NEWS

{mosimage}TORONTO - Fr. Thomas Lynch, a well-known pro-life advocate in Canada, has been appointed national director for Priests for Life Canada, the organization announced May 8.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It’s not a job, it’s a mission. The seven Toronto men ordained to the priesthood May 10 were sent out on their respective missions even before Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins laid hands on them to make them eternally priests in service of the sacrament of the church.

{mosimage}TORONTO-Sudan’s wounded healer is going home. Rather than trying to arrest him, the government in Khartoum is relying on Bishop Macram Max Gassis to build hospitals and schools, dig wells and inspire his people to look more to the future than to a past filled with mass rape, child soldiers, bombings and ethnic cleansing. “We are all traumatized. I am traumatized from the war,” said Gassis.

{mosimage}CHENGDU, China - Chinese priests had to work around disrupted telephone systems and damaged roads as they tried to assess the damage from the May 12 earthquake centred under Sichuan province.

Responding to appeals for aid and prayers on Catholic web sites, Catholics across China have begun donating money and clothes to help survivors, the priests told the Asian church news agency UCA News.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The complaints of peasants and indigenous people in Central America have reached the Toronto Stock Exchange and pushed Goldcorp Inc. off a socially responsible stock index that helps determine at least $33 million in mutual fund investment.

OTTAWA - When Fr. Bryan Bayda got the phone call from the apostolic nuncio (papal ambassador to Canada) telling him that Pope Benedict XVI had appointed him bishop of the Saskatoon Ukrainian Catholic eparchy, he experienced shock and disbelief.

{mosimage}NEW YORK - Salt+Light TV producer Kris Dmytrenko thought covering the Pope’s visit to the United States April 15-20 would be like “being a pilgrim with access.”

“It was very different than what I imagined,” Dmytrenko, 28, said. “I thought I’d have free access to roam around, a ‘backstage pass.’ ”

{mosimage}TORONTO - After 35 years the men ordained to the permanent diaconate for the archdiocese of Toronto are still discovering new ways to be deacons — new ways to serve God and the church.

Deacon Rob Kinghorn does it by walking some of the most dangerous streets in Toronto on Thursday nights between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. and praying with the people he meets – transvestite prostitutes, crack dealers, the lost and the lonely.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Catholic Church formed a part of his life for about 30 years, but despite loving his community and parish priest, Elmont Cumberbatch, 68, said it wasn’t until this past Easter that he really felt at home.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ordered an evangelical Christian charity to rescind its morality code and require employees to undergo anti-discrimination training.