NEWS

OTTAWA - The Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP) has announced changes to its funding protocols to ensure that no money goes to organizations that support abortion.

The changes come in the wake of year-old allegations that funds from CCODP had in many cases been funnelled to partners who were not adhering to Catholic teaching on life issues.

TORONTO - It was a brazen and brutal attack on Iraqi Christians practising their faith, but Syriac Catholic Bishop Yousif Habash, instead of seeking vengeance, preached a message of peace to more than 800 people attending a Remembrance Day service at St. Michael's Cathedral.

The prayer vigil in remembrance of the 58 Christians murdered and 75 injured during an Oct. 31 attack on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad during Sunday Mass was organized by the archdiocese of Toronto and its Office of Ecumenism and Interfaith Affairs.

“They can take our lives away but they cannot take away our faith,” said Habash, the New Jersey-based bishop of Syriac Catholics in Canada and the United States.

VATICAN CITY - Respect for each person's relationship with God is an essential part of building a just social order and real peace, Pope Benedict XVI said in a letter to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"It is my profound conviction that respect for the transcendent dimension of the human person is an indispensable condition for the construction of a just social order and a stable peace," the Pope wrote to the Iranian leader.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - As the official cholera toll reached 724 dead with 10,000 people treated in hospitals for the deadly bacteria as of Nov. 11, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has given Caritas Haiti $123,000 to finance distribution of 3,000 more emergency hygiene kits.

Caritas Haiti had exhausted its emergency stores of 76,000 hygiene kits, including aquatabs to purify water. The new hygiene kits will be distributed in 20 tent-city camps around Port-au-Pince, Haiti’s capital, where parish volunteers in the camps will be trained by medical professionals in cholera prevention.

There are more than one million Haitians still living in tents 10 months after the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed 230,000.

TORONTO - This month marks the start of a year-long celebration in honour of the jubilee year for St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, the oldest Polish parish in Toronto.

“This year is a big milestone for the Polish community,” said Mary Samulewski, chair of the jubilee committee at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, located in the core of the city near Spadina Avenue and Queen Street West. “The parish is the oldest Polish ethnic parish in the GTA and the fourth oldest in Canada.”

OTTAWA - A bill that would make it a crime to coerce a woman into having an abortion faces a rough ride in the House of Commons.

During its first hour of debate Nov. 1, Rod Bruinooge’s private members’ Bill C-510 faced challenges from women MPs from the Bloc, Liberals and NDP who argued the bill would interfere with a woman’s “right to choose” abortion.

But Bruinooge, who chairs the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, argued his bill protects women from being threatened and coerced into ending pregnancies they choose to keep.

VATICAN CITY - Five Anglican bishops have decided to join the Catholic Church and step down from their current positions with the Church of England, a Vatican spokesman said.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, confirmed to reporters a statement issued Nov. 8 by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales welcoming the five bishops.

Lombardi said a “constitution” that would govern the entry of former bishops of the Anglican Communion was being studied.

TORONTO - About 2,000 Middle Eastern Christians hit the streets in Toronto Nov. 6 for a peaceful demonstration against attacks on Christians in Iraq.

The march was spurred by the Oct. 31 attacks at Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, where 58 people were killed by Muslim militants. This was followed by threats of more attacks on Christians by the Islamic State of Iraq, an Al-Qaeda front group. The group claimed Christians now face "the doors of destruction" in a statement published on militant web sites.

OTTAWA - A new opinion poll shows that Canadians have a deep ambivalence when it comes to legalizing euthanasia.

According to an Environics poll, while a clear majority of Canadians support euthanasia, an even larger number fear what might happen to vulnerable elderly people if it is legalized.

The poll, commissioned by LifeCanada, shows 59 per cent of Canadians support legal euthanasia but 63 per cent worry legalizing it would pressure elderly Canadians to accept it to reduce health care costs.

TORONTO - With a Nov. 3 Mass at St. Paul’s Basilica, Catholic Family Services of Toronto launched a program to heal the wounds of abusive marriages with equal doses of friendship and hope. The raw material will be supplied by women who have themselves survived abusive husbands.

Women Helping Women will start off modestly with seven survivors learning how to become mentors to women still trying to find their feet in the aftermath of their ordeals. The volunteer mentors won’t take the place of trained counsellors, psychologists or therapists. Their training through the month of December will teach them how to sip coffee and listen, how to be available to women who have been isolated and frightened for too long.