NEWS

{mosimage}TORONTO - Recalling the story of how Jesus’ family was forced into exile in Egypt (Mat. 2:13-23) refugees and the volunteers who support them sang “Jesus was a refugee” at an ecumenical prayer service on the eve of World Refugee Day in Trinity-St. Paul United Church in downtown Toronto.

Refugees from every continent were represented at the June 19 event. Actors recruited from FCJ Hamilton House — a transitional home for women refugees run by the Sisters of the Faithful Companions of Jesus — portrayed life in a refugee camp and related their experience to the Bible in God Sees the Refugee, a play by Sonya VanderVeen Feddema.

{mosimage}TORONTO - A non-profit group of Toronto-based religious sisters is looking to fill more than a dozen spots for its long-awaited and controversial affordable housing project.

There are 17 spots left for the project being run by 40 Toronto-based women religious congregations that is expected to be ready for occupancy next spring.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Toronto’s Catholics have helped send more than $1 million to aid victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and earthquakes in China’s Sichuan province.

{mosimage}MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - July 12 and 13 will mark the first Mass celebrations for St. Josephine Bakhita parish, the newest parish in the archdiocese of Toronto, at the western limits of Mississauga.

Founding pastor Fr. Mark Achilles Villanueva said he is excited to see the Christian community develop under the name of the Sudanese saint.

{mosimage}PERTH, Australia - The Australian bishops have undertaken a nationwide newspaper advertising blitz, inviting lapsed Catholics to return and asking for forgiveness for any hurt the church caused individuals in the past.

In the ad, run June 14-15, the bishops said they want to welcome people who have drifted away from the church “for whatever reason or people who have never really been a part of it.”

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY - The Pope may wish to see all parishes have a Tridentine Latin Mass among their weekend liturgies, but at the moment Cardinal Marc Ouellet is happy with one in the archdiocese of Quebec.

“I think the intention of the Holy Father is to allow the practice of the extraordinary rite where there is a need and a request,” the cardinal said at a June 18 press conference at the 49th International Eucharistic Congress here.

OTTAWA - The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) has launched a postcard campaign to fight a proposed bill that would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

EPC has distributed 10,000 cards that can be filled out, signed and mailed free of charge to members of Parliament to stop Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde’s private member’s Bill C-562 that she introduced June 12, a week before the House of Commons adjourned for a summer break.

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is getting advice from Catholics.

In advance of the July 7-9 G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, Harper has received letters from the bishops of the G8 nations and from the Congregation of Notre Dame sisters.

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY - It seemed fitting that the week-long International Eucharistic Congress ended on a battle field. Some 55,000 people celebrated “God's gift for the life of the world” in a Mass where, almost 250 years ago, British and French soldiers shot each other down.

Instead of a memorial to death, the high plateau known as the Plains of Abraham became a celebration of eternal life.

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY  - By satellite video, Pope Benedict XVI told more than 55,000 pilgrims here June 22 about the wonders of the Eucharist.  

“The Eucharist is our most beautiful treasure,” the Pope said via two giant screens that loomed over the historic Plains of Abraham at the closing Mass of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress.