NEWS

TORONTO - Like the prophet Jonah, Catholics need to become “boldly engaged” in a society that at times can seem “distant and antagonistic” to our faith, Cardinal Thomas Collins urged at a Pontifical Mass of thanksgiving in honour of his recent elevation to the College of Cardinals.

“We need engagement. Bold engagement,” said Collins, adding we can all learn from Jonah, “the reluctant prophet” sent by God to preach to the ancient pagan city of Nineveh.

TORONTO - In the Bible, there are many women reaching out and evangelizing, says Catholic writer Dorothy Pilarski.

To encourage the same kind of leadership today, Pilarksi is holding the third annual Dynamic Women of Faith conference on March 24.

“I want to introduce women that have a lively faith so others can be inspired by these leaders,” said Pilarski, author of the provocative book Motherhood Matters.

OTTAWA - As a battle over Canada’s prostitution laws wends its way through the courts, some Christian groups are campaigning to abolish prostitution.

Last year, an Ontario judge struck down Canada’s prostitution laws as unconstitutional, agreeing with the prostitutes who brought the case that the present laws endanger their security of person, forcing them to work on the streets or unable to seek help from police. The decision is under appeal.

The Iraqi family sponsored by Cardinal Thomas Collins is in the final stretch of its long road to refuge. The Iraqi Christian refugees should be in Canada before the end of April thanks to an offer of sponsorship by Collins.

Members of the archdiocese of Toronto administrative staff have raised the money, drawn up a 15-page settlement plan and gathered together a hope chest to make sure the family will find a warm welcome in Toronto.

The office workers have come together to take full responsibility for the refugees, said Martin Mark, executive director of the archdiocese of Toronto’s Office for Refugees.

OTTAWA - The violence plaguing Syria has forced the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) to put many of its projects there on hold, even though Christians so far do not seem to have been specifically targeted.

But support for Iraqi Christians who fled to Iraq, many of whom struggle to survive in the slums of Damascus, is still ongoing, said CNEWA Canada national director Carl Hétu.

Former parishioners of Corpus Christi and St. Rita's parishes in North Bay, Ont., are taking their case against closing their churches to the highest court in the Church.

The Corpus Christi-St. Rita's group will appeal to the Apostolic Signatura to have the diocese of Sault Ste. Marie maintain the two buildings for some form of sacred use. Last year the group asked the Congregation for the Clergy to rule that their churches had been improperly reduced to profane use to facilitate their sale. The Congregation for the Clergy ruled against the North Bay group in February.

HENRYVILLE, Ind. - As one of the few buildings in town to come through intense storms March 2 nearly intact, St. Francis Xavier Church has become a natural staging area for relief efforts, community organizing and prayer.

Four days after a devastating tornado hit, volunteers and professionals used St. Xavier, the nearby Henryville Community Church and a community center as bases for people trying to put their lives back together.

The town of about 1,600 was one of several in the region to be largely destroyed by a wave of storms that created dozens of tornadoes across 11 states March 2 and 3.

VATICAN CITY - Terrorist attacks on Christians in Africa, the Middle East and Asia tripled in a seven-year period, a Vatican official told a U.N. meeting.

Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, the Holy See's permanent observer to U.N. offices in Geneva, told the U.N. Human Rights Council that while Christians are not the only victims, attacks on them in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia "increased 309 percent between 2003 and 2010." He did not offer any specific numbers.

MEXICO CITY - Pope Benedict XVI might broach the issue of politics during his upcoming visit in Mexico, potentially provoking controversy in a country with a long history of sour church-state relations.

The Archdiocese of Mexico City released an editorial March 4, saying the pontiff could speak on any topic, including politics and social issues affecting country.

VATICAN CITY - A Catholic church where Sunday Massgoers were just leaving was among dozens of buildings flattened by a series of explosions triggered by a fire at a military munitions depot in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.

Government officials suspect a short-circuit set off the fire at the military storage facility early March 4, causing huge fires and a series of explosions that devastated Mpila, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of Brazzaville, causing the collapse of several buildings, including St. Louis Catholic Church, according to news reports.