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TORONTO - For Christian Jewish Dialogue of Toronto, talk is precious and deserves to be honoured. With those values front and centre, the 50-year-old organization will honour two people who have fostered conversations about faith, trust and our future together.

Franciscan Friar of the Atonement Father Damian MacPherson and Holocaust Education Centre operations manager Mary Siklos will be feted by Christian Jewish Dialogue at a Nov. 26 dinner in Toronto. Cardinal Thomas Collins will be the keynote speaker for the dinner at the Adath Israel Congregation.

For MacPherson dialogue with Jews is precisely how we are called to be Catholic.

“It (dialogue) is not a choice we can arbitrarily make. It has become a responsibility we must assume,” he said. “The Church can only fully be the Church if it������Ƶapp faithful to its Jewish roots. Knowing the texts is not sufficient. Knowing the people who believe and have preserved the texts, knowing the covenant, is what we’re called to.”

It������Ƶapp just the second time Christian Jewish Dialogue has honoured an individual with a dinner. Two years ago Rabbi Erwin Schild was recognized for more than half a century of work on building understanding between Toronto������Ƶapp Christians and Jews. The organization now hopes to make the dinners in honour of champions of dialogue an annual event.

“A lot of people start to question the need for dialogue at all,” said CJDT director Barbara Boraks. “We’ve got diversity in education, but we’re forgetting that everything comes down to personal relationships and knowing our neighbours.”
The behind-the-scenes people who make dialogue possible aren’t often honoured, but should be, she said.

“The event honours those relentless, grassroots workers who never get properly acknowledged or recognized,” said Boraks. “Damian fits that with bells on.”

“He has devoted his professional life to building bridges and working together and building understanding for each other,” said Siklos of MacPherson.

For more than a decade, MacPherson has been director of ecumenical and interfaith affairs for the archdiocese of Toronto. He was also the founding president of the Toronto and Area Interfaith Council. MacPherson������Ƶapp job is a perfect fit for a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement — a religious order founded more than a century ago in the hope of ecumenical dialogue and Church unity.

“It������Ƶapp terribly important that the public knows that these initiatives are happening — that the churches are working with synagogues and synagogues are working with churches and there are Jewish organizations reaching out to Christian organizations,” said Siklos.

Siklos runs the largest Holocaust education event in the world from her base at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre of the United Jewish Appeal Federation. Toronto������Ƶapp annual Holocaust Education Week has been imitated in cities across North America.

The 32nd annual Holocaust Education Week program ran to 44 pages of events — speakers, art exhibits, films and plays — from Nov. 1 to 8.

“She manages it in such a way that it stays human,” said Boraks. “She never lost touch with the grassroots people — the survivors — and they all love her.”

Tickets for the CJDT dinner are $40 and available by calling (416) 598-4242 or e-mailing info@cjdt. org.

TORONTO - University of St. Michael's College graduate theology courses, undergraduate classes, continuing education programs and help for students in writing labs will cease Nov. 15 unless the Catholic college at the University of Toronto can make a deal with the union representing academics who work under contract.

The Ontario Labour Board has issued a no board report and representatives of CUPE local 3902, Unit 4, claim negotiations have reached an impasse.

In a statement on its web site, St. Michael's College claims there is no impasse. Representatives of the college refused to speak with The Catholic Register about the situation.

Job security is the sticking point, said CUPE bargaining committee chair Daniel Bader. Teaching assistants and sessional lecturers work on contract of less than 12 months with no guarantee of future work, even though many have been teaching the same courses for years and the college has no plans to give those courses to higher cost full-time faculty.

"Really it's a matter of justice that when you have work that is continuous that you have employment that maps onto that," Bader said.

Academics like Bader, who teaches philosophy to graduate theology students, have trouble getting mortgages or even leases because they can't prove they will be employed beyond their contracts, he said.

The union is asking for right of first refusal if the course they are teaching is offered again.

