OTTAWA - A national coalition of First Nations, Métis and Inuit leaders have offered forgiveness to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for residential schools’ abuses.

They presented the Prime Minister with the Charter of Forgiveness and Freedom, a formal response to Harper’s historic 2008 apology in the House of Commons for Indian Residential Schools. The response took place at the National Forgiven Summit here June 11-13 that drew thousands of residential school survivors, their descendants and well-wishers from across the country.

“We’re going to see Canada a healed nation and today we are much more healed than before because we have been able to come to a place where we can say ‘I forgive,’ ” organizer Kenny Blacksmith told the summit June 12.

“This is the hour of healing and restoration for all our people,” said Blacksmith, who spent 11 years in a residential school, before presenting Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl with the charter.

TORONTO - On any given day on Bay Street, Infinium Group makes between 500,000 and one million trades in stocks, stock options, currencies, futures and financial derivatives. As the largest single trader most days on the Toronto Stock Exchange — bigger even than any of the Big Five banks — that’s what it does every day.

Infinium doesn’t make its trades based on the value of companies involved or their plans for new investment. The thousands of trades per second are triggered by computer programs based on mathematical models.

At the G20 meetings in Toronto June 26-27 European countries want to slow down companies like Infinium and their breakneck, second-by-second bets on financial products. Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper says no.

It’s a pretty sure bet the Pope is not on Harper’s side on this one.

OTTAWA - A group representing Catholic religious orders and dioceses involved in the Indian residential schools' system hope some of the positive and bright threads in an otherwise bleak tapestry will get a chance to be told as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission launched its first national event in Winnipeg June 16-19.

Catholic groups involved in running residential schools say they look forward to participating in the commission’s seven national events.

Grouard-McLennan Archbishop Gerard Pettipas, who chairs the Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement, announced June 15 he would be attending all four days of the commission’s Winnipeg event, with board members and members of Catholic religious orders that ran schools joining him.

TORONTO - It's been more than two years of provincial supervision for Canada's largest Catholic school board.

But having Toronto Catholic District School Board trustees back in power is a reality that could be in place by November, after the next trustee elections, according to a recent letter by Ontario
Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky to provincially appointed board supervisor Richard Alway.

In the June 9 letter, Dombrowsky said the board would have to pass an audit of its 2009-2010 financial statements to confirm that it has balanced its budget.

“If those statements confirm that the board has retired its accumulated deficit, I will expeditiously undertake the process to return the board to full local control,” Dombrowsky wrote.

TORONTO - Forty communities of Catholic nuns were among 21 “Affordable Housing Champions” honoured by the City of Toronto June 3.

The sisters were singled out for their WRP Neighbourhood Housing project, which created 38 units of subsidized housing in southeast Scarborough.

The project began as a millennium jubilee project in 1999.

TORONTO - Living in the L’Arche community in France and meeting Jean Vanier led John Meehan to discover his call to become a priest.

“It changed the way I looked at community, the Church, my faith. I wouldn’t be a Jesuit now if it hadn’t been for L’Arche,” he told The Catholic Register.

Meehan, 42, was ordained June 5, along with Teo Ugaban, at Toronto’s Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, with Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., presiding at the Ordination Mass.

Born in Halifax, Meehan started thinking about the priesthood in his teens. But it was his experience in France that led him to consider the Jesuits. The call came during a European backpacking adventure in 1989 when he decided to volunteer at L’Arche and work with individuals with severe disabilities. His eight months living in community and living “very simply” was what attracted him to the vocation.

TORONTO - The St. Patrick Centre in Northern Ireland aims to not only instill peace at home, but also change the perception of Irish culture abroad, which it will now do in Canada through partners based in Toronto.

“It’s important because there’s a large connection between Northern Ireland and Canada, especially in Ontario,” said Dr. Tim Campbell, the centre’s director in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland.

Campbell said there are too many pre-conceived notions abroad about Northern Ireland and hopes the centre can help people to understand that Irish culture and St. Patrick’s legacy aren’t about shamrocks and green beer.

Sharon DiCecco, the centre’s Toronto chapter director, discovered the centre online while researching St. Patrick for one of her “Community in Concert” programs on Toronto’s HMWN Radio Maria last year. She started a “Young Friends of St. Patrick” club at Our Lady of Peace parish where  she meets monthly with a group of children ages four-10, teaching them about the different saints and engaging them in charity projects. She also connected 26 children in her parish who were preparing for their First Communion with first communicants in Downpatrick, where she visited in May.

The faith leaders meeting to discuss the G8 and G20 agendas are absolutely not going to bomb any banks and have rejected violent protest, said the Canadian Council of Churches in a news release.

On May 18 activists bombed a Royal Bank of Canada branch in Ottawa causing $500,000 damage. A group calling itself FFFC-Ottawa claimed responsibility.

“In light of the recent acts of violence in Ottawa and Toronto by those protesting the upcoming visit of the G8/G20 to Canada, the Canadian Council of Churches, a member of the 2010 InterFaith Partnership, reiterates its belief in the importance of dialogue and conversation and rejects violence as a medium of protest,” said the release sign by CCC general secretary and 2010 InterFaith Partnership chair Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton.

TORONTO - When Susan Lavallée found her children would be forced to take Quebec’s controversial ethics and religious culture course, the 45-year-old felt she had to stand up for her religious rights as a Catholic parent.

It’s a fight the Drummondville mother of six is willing to take all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“We’re hoping that they will take the case because it’s a very serious case and it’s a case of national interest,” said Lavallée.

TORONTO - The same-sex marriage debate. A controversial sex-ed program aimed at elementary students. YouTube videos exposing the desecration of the Eucharist.

These are some of the issues the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) has dealt with in its mission to combat Catholic defamation in the media and public square over the past 25 years.

The league celebrated its silver anniversary at a June 10 gala in Toronto.

Established in 1985, the league is a national lay Catholic organization that works with media to ensure a fair hearing for Catholic positions on issues, lobbies the government and intervenes in court challenges supporting laws and policies that reflect Catholic understanding of the common good and human nature