NEWS

OTTAWA - English-speaking Catholics helped ensure a Conservative majority in the May 2 federal election, but the historic surge in Quebec by the NDP signals a preference of state over church in French Canada.

The NDP won a record-breaking 58 seats in Quebec, leaving the Bloc Quebecois with just four MPs, well below official-party status in the new Parliament. This triumph by the NDP “sends a signal that Quebeckers still strongly believe in the state” and put their focus on government rather than “the grassroots organizations of civil society,” said McGill University historian John Zucchi.

The Conservatives swept to a majority with 167 seats. The NDP will form the official opposition with 102 seats, compared to 34 Liberals, four BQ and one Green Party seat.  

The anti-church trend in Quebec sets it apart from much of the rest of Canada. An Angus Reid poll released April 22 indicated 59 per cent of English-speaking Catholics who attend church weekly intended to vote Conservative. Half of other Catholics also said they would vote Conservative. Those preferences seemed to stand up on election day and reflected a trend identified in the last two elections in which the Liberals saw erosion of two main pillars of support: Catholic and ethnic voters.  

TORONTO - Once a Liberal bastion thanks to immigrants, ethnic voters in Toronto have given Conservatives the majority they sought.

"The Conservative ethnic ground game paid off in the end," said Jonathan Luk, the graduating president of the University of Toronto Chinese Catholic Community.

Chinese voters in both the 416 and 905 regions responded to values the Conservative Party championed, Luk said. The party took 30 of 44 Greater Toronto Area seats, a key component in gaining a majority government after Stephen Harper presided over two consecutive minority governments.

"When we talk about basic issues — the safety of our society, being tough on crime, respect for tradition and respect for hard work — these are values that Chinese people value," Luk said. "I also see Catholic voters are no different when it comes to those things."

For Tamils, who found themselves featured in an early Conservative attack ad, the community is hoping the new NDP official opposition and the first-ever Tamil Member of Parliament can hold the Conservatives to account for its immigration policies, said Jessica Devi Chandrashekar.

"Those who came out and voted were people who have bared the brunt of the recession and have been unable to reunite with their families because of the Conservative immigration policies," said Chandrashekar. "In Scarborough-Rouge River, a riding comprised mostly of the ethnic vote, (voters) made history in electing Rathika Sitsaiebasan for the NDP. Rathika is the first Sri Lankan Tamil MP elected outside of Sri Lanka. This has enormous significance for Tamil Canadians."

Chandrashekar is one of a new generation of voters, some of whom responded in this election in ways never seen before. Vote mobs organized on Twitter and Facebook swept university campuses, demanding young people seize the power of the ballot.

"I am 27 years old and born in Canada. This was my first time voting," said Chandrashekar. "I am looking forward to becoming more involved in the political process in Canada and the continued changes that the election in 2015 will bring."

The peace vote in Toronto was not overjoyed with the Conservative majority.

"A Conservative majority would be a bad thing for the cause of peace," wrote Deacon Steve Barringer of Pax Christi Toronto in an e-mail as results came in on election night. "They have a poor record of listening to interest groups of any kind."

Pax Christi plans to ramp up its protests in response to Conservative military and foreign policy.

"We will be looking at more aggressive programs, up to and including demonstrations and even civil disobedience against what we believe may be immoral policies," Barringer said.

Barringer puts his hope in a strong opposition from the New Democrats.

"We believe that Mr. Layton will listen," he said.

Catholic eco-theologian and University of Toronto religious studies professor Stephen Bede Sharper is also putting his hope in the NDP opposition, bolstered by the first-ever Green Party seat in Parliament.

"With the NDP's emergence, we now have a solid shot at a party that constitutes a real opposition to the Harper government, with the issues of social justice, workers' rights and the widening gap between rich and poor constituting central, rather than ancillary, political concerns," Sharper wrote in an e-mail to The Catholic Register.

TORONTO - Grouard-McLennan Archbishop Gérard Pettipas, C.Ss.R., headlines Catholic Missions In Canada's 10th anniversary Tastes of Heaven Gala May 5.

Pettipas will be  the event's keynote speaker at the dinner to be held at the Paramount Event Centre in Woodbridge, Ont. The annual dinner helps to raise funds for the Catholic Church in Canada's missionary territories.

Pettipas will recount the faith journeys of the First Nations peoples living in Northern Alberta missions. He said in Canada's northern dioceses, “the needs of doing ministry are greater than the revenue that we take in to be able to serve those places.”

Many are isolated by distance and other missionary bishops have spoken of the challenge priests face in celebrating Mass in these communities.

VATICAN CITY - "John Paul II is blessed because of his faith -- a strong, generous and apostolic faith," Pope Benedict XVI said May 1 just minutes after formally beatifying his predecessor.

Italian police said that for the Mass more than 1 million people were gathered in and around the Vatican and in front of large video screens in several parts of the city.

