News/Canada

OTTAWA - English-speaking Catholics helped ensure a Conservative majority in the May 2 federal election, but the historic surge in Quebec by the NDP signals a preference of state over church in French Canada.

The NDP won a record-breaking 58 seats in Quebec, leaving the Bloc Quebecois with just four MPs, well below official-party status in the new Parliament. This triumph by the NDP “sends a signal that Quebeckers still strongly believe in the state” and put their focus on government rather than “the grassroots organizations of civil society,” said McGill University historian John Zucchi.

The Conservatives swept to a majority with 167 seats. The NDP will form the official opposition with 102 seats, compared to 34 Liberals, four BQ and one Green Party seat.  

The anti-church trend in Quebec sets it apart from much of the rest of Canada. An Angus Reid poll released April 22 indicated 59 per cent of English-speaking Catholics who attend church weekly intended to vote Conservative. Half of other Catholics also said they would vote Conservative. Those preferences seemed to stand up on election day and reflected a trend identified in the last two elections in which the Liberals saw erosion of two main pillars of support: Catholic and ethnic voters.  

TORONTO - Once a Liberal bastion thanks to immigrants, ethnic voters in Toronto have given Conservatives the majority they sought.

"The Conservative ethnic ground game paid off in the end," said Jonathan Luk, the graduating president of the University of Toronto Chinese Catholic Community.

Chinese voters in both the 416 and 905 regions responded to values the Conservative Party championed, Luk said. The party took 30 of 44 Greater Toronto Area seats, a key component in gaining a majority government after Stephen Harper presided over two consecutive minority governments.

"When we talk about basic issues — the safety of our society, being tough on crime, respect for tradition and respect for hard work — these are values that Chinese people value," Luk said. "I also see Catholic voters are no different when it comes to those things."

For Tamils, who found themselves featured in an early Conservative attack ad, the community is hoping the new NDP official opposition and the first-ever Tamil Member of Parliament can hold the Conservatives to account for its immigration policies, said Jessica Devi Chandrashekar.

"Those who came out and voted were people who have bared the brunt of the recession and have been unable to reunite with their families because of the Conservative immigration policies," said Chandrashekar. "In Scarborough-Rouge River, a riding comprised mostly of the ethnic vote, (voters) made history in electing Rathika Sitsaiebasan for the NDP. Rathika is the first Sri Lankan Tamil MP elected outside of Sri Lanka. This has enormous significance for Tamil Canadians."

Chandrashekar is one of a new generation of voters, some of whom responded in this election in ways never seen before. Vote mobs organized on Twitter and Facebook swept university campuses, demanding young people seize the power of the ballot.

"I am 27 years old and born in Canada. This was my first time voting," said Chandrashekar. "I am looking forward to becoming more involved in the political process in Canada and the continued changes that the election in 2015 will bring."

The peace vote in Toronto was not overjoyed with the Conservative majority.

"A Conservative majority would be a bad thing for the cause of peace," wrote Deacon Steve Barringer of Pax Christi Toronto in an e-mail as results came in on election night. "They have a poor record of listening to interest groups of any kind."

Pax Christi plans to ramp up its protests in response to Conservative military and foreign policy.

"We will be looking at more aggressive programs, up to and including demonstrations and even civil disobedience against what we believe may be immoral policies," Barringer said.

Barringer puts his hope in a strong opposition from the New Democrats.

"We believe that Mr. Layton will listen," he said.

Catholic eco-theologian and University of Toronto religious studies professor Stephen Bede Sharper is also putting his hope in the NDP opposition, bolstered by the first-ever Green Party seat in Parliament.

"With the NDP's emergence, we now have a solid shot at a party that constitutes a real opposition to the Harper government, with the issues of social justice, workers' rights and the widening gap between rich and poor constituting central, rather than ancillary, political concerns," Sharper wrote in an e-mail to The Catholic Register.

TORONTO - Ontario’s bishops and school trustees are encouraging Catholic high schools to enhance existing anti-bullying policies by establishing support groups for students being bullied due to sexual orientation.

Under the direction of the bishops and the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, a committee will be formed to draft a framework for how such groups would operate within the teachings of the Church. The committee, to  include a bishop, students, parents, trustees, clergy and other educators, will work with the Institute for Catholic Education to have a policy prepared by September.

