TORONTO - Sr. Alice Walsh was excited to accept the position of pastoral minister of Our Lady of Fatima parish in Piccadilly, a remote town in Newfoundland and Labrador. But a month into her new post, the priest who arrived to celebrate Mass asked her if she realized that she was the one in charge. No, she said, I’m not. Yes, you are, he replied, telling her to read the bishop’s letter. And he was right.

Intercordia Canada is changing the world one heart at a time.

In the era in which Catholics saw their first Polish pope, the Church in France saw its first Jewish cardinal.         

TORONTO - A smoky stage and the distinct scent of incense set the scene for the Vatican in 1978. It’s a place where “everything is confidential and nothing is secret,” according to the sharp-witted play The Last Confession.

Todd Burpo never expected his four-year-old son to test his faith. But that’s exactly what happened to the Nebraska pastor.

TORONTO - A month before Bernadine Marhong was due to give birth, doctors recommended that she abort her unborn baby. The baby, whose name would be Denise, was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, a condition where fluid builds in the brain and causes brain damage. The doctors thought Denise would have no cognitive function and would die within 48 hours of birth.

The solution to local poverty could be online. London, Ont.’s King’s University College has joined the the London Poverty Research Centre in opening a virtual hub to address and ultimately end poverty in the city.

TORONTO - The parishioners of St. Wilfrid’s Church have found what has been lost and replaced what has been stolen to honour their parish priest, Fr. Massey Lombardi.

Brampton, Ont. - Polish Catholics flocked to St. Eugene de Mazenod parish in the early morning to celebrate the canonization of St. John Paul II, a son of Poland and beloved pope of the universal Church.
St. Eugene’s houses a first-class relic of St. John Paul II, three drops of his blood located below a statue of the pontiff.

On April 27, by 3 a.m. parishioners had already begun to arrive to pray. They listened to broadcasts from local priests who were present at the canonization in Rome.

Fr. Peter Nowak celebrated mass at 4 a.m. in both English and Polish. He opened mass by giving thanks to both popes — St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II — being canonized on this Divine Mercy Sunday.

“We are, for the most part, people of the head,” he said. “Yet both of these saints spoke to the heart, spoke from the heart.”

Nowak called St. John XXIII someone who simply felt the call of God in his heart. This “caretaker pope,” he said, stretched out his arms to welcome the 20th century and tear down barriers between the faithful and clergy. He wanted the basic language of the Church to be the language of love, said Nowak.

He went on to say that St. John XXIII was the beginning and St. John Paul II was the natural progression, carrying out what the former pope started.

By 5 a.m., parishioners lined up to venerate the relic of St. John Paul II before walking out into the sunrise on this historic day.
More to come from The Catholic Register.

TORONTO - The spirit of Catholic apologist and author G.K. Chesterton will inspire debate once again in the Archdiocese of Toronto.