TORONTO - Jason Gennaro has been using his web design skills to help Catholic organizations spread the word about vocations.

Gennaro runs JJPG Communications, which caters to the Catholic community. He sees his work as a kind of ministry, charging minimal fees to Catholic groups to assist them in spreading the word about their work without a great financial burden.

He has created web sites like www.vocations.ca, a national source of vocation information, and others for religious communities such as the Jesuits of Upper Canada and Priests for Life Canada.

TORONTO - During the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, Sr. Lois Anne Bordowitz, FCJ, packed a group of students into a convoy of five cars to escape a rebel attack in a neighbouring town. The group survived and made its way, after a five-hour drive, to the capital city and eventually a flight out of the country.

Bordowitz worked 10 years in Sierra Leone at a leadership training centre run by her order. She said the experience broadened her awareness of the plight of others around the world and helped her “understand the need for people to flee their country.” It was this experiences like this that informed and inspired Bordowitz’s work with refugees over the years as a member of the Faithful Companions of Jesus.

TORONTO - Religious communities should invest more in continuing theological formation for their members, say a number of religious who believe it can only help in their ministry.

Sr. Ellen Leonard, C.S.J., Sr. Mary Ellen Sheehan, IHM, and Friar Darren Dias, OP, recently took part in a panel discussion hosted by the University of St. Michael’s College Faculty of Theology. They all believe continuing formation is key to their religious service.

{mosimage}ACTON, Ont. - Lee Anne Berry calls herself a “lamb seeker.”

Berry, a retired special needs educational assistant, is a member of the contemplative prayer group the Intercessors of the Lamb and leads the group in Acton, west of Toronto. Berry said she named her group the “lamb seekers” because she and her group members want to bring those who are lost back to God through intercessory prayer.

{mosimage}TORONTO - When he was 23, Liberal Party candidate Gerard Kennedy read Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, touted as the document marking the birth of Catholic social teaching.

In it, the pope wrote about the church’s duty to intervene in social matters and help the poor, as well as the state’s responsibility to help those who suffered the most from the economic system.

{mosimage}"Christopher Cross has his bags packed for the Holy Land for the 50th time."

The 60-year-old retired Vietnam veteran has been organizing pilgrimages to Israel for close to three decades. For most of those years, he was running the tour on the side — what he considered a ministry of sharing the story of the Holy Land with other Catholics — while working full-time in his insurance business.

During this economic downturn, Cross says there is a surprising demand for his tours.

“We’ve seen a change in spirituality because of everything happening in the world,” he told The Register from New York.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It’s the grocery store equivalent of “the little engine that could,” with a Catholic twist.

Domenico Cozzi has been running his St. Clair Avenue West neighbourhood store with his wife, Rosa, for the past 43 years.

As other grocery stores supersize and the economy dips, the Cozzis’ corner store is a survivor. In this case, the classic “David vs. Goliath” story has a happy ending.

{mosimage}They came in flashbacks — snapshots of memories from an unexpected tragedy. Before I went to the Middle East to pursue an internship there, I was told that Jordan was the safest country in the region. It was, until three years ago when Jordan had it’s own 9/11.

Just before 9 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2005, triple suicide bombings rocked Amman, Jordan’s capital, including a wedding party at the Radisson SAS hotel. The attacks were blamed on al Qaeda and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian national who became a top al Qaeda leader based in Iraq. About 57 people were killed and 100 injured in those attacks.

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - It will likely not be a silent night at the Fatohi household this Christmas, but it is expected to be a memorable one.

A year after coming to Canada to flee persecution in Iraq, Dina and Fawaz Fatohi, and St. Dominic’s parish which sponsored them, are expecting an early Christmas present: the birth of the family’s first son, who will be named David.

{mosimage}TORONTO -It was like a “tornado” which killed three people in the church neighbourhood in Lahore, Pakistan, rocked a century-old cathedral and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to nearby church buildings and schools.