In a memorandum addressed to Catholic educators, the bishops and trustees acknowledged that recently there has been “much discussion” about this issue. That public discussion, which included news reports about Catholic school boards opposing so-called gay-straight alliance clubs, led to a decision to enhance the broad anti-bullying protocols that have been in place for almost a decade. The expanded framework to deal with bullying due to sexual orientation will be available to any Ontario Catholic board that wishes to implement it.

Nancy Kirby, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, emphasized that the proposed groups are not gay-straight alliances (GSA), which are prominent across North America. GSAs deal with lifestyle issues. The enhanced Catholic framework, which builds on existing anti-bullying protocols, will deal exclusively with the issue of bullying and complement the existing teaching that “bullying is wrong under any circumstances, at any age.”

“After speaking to our students, the supports that we do have in place, some students who are of same-sex orientation feel they are not adequate for the support they require,” Kirby said.

“Compassion, care and service to the most vulnerable in our communities are vital and important tenets of our Catholic faith,” said the April 15 memo prepared by the bishops and trustees. “We are not aware of an increase in harassment of this type, but any type of bullying or harassment in Catholic schools will not be tolerated.”

A committee, to be chaired by an Ontario bishop, will convene this month to develop a province-wide policy for Catholic schools. Kirby said topics on dating, marriage and relationships could be discussed in the support groups but “everything would be based on our faith, with that perspective in mind.”

The new framework is “requesting (all) boards to implement this when it comes forward,” Kirby said, but it will not be mandatory for schools.

Although the committee will be convened to examine one specific type of bullying, its work will be based on existing policies that strive to ensure all students are educated in a safe and caring environment that does not tolerate any type of bullying or harassment.  To that end, in addition to addressing bullying due to sexual orientation, the committee will “collect and share the best resources and practices” from across the province to combat all forms of bullying so as to ensure that Catholic schools “are places of welcome according to the Gospel.”

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s promise to fight religious persecution abroad has won applause from religious freedom advocates, but some would like to see more attention paid to religious freedom on the home front.

In Mississauga April 23, Harper told a diverse crowd that included many who came to Canada after fleeing religious persecution that he would establish an Office of Religious Freedom to ensure the defence of persecuted religious minorities remained a priority of foreign policy.

“While we are thankful in a country that spares us such tests, we must not let our comfort be an excuse to shirk our commitment to the cause of freedom,” he said.

Harper praised the memory of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Roman Catholic Pakistani minister of religious minorities who was assassinated March 2 for his defence of Christians unfairly targeted by that country’s blasphemy law. 

“This is very good for the religious minorities of Pakistan and around the world,” said Peter Bhatti, the founder of International Christian Voice and older brother of the slain Pakistani minister. “This office will highlight and monitor the situation of what is happening to religious minorities.” 

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff also supports taking on religious persecution on foreign shores.

BELLEVILLE, Ont. - At a time when many Canadian parishes are facing shrinking resources, St. Michael the Archangel in Belleville has opened a new parish centre that is quickly becoming a busy pastoral and social hub for a lively and engaged congregation.

“Belleville has a reputation as a strong Roman Catholic community although we are only about 20 per cent of the city’s total population,” said Fr. Richard Whalen, pastor of St. Michael’s.

Certainly the opening of a new parish centre speaks to the vibrant spiritual life of Belleville. This southeastern Ontario city already had busy church halls at the parishes of Queen of the Most Holy Rosary and St. Joseph and, when available, schools also offered space to assist St. Michael’s. But demand kept growing in the downtown parish, the oldest in Belleville.

“St. Michael’s is in one of the more established neighbourhoods of the city. It has strong Irish Catholic and French Canadian roots,” said Whalen of the parish founded in 1829. “That included many rural residents who have now moved into town and retained that strong tradition.

TORONTO - Proposed changes to Ontario’s adoption laws will make more children in care eligible for adoption, said Dina MacPhail of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto (CCAS).

“I think it can only benefit the children who are crown wards and in our care,” said MacPhail, speaking of the Building Families and Supporting Youth to be Successful Act 2011.

The changes to the Child and Family Services Act, brought forth in mid-April by Children and Youth Services Minister Laurel Broten and still to be voted upon, include removing access orders that prevent 75 per cent of children and youth in children’s aid care from being eligible for adoption.

“You might have a child who is in a group home or a foster home and his adoption is blocked because he sees his birth parents once every year,” said MacPhail, a child protection worker in the adoption department at CCAS. “We cannot do an adoption for a child that has an access order.”

