NEWS

The following clergy appointments have been announced for the Archdiocese of Toronto, effective June 30 - July 1, 2010.

WARSAW, Poland - When a Catholic priest who was murdered by communist agents is beatified in Warsaw June 6, it will confirm his place as one of the church’s most conspicuous modern martyrs.

Polish church leaders hope the beatification will also recall values for which Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko gave his life and revive interest in a remarkable story of Christian courage and witness.

MESA, Ariz.  - Thirty-five years after he first began trying to make a life in the United States, Manuel Gutierrez, a legal resident from Mexico, is taking his family out of Arizona.

Although Gutierrez first came to the United States illegally in 1975 and was soon deported, he returned several times, pursuing legal residency that finally became permanent in 2007. He now runs a successful business and all but his eldest child are U.S. citizens.

OTTAWA (CCN) — Cardinal Marc Ouellet has vowed not to be silenced on the “crime” of abortion and has answered his critics by demanding federal government funding to assist pregnant women.

In an interview on May 23 and at a press conference May 27, Ouellet expressed surprise at harsh political and media reaction to his recent  comments in which he stated that abortion is a moral crime even in cases of rape. He was vilified in the media and one popular La Presse columnist called him an ayatollah and extremist and wished the cardinal would die from a slow, painful illness.  

TORONTO - Raising money for ShareLife not only fulfills the call to be charitable but also helps build community, say members of parishes that were among the top donors to last year’s annual campaign.

All say they are aiming to exceed their totals from last year.

TORONTO - People are homeless because we’ve chosen to believe a lie, or perhaps chosen to believe more in the real estate market than the Gospel, says Dion Oxford.

The first lie that rules out affordable housing is “the real estate lie,” said Oxford, who runs the Salvation Army Gateway shelter on Jarvis Street in Toronto.

The Toronto obsession with real estate values and the idea that middle class families can make a killing selling their homes every four or five years is killing our sense of home, neighbourhood and community, said Oxford.

TORONTO - Allegations that a Mexican human rights organization either endorsed or helped efforts pushing for expanded access to legal abortion were never true, its director has told The Catholic Register.

Last March LifeSiteNews.com alleged that the Jesuit-founded Centro Pro Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez and four other human rights organizations that receive funding from the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace were signatories to a report calling for legal abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy throughout Mexico. Currently, first trimester abortions are only legal in Mexico City.

VATICAN CITY - Two days after a crowd of 150,000 wildly cheered Pope Benedict XVI in Portugal, an estimated 120,000 people converged on St. Peter’s Square to express support for the Pope in dealing with the clerical sexual abuse scandal.

The Italian National Consultation of Lay Groups, a Catholic organization, spearheaded the effort to bring Catholics to St. Peter’s Square on May 16 to join the Pope and show their support. A variety of Catholic organizations and movements, labour unions and political groups joined them, filling St. Peter’s Square and spilling onto the adjacent streets.

OTTAWA - A popular Quebec columnist said he hopes Cardinal Marc Ouellet will die after a long, painful illness because he called abortion a moral crime even in cases of rape.

“Why should we push a woman who has been the victim of a crime to commit one of her own,” Ouellet told a pro-life conference in Quebec City May 15, prompting a province-wide backlash.

TORONTO - Upon the reading of their names, with one small step forward symbolizing years of training and discernment, each of the five men ordained to the priesthood for the archdiocese of Toronto vowed their commitment to the priesthood.

“It's a glorious ceremony, but it all comes down to the giving of self,” Archbishop Thomas Collins, who welcomed the men into the priesthood on May 15  at the ordination ceremony at St. Michael's Cathedral.