NEWS

{mosimage}TORONTO - Momentum is building in a nationwide campaign to push Prime Minister Stephen Harper into reversing a decision to give an Order of Canada to abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler.

Since the July 1 announcement by Governor General Michaëlle Jean that Morgentaler would receive Canada's highest distinction for contributions to the nation, Catholics and other pro-life advocates have been uniform in their denunciations.

TORONTO - Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins is leading a battle to prevent abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler from receiving an Order of Canada.

In a July 1 statement, the archbishop called on all Catholics in Toronto — and “all people of good will” — to write to the Governor General, to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and to members of Parliament to ask that the decision be revoked.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - An Alberta Human Rights Commission panel has ordered a former Christian youth pastor to apologize in the pages of the Red Deer Advocate for a strongly worded 2002 letter to the editor he wrote opposing the homosexual activist agenda.

In a May 30 “decision on remedy,” commission panelist Lori Andreachuk also ordered Stephen Boissoin, 41, to request the newspaper publish her judgment against him. She has also imposed a lifetime ban on ever speaking or writing “disparagingly” about homosexuals again: in the media, on the Internet, in public speaking engagements or in e-mails. She has also ordered him to take down any “disparaging” remarks from his web site.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The founding executive director of Project Ploughshares — one of Canada’s leading Christian voices for peace — wants Canadian troops to stay in Afghanistan, for now.

Following 10 days interviewing Afghanis and Canadians in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, Project Ploughshares senior researcher Ernie Regehr concludes Canadian troops are not creating the peace and stability necessary for economic and social development in Kandahar province. However, the soldiers are still necessary to prevent an all-out civil war.

{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.