NEWS

TORONTO - Jose Martin is a labourer at a construction site in Toronto. The job does not pay much so his family — his disabled wife and three children — supplements his income with social welfare provisions. However, welfare does not cater for everything the Martins need.

TORONTO - Parishioners at St. Aidan's Anglican Church would like to bring the needy in from out of the cold, if only they could convince area neighbours of their cause.

TORONTO - Almost $3 million worth of fake receipts for fictional donations to 39 Toronto-area Catholic parishes has landed a Markham, Ont., woman in court.

The federal government can't say when Canadians will get to know whether the prison uniforms it buys are sewn by prison labourers in Myanmar, or whether Canadian army boots are manufactured using child labour.

TORONTO - The outgoing president of the North American Academy of Liturgy and a leading Catholic liturgist has told The Catholic Register the most recent translation of the Roman Missal is "a step backwards" for ecumenical relations.

TORONTO - After nearly 30 years in operation the airport chapel at Lester B. Pearson International Airport's Terminal 2 will close Jan. 28. This comes just one day before the Greater Toronto Airport Authority closes Terminal 2 altogether.

The chapel was the first religious presence at the airport when it opened in 1979.

OXFORD, England - Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus of Warsaw resigned just two days after formally taking office, after admitting that he acted as an informer for Poland's former communist secret police and that his co-operation harmed the church.

TORONTO - Normally, Lillian Gomez of Toronto would not attend Mass on a Thursday but she did on Dec. 28. What compelled her to attend Mass that cold Thursday was the theme of the service.

TORONTO - Canadians are the third most generous people in the industrialized world, but only half as generous as Americans.

A spate of recent statistical reports on Canadian philanthropy draws a picture of a nation that opens its wallet, but not too wide.