News/Canada

OTTAWA - Though Canada has traditionally had a healthy relationship between Church and state, Catholics need to remain alert to protect religious freedom, says Vancouver Archbishop Michael Miller.

There is a secularist agenda that “basically wants to privatize religion and leave it restricted to the private sphere,” Miller said from Vancouver Nov. 10.

Pressures to compress religious freedom into private belief and private worship are not what is intended in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the universal human rights documents, he said.

EDMONTON - Sr. Annata Brockman, while on a retreat many years ago with other sisters, was asked to explain her motivating force in daily living.

Brockman responded with a statement by which she has lived her whole life. She even keeps that response typed on a slip of paper.

“The entire universe is God’s family and I am part of that family,” she said. “My parents emphasized the fact that every man, woman and child is my brother and sister, and I should treat them as I would the Lord.”

TORONTO - One MPP at a time, face-to-face, ISARC wants every one of Ontario’s 107 newly elected or re-elected legislators to answer a few questions.

The Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition is forming interfaith committees across the province, arming them with studies and statistics and sending them into MPP’s offices to get clear answers on poverty. They want to know about each MPP’s commitment to the 2009 Poverty Reduction Act, welfare rates, minimum wage, affordable housing and support for community agencies.

The riding level lobbying blitz will take the place of the usual fall meeting of religious leaders at Queen’s Park.

QUEBEC CITY - Historic churches in Quebec will receive almost $14 million from the provincial government to help with nearly $20 million in restoration and repair work.

Funding from the Ministry of Culture, Communications and the Status of Women will flow to 83 projects through Quebec’s council of religious heritage — a joint government and Church body.

Just under $13 million will go to structural repairs to roofs, windows, brickwork, etc. Another $665,560 will be spent on organs, works of art and furniture.

TORONTO - An overwhelming majority of Canadians prefer more palliative care to legalizing euthanasia, according to a new Environics poll.                                                                     

When presented with a choice of palliative care or legalized euthanasia, 71 per cent of respondents nationwide said they preferred investing in “more and better palliative and hospice care” over legalizing euthanasia (19 per cent), according to the poll commissioned by Life Canada. The other 10 per cent had no opinion or supported neither.

The study says that a majority of Canadians “want to kill the pain, not the patient,” said Monica Roddis, president of Life Canada.

TORONTO - Since the translation of the Roman Missal has changed, the new texts of the people’s parts don’t fit the old music, said Bill Targett, director of the archdiocese of Toronto’s Office of Formation for Discipleship.

“So new music had to be written for those parts of the Mass that are normally sung,” he said.

Upon the recommendation of the National Council for Liturgical Music, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned composers Fr. Geoffrey Angeles, John Dawson and M. Michel Guimont to prepare new musical settings for the “ordinary” parts of the Mass.

TORONTO - Just as more churches across Canada have geared up to sponsor more refugees, Citizenship and Immigration Canada is planning to cap the number of new applications it will accept in the private sponsorship program.

Private Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAH) do not yet know what their limits will be as of Jan. 1. The government claims it needs to stop the annual flood of new applications to clear a backlog of 23,200 refugees with sponsors waiting in Canada.

“In some missions, refugees sponsored through the SAH stream must wait for almost five years before coming to Canada,” a CIC spokesperson wrote in an e-mail to The Catholic Register. “Limiting new applications will allow us to draw down the backlog and improve wait times.”

OTTAWA - Quebec could be headed for a fiscal collapse like that threatening Greece if it doesn’t re-examine its social programs, says a new study by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

“There are real reasons to be concerned about the sustainability of the rather ambitious Quebec welfare state,” say the authors of A Quebec Family Portrait released Nov. 7.

“Without substantial fiscal restructuring, the province may not be able to afford to maintain the extensive social benefits it currently offers families.”

OTTAWA - The head of Priests for Life Canada has weighed in on a heated political debate about whether Liberal MP Justin Trudeau is a good or bad Catholic.

“If someone wishes to be a Catholic they cannot pick and choose over the fundamental social justice teachings of the Church,” said Fr. Tom Lynch, who has headed the national pro-life organization of priests and lay members since 2008. “You cannot pretend that life issues and human sexuality teachings are not central to the social justice teachings of the Church.

“I cannot pretend to be a good Catholic and be a racist,” said Lynch. “You cannot pretend to be a good Catholic and be pro-abortion.”

OTTAWA - Changes in the no longer mandatory long-form census have prompted the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to examine new ways to fund their Ottawa-based secretariat.

“The bishops are becoming more and more aware that the CCCB has important financial challenges,” said CCCB general secretary Msgr. Pat Powers in an e-mail. “These include revenues and expenses, as well as how these have been reported in the past.”

Powers noted the CCCB “used to rely on Statistics Canada to provide data on the Catholic population of each diocese.” The census will no longer be asking for religious affiliation. The CCCB and the Catholic Civil Rights League were among many groups that opposed the changes last year.