St. Michael's College would not answer questions about how many students would be affected by a strike or lockout.

The college claims it has offered wage parity with University of Toronto for theology course instructors.

"There's a general situation in universities as a whole where an increasing amount of the work that's being done at universities is on short-term contract, even though the work is not short term," Bader said. "So you have employment that doesn't map onto the work. We're not saying that the courses need to continue. What we're saying is that if the courses continue we should continue in that work."

The 40-year-old co-ordinating body for chaplaincy in Ontario will lose all of its provincial funding, nearly half-a-million dollars, as of March 31.

The Ontario Multifaith Council is working on a “transition plan” that may see it continue as a smaller organization focussed on lobbying for chaplaincy funding at Ontario hospitals, nursing homes and prisons.

The Ontario bishops, who only rejoined the organization this spring, would like to see the council continue past the provincial funding sunset, said Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario general secretary Lou Poivesan.

“(The bishops) felt it was important to have a common voice on advocating for chaplaincy services, because across the province in hospitals and other institutions chaplaincy services certainly have, other than in Catholic institutions, they don’t seem to have a high priority,” Poivesan said.

There are 32 religious groups represented in the Ontario Multifaith Council, including Ontario������Ƶapp Catholic bishops.
Since the province shut down all its large residential care facilities for people with disabilities in 2009, there hasn’t been as much demand for Ontario Multifaith Council services, said Ministry of Community and Social ������Ƶapp spokeswoman Charlotte Wilkinson.

“This resulted in the steady decline in need for services provided by the OMC as the organization had primarily been responsible for supporting chaplains in government facilities on religious matters,” Wilkinson wrote in an e-mail to The Register.

Ministry of Community and Social ������Ƶapp funding to the council for the year ending March 31 was $493,200.

The provincial government notified the council of the funding cut a year in advance to give the organization time to wind down or find other sources of funding, Wilkinson said, adding there������Ƶapp no chance the ministry will reconsider funding the organization.

Over the years the Ontario Multifaith Council has published, in books and on its web site, information about spiritual practices and beliefs of various religions. It also runs seminars for chaplains and volunteers and maintains regional multifaith committees. The Toronto-based organization maintains a library for chaplains seeking information about minority religions and cultural practices. The government saw this as needless duplication of information that was already available in libraries, on the Internet and directly from religious organizations.

In 2004-2005 the Ontario bishops withdrew from the council over its activities promoting cultural tolerance rather than ensuring qualified chaplains are available and supported in all institutions. In April 2005 the bishops suspended indefinitely its membership in the organization. In 2010 it revived an “observer status,” looking for assurance the organization would be more focussed on chaplaincy.

With budgets tightening, particularly at hospitals, the bishops believe the future role for the council will be as a united voice advocating for professional chaplaincy, said Poivesan.

“I don’t think everything should be devolving to volunteers to provide those services,” he said.

No one from the Ontario Multifaith Council was available to speak with The Register.

TORONTO - When Angela Farrell was unsure about a career change, she turned for guidance to the sisters at the Notre Dame convent in Toronto.

“I think of the convent as the North Star,” she said. “This is the true north and you orient from there.”

So she is saddened now to learn that her North Star will soon be dark. After 60 years, the convent on Kingston Road in Toronto������Ƶapp east end is closing.

The packing has already begun and the nuns, several in their 80s, are to all be moved by next August, although the date is not set in stone, says Sr. Eileen Power. She is clear the sisters are not leaving Toronto, but will cease to live in community as they move to other locations in the city.

“We have been engaged in a process of long-term planning for some time now in our congregation and in our province and many other communities are doing this too,” said Power, the local house leader. “The location is no longer meeting our housing needs.”

The convent and property will be sold but Power said she has no idea who the buyer will be.

“Only God knows that right now,” she said.

The convent has housed up to 20 people but is currently home to just 11 sisters, some of whom have lived there more than 40 years. The youngest is in her early 40s but most are retired. There are about two dozen Notre Dame sisters living in Toronto, said Power.

