{mosimage}Adding Canadian-made generic drugs to the mix of affordable HIV and AIDS treatments could be good news for Africa, but it’s probably not enough to make a serious dent in the disease which kills more than two million people each year, says a Canadian Jesuit who works on AIDS in Africa.

“If Canadian sources are going to provide second-line generics at an affordable price — something few or no others are doing — it would be a reason for hope in Africa,” Jesuit Father Michael Czerny, executive director of the African Jesuit AIDS Network , told The Catholic Register in an e-mail, adding, however, that “Universal access to antiretrovirals (ARVs) is still a distant dream.”

{mosimage}At a retreat centre just east of Toronto, a promise has been made on behalf of Canadian Catholics to the 10.5 million refugees around the world. At the first ever National Catholic Conference on Refugee Sponsorship, Jan. 13-15, 80 representatives of dioceses from Prince George, B.C. to Cornerbrook, Nfld., promised that the world’s refugees would no longer be just more misery on the evening news.

From now on, refugees will matter to Catholic parishes and religious orders, and Catholic communities will sponsor refugees in greater numbers.

Immigration and Muliculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has already taken Catholic refugee workers at their word, increasing the target for Iraqi refugees sponsored out of Damascus, Syria from 1,300 to 2,500 this year.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Beginning about 5 p.m. Jan. 13 it was correct to address Fr. Vincent Nguyen as “your grace,” the customary address for bishops in the Catholic Church. But it is not incorrect to call the 43-year-old auxiliary bishop of Toronto “anh.”

In Vietnamese “anh” means “elder brother.” In any Vietnamese family the relationship of love, responsibility and authority between younger and elder siblings is never forgotten. In a family of faith, we are bound by the same obligations, said Nguyen.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Bishop Vincent Nguyen has slipped on the ring, donned his mitre, taken hold of his staff and become a shepherd in the church he loves with all his heart.

Tears flowed in the pews occupied by Nguyen's family — eight siblings, six of whom flew in from their Vietnamese homeland — and friends at St. Michael's Cathedral Jan. 13 as Nguyen was ordained Canada's first non-white bishop.

{mosimage}Stretched thinner and thinner across Canada’s North, the church is losing touch with First Nations communities as First Nations communities lose touch with hope. Another wave of teen suicides in the James Bay region has left church leaders wondering how they can offer hope to young aboriginals when they have so little contact with them.

“It used to be that the churches had a real big involvement in the communities,” said Bishop Vincent Cadieux, bishop of the Moosonee and Hearst dioceses. “That’s less and less now.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - A good education and a good job are no barrier to believing in a personal God, according to a University of Toronto sociologist.

But the American-born professor also warns that a close association between conservative, reactionary politics and religion is driving better educated Americans away from church, what Scott Schieman calls “the Sarah Palin effect.”

TORONTO - A Newman Centre evening aimed at revitalizing Catholic social justice work in downtown Toronto got people talking mainly about who wasn’t there.

The April 19 gathering of about 60 people for Mass, potluck dinner and discussion was supposed to draw young people, but couldn’t compete with exams, the start of summer jobs, moving dates and all the other commitments students face in the spring.

When Jesuit Father Jack Costello looked out at the grey-haired crowd in the Newman Centre chapel he said he would have to adjust his homily to fit an older crowd than he had expected.

{mosimage}MARKHAM, Ont. - When Louise Kent sang to about 300 St. Monica Catholic Elementary School pupils that “the power of youth is the power of truth,” the kids were paying attention.

“We should help them (the poor),” said Grade 7 student Katherine Paulino at the end of Kent’s two-hour preview of We Day. “They say it all the time, but we should really help them.”

“You’re helping to start a group in Grade 7, a whole group helping the world. But it could be everyone,” said student Renée Lam.

“When I grow up, I want to help the poor,” said Ivana Anderson.

AJAX, Ont. - There was nothing special about Jenny Lawlor’s prom night. It’s Lawlor who is special.

Lawlor has Down syndrome and is one of about 25 special needs students at Archbishop Denis O’Connor High School in Ajax. Every year a few of the special needs kids attend the prom along with the graduating students.

The special needs students are no less a part of 900-strong student body than any one else, said principal Mary Curran. That’s simple and obvious.