Features/Features

TORONTO - Grade 9 students at Pope John Paul II Catholic Secondary School probably won’t learn anything about Bali in their geography class this week. The Indonesian island might get a passing mention from their science teacher, but it’s not on the exam. But in religion class, Bali will definitely be a focus.

The state of our environment has captured the attention of Canadian investors.

A Harris/Decima poll of more than 2,000 Canadians for Investors Group found 56 per cent thought environmental considerations are an important part of socially responsible investment decisions. Environment out-polled such traditional ethical investment factors as alcohol and tobacco at 43 per cent, and weapons at 53 per cent. Only substandard human rights practices at 70 per cent and child labour named by 79 per cent were more likely to determine ethical investment decisions.

{mosimage}TORONTO - An Ontario Catholic school board has pulled The Golden Compass and other His Dark Materials novels by outspoken atheist Philip Pullman from school library shelves in response to a U.S.-inspired campaign against both the books and the movie version of The Golden Compass, which opens across Canada Dec. 7.

TORONTO - A new DVD series aims to teach students in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board about virtues.

{mosimage}MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - A bruising battle over funding with the provincial government behind it, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board is now embarking on a thorough re-examination of its Catholic mission for the first time in 15 years.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - A transformation has occurred in Catholic schools over the last 50 years, and the Vatican took its measure at a recent press conference.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Toronto Catholic District School Board has tentatively approved year-round schooling at two elementary and two secondary schools for the 2009-2010 school year.

{mosimage}MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - “Today we tell the world that Catholic education is indispensible,” said Ralph Borrelli in his welcoming address to more than 7,800 Dufferin-Peel District Catholic School Board teachers and staff on Nov. 7 in the first board-wide faith formation day in 20 years.

{mosimage}NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. - Niagara Catholic School Board, celebrating a “rich history,” acknowledged its roots and symbolically steered a course for years ahead with a gala anniversary dinner Oct. 24 in Niagara Falls.

{mosimage}Sex sells. That seems obvious enough to anyone who owns a television. But cultural critic Paul Rutherford has looked behind this most obvious truth about advertising to figure out how and why we have been sold so much stuff using so much sex.