For many of us, our yearly Lenten journey has been shaped by its beginning and end. We started with the temptations of Jesus and then the vision of his transfiguration. We end by entering with him into Jerusalem, where we share with him in his suffering, death and resurrection. But what has this really meant for us, and what happened to us on the way?

Sometimes we forget what the journey is really about, and fail to see what should be noticed along the route. In case you may have missed it, the three intervening Sundays of Lent told us a great deal about the Lenten journey and our entry into the Easter celebration. The readings of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sundays of Lent invited the catechumens, as candidates for Baptism, to think over and even “test” their motives about why they want to be initiated into the community of faith. The same readings also invited the rest of the Christian community to examine its own faith journey. Three major points came forward in this year’s readings: What do we most yearn and thirst for in life (the Gospel reading of the woman at the well)?  How can we see what life is really about – not only to have sight, but insight and vision (the healing of the blind man at the pool of Siloe)? How can we embrace life and stand with courage, strength and inspiration among those truly alive (the Gospel reading of the resurrection of Lazarus)?

Often we simply plod along the road of faith – moving as if in some shadowy, superficial existence, not really aware. We frequently stumble on, half-hearted, hazy eyed, hesitatingly. Not fully alive, and not even aware of the deepest yearnings in our hearts, or in the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

Perhaps this is why we are easily distracted along the way. There is so much talk and chatter in contemporary life. Our daily lives are filled up with the glaring sounds of radio and television, the fleeting words of text messages and websites, and the frequently disturbing and cruel remarks from blogs and social media.
The Paschal Mystery is the road on which we are called to discover our deepest yearnings and most authentic needs. It gives us the light that enables us to see Light. It opens the way to life and to the truth about life. It is Life itself.

The 50 days of Easter are an invitation for us to rediscover the depths of our own lives. Through the Resurrection of Christ, we see the creative and transforming strength of God’s love for us and our world. This journey in faith is the journey to eternal life. To borrow from the words of Saint Paul, God our Father who raised Christ from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies also through his Spirit that is dwelling in us (Romans, 8.11).

Christ is risen! Yes, Christ is risen indeed!



+ Pierre Morissette
Bishop of Saint-Jérôme
President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

A pro-life message on church property can’t be construed as a violation of Ontario’s Human Rights Code, a human rights’ tribunal has ruled.

“Freedom of religion must not be interpreted in a way that voids the positive dimension of the freedom (the right to hold beliefs, practice and disseminate them) of any meaning,” wrote Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario adjudicator Michelle Flaherty in an April 5 decision in favour of a Knights of Columbus council in l’Original, Ont.

The francophone Chevaliers de Colomb attached to the parish of Saint-Jean Baptise, an hour-and-a-half southeast of Ottawa, found itself on the defensive over a monument erected on the church’s front lawn. An inscription on the monument read (in French), “Let us pray that all life rests in the hands of God from conception until death.”

OTTAWA - When Bishop Raymond Lahey goes to trial on child pornography charges May 4, the anticipated news coverage will reopen wounds caused by the worldwide clerical sexual abuse, regardless of the trial’s outcome.

But observers say the pain provides an opportunity for needed renewal.

The former bishop of Antigonish was charged with possession and distribution of child pornography in October 2009. Lahey’s arrest followed the seizure of his laptop and other electronic equipment at Ottawa’s airport by a Canadian Border Service agent.

“The first thing is that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty and we should not jump to conclusions,” said Fr. Frank Morrisey, a canon lawyer who has advised the Canadian Church on the clerical abuse crisis.

OTTAWA - The Ottawa archdiocese confirmed it had launched an audit of the finances of Blessed Sacrament parish “some weeks” before two front-page stories appeared in the Ottawa Citizen April 16-17 raising questions about the lifestyle of its popular pastor.

The Citizen reported that Fr. Joe Le Clair had cash advances from the Lac-Leamy Casino across the Ottawa River in Quebec of more than $137,000 in 2009-2010, and incurred a credit card debt of more than $490,000 in that time period. It reported Le Clair had repaid Visa $424,000. 

“How he could afford to repay that much is not known, other than the fact that as a Church pastor, Le Clair earns a net salary of $24,400,” journalists Meghan Hurley and Andrew Duffy wrote.

Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., in a statement issued April 16, said stories about Le Clair’s “lifestyle” were brought to the attention of diocesan authorities in late 2010 and early 2011. He instructed his Vicar General, Msgr. Kevin Beach, to “clarify the issues raised by the stories.”