The news was announced at an Oct. 14 fundraiser at the Royal Ontario Museum attended by more than 150 business and community leaders. The event, held in the midst of the museum’s exhibits of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Deuteronomy Ten Commandments Scroll, was the largest fundraiser in the network’s brief history, said Rosica.

The largest donation came from the Hilary M. Weston Foundation for Youth which donated $1 million to the Catholic network.

“Since our birth in 2003 Salt + Light Television has become an important and influential voice of the church in Canada,” Rosica told those gathered in one of the museum’s halls. “With continued support from our viewers and friends, the network looks forward to future development and new and exciting projects and partnerships.”

The gifts will allow the network to offer “the world the unambiguous message of the Gospel, the teaching of the church, a ray of hope and a dose of badly needed joy,” Rosica said.

Rosica said the donation will be used towards new programming featuring Pope Benedict XVI’s teachings on interfaith relations, especially focusing on Jewish and Muslim relations. The donation will also help fund a series on ecology and the environment according to the Pope’s teachings and writings.

Rosica also announced that the network hopes to break ground on a new broadcast facility in 2010.

Other donors included the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus which donated $500,000 and the Montreal-based Desmarais family and Power Corporation with a $50,000 donation.