HAMILTON – A Catholic school board in Ontario has suspended a policy prohibiting students from raising money for groups that support activities contrary to Catholic doctrine.

OTTAWA – The controversy over the Canada Summer Jobs pro-abortion attestation is moving to the courts.

MEXICO CITY – The bishops' conference of Nicaragua has accepted an invitation to mediate talks aimed at calming the Central American country, which has been roiled by protests over proposed changes to the national social security system and discontent with an increasingly authoritarian government.

Here we go again. Development and Peace, an organization created by Canada’s bishops, is back on the hot seat over allegations it failed to properly screen some overseas partners. At least 11 dioceses have withheld funds from the organization after suggestions that several of its partner agencies are offside on issues that include abortion, contraception and gender theory. 

DUBLIN – Pro-life activists have launched a campaign urging citizens to vote no in a forthcoming referendum to remove the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution. That amendment provides legal protection for unborn children "with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother."

Twelve Canadian bishops, including Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, are withholding contributions to the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace following preliminary research that indicates some of the Catholic agency’s partners may be connected to abortion or artificial contraception.

EDMONTON – Alberta’s NDP government has introduced a bill to create 50-metre bubble zones around abortion clinics with the hope of keeping pro-life protesters away from patients and staff.

YORK, England – A London council has become the first local authority in the UK to approve a buffer zone around an abortion clinic.

There’s no question abortion is a divisive issue. But both pro-life and pro-choice sides can at least agree on one thing — having a civil debate is important.

Pope Francis has once again expanded the Catholic definition of being pro-life. 

OTTAWA – Challenges to Ontario’s abortion bubble zone law will continue despite the recent death of the first person charged for violating the new law.

UNITED NATIONS – Aborting a child with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome is a gross violation of human rights and anti-discriminatory commitments, and can be considered genocide, according to speakers at a March 20 panel at the United Nations.

Ottawa – The man whose street protests prompted Ontario’s abortion bubble zone legislation has died while awaiting trial after becoming the first person charged for violating the new law.

OTTAWA – Faith groups have stepped up their efforts to rally their members and urge MPs to support a Conservative motion that calls for removal of the attestation requirement for the Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) program.

It’s a sneaky way to make a government look progressive, a religion look regressive, and to divide a congregation.