NEWS

{mosimage}TORONTO - You can’t buy miracles, but a $1-million gift to the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv is helping a miracle carry on in tough economic times.

“UCU is a set of miracles and it’s an important work and presence for the church,” Jesuit Father David Nazar wrote to The Catholic Register from Lviv shortly after the university announced a gift of $1 million from Toronto resident Dr. Maria Fischer-Slysh.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The archdiocese of Toronto and ShareLife are leading an investigation into the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace’s policies based on a web site’s report that it is funding “pro-abortion groups.”

In a March 17 statement, Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins said, “ShareLife was established in 1976 as a direct result of our commitment to uphold the sanctity of life at all stages... Be assured I will not allow any money raised in the archdiocese of Toronto to be used for pro-abortion activities or organizations.”

{mosimage}YAOUNDE, Cameroon - Arriving in Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said the church’s message of hope and reconciliation was sorely needed by a continent suffering disproportionately from poverty, conflict and disease.

At a welcoming ceremony March 17 in Yaounde, the Pope said he was making his first visit to Africa to respond to the many men and women who “long to hear a word of hope and comfort.”

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Government officials in Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium publicly criticized Pope Benedict XVI after newspapers reported that he said the use of condoms could increase the spread of AIDS.

On his March 17 flight to Cameroon, Pope Benedict had told reporters, "One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem."

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has granted leave to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada to intervene in a case that challenges whether Canada’s Assisted Human Reproduction Act will apply to all provinces.

The bishops want to ensure the act will protect human dignity surrounding procreation and related genetic research for the sake of the common good.

The act prohibits or limits such activities as human cloning, surrogacy, sex selection, the sale of human eggs or sperm, animal-human hybrids and in vitro fertilization while promoting health, safety and human dignity.

{mosimage}YAOUNDE, Cameroon - Pope Benedict XVI offered a sneak preview of the Synod of Bishops for Africa, identifying several issues he believes will be crucial.

Above all, he said, the church in Africa is called to be a healing community on a continent torn by "savage conflicts" and other tragedies.

{mosimage}YAOUNDE, Cameroon (CNS) -- Celebrating Mass with more than 40,000 Catholics in Cameroon, Pope Benedict XVI urged African families to reject the "tyranny of materialism" and other social changes that risk eroding the continent's traditional values.

"Brothers and sisters in Cameroon and throughout Africa, you who have received from God so many human virtues, take care of your souls! Do not let yourselves be captivated by selfish illusions and false ideals!" the pope said in a homily March 19 at the Amadou Ahidjo soccer stadium in Yaounde.

{mosimage}TORONTO - They decorated his favourite jeep with white flowers, wore buttons emblazoned with his military photo and filled the church with Lebanese and Canadian flags to welcome home the latest fallen Canadian soldier, 22-year-old Marc Diab.

It wasn’t the homecoming that parishioners at Toronto’s Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church had hoped for.

Friends and family were counting down the days when they would see Diab return to Canada. But on March 8 he was killed by a roadside bomb north of Kandahar, Afghanistan, a month before his expected return. Diab was the 112th soldier killed since Canada’s mission in Afghanistan began in 2002.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The journey to possible sainthood for Sr. Carmelina Tarantino has begun.

A panel of theologians and historians, under the auspices of  the archdiocese of Toronto, has officially started an examination of the life of the Toronto nun to ascertain her candidacy for sainthood. The inquiry was to be opened at a Mass celebrated at St. Paschal Baylon Church March 16 by Archbishop Thomas Collins.

The archdiocese received approval to proceed — the nihil obstat — from the Vatican last September. An  examination of life is the first of four steps in the process to sainthood.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said his trip to Africa would be a missionary journey highlighting the continent’s challenges, its enormous potential and its “profound religious soul.”

The Pope, speaking two days before his departure for Cameroon and Angola, said he was not bringing a political or social program to Africa, but simply the Gospel message of love that is “capable of transforming the world.”