NEWS

DUBLIN - Almost half of Irish people polled say they now have an unfavourable view of the Catholic Church.

Of those with a negative view, three-quarters cite the abuse scandals — the abuse or its cover-up — as a cause. However, 23 per cent say that their negative view is due to the Church's history and structures.

The countdown is on to a Dec. 1 D-Day for the next five years of funding for the Canadian bishops’ international development agency.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has been quietly working the past two years on its proposal to spend almost $50 million of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) money over the next five years. Development and Peace has been combining CIDA funding with donations almost since the organization was founded in 1967.

OTTAWA - Representatives of 30 faith communities and organizations have asked politicians to mine the world’s religious traditions for the spiritual resources to meet the climate change crisis.

“Climate change is a global crisis and requires global solutions that put the well-being of all people first — especially the most vulnerable,” said the Canadian Interfaith Call for Leadership on Climate Change, issued after a meeting here Oct. 23 and 24 organized by Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ).

ASSISI, Italy - A common thread ran through many of the speeches and invocations of this year’s “prayer for peace” encounter in Assisi: the uneasy sense that the world is facing not merely conflicts and wars, but a much broader crisis that affects social and cultural life in every country.

Environmental damage, the rich-poor divide, erosion of cultural traditions, terrorism and new threats to society’s weakest members were cited as increasingly worrisome developments by speakers at the interfaith gathering in the Italian pilgrimage town Oct. 27.

LONDON - The urgent need to address global poverty and the threat of climate change may be overshadowed by the financial crisis engulfing the world’s richest nations, a British aid agency said.

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development warned the leaders of the Group of 20 nations that they will perpetuate the global economic crisis if they fail to put international development “at the core” of their agenda at their Nov. 3-4 meeting in Cannes, France.

In a six-page briefing paper released Oct. 31, CAFOD, the aid agency of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said the failure to address development would result in the poverty gap widening and economic woes becoming the norm.

OTTAWA - Christian observers with an interest in Canada’s courts are pleased — so far — that the latest picks for Supreme Court of Canada justices have shown no record of judicial activism on the bench.

Justice Michael Moldaver, a former Ontario appellate judge, and Justice Andromache Karakatsanis, a former Ontario government civil servant, were sworn in Oct. 27. A public ceremony will take place Nov. 14.

“They don’t have a judicial history of being activists,” said REAL Women of Canada national vice president Gwen Landolt, a former Crown prosecutor. REAL Women frequently intervenes in cases involving moral issues. “They have been strictly interpreting the law in their decisions.”

TEPOZTLAN, Mexico - "Dia de los Muertos," the traditional Mexican commemoration of deceased loved ones, has taken on a deeper meaning in light of drug-related violence in recent years.

Drug-related killings have been on the rise since 2006, surpassing 15,000 in 2010, according to a study commissioned by the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

MANCHESTER, England - The law that bans a British monarch from marrying a Catholic is to be lifted after more than 300 years.

The reforms were announced following the unanimous agreement of the 16 nations that have Queen Elizabeth II as their constitutional head of state.

But they will not include the repeal of a Catholic becoming monarch because allegiance to the pope might conflict with the sovereign's role as the supreme governor of the Church of England.

VATICAN CITY - Angolan Catholics must resist customs in their country that go against the Gospel, including the practice of cohabitation without marriage, shunning or even killing children and old people accused of being witches, and divisions based on tribal origin, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"Christians breathe the spirit of their time and experience the pressure of the customs of their society, but through the grace of baptism, they are called to renounce the dangerous prevailing tendencies," the pope told the bishops of Angola and Sao Tome.

TORONTO - In the hours before Pope Benedict XVI and world religious leaders gathered again at Assisi, in the name of St. Francis and in the name of peace, the Toronto Area Interfaith Council brought together Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Bahais, Zoroastrians, Protestants, Scientologists, First Nations and Roman Catholics to share songs, Scriptures and prayers dedicated to peace.

About 60 people were there Oct. 26 in the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity behind the Eaton Centre for an interfaith service that included chanted readings from the Koran, a prayer for peace attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a passage from the First Letter of St. Peter and the Peace Prayer of St. Francis.

"May there be peace in the celestial bodies, may there be peace on this little planet, may there be peace among us, may there be peace within us," said Hindu Institute of Learning vice president Chander Khanna, translating from the Vedas.