Features/Features

Editor's note: The following is the text of the sixth annual Henry Somerville Lecture in Christianity and Communications. Titled "Bridging the Gap: Overcoming our Differences," it was presented by Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg on Nov. 30 at the Newman Centre in Toronto and on Dec. 1 at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo.

I am happy to take this opportunity tonight to address you not as a professional theologian, but as the pastor of a diocesan church. I would like to share with you the vision that guides me in my responsibilities as pastor of a particular church and as a member of the College of Bishops, which, together with the Pope, guides the universal church.

TORONTO - Continuity is the name of the game at the Toronto Catholic District School Board, where all 12 incumbent trustees were re-elected. Now those same 12 trustees have opted to continue under the leadership of Ward 8 trustee Oliver Carroll.

Is marriage becoming a threat to religion? As more Canadians marry outside of their faith, religious leaders are starting to worry about how the children of interfaith marriages will ever gain a religious identity.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - When Canada was caught up in the midst of its gut-wrenching debate over legalizing same-sex marriage last year, Fr. Norm Roberts wondered whether there was a positive way to get out the church's message about the value of marriage and the family.

TORONTO - "Contraception why not?" is the question that Dr. Janet Smith has been posing to audiences for 20 years, a talk that has led to the sale of more than one million taped copies of her talk sold worldwide.

TORONTO - Ontario's Catholic community is embarking on another all-embracing discussion about the "distinctiveness, value and the future of Catholic education." The plan for the province-wide consultation was announced Nov. 25 at a symposium organized by the Institute for Catholic Education (ICE).

TORONTO - If Ontario's Catholic schools are struggling to stay afloat in turbulent waters, it would seem that half the time Catholics are stirring up the waves themselves. At a two-day conference dealing with the subject Nov. 24-25, leaders of the provincial separate school system struggled with how to overcome differences and face external challenges united.

TORONTO - Failure to reduce Canada's 17-per-cent child poverty rate over the past five years is creating a deficit that can't be erased by paying down government debt, say the authors of Campaign 2000's 2006 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty.

TORONTO - With the elections out of the way, Ontario's new Catholic trustees will be shown the ropes of their job Jan. 12-13 in Toronto.

TORONTO - Following St. Francis into Advent starts with a concrete, physical, tangible, searingly real sense of the incarnation, according to Toronto-area Franciscans who will spend the four weeks leading up to Christmas doing things most Catholics do — preparing a Christmas crèche, attending Advent liturgies, singing carols and getting ready for the Feast of the Nativity.