NEWS

{mosimage}NEW DELHI - Catholic education institutions across India were to close Aug. 29 to protest the continuing violence against Christians that has left at least 10 people dead in India’s eastern Orissa state.

The church also will observe Sept. 7 as a day of prayer and fasting for Christians in Orissa, said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India at a press conference in New Delhi Aug. 26. The Asian church news agency UCA News reported on the press conference.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Forty years after the release of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Canada’s bishops are working on a new document on marriage and family that will try to bring together the Catholic Church’s teaching in this area.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - An apparent attempt by the Conservative government to keep abortion out of the next federal election has shocked and disappointed pro-life Canadians.

Amid rumours of an October federal election, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson distanced the government from Conservative MP Ken Epp’s Unborn Victims of Crime Bill.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Rogers Centre (still SkyDome to many in Toronto) is not heaven, but on Nov. 1 thousands will gather there to rehearse for the heaven that lives in the hopes and dreams of Christians.

Though it’s a project of the Evangelical television company Crossroads Ministries, producers of 100 Huntley Street, Heaven’s Rehearsal promises to be an inclusive, ecumenical gathering of Christians — Evangelical, Pentecostal, Protestant and Catholic — representing every nation on Earth. Last year the first ever Heaven’s Rehearsal was at the Air Canada Centre with 16,000 attending, representing 127 nations. With 48,000 tickets on sale at $15 each, organizers of this year’s event hope for representation from more than 200 nations.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Canada’s bishops have launched an awareness campaign in advance of the annual collection to support the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The collection, taken during the weekend of Sept. 27-28, will go towards each diocese’s per capita calculation the bishops approve in the bishops’ annual budget. The calculation is based on the number of Catholics living in a diocese.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - REAL Women of Canada was conceived in 1981 during the debate over Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Gwendolyn Landolt and her friends grew disturbed when the only voices representing women were “just a bunch of feminists” with government funding, she said.

TORONTO - ShareLife, the charitable fund-raising arm of the archdiocese of Toronto, reached record donations for its 2008 parish and corporate campaigns.
{mosimage}Arthur Peters, ShareLife’s executive director, said this comes as good news after a rough start to the campaign, noting bad weather kept many potential donors at home for the first ShareLife Sunday collection at parishes throughout the archdiocese in March.

{mosimage}WASHINGTON - Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, announced Aug. 23 as Barack Obama's choice as his running mate for the White House, puts on the Democratic ticket a Catholic who supports legal abortion but on other issues has been an ally for the church 's public policy interests.

Biden, 65, has come in for his share of conflicts with some in the church over his legislative support for keeping abortion legal. The National Right to Life Committee gives him a rating of 0 for his positions on select issues, including federal abortion funding and stem cell research as well as some relating to lobbying by groups like the National Right to Life Committee.

{mosimage}TORONTO- The first weekly Filipino-language Mass in Toronto begins at the end of this month in the new home of the city’s Filipino Catholic Mission.

{mosimage}TORONTO - In one of the last pictures ever taken of Christina Calayca before she went missing last summer, she stands beside her mother and is all smiles.

It was taken at a 50th birthday party organized by Calayca for her mother.