“The sisters here are looking to the future with hope and courage and they are hearing God������Ƶapp call in this,” she said.

When Farrell was growing up in the neighbourhood, the convent was a much busier place. The Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame provided teachers for many east-end Catholic schools and, in 1941, founded Notre Dame High School, which still operates nearby the convent. Farrell almost always lived close to the sisters. A graduate of Notre Dame, she has taught religion and belonged to the chaplaincy team at the school the past 12 years.

“My whole growing up was shaped by the presence of the sisters and there was always a sense of structure and security in knowing they were there,” she said.

The order has been in Toronto for 80 years. The first nuns arrived in 1932 at the invitation of Archbishop Neil McNeil to bolster Toronto������Ƶapp Catholic teaching community, originally settling in a convent near St. Brigid������Ƶapp Church. Over the years, the sisters taught in more than 20 elementary schools and several high schools. They’ve also been active in parishes through outreach to the poor, catechetics, retreats and social justice initiatives.

As their numbers increased, and after Notre Dame High School was built, the sisters obtained a plot of land near the school for a convent. It has been occupied since 1952 but, with vocations in dramatic decline, some difficult decisions were required.

“I think most families experience this,” Power said. “The kids grow up and move away and three or four bedrooms are empty and the parents say, ‘We need to do something now.’ We don’t have a lot of younger people at the moment here in Toronto.”

Power said it is important that the order prudently manage its resources.

“We pool our resources as sisters and then we support people who are doing other ministries,” she said, highlighting activities for social justice in Central America, Africa, Japan, France, the United States, as well as across Canada.

Nancy Devitt-Tremblay, a Notre Dame graduate (class of 1974), says the sisters gave the incredible gift of education to her mother������Ƶapp generation.

“My mother grew up in an inner-city parish at a time when her brothers didn’t go to high school,” said Devitt-Tremblay, a teacher at Senator O’Connor College School. “If Notre Dame hadn’t opened, she probably wouldn’t have had a high school education.”

Ursula Thomson was a part of that generation. One of 16 members of the first graduating class in 1944, she keeps in touch with Notre Dame nuns almost 70 years later. She is grateful for the kindness, intelligence and devotion of the sisters.

The relocation process for the 11 nuns still in the convent will be co-ordinated between the leadership and administrative team in Halifax, Power said.

TORONTO - Pope John Paul II called for the healing and purification of memories in 1994 as he looked forward to the new millennium. The 32nd annual Toronto Holocaust Education Week will try to put that healing and purification in context by concentrating on a "Culture of Memory."

Schools, parishes, libraries, synagogues, theatres and art galleries will all take part in eight days of events examining the history of the Nazi plan which killed off six million Jews in the name of a "final solution." The Toronto event is the largest annual Holocaust education undertaking in the world.

The Nov. 1 to 8 program will open with a conversation at the Royal Ontario Museum between authors Nathan Englander and Sara Horowitz about how literature has dealt with the Holocaust, 7:30 p.m., Nov. 1. Englander is author of a short story collection called What We Talk ������Ƶapp When We Talk ������Ƶapp Anne Frank and Horowitz teaches a course at Toronto's York University called "Imagining Anne Frank: The Girl, the Diary, the Afterlives."  

The closing night will feature the Artists of the Royal Conservatory ARC Ensemble performing music by composers who survived the death camps. The Nov. 8 performance at the Beth Tzedec Congregation synagogue will close with a candlelight commemoration of the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht and Canadian war veterans honouring Remembrance Day.

Other notable events include a lecture by Polish theologian and sociologist Zbigniew Nosowski on efforts of the Polish Church to promote interest in Poland's Jewish roots and Polish Catholics who restore Jewish cemeteries at the University of St. Michael's College Nov. 7.

