OTTAWA - While the protocols and programs dioceses have adopted to combat clerical sexual abuse are necessary, they only treat the symptoms of a systemic problem, according to Sr. Nuala Kenny.

A retired pediatrician and Dalhousie University professor emeritus of bioethics, Kenny said there has never been “a Church-wide, deep conversation” about the meaning of the sexual abuse crisis and the widespread harm it has caused and the transformation “where the Lord is calling us,” the people of God.

Trauma and Transformation: the Catholic Church and the Sexual Abuse Crisis, a conference Oct. 14-15 at McGill University that Kenny has helped organize, is bringing in some of the top researchers and thinkers from across North America to have that conversation. But Kenny said she is disappointed the registered attendees are not representative of a wide cross-section of the Church.

OTTAWA - The Canadian Catholic bishops have issued a message on social justice to young Catholics encouraging them to commit themselves to building a “more just and joyful society.”

In a message released Sept. 22, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Commission for Justice and Peace urged young Catholics to participate in furthering the “Millennium objectives for development.”

“The Catholic Church shares all of humanity’s common quest for peace and happiness, and supports efforts of individuals and groups working to eradicate poverty, illness, injustice, inequality, human rights violations and environmental exploitation,” says the Message to Young Catholics on Social Justice. “This witness of solidarity flows from God’s love for humanity as revealed to us in Jesus Christ.”

Bishop Gary Gordon has a one-time, can't-miss, double-your-money-back-guaranteed deal for the priests of the nation.

"You want an opportunity to pray? You want an opportunity to connect with God in the vastness of His creation? An opportunity to actually know every single parishioner and have coffee with them, all the time?" begins Gordon's sales pitch to priests in southern Canada.

He has just the spot for them — his Whitehorse diocese in the Yukon.

Priests in the north get to actually read books, reflect on their work and take a second look at their homilies.

As the curtain came down on 10 weeks of double-your-money matching donations for famine relief in East Africa, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace had raised approximately $4.7 million.

More than 13 million people face possible starvation in Horn of Africa countries, including Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. More than two years of drought and crop failure in the region have been compounded by political chaos in Somalia. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are on the move in the region.

Development and Peace will put donations to work in both short term, emergency feeding and medical care through the Caritas network and longer term projects to support farming.

OTTAWA - The federal Conservatives’ anti-human smuggling Bill C-4 came under attack as Parliament resumed Sept. 19 following its summer break.

Opposition parties are trying to block the latest version of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s bill that had drawn criticism last November from Canada’s Catholic bishops. They will have a hard time however, considering the Conservative majority in Parliament.

Bill C-4 was the first item debated by MPs upon their return Sept. 19. The bill aims to prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, placing restrictions on any group of refugee claimants who arrive in “irregular” circumstances. Kenney said the bill is aimed at smuggling syndicates, like those that brought two large shiploads of illegal migrants to Canada in the last two years.

OTTAWA - The Ottawa archdiocese has asked police to investigate the finances of a parish that had been led by a charismatic priest who admitted last spring to a gambling addiction.

In a Sept. 18 letter distributed to parishioners at Blessed Sacrament parish in Ottawa’s Glebe neighbourhood,  Ottawa Vicar General Msgr. Kevin Beach said an independent audit of church finances found “questionable practices that require further investigation.”

Beach had no further comment on the matter, but a spokeswoman for the archdiocese said he will answer questions after the 11 a.m. Mass Sept. 25 at Blessed Sacrament.

OTTAWA - An alliance of Cambodian advocacy groups has asked Canada to urge the Royal Government of Cambodia to rescind a proposed law that would severely restrict the work of non-governement organizations in that country.

A representative of the civil society groups engaged in democracy building, land reform and human rights in Cambodia came to Ottawa Sept. 14 to appeal for help in preventing a law that will require Cambodian NGOs to register with the state, allowing the government to restrict or shut down NGOs without an appeals process.

“The law is not passed yet but we have already seen how it will work,” said Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of Cambodia’s NGO Forum, an umbrella group representing 87 NGOs, various civil society groups and about 200 additional members.

TORONTO - It was a triumph of the cross at Neil McNeil Catholic High School.

A seven-by-five-foot cross that was built and designed by two of the east-end school’s students and teachers has been chosen to travel to each of the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s 201 schools over the next two years.

The cross is part of the board’s celebration of “The Year of Witness,” the third year of the board’s pastoral plan focusing on “Word, Witness and Worship.”

TORONTO - A court ruling that a surrogate mother can be legally removed from a birth certificate so two men in a same-sex relationship can be registered as the parents of an adopted baby is redefining the definition of motherhood in a "troubling" way and ignores the child's best interests, says the Catholic Civil Rights League.

At the request of a same-sex male couple, a Saskatchewan judge ruled in mid-September that the name of a surrogate mother who gave birth to a baby girl in 2009 be stricken from the baby's birth certificate. Instead of naming a mother, the birth certificate will name two men as the child's parents.

“One aspect of these cases that often gets overlooked is the interest of the child," said CCRL Executive Director Joanne McGarry. "What entitlements will this baby girl have as a teenager or as an adult to have access to medical or other records of the anonymous biological mother, or the surrogate mother?”

TORONTO - Fr. Richard Veltri of the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society was a good friend who loved to laugh and a compassionate pastor who knew how to listen.

In recent years Fr. Veltri had struggled with a number of ailments. He died Sept. 12 at the age of 77.

As a man who spoke his mind freely and forcefully, Fr. Veltri was never unnoticed in the Scarboro Missions community, said Scarboro Mission priest Fr. Roger Brennan.

"He was a character, one of those people who adds a certain flavour to the community — a little something different," he said.