EDMONTON – Betty Letendre recalls a time when Indigenous elders didn’t want to come into Edmonton, feeling tired of the discrimination and misconceptions that they faced on a daily basis. 

When Grade 10 students at Bishop James Mahoney High School in Saskatoon learned about motion in physics class last year, they weren’t in a classroom. Instead, they met with former Air Force pilots at an airport hangar.

In 1989 Ontario������Ƶapp Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter, “This Moment of Promise,” in the wake of legislation to fully fund the province������Ƶapp 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������Ƶapp from or where she������Ƶapp supposed to be.

REGINA – It may not rank with the likes of the great, centuries-old European cathedrals and churches but, like them, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police chapel in Regina shares a place in the history of its city.

In the dog days of August, at the height of vacation season, it is tempting to let a few things slide. But not too much. One hundred years ago, The Catholic Register did its summer duty by reminding parents of their own duty when it came to their children. From the July 18, 1918 issue, The Register offers advice that still may apply today.

Pope Pius X died on Aug. 20, 1914, just as the First World War was breaking out across Europe. Born in a small Italian village in 1835, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto rose through the Church ranks and was elected pope in 1903. During his 11-year reign, he was conservative when it came to Church doctrine, but was also known for reforming Church hierarchy and for his devotion to the Eucharist. He was canonized in 1954. Upon his death, Register editor Fr. A. E. Burke (right) penned the obituary in the newspaper, then known as The Catholic Register and Canadian Extension. In an excerpt from that story appearing Aug. 27, 1914, Burke reported on the Pope������Ƶapp final moments and recounts a meeting he once had with him:

The way artist Ken Woo sees the Mass, it������Ƶapp a “gateway to Heaven.”

Canon law prescribes that Mass be celebrated in a “sacred place” such as a church or a chapel consecrated by a bishop. That is why, for example, there are strict rules forbidding the celebration of wedding Masses at locations such as a beach or garden patio. 

Despite declining health, Pope John Paul II made good on his promise on July 23, 1984 by stepping off a plane in Toronto to attend World Youth Day celebrations. The Register covered every angle of the massive event, including the Pope������Ƶapp arrival at Pearson airport, as Christl Dabu reported in the paper������Ƶapp special World Youth Day 2002 edition: