NEWS

In 2003, Zofia Szaflarski was invited by a friend to join a weeklong walking pilgrimage to the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland, Ont. Hesitant but curious, Szaflarski agreed and since then she has been “addicted.”

Several walks later, Szaflarski now helps organize and promote the annual pilgrimage.

“It’s very religious and very spiritual,” she said of the walking pilgrimage, particularly popular among Polish Catholics. “But what a lot of people forget is that it’s also a lot of fun.”

With about 1,000 other people, Szaflarski spent a week trekking  125 kilometres from St. Patrick’s parish in Wildfield, Ont., to the Shrine. The group celebrated Mass each morning and then walked, prayed, and sang until they lit a bonfire after they stopped for the night. This year’s pilgrimage will culminate at the Shrine on August 13.

The leaders of the Canadian pro-life movement will examine strategies for effective change when they gather June 24-25 for the Toronto 2011 Pro-Life Forum.

Hosted by Campaign Life Coalition, the two-day conference will kick off at a dinner with keynote speaker Brian Lilley of Sun TV News, followed by a full day of panels and speakers. The forum will take place at Hotel Novotel Toronto Centre.

“Be informed, be inspired, be active,” said Alisa Golob, youth coordinator for the Campaign Life Coalition, echoing the conference’s theme. “First you have to know what’s going on… and hear the other side of the story.”

Canadians seldom see pro-life issues reported in the media, said Golob, and when they do, it’s usually negative coverage. This, according to Golob, is why CLC chose Lilley, host of Byline, as keynote speaker for the opening night dinner.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI prayed that the world's Gypsies no longer be subjected to prejudice, oppression and rejection.

Gypsies should always uphold "justice, legality, reconciliation and strive to never be the cause of someone else's suffering," he said in a festive meeting with nearly 2,000 Gypsies, Roma, Sinti and Travellers in the Vatican's Paul VI hall June 11.

Pope Benedict recalled the painful past of the Gypsies, especially when hundreds of thousands of men, women and children "were barbarically killed in extermination camps" during World War II.

He acknowledged that even today, many Gypsy communities and individuals still face "serious and worrying problems, such as often-difficult relations with the societies in which they live."

>VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has erected a new Chaldean Catholic eparchy in Toronto and named Archbishop Hanna Zora, who has worked with Catholics in Toronto for nearly 20 years, as its head.

The new eparchy, or diocese, will be known as the Eparchy of Mar Addai.

In making the announcement, the Vatican said there are 38,000 Chaldean Catholics in Canada. Archbishop Zora, 74, and four priests have been involved in the pastoral care of Toronto-area Catholics, the largest community.

On May 28, Chaldean Catholic officials consecrated Good Shepherd Chaldean Church in Toronto.

VATICAN CITY - The civilian unrest ripping through Syria and other Arab countries is a sign that people want a better future, Pope Benedict XVI told Syria's new ambassador to the Vatican.

"These events also demonstrate the urgent need for genuine reforms in political, economic and social life," he said in a written address June 9 to Hussan Edin Aala, the new ambassador.

Reform and social progress, however, must not be brought about through actions that are discriminatory, intolerant or violent, but must be achieved in ways that respect the rights and dignity of all individuals and communities as well as respect truth and peaceful coexistence, the pope said.

Government authorities should be guided by such principles and take into account the hopes and needs of their citizens as well as international mandates, he added.

OTTAWA — The June 3 Throne Speech reiterates modest campaign promises and the June 6 budget is virtually identical to the budget tabled Mar. 22. However, these little changes could have a huge impact on Canadian society, observers say.

Though the 400-page budget document emphasizes stability, a think tank concerned about a flourishing civil society says the Conservative government is “preparing for a coming storm in Canadian politics: one which they intend to shape and survive.”

That storm involves the aging of Canadian society that will see 2.5 workers for every retiree, up from the present 4.7 workers per retiree; a coming health care crunch that has not been publicly addressed; and the ways an increased free trade environment might hurt some sectors of the economy, Cardus warns.

“The increased emphasis on expenditure review and the advanced targets for returning to surplus are just two indicators that this budget is really about battening down the hatches and rolling out the foundations for shaping tomorrow’s social architecture,” said an analysis by Cardus, a think tank that now incorporates the former Centre for Culture Renewal.

TORONTO - Campaign Life Coalition says the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association’s choice of prominent gay rights advocate Ilana Landsberg-Lewis to speak at its upcoming conference is “outrageous” and “undermines” Catholic values.

Landsberg-Lewis will be one of the guest speakers at OECTA’s “Common Good Conference: The Soul of Teaching — Changing the Human Condition” which runs July 6 to 8 in Toronto. She is the executive director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation and daughter of Stephen Lewis, a former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and a renowned abortion advocate.

Landsberg-Lewis is not an appropriate speaker at a Catholic teachers’ conference because her views on abortion and same-sex marriage reject core Catholic teachings, said Jim Hughes, Campaign Life president.

“Every time one of the Lewises shows up, it undermines who we are as Catholics. There are many other speakers who can speak up on other positive topics that don’t outrage Catholic parents,” said Hughes. “This is another example of why Catholic parents feel they are being undermined by the Catholic teachers.”

TORONTO - After more than two years in prison, long-time pro-life activist Linda Gibbons was freed on June 3.

The 62-year-old great grandmother was in jail for the past 28 months for picketing a Toronto abortion clinic and violating a nearly two decades-old court injunction.

Gibbons was set free after Ontario Court Justice Mara Beth Greene granted her lawyer’s application requesting that she be released without conditions. She was issued a summons to attend court on Jan. 15, 2012.

Gibbons has always refused to sign a bail condition that orders her to abide by a 1994 temporary injunction barring pro-life activists from picketing, sidewalk counselling and interfering with access to abortion services or the “economic interests” of downtown Toronto clinics. But Gibbons has chosen to disobey by peacefully picketing outside abortion clinics. This has led to her 20 arrests for various Criminal Code offences leading to her spending 10 of the past 17 years in jail.

TORONTO - When Canada’s first Jesuits, Frs. Pierre Biard and Ennemond Massé, arrived 400 years ago, the ship they were sailing was called the Grace of God. As William Mbugua and Michael Knox were ordained by Ottawa’s Jesuit Archbishop Terrence Prendergast June 4, the two new Jesuit priests found themselves in the same boat.

Prendergast called the two young priests “Fresh hope for the mission of the Jesuits today.”

With dozens of Jesuits present from all over North America, Knox and Mbugua stood up and lay down for the same ordination. But they came from vastly different starting places.

Toronto boy Knox entered the novitiate in 1997 at 18, straight out of Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts. Mbugua started off in small-town Kenya and worked his way to the University of Manitoba where his encounter with Canadian Jesuits  changed his life.

ZAGREB, Croatia - Pope Benedict XVI used his apostolic journey to the Croatian capital to encourage nations to build their communities on Christian values and to support the traditional family and the sanctity of life.

A culture guided by truth, reason and love not only will lead to peace, justice and solidarity, the community's very survival is dependent on such transcendent values, he said during his brief two-day pilgrimage June 4-5.

If religion, ethics and a moral conscience are banished from informing the public realm, "then the crisis of the West has no remedy and Europe is destined to collapse in on itself" and risk falling prey to every form of tyranny, he said in an audience with Croatia's political, religious, cultural, business and academic representatives.

Free and just democracies thrive when citizens' consciences have been formed by love and Christianity's "logic of gift" in which the good of the whole human family is sought after, not narrow self-interests, the Pope said June 4 in Zagreb's ornate Croatian National Theatre.