TORONTO - They won’t all agree, but they will acknowledge the common ground, if only because they’ve walked it together.

Franciscan Friar of the Atonement Father Damian MacPherson, Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton and Imam Abdul Hai Patel travelled together with an interfaith band of pilgrims to the Holy Land in September. Now they’re ready to report back.

The four leaders will present a panel discussion called “Walking the Path of Abraham” at the Scarboro Missions headquarters, 2685 Kingston Rd., in Toronto Nov. 29, at 7 p.m. 

TORONTO - Pro-life activist Linda Gibbons was freed from a maximum security Ontario prison on Nov. 4 after charges of disobeying a 17-year-old temporary court injunction prohibiting protests at several downtown Toronto abortion clinics were dismissed.

Gibbons’ lawyer, Daniel Santoro, told The Catholic Register the charges were dismissed by Ontario Justice Alphonse T. Lacavera because the sheriff read an outdated injunction to Gibbons when he arrested her on Aug. 4 for breaching the 1994 temporary injunction.

TORONTO - Perhaps they weren't all saints. But they're all together in Toronto's historic St. Michael's Cemetery.

A touring Irish choir from County Galway got a glimpse at Toronto's Irish history touring the monuments at the mid-town cemetery on All Saints Day, Nov. 1. The Dunmore Church Choir was in Toronto to perform a benefit concert for L'Arche Toronto and a concert at St. Paul's Basilica. But time out to investigate the part of Irish history that had reached across the ocean in the 19th century was welcome, said tenor Martin Silke.

"We survived. They were the pioneers," said Silke. "They must have been horrendously brave people, if you can imagine crossing the ocean in a 20-metre boat into the unknown. It's important to remember."

OTTAWA - Human trafficking may soon join the list of crimes such as terrorism or child sex tourism that can be prosecuted in Canada even if the offence was committed in another country.

Conservative MP Joy Smith has multi-party support for her latest anti-human trafficking private member’s bill C-310, which had its first of two hours of debate Oct. 25. It would amend the Criminal Code to add human trafficking to the list of offences by Canadians or permanent residents that can be prosecuted here if committed abroad.

The countdown is on to a Dec. 1 D-Day for the next five years of funding for the Canadian bishops’ international development agency.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has been quietly working the past two years on its proposal to spend almost $50 million of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) money over the next five years. Development and Peace has been combining CIDA funding with donations almost since the organization was founded in 1967.

OTTAWA - Representatives of 30 faith communities and organizations have asked politicians to mine the world’s religious traditions for the spiritual resources to meet the climate change crisis.

“Climate change is a global crisis and requires global solutions that put the well-being of all people first — especially the most vulnerable,” said the Canadian Interfaith Call for Leadership on Climate Change, issued after a meeting here Oct. 23 and 24 organized by Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ).

OTTAWA - Christian observers with an interest in Canada’s courts are pleased — so far — that the latest picks for Supreme Court of Canada justices have shown no record of judicial activism on the bench.

Justice Michael Moldaver, a former Ontario appellate judge, and Justice Andromache Karakatsanis, a former Ontario government civil servant, were sworn in Oct. 27. A public ceremony will take place Nov. 14.

“They don’t have a judicial history of being activists,” said REAL Women of Canada national vice president Gwen Landolt, a former Crown prosecutor. REAL Women frequently intervenes in cases involving moral issues. “They have been strictly interpreting the law in their decisions.”

TORONTO - In the hours before Pope Benedict XVI and world religious leaders gathered again at Assisi, in the name of St. Francis and in the name of peace, the Toronto Area Interfaith Council brought together Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Bahais, Zoroastrians, Protestants, Scientologists, First Nations and Roman Catholics to share songs, Scriptures and prayers dedicated to peace.

About 60 people were there Oct. 26 in the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity behind the Eaton Centre for an interfaith service that included chanted readings from the Koran, a prayer for peace attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a passage from the First Letter of St. Peter and the Peace Prayer of St. Francis.

"May there be peace in the celestial bodies, may there be peace on this little planet, may there be peace among us, may there be peace within us," said Hindu Institute of Learning vice president Chander Khanna, translating from the Vedas.

TORONTO - Women are not getting all the facts about the link between abortion and breast cancer, says Dr. Angela Lanfranchi.

"It doesn't matter if you're pro-life or pro-choice," she said, "women and the population just want the facts." 

And the facts are, simply put, abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, Lanfranchi told an audience of about 50 people gathered at the deVeber Institute's annual public lecture Oct. 26.

TORONTO - There are 29,000 Catholics held captive behind a rusty, two-metre high, chain-link fence in the middle of downtown Toronto. Mind you, they’re not clamouring to get out. They’re dead and buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery, a little south of St. Clair Avenue and hidden behind the stores on the west side of Yonge Street.

Martha Crean and Mary Egan want to get in. Each of them is related to early sextons (maintenance men) of the 156-year-old cemetery. They have relatives buried there and they would like to see the historic gem opened and advertised to Torontonians.

Vandalism, dog-walking, skiing, neighbourhood fireworks displays, baseball games and litter on the cemetery grounds forced Catholic Cemeteries, Archdiocese of Toronto to lock the gates in 2005, said executive director Richard Hayes in an e-mail to Crean and Egan.