News/Canada

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY - Cardinal Marc Ouellet urged a concerted effort by governments and the United Nations to solve a world food crisis that has seen the prices of rice and corn double and triple in recent weeks.

During his homily June 16 while celebrating the Eucharist at the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec, Ouellet noted that poor people are unable to buy these necessities at the exorbitant prices they are now going for.

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY  - When people pause and question the purpose of their lives, they "yearn for a spiritual answer," said Slovakian Cardinal Jozef Tomko at the opening Mass of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress.

The 49th International Eucharistic Congress underway in Quebec City is a monumental feat of organization. About 11,000 pilgrims have registered for the event. The main venue is the Expo Cité grounds, a vast conglomeration of buildings and grounds that are geared for big events like the annual agricultural exhibition. It is vast enough to accommodate the huge traffic in buses, taxis and crowds on foot.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - With an apology from the Government of Canada to former students of Indian residential schools, the nation has opened itself up to forging a new relationship with its First Nations people, said Archbishop Gerard Pettipas.

“This is saying we want a new relationship with our First Nations people,” said the Grouard-McLennan archbishop, who represented the 50 Catholic entities — dioceses and religious orders — involved in the 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, a $2.2 billion package that has dispensed “common experience payments” averaging $25,000 to every student. The Catholic entities are expected to contribute $80 million of the $120 million the churches agreed to pay, both  in cash and in counselling, rehabilitation and reconciliation services.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet said he hopes pilgrims to the 49th International Eucharistic Congress will be prepared “to receive and to give.”

The cardinal told Catholic News Service his message to pilgrims arriving in Quebec City for the June 15-22 event was: “Open your hearts. Open your arms. We welcome you wholeheartedly.”

{mosimage}QUEBEC CITY - Though religious congregations are passing through a difficult time in Canada, “our vocation as religious is more important than ever before,” Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe told leaders of Canadian religious congregations here.

The internationally renowned speaker and author spoke to 400 leaders of religious congregations from across Canada at the June 5-9 general assembly of the Canadian Religious Conference (CRC). The assembly also chose a new executive, with Dominican Father Yvon Pomerleau as president, Ursuline Sister Anne Lewans as vice-president and Marianhill Missionary Father Alain Rodrigue as secretary-treasurer.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who last year sparked controversy with his remarks about religion in Quebec society, said Catholics “need some more militance” to reaffirm “the values of our Catholic tradition in Quebec.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - Cardinal John Foley, grand master of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, has urged a group of North American members of one of the Catholic Church’s oldest chivalric orders to be generous in their help to the inhabitants of the Holy Land.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Ethicist Margaret Somerville challenged Catholic media to become “word warriors” and ethics agents to give people “the words they need to protect human dignity.”

{mosimage}WATERLOO, Ont.  - Multiculturalism, far from representing a static state, has become an ever-evolving social pattern in Canada.

That was the view expressed in a recent talk at St. Jerome’s University by Gregory Baum, professor emeritus at McGill University’s faculty of religious studies.