MONTREAL - When Montreal Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Dowd came to the microphone after his Sept. 10  ordination, he paused, his smartphone in hand, pressed “Send,” and announced: “I just updated my Twitter account: It’s official. I’m a bishop.”

One day shy of his 41st birthday when Montreal Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte ordained him, Dowd already had established himself as a blogging priest, adept in social media and the new evangelization. His blog and Twitter account now follow his service in the episcopate.

Turcotte also ordained Auxiliary Bishop Christian Lepine, 59.

TORONTO - The Canadian Augustinian Centre for Social Justice is part of a multi-faith partnership that will sponsor an upcoming forum on housing and homelessness.

Taking place Sept. 20 at the Multifaith Centre at the University of Toronto, the centre is partnering with the North American Muslim Foundation and the MultiFaith Alliance to End Homelessness to activate and model peaceful and collaborative multi-faith approaches to social justice in Toronto, said Augustinian Centre director Brian Dwyer.

“We want to open up dialogue among diverse religious groups about shared experiences with homelessness and poverty,” said Dwyer.

TORONTO - As the partisan rhetoric ramps up for the Ontario election, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association’s attempts at influencing the vote seem to be having little impact so far.

OECTA’s “Who Speaks for Children” campaign was launched on YouTube in March. It highlights the successes of Ontario students since 2003, when the Liberal government came to power. It lauds Ontario’s recent education successes and refers to the tumultuous period of the Mike Harris years when unions clashed constantly and bitterly with Harris’ Conservative government.

Billboard ads have also gone up across the province. In Toronto, the ad can be prominently found throughout Union Station where thousands of commuters from across the GTA pass through daily. At the end of August, the campaign moved into major shopping malls and is running in community newspapers.

TORONTO - Noelle Munaretto knew it was time to find a full-time job after graduating from Ryerson University.

Influenced by the sudden media hype Twitter was attracting, she decided to sign up and, within 24 hours, was following about 300 people.

By following the people that her existing contacts followed, Munaretto, a Catholic, was led to a tweet advertising a position she was interested in. And by August, she had a job as operations manager at the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance.

The Internet and social media are critical in the job hunt, said Friar Richard Riccioli, former pastor at St. Bonaventure Church in Toronto and current director of Francis Corps, a young adult volunteer experience in Syracuse, N.Y.

TORONTO - The health of those who are “vulnerably housed” is just as poor as the homeless, says a recent study from researchers at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital.

The study found that more than 85 per cent of homeless people have chronic health conditions and more than half have a mental health problem. But those who are “vulnerably housed” — meaning they live in unsafe, unstable or unaffordable housing — have equally poor or worse health than those with no housing at all, found the study published in the International Journal of Public Health last month.

“It’s something that’s not as visible to us because we don’t see them on the street,” said Dr. Stephen Hwang, principal investigator of the study and a physician-researcher at the hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health.

SASKATOON - This fall, St. Thomas More College is celebrating 75 years of Catholic higher education as a federated college on the University of Saskatchewan campus.

The college was founded by the Basilian Fathers of Toronto in federation with the University of Saskatchewan, a relationship modelled on St. Michael’s College with the University of Toronto.

Established in 1936, the first school year saw a total of 39 students being taught by four faculty.

Local Catholics had been trying to establish such a college since 1913, but couldn’t get all Saskatchewan bishops to sign on. Early in 1936, with the province in the grip of drought and economic depression, the bishops of Saskatchewan finally gave their approval, although they also stated that action on the college was “absolutely impossible” at that time.

OTTAWA - Fr. Bill Burke notices a similar pattern in the workshops he has held over the past year on the new English translation of the Roman missal.

At first those attending greet the changes with anger, trepidation and fear the new translation will take back the reforms of Vatican II, he said. They’ve heard rumours from the blogosphere or elsewhere that the “translations is terrible.”

But as Burke exposes priests, music directors and diocesan staff to the new texts, they warm up to the richness of the new translation. He’s travelled to 27 dioceses so far, and plans to visit four more before the new missal is to be used everywhere in English-language parishes in Canada beginning the first Sunday of Advent, Nov. 27.

During his workshops, Burke gives attendees copies of the collects for Advent and Christmas according to the new translation and asks them to follow the new turns of phrase while he reads aloud the current translation.

OTTAWA - In a decision with potentially serious ramifications for the Church, a Quebec bishop has been ordered to submit to questioning and hand over internal Church documents to defence lawyers acting in a lawsuit filed by a Quebec priest.

A Quebec judge has granted leave for lawyers to question Joliette Bishop Gilles Lussier as they prepare a defence in a defamation lawsuit filed last December by Fr. Raymond Gravel.

The priest is seeking $500,000 in damages from two pro-life organizations, LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) and Campagne Quebec-Vie, (CQV), and six journalists.

Gravel claims his professional reputation as a politician and Catholic priest was damaged as a result of 29 articles that described him variously as “pro-abortion,” “pro-homosexual marriage” or as a “renegade priest” who has made “heretical and anti-life statements.” Gravel contends he has “always been faithful to the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church.”

TORONTO - At 14 Neola Husbands decided she couldn’t continue living at home with her father and his new wife. At 18 she’s starting her second year at McGill University in Montreal, her first year in the bachelor of commerce program, while she shores up a business plan that she hopes will launch a career in fashion.

The bridge between a violent home and a bright future for Husbands has been group homes run by the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto.

On Aug. 22 Husbands was one of 100 former CCAS youth in care to receive a scholarship from the Hope for Children foundation. She planned to use the $2,000 she received for tuition — absorbing a small part of the burden of debt she would otherwise face as a university student with no parental support.

Foster kids graduate out of the children’s aid system at 18. At the age when most high school graduates are getting some help from their parents in realizing their post-secondary dreams, kids like Husbands have to make it on their own.

OTTAWA - An amended lawsuit that could impact the way pro-life clubs are treated on university campuses across Canada was re-filed Sept. 6 after surviving a court challenge by Carleton University.

Attorney Albertos Polizogopoulis, acting on behalf of former officers of Carleton University’s pro-life club Lifeline, said the case has important implications for freedom of expression on university campuses.

Plaintiffs Ruth Lobo and Nicholas McLeod were among five students arrested, handcuffed and carted away in a police wagon last October after trying to mount a Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) exhibit on the Carleton University campus. The GAP uses graphic photographs to compare abortion to various genocides.