NEWS

TORONTO - Providence Healthcare has named Josie Walsh its new President and CEO.

Walsh has more than 30 years of experience as a registered nurse, with many of those years in hospital management. Walsh joined Providence Healthcare in 2001 as Vice-President and Chief Nurse Executive. She is a Certified Health Executive with the Canadian College of Health Leaders.

Walsh will be at the helm of Providence Healthcare during the second year of its five-year strategic plan called “Time to Shine.” Walsh said the plan involves “developing strong partnerships to our care hospitals and community care access hospitals.”

TORONTO - When it began more than 30 years ago, Prison Fellowship International was only a handful of national prison ministries that shared a common vision of sharing Christ with the incarcerated. In 2011, representatives from more than 115 countries who now share that vision will gather in Toronto for the fellowship’s international convocation.

From June 28 to July 2, the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel will play host to the ninth quadrennial PFI Convocation, where prison ministers will explore their mission of bringing Christ to prisoners, ex-prisoners, victims and their families.

“It’s really a forum for people from various backgrounds, experiences and types of programs to share their stories, their best practices, program models and ideas,” said Ron Nikkel, the president and CEO of PFI. “It becomes a gigantic mixing bowl of creativity and ideas.”

PFI, the world’s largest criminal justice ministry with more than 50,000 volunteers, will feature a variety of speakers throughout the five-day conference, including Rev. Pierre Allard, prison chaplain and former president of the International Prison Chaplains’ Association, and Philip Yancey, Christian author and journalist. Participants will also take part in a number of workshops teaching effective practices and leadership skills for use in prison ministry.

TORONTO - A study from researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital has found that female prisoners who did not participate in a drug treatment program after their release were 10 times more likely to return to prison within one year than those who did.

Published in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the study showed that more than one-third of women  who didn’t participate returned to prison within six months, said Flora Matheson, a medical sociologist at St. Michael’s Hospital who led the study.

“The good news story is that if we can get women into the program and keep them there, then they have a great chance of success,” said Matheson, a scientist in the hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health who collaborated on the study with the research branch of the Correctional Service of Canada.

Researchers examined the Community Relapse Prevention and Maintenance (CRPM) program, developed as part of a continuum of treatment of women offenders under federal supervision in Canada. CRPM is the after-care component of Women Offenders Substance Abuse Programming (WOSAP), which was implemented by Correctional Services Canada in May 2003. The community based program is offered to women on parole.

WASHINGTON - Dr. Jack Kevorkian, dubbed “Dr. Death” for his longtime advocacy of assisted suicide and his role in assisting in the deaths of 130 people, died June 3 at age 83 in a Detroit-area hospital.

The former medical pathologist suffered from kidney-related problems.

Dr. Kevorkian was frequently in the spotlight throughout the 1990s, from his first role in an assisted suicide in Michigan in 1990 until 1999 when he was sentenced to serve 10-25 years after being convicted of second-degree murder for assisting in a nationally televised death of a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Released on parole in 2007, Dr. Kevorkian was banned from assisting in suicides or advising anyone on how to make his suicide machine he called the “Mercitron.” He was permitted to speak out in favour of assisted suicide, which he did.

WASHINGTON - NATO’s military campaign against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is giving rise to concerns that the effort’s goals remain unclear and will likely lead to a lengthy standoff between the longtime autocrat and rebel forces with innocent civilians caught in the middle.

The concerns revolve around whether the campaign is meant primarily to protect the rebels and their civilian supporters from indiscriminate attacks by troops loyal to Gadhafi or to remove the Libyan leader in the hope that democratic reforms follow.

Guiding the discussion is a relatively new concept in international relations characterized as the responsibility to protect — R2P in diplomatic shorthand. The concept, based on ethical concerns, has evolved over the past 20 years following strife-ridden periods in Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in which civilian casualties mounted during internal conflicts as the world stood by idly.

OTTAWA - The newly-elected Speaker of the House Andrew Scheer, 32, made history June 3 as the youngest MP to be elected to this coveted role that comes with huge responsibilities and accompanying perks.

But Scheer’s victory has also sent a message to politicians everywhere that one does not have to separate a robust Catholic faith from public life.

The father of four represents Regina-Qu’Appelle which he first won in 2004, but he grew up in Ottawa. His father, Jim Scheer, is a permanent deacon at St. Patrick’s Basilica and his mother Mary is an active member of the parish. His parents and his wife were in the gallery during the vote.

Scheer's Catholicity has got him in the spotlight on Parliament Hill in the past. Last spring, Scheer remained cheerful and unfazed when Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP MP Pat Martin tried to make a political issue out of his hosting a luncheon for MPs, Senators and Hill staff featuring a talk by Opus Dei Vicar Msgr. Fred Dolan. The luncheon prompted Duceppe to accuse the Conservatives of being influenced by the “fundamentalist religious right,” and Martin to describe Opus Dei as “creepy.” The attacks coincided with the release of Marci McDonald’s polemical book The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada that asserted fundamentalist Christians held too much sway in the Harper government.

OTTAWA - Quebec’s ban on God, prayers, songs to Jesus and religious instruction in subsidized day cares discriminates against religious believers, says the Catholic Civil Rights League.

The League has expressed support for Jewish and Catholic parents who are appealing to the Quebec Superior Court on grounds the ban violates the constitution by infringing on religious freedom.

“Quebec is leaning toward suppression and discrimination against believers of any religion,” said Jean Morse-Chevrier, the Quebec director for the League and chair of the Association of Catholic Parents of Quebec.

The ban is similar to Quebec’s mandatory Ethics and Religious Culture program (ERC), she said.  

“In effect, in the name of respect for diversity, the government is abolishing true diversity more and more in educational programs.”

TORONTO - Children at 13 parishes in Toronto are learning the basics of the faith in a language that they understand.

The young catechism students take part in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a ministry that originated in Rome in 1954 and has been catching on in Catholic parishes across North America. Scriptural scholar Sofia Cavaletti founded the approach and teamed with Gianni Gobbi, a Montessori education specialist, to develop an experiential and hands-on approach of learning for children.

“We meet them intellectually, spiritually, emotionally where they are,” said Kathleen Ennis, co-ordinator of the archdiocese of Toronto’s Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

The catechesis emphasizes sacraments like Baptism and First Communion, and Jesus’ life, teachings and the mystery of the Resurrection.

The Canadian funding of a Mexican human rights organization was cut following a letter from the archbishop of Mexico City that directly accuses the Jesuit-founded body of supporting pro-abortion groups.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (D&P) cut the funding for Centro PRODH, whose director recently had speaking engagements cancelled in Ottawa and Cornwall, after Mexican Cardinal Norberto Carrera said the organization "does NOT represent the sentiments of the Church and has been characterized by its support and encouragement of groups and activities that are an affront to Christian values."

"With respect to the theme of defence of life, the organization has supported pro-abortion groups and promoted the purported woman's right over her body, against unborn life," said a translation of the letter obtained by The Catholic Register.

Carrera's letter was sent to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which two years ago cleared Centro PRODH of similar accusations.

VATICAN CITY - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks with Pope Benedict as well as with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, and Archbishop Dominique Mamberti June 3, the Vatican's foreign minister.

The Vatican said the talks were "cordial" and focused on "the troubled situation in the Holy Land," according to a written Vatican statement released after the meeting.

Particular emphasis was put "on the urgent need to find a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one capable of ensuring respect for the rights of all and, therefore, the attainment of the Palestinian people's legitimate aspirations for an independent state," the Vatican statement said.