News/Canada

TORONTO - Canada’s Polish community is rejoicing, but not particularly surprised, that Pope John Paul II will be beatified in May, said Fr. Chester Chmurzynski, pastor at St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church, a Polish parish in Oakville, Ont.

“It’s no surprise,” said Chmurzynski, who was a student of the late pope during his seminary years in Krakow, Poland. “Right after his death, people were already saying ‘Santo subito.’ (sainthood now).

“He was a good teacher and a good example. For students, he was very tough. But he was also very friendly and always smiling. He was a good man.”

On Jan. 14, Pope Benedict XVI approved a miracle attributed to Pope John Paul II’s intercession — the cure of a French nun from Parkinson’s disease — the last step needed for his beatification set for May 1, Divine Mercy Sunday.

On that day, Pope John Paul II will be declared “blessed” and granted restricted liturgical honour. Another miracle is needed for canonization, whereby the Church would declare him a saint and worthy of universal veneration.

Pope Benedict sped up the beatification process in 2005 by abolishing the normal five-year waiting period for the introduction of his sainthood cause. Three separate Vatican panels approved the miracle, including medical and theological experts, before Benedict XVI signed the official decree.

OTTAWA - The Catholic Church in Canada has agreed to begin a formal theological dialogue with Evangelicals. 

“It’s a new thing in Canada,” said Margaret O’Gara, a theology professor at Toronto’s University of St. Michael’s College who has been involved in Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox dialogue for the past 35 years. She will be among the Catholic participants.

“We all have the expectation that this will be a personally enriching experience and that, hopefully, we will contribute to the strength of the Church in Canada,” said David Freeman, who is strategic interface vice president for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada.

Freeman will be the Evangelical co-chair of the dialogue, with Regina Archbishop Daniel Bohan as the Catholic co-chair.

The first set of meetings will take place March 24-25 in Toronto.

OTTAWA - Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins has invited Anglican groups interested in joining the Catholic Church through the formation of a Canadian Ordinariate to attend a conference in Mississauga March 24-26.

“To help move our dialogue and planning forward, I would like to extend an invitation to all those interested in Anglicanorum coetibus to join me for a conference dedicated to this topic,” Collins said in an open letter posted Jan. 18 on the Toronto archdiocese’s web site.

“I look forward to meeting with clergy and laity from across the country this March to engage in prayer, fellowship and dialogue as we move forward with this important initiative.”

Selected by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Collins is the episcopal delegate for Canada charged with liaising with Anglican groups interested in an ordinariate, the congregation and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Collins has invited Fr. Christopher Phillips, who founded the first Anglican Use parish in the United States in 1983 under Pope John Paul II’s Pastoral Provision, to attend the conference.

TORONTO - For most interfaith dialogues vast theological differences and hundreds of years of mutual suspicion and prejudice are quite enough to deal with. The National Liaison Committee of Muslims and Christians wants more.

The official dialogue between Christians and Muslims in Canada decided to take on poverty, climate change, the Millennium Development Goals, faith formation of the next generation and politics at its annual dinner on the campus of the University of Toronto Jan. 11.

Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins' apostolic visit to the Irish archdiocese of Cashel and Emly started off with a reality check on the harm done by priests who abuse their position of trust for sex.

"Even one priest gone wrong causes immense harm, and throughout the world priests have done unspeakable evil," Collins told a penitential service at Thurles Cathedral in County Tipperary on Jan. 16.

Collins' visit is in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal that came to light in the Irish Church. It was mandated by Pope Benedict XVI last March.

TORONTO - Exorcisms have always piqued the Hollywood imagination and provided a steady source of material for filmmakers in the horror genre. And with a new movie set for release Jan. 28, plus a reality-TV series on exorcists, Hollywood is once again entering the battleground of good versus evil.

The Rite, a horror film featuring Anthony Hopkins, is based on a book by journalist Matt Baglio about the accounts of an American exorcist. Meanwhile, the Discovery Channel is working on a reality show called The Exorcist Files.

Fr. John Horgan, a scholar on exorcisms and pastor at Vancouver’s Sts. Peter and Paul parish, was a consultant to the 2005 movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a movie loosely based on an actual case in Germany.

He cautions that Hollywood versions of exorcism usually provide a “liberal” interpretation of the actual rite. Scenes of “being chained and tied up has nothing to do with the Catholic rite of exorcism,” he said.

TORONTO

Mining and banking helped end 2010 on a positive note for investors who care about the environment, labour and community standards and transparent corporate governance. But over-all, ethical investors lost ground relative to conventional stock indices.

The Jantzi Social Index grew 11.95 per cent in 2010. That trailed the 13.84-per-cent growth in the S&P/TSX 60 and 17.61 per cent in the S&P/TSX Composite.

CATHOLIC REGISTER STAFF

The right of gay couples to be married free from discrimination trumps the freedom of religion and conscience rights of Saskatchewan’s marriage commissioners, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has ruled.

A unanimous decision released by the court Jan. 10 said any scheme that would allow marriage commissioners to refuse service to gay couples “would perpetuate disadvantage and involve stereotypes about the worthiness of same-sex unions.”

OTTAWA - A new Quebec policy that prohibits religious instruction, prayer, singing or ritual in state-funded daycares is imposing the state’s ideological approach to religion on religious education, warns a Catholic parents’ group.

Catholic-run daycares will no longer be allowed to have “specific Catholic teachings, which in itself is a great deprivation to the children,” said Jean Morse-Chevrier, chair of the Association of the Catholic Parents of Quebec (APCQ).

Children who believe in Jesus love to say prayers or sing songs to Jesus, she said. “They won’t be allowed to do that. They can’t say grace together.”

“Children spend a lot of time in daycare, but they can’t sing little Christmas songs. At Easter they can’t talk about Jesus rising from the dead, nothing, even if the parents want that,” she said.

After more than 30 years of official dialogue and 60 years of nurturing a genuine bond, Christians and Jews in Canada may be looking at a new relationship as the organization which has represented the Jewish side in the dialogue is either phased out of existence or significantly reorganized.

The Canadian Jewish Congress, the 91-year-old organization that represents the interests of most Canadian Jews, could cease to exist as early as June. That doesn’t mean Catholics won’t have a Jewish partner in the dialogue next year, but it may mean a more limited focus on Israel and related political issues, Catholic and Jewish dialogue partners told The Catholic Register.

Dr. Victor Goldbloom, who has participated in official Christian-Jewish dialogue in Canada since the first body was established in 1977 — and unofficially since he became a friend of Cardinal Paul-Emile Leger in Montreal in the 1950s — said there’s no indication a new Jewish organization would seek to replace Jewish representatives in Christian-Jewish dialogue.

Though Goldbloom fears a more narrow and partisan organization may replace the CJC, he doesn’t believe a more intense focus on lobbying and advocacy will change interfaith relationships. Goldbloom praised the Catholic side in the dialogue as “rock solid” despite the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.