NEWS

{mosimage}WINDSOR, Ont. - Despite numerous predictions of its demise, religion is very much a part of the world, and perhaps more alive and vital now than it has ever been, speakers told delegates at a conference at Assumption University here May 16-18.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The archdiocese of Toronto has approved a new cultural heritage program, one of the first of its kind in North America.

{mosimage}MARKHAM, Ont. - Cardinal Joseph Zen isn’t asking for much from Beijing.

“Our hope is normalization of the situation. That’s our purpose,” the 75-year-old archbishop of Hong Kong told The Catholic Register May 21 while visiting St. Agnes Kouying Church in Markham, north of Toronto. Zen has been Rome’s point man in an effort to establish diplomatic relations between Beijing and the Vatican.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Since he arrived in 1989, Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais has done a deft job of maintaining unity in the bilingual diocese covering Canada’s capital where national concerns like same-sex marriage become a unique challenge.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The next 150 years probably won’t be like the last 150, but Providence Healthcare wants some things to remain the same.

“We would love to be able to provide compassionate, quality care for the next 150 years,” said Providence Health Care spokeswoman Rosemary MacGilchrist.

TORONTO - At the 26th annual Toronto Christian Service in Memory of the Holocaust, survivor Ada Wynston will light the seventh and last candle.

JERUSALEM - Exploding violence in the Gaza Strip has left the people weeping and trapped in a war zone, said a local parish priest.

{mosimage}One of Canada’s most outspoken Catholic bishops is going to the nation’s capital, where legislators, judges, policy makers and media will be counted among his flock.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., 63, to replace Archbishop Marcel Gervais as head of the archdiocese of Ottawa May 14. Prendergast will take possession of Ottawa’s cathedral in late June or early July. Gervais submitted his resignation when he turned 75 last September, as required by canon law.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Concern for human rights and the growing use of abortion for sex selection dominated the annual March for Life May 10.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Sometimes religious people are the biggest reason why their opinions get short shrift in public debates on controversial issues, says Preston Manning, an Evangelical Christian and former leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.