Features

Our schools are communities of faith

crstaff@catholicregister.org (Catholic Register Staff) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:00:00 -0400

Dear Readers,

{mosimage}Among Pope Benedict��Ƶapp many thought-provoking speeches during his spring visit to the United States was a particularly important one . Though it received some coverage, the Pope��Ƶapp insights into the role of Catholic schools were too often lost among the attention given to the most visual and spectacular aspects of his visit.

Catholic schools top public counterparts

mikes@catholicregister.org (Michael Swan, The Catholic Register) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:28:41 -0400

{mosimage}TORONTO - In separate research, two economists with ties to the have found Catholic schools are outperforming public schools in Ontario on standardized tests.

The economists believe competition between the two publicly funded systems may, in part, explain higher success rates for Grade 3 and 6 pupils in Catholic schools when compared with their public school counterparts.

African AIDS orphans to get a new school

crstaff@catholicregister.org (Catholic Register Staff) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:18:25 -0400

{mosimage}A Catholic high school in which every student has lost at least one parent to AIDS has turned the sod on a new permanent home on the edge of Africa’s second largest slum.

Education integral to church

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:00:00 -0400

{mosimage}Editor’s note: The following is the complete text of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech to American Catholic educators in Washington, DC, on April 17.

“How beautiful are the footsteps of those who bring good news” (Rom 10:15-17). With these words of Isaiah quoted by St. Paul, I warmly greet each of you — bearers of wisdom — and through you the staff, students and families of the many and varied institutions of learning that you represent. It is my great pleasure to meet you and to share with you some thoughts regarding the nature and identity of Catholic education today.

Catholics schools threatened by hostile secularism, bishop says

crstaff@catholicregister.org (Catholic Register Staff) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:40:31 -0400

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The threat to the existence of publicly funded Catholic schools in Ontario is a symptom of an even greater and growing hostility to religion in the public square, warns Bishop Paul-André Durocher.

“If we want to save our Catholic schools, what we have to save is the place of religion in Canadian society,” the bishop of said Sept. 28.

Virtues should trump values in character education

sheilad@catholicregister.org (Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:09:57 -0400

{sidebar id=2}TORONTO - Catholic school programs on character development should focus on virtues instead of values, says a new document by the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The August paper by the OCCB��Ƶapp Education Commission led by Alexandria-Cornwall Bishop Paul Andre Durocher, entitled Character Development and the Virtuous Life, said a focus on virtues “helps us re-acquire a valuable concept in our tradition, compels us to recognize God��Ƶapp role in the character development of our students and helps us focus on specific habits that foster and protect the freedoms to which we are called.”

School boards going green

sheilad@catholicregister.org (Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:58:18 -0400

{mosimage}TORONTO - Catholic school boards in Ontario and Alberta are going green.

At least 10 environmentally friendly schools are being planned within the next two years to accommodate new students, although concerns about declining enrolment are still on the horizon.

Voicing Catholic education concerns for 70 years

sheilad@catholicregister.org (Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:30:44 -0400

{mosimage}TORONTO - Parents need a provincial voice to speak up for Catholic education, says the president of the
And that, says Brian Evoy, is what the OAPCE has been doing on behalf of Catholic parents for the past seven decades. The organization celebrates its 70th anniversary next year.

Catholic education has value of a pearl

sheilad@catholicregister.org (Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:56:24 -0400

{mosimage}TORONTO - Catholic education is like a “pearl of great price” which must be treasured and protected, says Hamilton Auxiliary Bishop Gerard Bergie.

“If we believe that Catholic education is a pearl of great wisdom, we need to guard it,” Bergie said in a keynote address to a packed auditorium of more than 1,300 teachers Oct. 24 at the 13th annual When Faith Meets Pedagogy conference that ran Oct. 23 to 25. The conference at Toronto’s DoubleTree Hilton was organized by the Catholic Curriculum Co-operative, which includes 17 Ontario school boards, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association and the Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario.

Project offers poor students equal chance

sheilad@catholicregister.org (Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:53:31 -0400

{mosimage}TORONTO - When one of her Grade 1 students didn’t bring a lunch to school one day, Hamilton, Ont., principal Dorothy Spence says she started thinking about whether other students also went hungry.

Spence called the six-year-old’s mother to ask why he didn’t bring a lunch and the angry mother’s response was that she expected the child to pack his own lunch.