Feature Series

The gift of the incarnate Jesus

mikes@catholicregister.org (Michael Swan, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:54:41 -0500

{mosimage}The church gives us four Sundays to get ready for the enfleshment of God. Four weeks is just enough to get organized for the office parties, gift exchanges, good cheer with good friends, family gatherings, etc. But it is impossible to be ready for God among us, God here and now, God in history — God as a concrete, physical reality. There is no strategy, no program, no scheme that will make such a thing easily acceptable or even understandable. Faith is a gift.

The nature of the gift is a clear sense of Christ and profound communion with reality.

Market meltdown less harsh on social investments

mikes@catholicregister.org (Michael Swan, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:59:30 -0500

{mosimage}TORONTO - The September apocalypse on Wall Street and Bay Street is no surprise to religiously and socially motivated investors, who are now contemplating their place in the post-meltdown economy.

“Socially responsible investing is going to be very well positioned coming out of this crisis,” said Jantzi Social Index founder Michael Jantzi.

Preparing for the coming of Christ

carolyng@catholicregister.org (Carolyn Girard, The Catholic Register) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:37:07 -0500

{mosimage}TORONTO - With Christmas approaching, it��Ƶapp important not to lose sight of the preparation that should come beforehand — and this doesn’t just mean picking out the right presents and decorations.

Fr. Vito Marziliano, pastor at All Saints parish in Toronto��Ƶapp west end, has tried to make the Advent season really one of spiritual preparation for his parishioners by offering workshops to help them prepare their spiritual “inn” for Christ.

Mary, the model of motherhood

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:51:28 -0500

{mosimage}Christmas centres on the Nativity, the birth of Christ who came into the world to save us from our sins. There would be no birth, of course, if there were no mother. As the poet Coventry Pattmore has remarked, Mary is “Our only Saviour from an abstract Christ.”

If there is a secondary message that Christmas brings, yet one that is still intimately tied to the first, it is the motherhood of Mary which, in turn, serves as the model for all motherhood. This message takes on greater significance in an age in which motherhood, in many instances, is routinely eviscerated into a “choice.”

Some biotech advances playing God, Vatican says

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:31:31 -0500

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - A new Vatican document warned that certain recent developments in stem-cell research, gene therapy and embryonic experimentation violate moral principles and reflect an attempt by man to “take the place of his Creator.”

The latest advances raise serious questions of moral complicity for researchers and other biotech professionals, who have a duty to refuse to use biological material obtained by unethical means, the document said.

Loretto Sisters meet needs of their community for 400 years

carolyng@catholicregister.org (Carolyn Girard, The Catholic Register) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:16:32 -0500

{mosimage}TORONTO - , commonly known as the Loretto Sisters, continues to serve the needy in a variety of ministries as the worldwide order celebrates its 400th anniversary this year.

While the order��Ƶapp early years during the Protestant Reformation were rough at best, its introduction to Canada nearly 250 years later also met with some dramatic obstacles. Five sisters, sent to Toronto from Ireland in 1847 to teach Irish immigrants, landed in the midst of a deadly typhus outbreak which took the life of Toronto��Ƶapp Bishop Michael Power just weeks after their arrival. Within the year, a few of the sisters had passed away themselves, unprepared for the harsh Canadian winter. However, the survivors were later joined by more sisters from Ireland, and today the order here still counts as many as 100 religious sisters, mostly based in Toronto and Guelph, but also present in Saskatchewan, who strive to emulate the charisms of their foundress, Mary Ward.

2008 in review

crstaff@catholicregister.org (Catholic Register Staff) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:50:59 -0500

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Native parish honours past

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:33:56 -0500

{mosimage}WINNIPEG - It is a cold Sunday morning at a small Catholic church in a working-class neighbourhood of Winnipeg.

The Eucharistic Prayer has just ended, and the priest is holding the body and blood of Christ above the altar. When the drum beat begins, it pounds like a human heart. A woman sings in Ojibway.

Reaching out to urban aboriginals

carolyng@catholicregister.org (Carolyn Girard, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:24:36 -0500

{mosimage}OTTAWA - Like incense, the white smoke of smouldering sweetgrass, cedar, sage and tobacco rises from a seashell as a small group of church-goers pray in the four cardinal directions, giving thanks to the Creator. As , celebrates Mass, he does so in front of a wall papered with the view of a forest.

This scene — where aboriginal Catholics in Ottawa welcomed Prendergast to celebrate Mass at the office — was certainly not the first time Catholicism and native spirituality have intertwined. But it is a growing reality in cities like Ottawa and Toronto where the population of First Nations, Metis and Inuit people is growing.

Recession affects hospitals' ethical decisions

carolyng@catholicregister.org (Carolyn Girard, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:25:39 -0500

{mosimage}TORONTO - The world��Ƶapp economic crisis hasn’t caught Catholic hospitals in Toronto unawares.

Although all Ontario hospitals are more than likely to encounter financial struggles this year, health care rationing and budget adjustments are all too familiar to Catholic institutions, said Hazel Markwell, executive director of the in Toronto.