Reinhold Boschki, a University of Bonn professor of education and advisor to the German conference of Catholic bishops, speaks about the future of Holocaust education at Kehillat Shaarei Torah Nov. 7.

Sr. Audrey Gerwing will moderate a discussion following a screening of The Ninth Day, a film about Abbe Henri Kremer on a nine-day leave from the Dachau concentration camp at St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin Church Nov. 7.

The complete program can be downloaded at . Most events are free.

The chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board has issued an open letter to parents and media that is a frank rebuke to Ontario's education minister.

In her letter dated Oct. 30, board chair Ann Andrachuk declared that Toronto schools will remain committed to a curriculum "that affirms the value of all human life and forms the foundation of our Catholic education system."

Andrachuk's letter came three weeks after Eduction Minister Laurel Broten sparked outrage by comments that equated pro-life teaching with misogyny and suggested that pro-life activities were in contravention of Bill-13, the government's anti-bullying legislation.

"Taking away a woman's right to choose could arguably be one of the most misogynistic actions," Broten told reporters on Oct. 10.

Andrachuk did not name Broten in her letter. But it is clear her comments were directed at the education minister. Andrachuk mentions how events of recent weeks have sparked a debate about the place of Catholic values in a publicly funded school system.

"By remaining faithful to Catholic Christian principles, we not only meet, but far exceed the expectations of the policies of the Ministry of Education," Andrachuk wrote. "Indeed, the focus on these values allows us to go beyond government legislated mandates."

Andrachuk pointed out that respecting the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death is a fundamental Catholic tenet and forms a key component of a curriculum that teaches "the values of peace, justice and respect for the sacredness of human life."

"This Christian anthropology or world view embraces and cherishes the dignity and worth of each and every person," she wrote. "Are these not universal human values that should be shared and cherished by everyone on this precious planet?

"Ours is an inclusive learning community rooted in the love of Christ. We educate students to grow in grace and knowledge, and to lead lives of faith, hope and charity."

Andrachuk also pointed out that Catholics are not alone in respecting all human life.

"Acknowledging that human life begins at conception is a deeply held tenet of many world-wide religions including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism," she wrote.

Andrachuk also highlighted programs operated in Catholic schools that provide extensive social, academic and spiritual supports for pregnant teens. That support includes ensuring maternity uniforms "to reinforce the message of inclusivity."

Additionally, said Andrachuk, schools "do not abandon teens who make other choices," but instead offer counseling and "unconditional love and support."

"The measure of any civilized society is the way it deals with its most vulnerable and those in need, especially in times of crisis," she wrote.

Andrachuk said that Catholic schools will continue to reinforce the belief that "we are our brother������Ƶapp keeper based on the universal values of peace, hope, love, respect and social justice."

"If the educational environment of a school is not the appropriate place for the teaching of these intrinsic human values – then where?"

��

Below is the complete text of the open letter from Ann Andrachuk, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Toronto Catholic District School Board

Oct. 30, 2012

Catholic Values are Human Values

The events of recent weeks have renewed the debate on whether religious, and in particular Catholic values, have any place in a publicly-funded school system.

But, whose values are these really?

At the Toronto Catholic District School Board we inspire excellence by educating the hands, hearts and minds of students to create responsible citizens who give witness to Catholic social teachings through the values of peace, justice and respect for the sacredness of human life. This Christian anthropology or world view embraces and cherishes the dignity and worth of each and every person.

Are these not universal human values that should be shared and cherished by everyone on this precious planet?

Ours is an inclusive learning community rooted in the love of Christ. We educate students to grow in grace and knowledge, and to lead lives of faith, hope and charity. As members of one of Canada������Ƶapp largest school boards, our staff and students are challenged to transform the world through faith, innovation and action. This is consistent with the distinctive expectations of all Ontario Catholic Schools. These expectations are determined and shaped by the vision and destiny of the human person emerging from our faith tradition.

