative MPs who rose to speak in favour of the Motion. O’Connor had told the House in the previous hour of debate the government would not support this motion or allow the abortion debate to be reopened.

Though he did not speak in the second hour, his presence in the nearly empty chamber spoke volumes. At one point, he crossed the aisle and sat for several minutes at the same desk as NDP justice critic Francoise Boivin, a vociferous opponent of Motion 312. Boivin had been singing O’Connor’s praises in the previous week for arguing as she has that the motion is an attempt to recriminalize abortion.

Minister of State of Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy also sat in the House, though from her body language — head down, poring over reading material, seemed to indicate she was disengaged from the debate around her. While traditionally private members’ business is a free vote for MPs, many are watching to see what publicly identified pro-life cabinet ministers will do when Motion 312 comes to a vote and whether they will break with the government’s stated opposition to the ban.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Natural Resources Minister MP David Anderson was the highest-ranking Conservative to risk the prime minister’s ire by speaking in favour of the motion. He opened by saying he had received 200 e-mails urging his support the previous evening alone.

“I have had over 1,500 responses encouraging me to support Motion No. 312,” he said. “I find it interesting that many of them have come from young women. I think that is a rebuke to the opposition members, reminding them that there are young women in this country who believe in what is being proposed in today's motion.

“We need to recognize that a majority of Canadians believe that human life begins long before a person is born. We can understand that if the evidence establishes that a child does in fact become a human being before the moment of complete birth, then subsection 223(1) has some major problems and it is actually a law that dehumanizes and excludes a whole class of human beings from legal protection.”

“The member for Kitchener Centre's desire to open up this debate has an end goal of changing the legislation to enable the fetus to be declared a human being,” argued NDP MP Irene Mathyssen. “We are all very aware that such a change in the definition will place Canada directly on the regressive path to banning abortions.

“A fertilized egg is not a class of people, and I am offended that the member would shamelessly misrepresent the women's rights movement as an example of why we should open the door to changing abortion rights in Canada,” she said.

NDP MP Sylvain Chicoine told the House “the debate is closed in the minds of Canadians.”

He said Woodworth was either “contradicting himself” or “hiding his real desire to turn women who have abortions into criminals.”

When the debate ended, the new Deputy Speaker NDP MP Joe Comartin asked for a voice vote on the motion. The “nays” were far louder than the “yeas” to the CCN journalist sitting in the gallery. Comartin called it a second time and still the nays were louder. But there were more “yea” voters sitting in the House.

“In my opinion the yeas have it,” he said. However, at least five MPs stood up, meaning a final vote will be held Sept. 26.

OTTAWA - An Ottawa conference Sept. 27-29 marking the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council will examine how to “hand on the
Gospel today” in light of Vatican II’s teachings, said Saint Paul University theology professor Catherine Clifford.

“One of goals is to promote the pastoral renewal of the Church,” said Clifford, an organizer of the Vatican II: For the Next Generation Conference. Co-sponsored by Saint Paul’s Vatican II and 21st Century Catholicism Research Centre and Novalis, the conference will begin a week before bishops from around the world gather in Rome for the Synod on the New Evangelization.

“The world we live in today is very different from the world 50 years ago,” Clifford said. “Many of the questions are not the same questions the bishops were reflecting on in 1962-65 in the Council.”

When Vatican II opened 50 years ago, it took place against the backdrop of the Cold War, less than 20 years after the end of the Second World War, said Clifford. Since then there has been a marked shift to the global integration of societies and culture, she said.

“It’s an era of an unprecedented migration of peoples,” she said. “The population of the world has more than doubled; the population of the Catholic Church has more than doubled.

“The majority of Catholics live not in Europe and North America but in the Southern hemisphere. We are a very different Church than we were 50 years ago.”

Though poverty and social injustice remain challenges, “in some ways those issues are far more complex than they were 50 years ago,” she said.

Another sign is the growing recognition of the dignity of the human person that is probably even stronger than it was 50 years ago, when the civil rights movement in the United States was gaining momentum, she said.

The conference will feature a keynote address by Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and one of the names that frequently appears in speculation about future popes. The cardinal will speak on “Vatican II: A Council of Justice and Peace.” He will also receive an honorary doctorate at a special convocation in the university chapel on Sept. 28.

Other conference attendees include dogmatic theology professor Christoph Theobold, S.J., from the Centre Sèvres in Paris, France, and Boston College systematic theology professor Richard Gaillardetz. The conference will feature a panel of bishops and advisors who participated in the Council, including Bishop Remi De Roo and Bishop Gerard J. Deschamps, and advisors Gregory Baum and Leo Laberge, omi.

See www.ustpaul.ca or e-mail vaticancentre@ustpaul.ca.