NEWS

TORONTO - When injustice becomes visible, it becomes intolerable, pro-life activist Jonathon Van Muren told an audience of about 150 spectators at the New Abortion Caravan's Toronto stop June 28.

"Great injustices have been conquered before," Van Muren told the crowd gathered at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Toronto's west end. He compared the fight to end abortion to the battles against slavery, child labour and segregation.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - UNESCO has placed sites in Bethlehem, West Bank — including the Church of the Nativity — on its list of World Heritage in Danger.

In a 13-6 vote with two abstentions, the World Heritage Committee added the sites to the danger list June 29 during a meeting in St. Petersburg.

TORONTO - Toronto politicians aiming to eliminate handguns and ban ammunition have Church teaching on their side, says one Toronto councillor with a PhD in theology.

“We’re not a pacifist Church. We have been the Church that has argued for a just war position,” said Joe Mihevc.

But that doesn’t put the magisterium on the side of private gun owners, according to Mihevc.

Al Cunningham, one of the thousands of residents displaced by the worst fire in Colorado history, told Linda Oppelt of  The Colorado Catholic Herald, the whole ordeal has strengthened his faith. “It’s not that I’m not attached to my property, but it’s not the end of the world,” he said in an interview with the newspaper of the Colorado Springs Diocese.

He was one of about 80 people who attended a special Holy Hour at St Mary’s Cathedral Thursday night to pray for the victims and first responders of the Waldo Canyon Wildfire, the Herald reported. Bishop Michael J. Sheridan announced the prayer service in an email to priests and deacons of the diocese early Wednesday.

Beverly Beal, of Manitou Springs, told Oppelt that seeing “people coming together as a community to offer support” has strengthened her faith. On Sunday morning, for example, when she had been evacuated and went to Mass, “a couple we didn’t even know offered us their home,” she said.

The Colorado Catholic Herald has had extensive coverage of  the disaster and the emergency relief efforts of the diocese, Catholic Charities and parishes. A June 30 story reported on President Barack Obama’s visit to the area and how evacuees were coping with a tough week.

The Associated Press reported this morning that of the 35,000 people who had been evacuated, 3,000 of them were still displaced. More of the evacuees were allowed to return to their neighborhoods today see what, if anything remained of their houses. News reports said about 350 homes were destroyed. Two people died in the blaze that started June 23 in a popular hiking area. AP said the fire was 55 percent contained but that 1,500 firefighters remained on the scene.

MANCHESTER, England - Some people are simply gifted at sport; they excel at any challenge involving a ball, a stick or a physical contest nearly as soon as they turn their hands to it.

One such person is Father Geoff Hilton, a priest from Salford Diocese in the north of England, who will be serving as a chaplain to athletes competing in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

It was because of his sporting prowess that the former police officer from Manchester was hand-picked to become one of 16 official Catholic chaplains appointed by the Olympics organizing committee.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A massive wildfire that started around the popular hiking spot Waldo Canyon west of Colorado Springs forced the evacuation of neighborhoods around several parishes and the cancellation of Sunday Masses at two parishes in the Colorado Springs Diocese.

Holy Rosary Chapel in Cascade and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Manitou Springs canceled Sunday Mass June 24 after authorities determined they could be in the path of the wildfire and forced evacuations of those surrounding communities.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court's June 28 decision upholding the health reform law makes it even more urgent for Congress to act to fix the law's "fundamental flaws" on abortion funding, conscience protection and immigrants' access to health care, the U.S. bishops said.

The court found that although the individual mandate in the 2010 health reform law does not pass constitutional muster under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, it can be upheld as an acceptable exercise of Congress' taxing powers.

Cardinal Thomas Collins is presented with the Order of Malta’s Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion by the order’s Canadian president Dr. André Morin on June 23. The cardinal was given the honour after presiding at the Order of Malta’s annual celebration of the Feast of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of the order. It was bestowed on behalf of the Grand Master and the Sovereign Council of the order in Rome. The Order of Malta is one of the oldest lay orders in the Catholic Church, founded in 1099. (Photo by Alexander Puettner)

The Catholic Register was recognized as the second best national Catholic newspaper in North America at the Catholic Media Conference awards ceremony June 22 in Indianapolis.

The awards handed out in the category of general excellence for national newspapers are the final presentations of a two-hour gala and are considered the most prestigious honours of the evening.

“Given the stiff competition from several large American publications, this is a tremendous achievement for The Register,” said publisher and editor Jim O’Leary. “It’s recognition of the hard work and talent of everyone who has a hand in producing our paper each week.”

OXFORD, England - When French voters handed a parliamentary majority to their country's Socialist Party six weeks after electing a socialist Francois Hollande as president, there were fears it could herald a new aggressive secularism in a country noted for strict separation of church and state.

But observers of the French scene discount predictions of church-state conflict and say the priority will be a return to normalcy rather than any new secularist agenda.