TCDSB schools deliver a curriculum that affirms the value of all human life and forms the foundation of our Catholic education system. The sanctity and respect for human life from conception onwards to every stage of life is a fundamental teaching for both men and women. We are not alone in this belief. Acknowledging that human life begins at conception is a deeply-held tenet of many world-wide religions including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.

By remaining faithful to Catholic Christian principles, we not only meet, but far exceed the expectations of the policies of the Ministry of Education. Indeed, the focus on these values allows us to go beyond government legislated mandates. Real world examples of these include: our integrated approach to equity and inclusivity and the TCDSB������Ƶapp three-decade long integrated and holistic respecting differences approach to deal with bullying.

The personalized and unconditional support given to every student who is faced with an unplanned pregnancy is typical of this Catholic values-based tradition. We place their physical and emotional health at the very center of our care. Chaplaincy team leaders, guidance counselors, principals and classroom teachers collectively play a crucial, non-judgmental role to help the individual student feel supported, cared for and loved in a situation that is often emotionally and physically challenging.

Students dealing with this personal crisis naturally feel scared and isolated. We work to bridge this gap by helping join the student and parents together to discuss next steps. In many cases this involves a staff member accompanying the student home to help break the news. For our students over 18, we advise them of their rights to privacy and share information about confidential resources like Birthright.

We also ensure they are aware of the special services offered by Rosalie Hall and the Massey Centre.

Our message is that they do not need to travel this journey alone and that an entire caring community is here to help both academically and spiritually. From social workers and pastors to specially trained counselors and educators, we reassure the student that she is welcome to stay in the school as long as her health allows. Accommodations are offered to her schedule, including home instruction or other ways to continue her studies. The Board has asked school uniform suppliers to provide maternity-sized apparel to reinforce the message of inclusivity.

Also true to our Catholic values, we do not abandon those who make other choices. Students in this circumstance generally return to school traumatized, with solitary feelings of guilt and despondency. One-to-one support is of even greater importance to these students and their future success. Similarly, we extend our arms out to serve as a security blanket of unconditional love and respect. We work hard to ensure they are not stigmatized in the eyes of their peers or the school community and that they have the same access to social support networks.

Some critics will delight in pointing out the apparent contradiction that we treat those who make other choices in the same open and generous manner.

We see no such contradiction. The measure of any civilized society is the way it deals with its most vulnerable and those in need, especially in times of crisis.

For our part, Catholic values guide the TCDSB������Ƶapp profound reverence for each individual, and a commitment to live the message of love in the Gospel. This is our obligation to all those entrusted to our care in Catholic education. Whether they are students or educators, we strive to offer our school community an authentic pathway of faith, hope, love and charity, reinforced with the virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude.

We live in a cynical, modern, secular and often cruel world dominated by a narcissistic “me first” value system. At this critical tipping point in the life of our planet, is this not the right time to reinforce the belief that we are our brother������Ƶapp keeper based on the universal values of peace, hope, love, respect and social justice for all?

If the educational environment of a school is not the appropriate place for the teaching of these intrinsic human values – then where?

And if not now – when?

For us at the TCDSB the answers are self-evident. As the world������Ƶapp largest Catholic school board we do not take this leadership role lightly. Supported by a new multi-year strategic plan, the TCDSB will proudly forge ahead with our global vision to transform the world through witness, faith, innovation and action.

A rally that was to be held by advocates of defunding abortion in Ontario has been blown off course by Hurricane Sandy.

The rally, organized by Campaign Life Coalition Youth, was to be held at Queen's Park on Tuesday. But it has been postponed due to predictions for Toronto of high winds and heavy rains from the hurricane that is battering the U.S. eastern seaboard.

Organizers said the event will be held at a date to be determined.

The rally was intended to pressure politicians to cease paying for abortions and start treating it like other elective medical procedures that are not funded by OHIP.

TORONTO - The challenge the Catholic Church faces with the new evangelization is to lead people out of the darkness, theologian and Catholic apologist Scott Hahn told a Toronto audience Oct. 20.

