NEWS

TORONTO - Christian-Jewish dialogue isn’t just about Christians and Jews. It’s about how human beings should conduct themselves, how we secure a future of peace, how we know God and how we repair the world, said one of the pioneers of religious dialogue in Canada.

Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Toronto, along with the Canadian Jewish Congress, put on a gala dinner to honour Rabbi Erwin Schild and his wife Laura Schild at the Liberty Grand banquet hall in Toronto Nov. 24. Bishops, rabbis, reverend doctors and theologians were among those gathered to honour him

The Flynn family needed help. They were paying $1,000 every month for bariatric diapers for their daughter Jennifer who has a rare chromosome disorder, making her one of 40 such cases in the world. So Julie Flynn, Jennifer’s mother, asked for help — and she received.

“My husband has had to give up his job to take care of her,” said Flynn, who lives in Orangeville, Ont. “We’re a one-income family and we’re paying $1,000 every month for diapers. And we were thinking and in desperation I wrote to every service club in the Orangeville area. The Knights of Columbus responded and it just went from there.”

MELBOURNE, Fla. - Dec. 2 marks the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, lay missionary Jean Donovan and Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, the four churchwomen of El Salvador who were savagely brutalized and killed for spreading the good news and teaching people to read and pray.

“I can’t say this to anybody because they wouldn’t understand,” Kazel wrote to her former missionary partner, Sr. Martha Owen, in October 1980. “I want you to explain why I have to stay.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The international community must begin fighting discrimination against Christians with the same determination it shows in opposing intolerance and discrimination against members of other religious groups, said the Vatican secretary of state.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Dec. 1, "It has been widely documented that Christians are the most persecuted and discriminated against religious group. More than 200 million of them, belonging to different confessions, find themselves in difficulty because of legal and cultural structures."

TORONTO - Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens duked it out to a draw in the biggest public debate on religion ever held in Toronto Nov. 26.

At the start of the evening, 22 per cent of the sold-out crowd at Roy Thomson Hall were in favour of Blair’s proposition that religion is a force for good in the world. Fifty-seven per cent thought religion was a force for ill and 21 per cent were undecided. Before the debate, fully 75 per cent of the live audience claimed they were open to changing their mind.

TORONTO - The only sound to be heard at a vigil for the unborn at an otherwise silent St. Michael’s Cathedral was the cry of an infant. This child’s parents had chosen life.

On Nov. 27, a crowd gathered at St. Michael’s Cathedral for the worldwide Prayer Vigil for All Nascent Human Life at the request of Pope Benedict XVI. It was one of countless parishes, homes and religious communities across the globe that stopped to pray and reflect on the sanctity of all human life.

The service marked the eve of the new liturgical year and the Advent season, a season of expectation, according to Archbishop Thomas Collins, who presided over the vigil at St. Michael’s. The time we await Jesus, he said, is much like the time we await the coming of any child.

“This time of expectancy is also a time of vulnerability,” said Collins.

VATICAN CITY - In the middle of Pope Benedict XVI's new book is a story about a hat, and it sheds light on the trials and tribulations of the modern papacy.

The book's interviewer, German journalist Peter Seewald, recalled a public appearance one winter day when the Pope donned the "camauro," a red velvet cap trimmed with ermine that was last worn by Pope John XXIII. Seewald suggested this was one of those subtle signals that marked a return to the old ways of the Church.

VATICAN CITY - The use of condoms may be a sign of moral responsibility and acceptable in some specific situations when the intention is to reduce the risk of AIDS, said Pope Benedict XVI in a new book.

The Pope addressed the issue in the book-length interview, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times. He indicated that condom use in a heterosexual relation is a lesser evil than transmitting disease.

OTTAWA - Pro-family groups are raising alarms about a bill before Parliament that would give expanded rights to transgendered and transsexuals.

They argue it could expose businesses, schools and religious groups to a host of new human rights complaints that trample on their religious freedom and freedom of expression.

“Our government has come one step closer to passing the ultra-radical, private members’ Bill C-389,” warned Campaign Life Coalition Nov. 5 shortly after NDP MP Bill Siksay’s bill passed through the Justice Committee by a 9-2 vote. “If passed, it would add ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ as a protected class within the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code.”

TORONTO - More help is being offered to churches that want to do something about climate change.

The Montreal-based Canadian Centre for Ecumenism has launched the Green Church program to advise churches on ways to reduce their carbon footprint and lower heating bills. Joined with Toronto-based Greening Sacred Spaces, Green Church will offer certification to churches that achieve a high level of environmental awareness and act on it starting in April 2011.