Many in the crowd had personal stories about seeing Pope John Paul or even meeting him, and Pope Benedict ended his homily at the Mass sharing his own personal story.

"I would like to thank God for the gift of having worked for many years with Blessed Pope John Paul II," he said.

As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1982 until his election in 2005, Pope Benedict said he worked at the pope's side "and came to revere him."

"His example of prayer continually impressed and edified me: he remained deeply united to God even amid the many demands of his ministry," the pope said.

TORONTO - A hero to many in Canada's pro-life movement, Spiritan Father Edward (Ted) Colleton leaves behind a legacy of life, said Fr. Bob Cobourne, provincial superior of the Spiritans.

At 97 years old, Fr. Colleton passed away peacefully April 26 at La Salle Manor in Scarborough, Ont., where he had lived since 2007.

“He worked tirelessly for the unborn, for the pro-life movement and worked to ensure that the unborn would be protected and that life from the moment of conception to death would be sacred,” Cobourne told The Catholic Register.

Although Fr. Colleton spent the first 30 years of his priesthood as a missionary in Kenya, the most important work he did was in Canada for the rights of the unborn, said Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican said the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, a man who sowed division and hatred and who caused "innumerable" deaths, should prompt serious reflection about one's responsibility before God, not rejoicing.

The Vatican statement May 2 came the day after President Barack Obama announced that U.S. forces had killed bin Laden in an attack on his hideout in northwest Pakistan. In several U.S. cities, the news prompted street demonstrations and expressions of jubilation.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, released a brief written statement reacting to the news.

"Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions to this end," Lombardi said.

VATICAN CITY - Blessed Pope John Paul II worked a number of miracles at his beatification, some pilgrims said.

Weather forecasts of a weekend of heavy rains turned into innocuous grey clouds April 30 and then sunny skies May 1.

"We prayed to John Paul that it wouldn't rain," said Josephine Faehrmann from Sydney, Australia, who was planning to sleep outside with her friends.

Also, mysterious benefactors with a special devotion to the Polish pope paid for a bus full of young people from Naples to attend the ceremonies "because John Paul II loved young people and we had to be here," Rosa Giordano said.

Each of the more than one million people of every age, background and nationality attending the April 30 vigil in Circus Maximus and May 1 beatification in St. Peter's Square had his or her own story of pilgrimage.

Danila Fabrizio, another member of the group that left Naples at 1 a.m. May 1 on the benefactor's bus, said, "This is a sign of God's providence that we're here."

The following is an entry from the Archdiocese of Toronto Blog. Their team have set up a special webpage, archtoronto.org/jp2, to celebrate the beatification of Pope John Paul II. You can also follow proceedings on their facebook and twitter accounts.

Saturday evening in Rome at Circus Maximus, an estimated 200,000 pilgrims from around the world gathered to remember, pray and celebrate the life of Pope John Paul II. It was a homecoming of sorts, a mini World Youth Day that included young people and veterans of WYD who are now in their 40's and 50's. Of course, Polish flags were predominant throughout the celebration, which included moving testimonials from those close to JPII (his press secretary, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls and his personal secretary, now Cardinal of Krakow Stanislaw Dziwisz).

Another moving tribute came from Parkinson's survivor Sr. Marie-Simon Pierre Normand, the miracle cure of her sickness attributed to the late Pontiff. She spoke of praying the luminous mysteries with her religious community and the profound impact JPII had on her own life.

VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II deeply influenced generations of Catholics who knew him in life, but his most enduring legacy — his teaching — is something that will continue to impact the Church for centuries, a biographer of the late pope said.

"It's going to be several hundred years before the Church really takes on board the breadth and depth of this man's explication of the Gospel, and in that sense we're going to be thinking, and arguing, about John Paul II for hundreds of years," said George Weigel, author of the papal biographies Witness to Hope and The End and the Beginning.

Weigel said that six years after the pope's death his connection with young people continues to bear fruit in many ways: in priesthood vocations over the last decade, in women's religious orders inspired by Pope John Paul and in renewal movements.

"I look at my own parish in suburban Washington and see young couples raising Catholic families, who all took some form of inspiration from John Paul II. And I suspect this is replicated all over the world," he said in an interview April 27.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's special exhibit hall wasn't big enough to honour the life and ministry of Pope John Paul II, so the exhibit begins in St. Peter's Square, said Barbara Jatta, curator of what is described as Pope Benedict XVI's special tribute to his predecessor.

"The exhibit begins in the square, which for the first time ever for a beatification, is decorated with one large photograph of the pope with his pastoral staff as well as with photographs from each year of his pontificate," Jatta told reporters April 28.

In addition, she said, "the exhibit leads directly to the basilica where people can venerate the tomb of Pope John Paul II."

Visitors can enter the main exhibit, housed in the Carlo Magno Hall off of St. Peter's Square, until July 24 for free.

The exhibit is a collaborative effort of the Vatican governor's office and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.