NEWS

{mosimage}TORONTO - Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet said he hopes pilgrims to the 49th International Eucharistic Congress will be prepared “to receive and to give.”

The cardinal told Catholic News Service his message to pilgrims arriving in Quebec City for the June 15-22 event was: “Open your hearts. Open your arms. We welcome you wholeheartedly.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - Your children can attend a camp this summer, or they can have an experience — the Teopoli Summer Experience.

{mosimage}TORONTO - After the communist regime in Poland instituted martial law in 1981, Fr. Antoni Mendrela collaborated with other church and government officials in Canada to help out beleaguered Poles in two ways — by raising money to fund the Catholic University of Lublin, and getting Canadian parishes to sponsor emigrating Poles.

For this, he was awarded Poland’s Officer’s Cross for Service. The award was presented to Mendrela in the name of Polish President Lech Kaczynskiat at the Catholic University of Lublin in January.

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY - Though religious congregations are passing through a difficult time in Canada, “our vocation as religious is more important than ever before,” Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe told leaders of Canadian religious congregations here.

The internationally renowned speaker and author spoke to 400 leaders of religious congregations from across Canada at the June 5-9 general assembly of the Canadian Religious Conference (CRC). The assembly also chose a new executive, with Dominican Father Yvon Pomerleau as president, Ursuline Sister Anne Lewans as vice-president and Marianhill Missionary Father Alain Rodrigue as secretary-treasurer.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who last year sparked controversy with his remarks about religion in Quebec society, said Catholics “need some more militance” to reaffirm “the values of our Catholic tradition in Quebec.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - Cardinal John Foley, grand master of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, has urged a group of North American members of one of the Catholic Church’s oldest chivalric orders to be generous in their help to the inhabitants of the Holy Land.

{mosimage}TORONTO - In Sierra Leone and Kenya, women die from child birth or related complications on a weekly basis. But Dr. Robert Walley, president of Matercare International, hopes to change that by raising $5.5 million to equip both countries with the specialized services women need.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - The Vatican’s doctrinal congregation has decreed formally that a woman who attempts to be ordained a Catholic priest and the person attempting to ordain her are automatically excommunicated.

{mosimage}TORONTO - As Jesus was asked by the Father to live a life of service, so too have the nine men ordained to the permanent diaconate May 31 been asked to dedicate their lives to serving the Lord.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Jesuit Father Frederico Lombardi urged Catholic media to highlight the positive and beautiful in Christian life, but at the same time not to duck the responsibility to recognize and denounce evil.