NEWS

TORONTO - As hopeful Anglo-Catholic parishes across Canada completed two months of catechetical study Dec. 18, dreams of a Canadian Catholic ordinariate for ex-Anglicans are fading.
"We had hoped, of course, we would have our own Canadian ordinariate, but we realize our numbers may not warrant it," Bishop Carl Reid, Anglican Catholic Church of Canada auxiliary bishop, told The Catholic Register.

An American Anglican ordinariate will be inaugurated Jan. 1. About 2,000 former Episcopalians (as Anglicans are known in the United States) have asked to be received into the Catholic Church through provisions of the Anglicanorum Coetibus apostolic constitution.

The number of Canadian break-away Anglicans seeking a place in the Catholic Church has declined in the two years since Pope Benedict XVI issued Anglicanorum Coetibus, an apostolic constitution intended to provide for groups of Anglicans entering the Catholic Church but retaining significant elements of Anglican liturgy.

The main body that had been seeking union with the Catholic Church, the 28 parishes of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, split into two non-geographical dioceses Nov. 26. The pro-diocese of Our Lady of Walsingham contains parishes still engaged in the process for entering the Catholic Church. The remaining parishes in the diocese of Canada are taking a wait-and-see approach to the process, said Reid.
Substantial numbers of ACCC members have also left the Church as the prospect of joining a Catholic entity has taken shape.

"A number of our people who weren't clear when they joined us of our intention to seek unity — even though it is in our foundational documents, our constitution — when unity became not only a possibility but a reality they just sort of left," said Reid. "That reduced our numbers from what they were two years ago."

ACCC members in the pro-diocese of Our Lady of Walsingham understand that a handful of parishes, averaging between 20 and 30 members and spread across the country, can't justify a bishop and diocesan structure involved in an ordinariate, said Reid. They are waiting for word on just how they will be accommodated, he said.

Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins, in charge of guiding the process in Canada, declined to comment.

"There are still some key details being worked out right now and, as you can imagine, this is a sensitive file," said archdiocese of Toronto spokesman Neil MacCarthy in an e-mail.

Among the issues being worked out are the final resting place of ACCC clergy. Where 67 Anglican priests in the United States have submitted dossiers seeking Catholic ordination and 35 have received a nulla osta, or initial approval, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, none of the Canadian Anglican clergy who have applied have heard back from Rome.

"We're clearly further behind in the process than the Americans and the Australians," said Reid.

Without clergy, Anglican parishes accepted into the Catholic Church can't function, said the bishop.

Despite difficulties and uncertainty, the Our Lady of Walsingham Anglican Catholics remain hopeful, Reid said.

"Our people fully understand the divine mandate expressed by our Lord in John 17 'That they may be one.' And that's what's driving this whole process," he said. "Our remaining people here at the Cathedral (of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ottawa) are committed to the process and understand the importance from the perspective of what God's wish is, not what ours is."

North Bay’s Knights of Columbus are distributing 1,200 pins to parishioners this Advent to make sure they remember the reason for the season.

“They’re about an inch-and-a-half in diameter and it has ‘Christmas’ at the top and ‘birth of Christ’ at the bottom and a picture of the Holy Family,” said Donald Halsall, financial secretary of the North Bay Council 1007, which was chartered in 1905.

“It’s to remind our Christians what the real meaning of Christmas is. We get wrapped up in gifts… but we should be remembering the purpose of Christmas is the birth of Christ,” said Halsall.

CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI - A project begun a couple years ago to affirm the value of the family and the importance of unborn life has resulted in a statue of the Blessed Virgin as a pregnant young woman erected in Charlottetown’s St. Dunstan’s Basilica. 

Named Our Lady of Hope, the statue was a collaborative effort between the local Knights of Columbus, Catholic Women’s League and PEI Right to Life.

“I can’t tell you how delighted I was when I was approached with this suggestion,” said Charlottetown Bishop Richard Grecco, who gave his blessing to the project.

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines - Church agencies teamed with international aid groups and the Philippine government to assist tens of thousands of people left homeless in northern Mindanao by flash flooding caused by an intense tropical storm that left at least 650 people dead and hundreds more missing.

The country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported that about 135,000 people in 13 provinces were affected by Tropical Storm Washi, which unleashed floods and landslides as people slept in their homes across northern Mindanao late Dec. 16.

Casualty figures from the Philippine Red Cross Dec. 19 put the death toll at 652. But with another 808 people missing, that toll is expected to rise, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.

Church sources in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, two of the worst hit areas, say exact casualty figures are difficult to pin down because of the extensive damage caused by the storm.

Joe Curry, country representative for Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency, told Catholic News Service Dec. 19 from Cagayan de Oro, a city of about 600,000, that about 35,000 people who lost their homes are being housed in evacuation centers in schools and outdoor covered gymnasiums

Overall, an estimated 75,000 of the city's residents living near a river that flows down from nearby mountains on its way to the ocean were affected by the flooding, he said.

