NEWS

{mosimage}TORONTO — If ecology isn’t a religious issue that will be news to Toronto poet laureate Fr. Giorgio Di Cicco, who will open a day-long forum sponsored by Faith and the Common Good’s Greening Sacred Spaces program April 12.

{mosimage}TORONTO — Catholics who wish to express their love of the Earth liturgically will have a chance March 29 when St. Basil’s Church in Toronto holds an “Earth Hour” Vespers.

{mosimage}A politician, a philosopher, a political scientist and a “scholar-at-risk” will gather to talk about who is afraid of what when it comes to religion and human rights at a two-hour public chat on the campus of the University of Toronto April 2.

{mosimage}TORONTO - How do you come up with a cure for Alzheimer’s if the people who have the disease can’t give informed consent to take experimental drugs that might improve their condition? Fr. Noel Simard, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and director of Saint Paul University’s Centre for Ethics in Ottawa, doesn’t think anyone is going to propose an easy answer to that question.

{mosimage}TORONTO - With martyred Archbishop Paulos Rahho’s portrait on display before the altar, 1,000 Chaldean Catholics gathered at Toronto’s Good Shepherd Chaldean parish March 14 to pray the Stations of the Cross in ancient Syriac, a language directly descended from Jesus’ own Aramaic tongue.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI asked that dialogue and tolerance replace the tensions and violence that recently erupted in Tibet.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said he hoped the church's Holy Week and Easter rituals would help deepen all Catholics' conversion to Christ and their solidarity with those who suffer.

{mosimage}ROME  - Chiara Lubich, the 88-year-old founder and perpetually smiling symbol of the Focolare movement, died early March 14 in her room near the Focolare headquarters in Rocca di Papa, south of Rome.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Jews and Catholics sat down together in Toronto to raise a glass to Tony Gagliano, St. Joseph Press executive chairman and chief executive officer March 6.

{mosimage}Editor's note: Below is a series of short profiles on the men who will be graduating this year from St. Augustine's Seminary in Toronto. They will be ordained to the priesthood for different dioceses in Canada.