It isn’t just polls that show more than half of Ontarians wish there were no publicly funded Catholic schools. 

​​​​

OTTAWA – Trinity Western University’s decision to drop its mandatory community covenant has left religious freedom advocates wondering how it will impact the future of their cause. 

In 1989 Ontario’s Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter, “This Moment of Promise,” in the wake of legislation to fully fund the province’s Catholic school system. The document set the groundwork for Catholic education in a new era and was followed in 1993 by a pastoral letter titled “Fulfilling the Promise.” Now, 31 years after the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutional legitimacy of full funding of Catholic education, the bishops have issued a third pastoral letter.

The recess bell rings and a child dives for cover underneath her desk. A teacher is at the front of the classroom but a student is wandering from desk to desk starting conversations of his own. The lunch bell rings and several pupils have arrived without lunch, or uniforms, or gym clothes. A six-year-old turns up in school mid-morning, but doesn’t have enough English to tell the school secretary who she is, where she’s from or where she’s supposed to be.

EDMONTON – Mike Paonessa visits the Edmonton Remand Centre every week to pray the rosary with inmates, and drives around the inner-city Boyle Street neighbourhood to provide coffee and food to the needy.

After three years as president of the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, David Mulroney steps down June 30. The long-time diplomat and former ambassador to China reflects on his time at St. Michael’s and the direction of Catholic education.

OTTAWA – Western aid dollars are hurting, not helping, the women of Africa, says pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha.

There is a special type of panic that is reserved for watching your piano being maneuvered up three flights of stairs. 

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Dust and mud brick houses everywhere – as far as the eye can see. The houses are indistinguishable in colour from the ground on which they stand. Trees are few and far between.

WASHINGTON – Jesuit Worldwide Learning: Education at the Margins offers a mixture of online and in-person educational opportunities in service of people who have been displaced because of political turmoil, violence and other crises throughout the world.

After spending 40 years as an employee of Toronto’s Catholic school board, Angela Gauthier is retiring, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be heading to school when classes resume in September.