NEWS

Striking down Canada's anti-prostitution laws would violate the “fundamental moral values” of protecting human dignity, and would infringe on a woman's rights to liberty and security, lawyers representing the Catholic Civil Rights League told the Ontario Court of Appeal.

“Prostitution is antithetical to the fundamental values of Canadians,” said lawyer Ranjan Agarawal on June 16. He was representing the Catholic Civil Rights League, the Christian Legal Fellowship and REAL Women of Canada.

“Prostitution is immoral. It takes the most intimate human activity and commodifies it. It is that commodification that causes violence, drug use, the trafficking of women, the exploitation of women in the economic margins of society.”

The federal and Ontario governments are appealing an Ontario judge's decision that struck down some sections of Canada’s prostitution laws as being unconstitutional.

When Thomas Collins was in the seminary, he felt like the busiest, most rushed guy in town. Now, as Archbishop of Toronto, he wants to give seminarians a chance to stop and reflect — something he wishes he could have done more often.

For the incoming class at St. Augustine’s Seminary, that will mean a media fast — abstaining from electronic and traditional media of all types — for much of their first year. No phones or cellphones, no Internet or computer games, no TV or radio. No modern devices or even old friends like newspapers and magazines.

Beginning in September, the new class of seminarians will take part in a type of spiritual preparation called a propaedeutic year. The 10-month period, which falls between formation (at places like Serra House) and the traditional studies of the seminary, is meant to prepare discerning priests in a non-academic setting.

It will include reading traditional Church texts, a collection of retreats and, for five and half days per week, a “fast” from electronic and popular media.

Within days of a violent storm that tore limbs from dozens of mature trees and uprooted others, the Scarboro Missions celebrated a gift of 15 new cherry blossom trees on their property.

The gift from the Sakura Project brought out Toronto’s Japanese Catholic community and a Japanese folk dance group in a show of solidarity with Japan June 12, three months after a devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami killed more than 15,000 and pushed the Fukushima nuclear power plant into a meltdown.

“These trees, in a sense, mark this disaster. But also, these trees will grow along with Japan,” said Masaya Otsuka of the consulate general of Japan’s office, which supports the Sakura Project.

The Scarboro Missions headquarters on Kingston Road was chosen as one of 55 sites in 18 municipalities across southern Ontario where the Japanese consulate has planted trees.

Since the Second World War the Scarboros have sent 40 missionaries to Japan. Several Scarboros served over 50 years in Japan and six are buried there.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican will host an international congress to promote the use of adult stem cells as a safe, effective and ethical means to fight degenerative diseases.

The congress, to be held Nov. 9-11, will also feature speakers who support embryonic stem-cell research, to give proponents an opportunity to "explain the reasoning behind their position," said Father Tomasz Trafny, an official with the Pontifical Council for Culture. The church is opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells since it involves the destruction of the human embryo.

The congress, organized by the Vatican's councils for Culture and Health Care Ministry as well as the Pontifical Academy for Life, is being held in conjunction with the international biopharmaceutical company, NeoStem.

The congress will be the culture council and the biotech firm's first major collaborative project since they forged an agreement in 2010 to work together to educate people about the benefits of adult stem-cell research. The collaboration is between NeoStem's Stem for Life  Foundation and the culture council's foundation -- called STOQ International, for Science, Theology and the Ontological Quest.

For 25 years, St. Philip Neri Parish has been a “sanctuary” for the Hispanic Catholic community in Toronto.

On June 25 and 26, the parish will celebrate this quarter century with a two-day conference on “The Living Eucharistic Presence of Jesus.” The conference, entirely in Spanish, will feature Guatemalan preachers Rev. Oscar Gracias and Juan Ramón Martinez Hernandez, and coincides with the feast of Corpus Christi.

“That is the centre of our life,” said organizer Ignacio Mateo of the feast and the theme it inspired for the conference. “We gather as Latin-American people, and we gather for one reason — the blessed sacrament, the holy Eucharist. That is the reason we are united, why we live.”

Both days of the conference will include the rosary, Mass, and a procession of the blessed sacrament. The first day will focus on four themes — the Old Testament,  Church life, education, as well as life, healing and liberation — in relation to the Eucharist. The speakers will address these themes and, on the second day, focus on unity and family within the Eucharist.

