{mosimage}TORONTO - St. Basil's Church in downtown Toronto hosted the ordination of two young men to the priesthood for the Basilian order on April 19.

It was a significant day for the Basilians, as Fr. Glenn McDonald and Fr. Andrew Leung, both 29 and from Alberta, were two of only three men ordained as priests within the Basilian order in North America since 2001. The third was ordained earlier this year in Houston, Texas.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Vocations in Toronto might seem healthier from the perspective of other Canadian dioceses. Where some areas of the country generate zero priestly vocations on a yearly basis, the archdiocese of Toronto’s mean average is four or five. In fact, Toronto will  be ordaining seven priests for the archdiocese in May.

{mosimage}MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - July 12 and 13 will mark the first Mass celebrations for St. Josephine Bakhita parish, the newest parish in the archdiocese of Toronto, at the western limits of Mississauga.

Founding pastor Fr. Mark Achilles Villanueva said he is excited to see the Christian community develop under the name of the Sudanese saint.

{mosimage}TORONTO - In his first visit to Canada, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, president of the pontifical commission for Vatican City State, thanked Canadians for their financial support of Vatican City art and artifacts.

He joined the Canadian chapter of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums and Canadian church officials in Toronto for a reception at the home of members Peter and Lydia Sharpe June 10.

{mosimage}TORONTO - After the communist regime in Poland instituted martial law in 1981, Fr. Antoni Mendrela collaborated with other church and government officials in Canada to help out beleaguered Poles in two ways — by raising money to fund the Catholic University of Lublin, and getting Canadian parishes to sponsor emigrating Poles.

For this, he was awarded Poland’s Officer’s Cross for Service. The award was presented to Mendrela in the name of Polish President Lech Kaczynskiat at the Catholic University of Lublin in January.

{mosimage}TORONTO - When Toronto resident Charbel El-chaar, 40, saw there was no online discussion for the cause of the late Pope John Paul II's sainthood, he quickly fixed that by starting a Facebook group called “John Paul II the Great is a saint. 1 Million person will say he is.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - It’s a neighbourhood known to outsiders for its gang and gun violence, prostitution and poverty. Yet the ethnically diverse community surrounding the infamous Jane and Finch intersection in northwest Toronto has a ray of hope in the form of St. Augustine of Canterbury parish.

After 10 years of developing outreach programs for youth, adults, seniors and family — and not just limited to Catholics — the church, which sits a few blocks north of Finch Ave, is preparing to build a family centre to provide even more.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Fr. Daniel Callahan is best known as the “Iron Friar” — running, swimming and cycling in the Ford Ironman USA triathlon, while evangelizing and raising money for a good cause.

For him, triathlons provide a great analogy for life itself: in a race “you’re going in for a medal,” he said, but in life “you’re going in for eternal life.”

TORONTO - ShareLife, the charitable fund-raising arm of the archdiocese of Toronto, reached record donations for its 2008 parish and corporate campaigns.
{mosimage}Arthur Peters, ShareLife’s executive director, said this comes as good news after a rough start to the campaign, noting bad weather kept many potential donors at home for the first ShareLife Sunday collection at parishes throughout the archdiocese in March.

{mosimage}TORONTO - St. Norbert's Roman Catholic Church has acted as both a spiritual and physical stronghold in the weeks following Toronto's north-end propane storage plant explosion.