"It looks kind of like the tsunami hitting," he said describing what he saw when he arrived in the low-lying area at the base of a mountain. "Everything was taken off the foundations. The water was 11 feet above its banks, and anything near it was wiped away."

Curry described survivors as stunned.

"People in the evacuation centers we've met have nothing left from their houses," he said. "Everything went with the house. They have no clothes. They have no kitchen items. They have nothing."

CRS, which sent a team of eight workers form Davao City, and other aid agencies met at the residence of Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro, just outside the flood zone Dec. 19 to coordinate their response with the government. The representatives planned to meet every two days to report on their work and update their plan.

Curry said about 80 percent of the city is without water because water washed away the main water line through the city.

Beryl Tranco of the Panday Bulig Relief and Rehabilitation Center told UCA News that providing water to the city is the biggest challenge facing relief workers.

"Our priority was to distribute drinking water because there is no water, no electricity, the area smells of garbage and decaying bodies," she said.

Caritas Manila, church-run Radio Veritas and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines' national social action secretariat have appealed for relief supplies, clothing and money from dioceses across the country.

In Manila, Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle directed parishes to take up collection at Masses through Christmas for survivors.

Meanwhile, words of comfort and offers of assistance poured in from around the world.

After reciting the Angelus Dec. 18 at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI said he wanted to assure the people of the Philippines of his prayers. After the "violent tropical storm," he said, "I pray for the victims -- many of whom are children -- for the homeless and the numerous people who are missing."

Caritas Australia also announced the opening of an appeal for flood victims.

U.S. President Barack Obama offered condolences to the country and said the United States was prepared to assist in recovery efforts if needed.

TORONTO - For the 19th year running, the Fairmont Royal York Hotel is offering “room at the inn” for out-of-town families visiting hospitalized relatives at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital, Casey House Hospice and Hospice Toronto.

The Room at the Inn program offers families up to 10 guest rooms for a maximum of seven nights free of charge.

“It relieves some financial burden especially at this most difficult time of year for them,” said Eduarda Costa, administrative secretary for the social work office at St. Michael’s Hospital. “It allows families to be at the patients’ bedside offering support for a longer period of time.”

TORONTO - Pro-life activist Linda Gibbons, just two days removed from appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada, was arrested again Dec. 16 outside a Toronto abortion clinic.

Gibbons began her protest around 9 a.m. at the Morgentaler Clinic near Bayview and Eglinton Avenues. Toronto Police arrested her about two hours later.

Gibbons has been arrested multiple times for violating a temporary injunction issued in 1994 that prevents her from protesting within 150 metres of Toronto abortion clinics. Since then, she has served more than nine years in prison for her protests, with judges refusing to grant her bail unless she promises not to continue her protests. She refuses to abide by these conditions.

PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia Catholics who filled the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul Dec. 16 for the funeral Mass of Cardinal John P. Foley were consoled for the "death in the family" and urged to emulate the prelate known for his sense of humor, intellect and strong faith.

In his homily, New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops' conference, praised the late cardinal for his wit, gentle spirit and love for Jesus and the Catholic Church, which he said was "indeed the passion of John Patrick Foley's life."

He urged Philadelphia Catholics to always remember that Cardinal Foley "considered you his family" and he never stopped talking and bragging about the archdiocese "as much as many of us begged him to," the archbishop quipped.

OTTAWA - Lawyers for oft-arrested pro-life demonstrator Linda Gibbons argued before the Supreme Court of Canada Dec. 14 that using the criminal courts to stop her protests is like using a butcher’s knife where a scalpel would be more appropriate.

Attorney Daniel Santoro told the land's highest court that criminal courts should not be used to enforce an injunction made by a civil court, an injunction that has been used to jail Gibbons repeatedly. Instead, violations of civil injunctions or orders made by family courts or human rights tribunals should go back to the civil courts for enforcement, where there are a wider variety of remedies, including the lifting of the injunction.

TORONTO - Shocking, shameful poverty among Canada’s native people goes far beyond the remote Northern Ontario community of Attiwapiskat. Native poverty is walking the streets and crowding the basement apartments of Canada’s largest cities, according to a new report by St. Michael’s Hospital researcher Dr. Janet Smylie.

Smylie gathered detailed health information from 790 aboriginal Canadians living in Hamilton, Ont., and discovered the greatest, most prevalent risk to their health is poverty. Almost 80 per cent of respondents to Smylie’s survey reported an annual income of less than $20,000 per year.

OTTAWA - Senator Gerry St. Germain knows first-hand the role a good education can play in lifting people out of poverty and despair.

“I grew up in a Métis community where there wasn’t much hope, and there wasn’t a very strong light at the end of the tunnel,” St. Germain said in an interview.

The senator had an aunt who “sort of grabbed me out and helped our family educate me.”