{mosimage}TORONTO - Toronto’s Chaldean Catholic community continues to pray for peace in the wake of further violence affecting Christians in Iraq.

“We go with prayer and in this Holy Week, we ask our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Peace, to make peace in this country. All our hearts go to the (people in Iraq),” Chaldean Archbishop Hanna Zora told The Catholic Register.

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 - The Supreme Court of Canada is expected to hear jailed activist Linda Gibbons' appeal of a temporary injunction banning protest at downtown Toronto abortion clinics later this year.

Her lawyer, Daniel Santoro, expects the Supreme Court could hear her case in the fall.

Gibbons, a 62-year-old great-grandmother, has been arrested 20 times over the last 16 years, spending half of that time in maximum security prisons for different offences under the Criminal Code. This for violating a temporary 1994 civil court injunction protecting downtown Toronto abortion clinics from protesters such as Gibbons, an injunction that has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Ontario. She is not permitted within 60 feet of the clinics. Gibbons has violated the injunction each time by praying within the no-go zone.

TORONTO - The camera zooms in on new mom Lisa Canning who beams with enthusiasm as she talks about energy-efficient decor with Toronto TV host Marilyn Denis.

The 26-year-old interior decorator was one of the experts on CTV’s inaugural The Marilyn Denis Show last month.

Aside from running her own interior design business, she talks enthusiastically about how motherhood has helped her mature in her Catholic faith as she and her husband, Josh, raise their two children.

“When I became a mom for the first time, something shifted quick in me that I am completely responsible for the soul of this person. When I saw (my son) in my arms, I realized I have a huge responsibility,” she said.

Faith has been central in the Cannings’ marriage and parenthood. The Cannings are former student campus ministers at the Newman Centre at the University of Toronto. (Josh is now Newman’s chaplaincy co-ordinator.)

TORONTO - Exorcisms have always piqued the Hollywood imagination and provided a steady source of material for filmmakers in the horror genre. And with a new movie set for release Jan. 28, plus a reality-TV series on exorcists, Hollywood is once again entering the battleground of good versus evil.

The Rite, a horror film featuring Anthony Hopkins, is based on a book by journalist Matt Baglio about the accounts of an American exorcist. Meanwhile, the Discovery Channel is working on a reality show called The Exorcist Files.

Fr. John Horgan, a scholar on exorcisms and pastor at Vancouver’s Sts. Peter and Paul parish, was a consultant to the 2005 movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a movie loosely based on an actual case in Germany.

He cautions that Hollywood versions of exorcism usually provide a “liberal” interpretation of the actual rite. Scenes of “being chained and tied up has nothing to do with the Catholic rite of exorcism,” he said.

TORONTO - Former mountain bike racer Leslie Greene isn’t your typical advocate for natural family planning. The United Church member is a natural family planning (NFP) practitioner with Toronto’s Marguerite Bourgeoys Family Centre who supports the Catholic Church’s teachings favouring natural methods of achieving or avoiding pregnancy, and is against birth control pills and artificial fertility treatments.

Greene prefers to steer clear of the NFP label. Instead, she says it’s more accurate to call it “fertility care,” a natural method of looking after a woman’s reproductive health.

TORONTO - One year after losing its federal government funding and being accused of supporting anti-Semitic organizations, KAIROS has come out “stronger” and remains hopeful that its funding will be reinstated, says executive director Mary Corkery.

The challenges KAIROS faced over the past year have “renewed our passion to carry out a mission in support of social justice which is the root of peace, the heart of peace, the only way peace and development can happen,” Corkery told said during a Dec. 1 teleconference with four partners in Kenya, Colombia and the Philippines. KAIROS invited church media to the teleconference to provide an update on the funding cut.  

TORONTO - Despite the challenges of an aging population, high unemployment and Newfoundland’s Catholic Church recovering from a painful chapter in its history, Archbishop Martin Currie of St. John’s and of Grand Falls, Nfld., says there is an opportunity to evangelize communities in a province with deep Catholic roots.

“I believe with all that has gone on in the Church, in some way it’s part of the mystery of God. God is trying to purify the Church,”  said Currie, who has served as a bishop for 10 years and 42 years as a priest.  

TORONTO - Four missionary bishops are in the archdiocese of Toronto in November to spread the word about the needs of Canada’s mission territories.

Bishop Vincent Cadieux, O.M.I., of Moosonee and Hearst in Northern Ontario, Bishop Fred Colli of Thunder Bay, Archbishop Martin Currie of St. John’s and of Grand Falls, Nfld., and Bishop Gary Gordon of Whitehorse have been visiting parishes around the archdiocese and will continue to do so until the end of the month.

TORONTO - When Blessed Mary MacKillop is canonized Oct. 17 by Pope Benedict XVI, her life and good works will not only be commemorated in her homeland of Australia. Canadian relatives will celebrate the occasion with joy and prayer for a rebellious saint with family ties to Nova Scotia.

At the Holy Redeemer Convent in Sydney, N.S., a special Mass in honour of  Australia’s first saint will be attended by her distant cousin, Sr. Margaret MacKillop, of the Congregation of Notre Dame. MacKillop, 96, says she’s overjoyed to have a saint in the family.