{mosimage}OTTAWA - An apparent attempt by the Conservative government to keep abortion out of the next federal election has shocked and disappointed pro-life Canadians.

Amid rumours of an October federal election, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson distanced the government from Conservative MP Ken Epp’s Unborn Victims of Crime Bill.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Rogers Centre (still SkyDome to many in Toronto) is not heaven, but on Nov. 1 thousands will gather there to rehearse for the heaven that lives in the hopes and dreams of Christians.

Though it’s a project of the Evangelical television company Crossroads Ministries, producers of 100 Huntley Street, Heaven’s Rehearsal promises to be an inclusive, ecumenical gathering of Christians — Evangelical, Pentecostal, Protestant and Catholic — representing every nation on Earth. Last year the first ever Heaven’s Rehearsal was at the Air Canada Centre with 16,000 attending, representing 127 nations. With 48,000 tickets on sale at $15 each, organizers of this year’s event hope for representation from more than 200 nations.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Canada’s bishops have launched an awareness campaign in advance of the annual collection to support the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The collection, taken during the weekend of Sept. 27-28, will go towards each diocese’s per capita calculation the bishops approve in the bishops’ annual budget. The calculation is based on the number of Catholics living in a diocese.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - REAL Women of Canada was conceived in 1981 during the debate over Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Gwendolyn Landolt and her friends grew disturbed when the only voices representing women were “just a bunch of feminists” with government funding, she said.

TORONTO - ShareLife, the charitable fund-raising arm of the archdiocese of Toronto, reached record donations for its 2008 parish and corporate campaigns.
{mosimage}Arthur Peters, ShareLife’s executive director, said this comes as good news after a rough start to the campaign, noting bad weather kept many potential donors at home for the first ShareLife Sunday collection at parishes throughout the archdiocese in March.

{mosimage}TORONTO- The first weekly Filipino-language Mass in Toronto begins at the end of this month in the new home of the city’s Filipino Catholic Mission.

{mosimage}TORONTO - In one of the last pictures ever taken of Christina Calayca before she went missing last summer, she stands beside her mother and is all smiles.

It was taken at a 50th birthday party organized by Calayca for her mother.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Chewing gum, wearing strapless tops and receiving Communion in the hand are contributing to increasing irreverence at Mass, argues a 62-year-old mother of two who claims she has been living only on the Eucharist for almost nine years.

Irish-born Olive Dawson spoke at five parishes in the Toronto area and Orangeville, Ont., in mid-August. More than 2,000 people heard Dawson speak at three Catholic churches in Scarborough, Unionville and Brampton, all of which were filled to capacity.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Signatures of 30,000 Canadians demanding that abortionist Henry Morgentaler’s Order of Canada be revoked were delivered to the Governor General’s residence Aug. 20.

“I am here to say there is nothing heroic or award winning about taking the life of an unborn child,” said Silent No More Awareness Campaign national co-ordinator Angelina Steenstra on behalf of Campaign Life Coalition. “As a woman who has suffered an abortion, I know that to be true."

{mosimage}The Catholic Women’s League of Canada (CWL) adopted a resolution this month to “urge the federal government to take action to prevent human trafficking at the 2010 Olympics.”

The resolution was made at the CWL’s 88th annual national convention in Winnipeg Aug. 10-13. The convention drew more than 750 delegates, representing nearly 98,000 women from across Canada.