UNITED NATIONS - Abstinence and fidelity-based programs remain the only universally effective, safe and affordable means of halting the spread of AIDS, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations told a meeting to review progress and chart the future course of the global response to the disease.

Archbishop Francis Chullikatt also said in remarks delivered June 10 that access to anti-retroviral drugs is vital in treating the disease and for reducing the risks for spreading it, but should not be seen as a means to “diminish the consequences of dangerous and irresponsible behavior.”

The archbishop said the world’s approach to the AIDS epidemic must involve “a value-based response which recognizes the need to promote the inherent dignity of the human person, thus, responsible sexual behavior and recognition of responsibility to oneself and one’s own community.”

While access to anti-retroviral drugs has proved beneficial in treating AIDS and limiting the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes the disease, the archbishop said only about a third of the 15 million people with the disease in low- and middle-income countries can obtain the medication.

Canadian bishops are welcome to advise Development and Peace about overseas partnerships but D&P members are asserting their right to make final decisions about which organizations are funded.

D&P’s national council passed a unanimous resolution at a June 10-12 meeting that essentially reaffirms that funding decisions will be made by the council and its 12,000 strong predominantly lay members.

The national council consists of 20 elected, volunteer representatives from across Canada, plus bishops Richard Grecco of P.E.I and Claude Champagne of New Brunswick. D&P acts as the international development organization of the Catholic Church in Canada.

The national council resolution came in the wake of a recent decision by the D&P executive, acting on abortion-related allegations expressed by a Mexican cardinal, to revoke the funding of the Mexican human rights organization Centro PRODH. That decision prompted a defiant resolution from D&P members in Quebec and New Brunswick in support of Centro PRODH and calling for restoration of its funding.

OTTAWA - The Conservative Party has given a ringing endorsement to traditional marriage, to family life and the rights of parents to raise children according to individual conscience and beliefs.

At its 2011 policy convention, held June 9-11, the Conservatives resolved to support legislation “defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” They also stressed that Parliament, not the courts, should determine the definition of marriage through a free vote.

“This is a party that’s not afraid of being conservative,” said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, a Catholic, in an interview.  “It’s a dramatic change from the days of the old Progressive Conservative Party where social conservatives were not made to feel welcome.”

The party passed a resolution on family and marriage that affirmed the family unit is “essential to the well-being of individuals and society, because it is where children learn values and develop a sense of responsibility.” The resolution also stressed “the right and duty of parents to raise their own children responsibly according to their own conscience and beliefs.”

TORONTO - Prostitution is an economic activity, not a constitutionally protected right, and public policy regarding prostitution is the responsibility of Parliament, a federal lawyer has argued in the Ontario Court of Appeal.

On the opening day of an appeal into a lower-court decision that struck down some sections of Canada’s prostitution laws, federal lawyer Michael Morris told the five judges that the state has no requirement to ensure a safe work environment for prostitutes.

“The ‘security of their person’ argument is based upon the argument that prostitution should be made more safe,” he said. “We say that requires they have a right to engage in prostitution in the first place.” No such right exists, he said.

Morris was challenging an Ontario Superior court ruling by Judge Susan Himel that said Criminal Code provisions that prohibit living off the avails, keeping a common bawdy house and soliciting for purposes of prostitution infringed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

WINDSOR, ONT. - Father William Hodgson Marshall was sentenced to two years in prison for sexually abusing 16 boys and one girl in Ontario high schools while he was a teacher, coach and principal from the early 1950s to the mid-1980s.

Marshall, 88, was also given three years probation and his name will be added to the national sex offender registry. He pleaded guilty to charges of indecent assault that occurred in schools and private residences, from Windsor to Toronto, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie.

For the victims, it was an emotional two days in Superior Court where the priest pled guilty prior to numerous victims giving pre-sentence statements.

Ken Hills, one of Marshall’s earliest victims, was abused at Toronto’s St. Michael’s High School in 1953. His assault occurred in an office by the gymnasium where Marshall coached basketball.

“You began stalking me when I was in Grade 8,” he told the court. “This predatorial action continued through grades nine and ten and eleven.”