TORONTO - Toronto's Japanese Catholic Community was relieved and consoled by the opportunity to pray together for their families, their country of birth and for Fr. André Lachapelle, the first Canadian victim of the 9.0 earthquake in their home country.

"I wanted to pray with other people," said Yoko Takino, who has been in Canada just five months. "I prayed alone in my house, but it's more important with my friends."

Takino received an e-mail via cellphone within a day of the March 11 quake telling her that her most immediate family is well. But the pictures of devastation in Japan, the rising death toll — officially more than 1,800 as of March 14, but expected to rise — and the worsening situation at various nuclear power plants has made it a difficult time, she said.

TORONTO - Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins’s monthly lectio divina sessions have provided the inspiration for his new book, Pathway to our Hearts: A Simple Approach to Lectio Divina with the Sermon on the Mount.

The archbishop started lectio divina when he was the archbishop of Edmonton because he thought it was important for bishops to speak the Word of God to the people. Collins continued these sessions when he came to Toronto, and he runs lectio divina monthly at St. Michael’s Cathedral.

An audience of about 50 people was on hand for the launch of the book at the Catholic Pastoral Centre March 11.

TORONTO - As the Baby Joseph medical and legal drama plays out in Canadian and American media, what must not be forgotten is the toddler's best interests, say Catholic bioethicists.

The Baby Joseph saga has tugged at the hearts of many as the Maraachli family battles London Health Sciences Centre, hoping for a tracheotomy for their dying 13-month-old child and the right to bring him home to live out his final days surrounded by family and loved ones.

Baby Joseph has a neurodegenerative disease and doctors say he won't recover. He requires a breathing and feeding tube to survive. A Feb. 18 Ontario Superior Court ruling ordered the family to consent to the removal of Joseph's breathing tube on Feb. 21. The ruling confirmed the recommendations of the hospital's doctors and the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario.

TORONTO - The sale of Loretto Abbey Catholic High School to the Toronto Catholic District School Board on March 9 ensures the school's 164-year tradition of Catholic education for young women will continue, said Sr. Evanne Hunter.

“Our members made many sacrifices to ensure that Catholic families could avail themselves of a Catholic education for their children, and we are pleased that this beautiful building, so rich with history and tradition, will continue to operate as a Catholic school for young women,” Hunter, provincial leader of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Loretto Sisters, said in a statement.

“Though the giving up of this repository of so much of our history is painful, we Loretto Sisters take solace in the fact that we will continue to be connected to the school for many years,” she said.

TORONTO - Standing in the rain outside Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan's office with about 100 church-based protesters demanding a $100 food supplement in the up-coming provincial budget, Redemptorist Father Paul Hansen said he was there for the sake of the Eucharist.

"The Eucharist is first a verb before it's a noun," he said.

Appealing to the most ancient Catholic belief in the corpus mysticum Christi, that the people of God are the body of Christ, Hansen said we can't ignore the hunger and poverty of parts of the body of Christ.

TORONTO - Basilian Father Albert Lawrence Williams was like a “grandfather” to students and teachers at Toronto’s Michael Power/St. Joseph High School.

Known as “Fr. Bob” to his friends, Williams died on Feb. 15, leaving behind a four-decade legacy as a teacher at Michael Power/St. Joseph.

He also taught at St. Michael’s College School and was a former Secretary General of the Basilian Fathers.

TORONTO - War, history and ecumenism are perhaps not the first associations Christians have with table-top models of baby Jesus nestled in the manger. But the Friends of the Creche intend to take on all three serious subjects at a three-day international convention in Toronto Nov. 10 to 12.

It’s the first time the American branch of the La Universalis Foederatio Praesepistica (known in Canada and the United States as the Friends of the Creche) has held it’s biennial convention in Canada. It’s expected to draw 350 conventioneers, plus hundreds more who will visit a display of rare, historic creches on display at the Royal York Hotel.

TORONTO - Before he was ordained, the young Jesuit Peter Larisey learned to take no for an answer. Practice makes perfect.

Drawn to art since childhood, Larisey wanted to study art in a serious way. Starting about 1959, each year Larisey would ask Father Provincial of the English Canadian Jesuits if he might be allowed to study art. Each year he was told, “No.”

“One of the good things about Jesuit superiors is that they have terms,” explains the 81-year-old priest, who continues to teach at the Toronto School of Theology and Regis College.

In 1966 Larisey showed the new Father Provincial his scrapbook filled with his published writing about art and the successes of his groundbreaking art exhibitions at Regis College.

“He carried the scrapbook in his hands and said, ‘You take this as far as you can,’ ”  recalls Larisey.

OTTAWA - An internal background document distributed to members of the Conservative caucus about the KAIROS funding controversy reveals another clue why a $7-million funding request from the ecumenical social justice organization was denied.

The document’s first talking point states: “Our government supports funding to deliver aid and tangible results for the people of developing countries, not subsidizing advocacy.”

In other words, funding is not available for what might be considered community organizing and activism, such as supporting advocacy groups in the developing world whose mandate is to empower disadvantaged people, push for better living conditions or lobby for indigenous rights or environmental protection.

TORONTO - The 40 Days for Life campaign is making a difference, said Nicole Campbell, 40 Days for Life Toronto co-ordinator. In fact, she said nine abortion facilities throughout North America have closed as a result of the campaign.

“The thing is with the 40 Days for Life, and with abortion in general, is that it’s not enough to be personally pro-life,” Campbell told The Catholic Register. “It’s great but it does nothing to actually end abortion. It’s only when we’re publicly pro-life that we can impact and change our culture one person at a time through prayer and through our public witness.”