NEWS

MARKHAM, ONT. - Markham's 140-year journey from village to city has taken the Toronto suburb from near perfect uniformity of German Lutheran farmers lured north from Pennsylvania to a religious mosaic that includes a mosque and synagogue that share the same parking lot.

Canada's newest city of more than 300,000 on the northeast shoulder of Toronto celebrated its religious diversity with a visit from Cardinal Thomas Collins July 17.

"We're the most diverse city in Canada," declared Mayor Frank Scarpitti before presenting Collins with a commemorative scroll. Collins also presented Scarpitti with a framed message of encouragement.

VATICAN CITY - As the Vatican continues working to comply with international standards against money laundering and financing terrorism, it still needs to beef up internal inspection and supervisory powers, said a long-awaited report by European finance experts.

Overall, the Vatican met nine out of 16 "key and core" recommendations, thereby passing its first major test in an effort to become more financially transparent and compliant with international norms.

"The Holy See has come a long way in a very short period of time and many of the building blocks" of a system to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism "are now formally in place," said the first report on the Vatican by "Moneyval" -- the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism.

OTTAWA - The Holy Father may have moved to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, but that has not stopped announcements of new episcopal appointments as the Catholic Church in Canada enjoys the dog days of summer.

On July 16, the Pope also accepted the resignation of Keewatin-Le Pas Archbishop Sylvain Lavoie and appointed Fr. William Stang as apostolic administrator. Stang has been serving as vicar general and chancellor of Keewatin-Le Pas and confirmed that health reasons are the reason behind Lavoie's resignation.

JACKSON, Miss. - A federal judge allowed Mississippi's only abortion clinic to remain open while it continued to work toward compliance with a new state law permitting only certain doctors to perform abortions there.

District Court Judge Daniel P. Jordan III of Jackson partially lifted the injunction on a law that had been scheduled to take effect July 1 but continued to block sections of the law imposing civil or criminal penalties on violators.

The law requires that abortions be performed only by obstetricians-gynecologists with privileges to admit patients to local hospitals. Currently neither of the out-of-state doctors who perform abortions at the Jackson Women's Health Organization have such privileges.

VATICAN CITY - The head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X said he would inform the Vatican soon on the society's official position on Vatican efforts to bring the group back into full communion with the Church.

The response will insist that the society must preserve its identity, which is "the only efficacious means to help the Church restore Christendom," said Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the society.

His remarks were contained in an interview published July 16 on the group's web site, www.dici.org, after members of the society held its general chapter meeting to discuss Vatican efforts to bring it back into full communion.

The Sisters of Providence in Kingston, Ont., are hopeful there may be more “food in the budget” some day soon after a positive response from local MPP and Attorney General John Gerretsen to an organized “food tour” of the eastern Ontario city.

Tara Kainer, social justice advocate with the Sisters of Providence, planned the event for the MPP for Kingston and the Islands so Gerretsen could “spend a few hours in the shoes of someone on social assistance, to see what it’s like.”

WINDSOR, ONT. - The diocese of London will conduct a financial audit of the work of a private company that spearheaded a 10-year national fundraising campaign to renovate this city’s historic Our Lady of Assumption Church.

The church dates from 1847 and belongs to the oldest parish in Canada west of Montreal. But severe deterioration required extensive repairs to various structural parts of the church including the roof, walls and electrical system.

VATICAN CITY - As violence continued to shake Syria, the Vatican nuncio in Damascus called on the international community to unite in efforts to restore peace.

"In Damascus, the last three days have been very difficult" as the fighting moved to the city, Archbishop Mario Zenari, the nuncio, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from the capital July 17.

"The situation compared to a month ago clearly is more tense," he said.

VATICAN CITY - The father of the Pope's personal assistant, who is under arrest in connection with the so-called "VatiLeaks" scandal, described his son as an honest, faithful Catholic and said he hoped his son's "sacrifice" would help the church rid itself of corruption.

Paolo Gabriele, the Pope's personal assistant, is a person of "absolute honesty ... great generosity and moral integrity," who is deeply devoted to the church and the Pope, Andrea Gabriele said in a letter sent to the Italian television station Tgcom 24.

The letter was published on the broadcaster's website July 15.

MANCHESTER, England - A "family triathlon" was a novel idea; as far as Colm Hickey was aware, it hadn't been tried before.

It would involve teams of three people from the same family, each of whom would compete in one of the three categories of the event — either cycling, running or swimming — against other families.

Hickey, in his role as the London 2012 Olympics Catholic "gold champion" of Our Lady and St Joseph parish in London helped with the May 13 family triathlon. A week later, there was a huge soccer tournament, also organized by Hickey and, closer to the July 27-Aug. 12 Olympics, there will be other parish-based, though not exclusively Catholic, sporting activities such as track-and-field events for children in the area.