NEWS

{mosimage}CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - Heaven is not an abstract idea or an imaginary place, but heaven is God, Pope Benedict XVI said.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The saga of Catholic Insight's trouble with the Canadian Human Rights Commission is not over. After having a complaint against the small magazine dismissed in early July, it has now learned that it faces a judicial appeal of that decision.

{mosimage}BRESSANONE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI appealed for an immediate end to military operations in Georgia and its breakaway province of South Ossetia.

{mosimage}TORONTO-Growing up in Japan, Sachiko Yasue never particularly noticed Hiroshima Day. Now living in Toronto, the carnage of Aug. 6, 1945 suddenly seemed very real as she surveyed a photo and art exhibit mounted in Toronto City Hall.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY-The Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference began a process for addressing issues that divide Anglicans and pose challenges for dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church, said a Vatican official.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Administrative backlogs, a marriage of convenience with the United States and compromised due process in Canada's refugee system have churches taking Canada's government to the Supreme Court and refugee advocates pushing politicians to live up to a law Parliament passed in 2001 and then re-passed this summer.

The Canadian Council of Churches, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council for Refugees will challenge Canada's Safe Third Country agreement with the United States at the Supreme Court of Canada.

{mosimage}PICKERING, Ont. - As he accepted the blessing of Jesuits and their friends at the end of a St. Ignatius Day Mass in Pickering, Ont. July 31, Fr. Jim Webb took up a "heroic, humble task" in imitation of the man who founded the Jesuits 474 years ago.

Webb officially became the provincial superior for the Jesuits of English Canada, taking over from Fr. Jean-Marc Laporte.

{mosimage}LONDON, Ont. - It will take years, even decades, to comprehend fully the impact of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died of heart failure Aug. 2 at the age of 89 in his home near Moscow.

Born in 1918, the same year as his father’s death, Solzhenitsyn was brought up by his mother and graduated in mathematics and physics from Rostov University in 1941, then went directly into the army. After four years of front-line service in a Russian artillery unit, he was arrested in February 1945 because of disrespectful remarks made about Joseph Stalin and discovered by government censors in correspondence with a friend.

{mosimage}TORONTO - When Toronto resident Charbel El-chaar, 40, saw there was no online discussion for the cause of the late Pope John Paul II's sainthood, he quickly fixed that by starting a Facebook group called “John Paul II the Great is a saint. 1 Million person will say he is.”

{mosimage}PICKERING, Ont. - The Jesuit priest who rescued the Manresa Jesuit Renewal Centre in Pickering from decay and decline, twice, is retiring.