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May 20, 2023

Forced labour law doesn’t go far enough

A child weeps during a police raid on an embroidery workshop in Bombay, India. While Canada has passed a new law requiring Canadian companies to report on possible forced labour in supply chains, Carl Hetu of Development and Peace-Caritas Canada hesitates to call it a victory “because we don’t go to the root cause.”

A new law requiring Canadian companies to report on possible forced labour in their supply chains is not good enough for Development and Peace-Caritas Canada, despite promises from federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan to follow up with a second law banning imports made with child and forced labour.

Published in Canada
August 7, 2015

Ethnic minorities in Myanmar struggle on many fronts, U.S. bishop says

Ethnic Kachin refugees are seen inside a shared kitchen at a camp in Myitkyina, Myanmar, July 30.

WASHINGTON - Displaced members of Myanmar's Kachin ethnic minority are struggling with being away from their homes and the limited services available in a Catholic-run camp near the Myanmar-China border, said the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration.

Published in International
July 30, 2015

No enemy of capitalism

A market economy enjoys real legitimacy only if it is set in the context of a moral culture that promotes the virtues of fairness, justice and respect for others. This is precisely why the moral relativism and indifference that holds sway in many parts of the West — fostered by the breakdown of the family and the attenuating of religious practice — poses such a threat to the economy.


Following publication of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and his recent speeches in Latin America, many supporters of capitalism might be forgiven for thinking His Holiness has something against them.

Published in Guest Columns
May 12, 2015

Church groups welcome German bishops' changes to employment rules

German bishops changed the local church's labour law, but said that all church staffers including non-Catholics, would still be expected to work “in the spirit of the church” and “refrain from anti-church behaviour.”

OXFORD, England - Catholic organizations in Germany welcomed changes to their church's employment rules, so staffers will no longer face being fired for remarrying without an annulment or for forming gay unions.

Published in International
April 30, 2015

Mother of one of 43 “disappeared” Mexican students testifies on Hill

Demonstrators rally outside St. Anne's Catholic Church in Detroit to protest the September 2014 disappearance of 43 students from a teachers college in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. The students from Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College were app arently arrested by local police who handed them over to a drug gang.

OTTAWA - A Mexican group that includes the mother of one of 43 students who disappeared from a teacher-training college in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, is asking Canada to take Mexico off its list of safe countries.

Published in Canada
April 13, 2015

Do more to help the poor, Pope tells leaders at Summit of the Americas

In a message delivered at the Summit of the Americas, Pope Francis said he hoped the leaders would guarantee the rights of the poor to the “basic needs” of land, shelter, jobs, health care, education and security.

VATICAN CITY - With an obligation to lead and protect everyone in their nations, government officials cannot be content "to hope that the poor collect the crumbs that fall from the table of the rich," Pope Francis said in a message to the Summit of the Americas.

Published in Vatican