More than 1,400 people came to hear Hahn describe the new evangelization, its challenges and goals at Canada Christian College. He was brought to Canada by Catholic Chapter House for “The New Evangelization! Equipping Yourself To Engage The Culture.”

“Evangelization is the grace and vocation most proper to the Church,” said Hahn. “The new evangelization is new precisely because of the unique needs we now have. It������Ƶapp re-evangelizing the secular cultures that are on the brink of losing any sense of their own Christian identity.”

A former Presbyterian minister, Hahn joined the Catholic Church in 1986. Since then he has penned 13 books, been awarded a doctorate in systematic theology from Marquette University and is president of St. Paul Centre for Biblical Theology, a Christian think thank in Steubenville, Ohio, which he founded in 2001.

In defining new evangelization, Hahn made note of four principle laws of evangelization: God loves you; you sin; Christ died for your sins; and what are you going to do? By acknowledging these fundamental aspects of Catholic evangelization, one is able to build the foundational personal relationship with Jesus.

“A personal relationship with Jesus is where we all have to begin but it������Ƶapp only a beginning, it isn’t the end,” said Hahn.

That������Ƶapp because the new evangelization goes far beyond developing a personal relation by reaching towards an understanding of the covenant of communion that reflects the inner life of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The best way to develop, and promote, the connection to one������Ƶapp faith is through attention to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In other words, one must be able to see it as a holy sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood rather than unleavened bread and a chalice of wine. Where people of the past would simply accept this because a priest said it was so, today society demands an understanding of it and that is the goal of new evangelization. Our greatest tool to find this understanding, said Hahn, is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

“It isn’t something that is just over and done in a day,” he said. “It������Ƶapp something that you can start anywhere you find yourself but it is always going to lead to the goal of eucharistic communion.”

But new evangelization faces resistance even from those already deeply connected to their Catholic faith. Hahn summarized the common objections to undertaking the task into two categories: Catholics don’t evangelize and it������Ƶapp not about telling, it������Ƶapp about action. To both Hahn has one response.

“To be a Catholic is a call to bear witness to our faith no matter where we find ourselves in life. To not share is to not be Catholic.”

Cardinal Thomas Collins will meet and pray with faith leaders from across Toronto to start a more public conversation about violence against women in the spring of 2013.

Catholic Family ������Ƶapp is organizing the interfaith service, which Collins committed to attending in a message to the third annual Mass to End Woman Abuse celebrated at Blessed Trinity Church in Toronto Oct. 16.

Collins called violence against women a “terrible evil.”

“Often this happens out of the sight of the world, but those who experience it experience enormous grief and pain,” Collins wrote.

The idea that faith leaders are ready to publicly talk and pray about how women suffer at the hands of men is “a very good thing,” said Canadian Women������Ƶapp Foundation president and CEO Bev Wybrow.

“What we would like to see come out of it is looking at the most effective ways to address violence in the context of faith communities,” Wybrow said. “That is very, very important to some women in particular and it hasn’t always been as appropriate as it should be.”

This year������Ƶapp Mass to End Woman Abuse, organized by Catholic Family Service of Toronto, attracted about 200.

“I would want it to be standing room only,” said Kelly Bourke, who directs the Faith Connections youth program for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto. “I find it challenging that it������Ƶapp not.”

Though the Church may not be full, the annual event is giving a higher profile to the issue, said Virginia Koehler, director of Catholic Family ������Ƶapp woman abuse programs. With each Mass Catholic Family ������Ƶapp has seen an increase in referrals and volunteers.

“Priests are calling — priests we haven’t heard from,” she said.

The Mass particularly concentrates on thanking and honouring survivors of spousal abuse who volunteer as mentors in Catholic Family ������Ƶapp’ Women Helping Women program.

The impulse to keep silent about violence within marriages is exactly the cover abusers need, said Lucia Furgiuele, Catholic Family ������Ƶapp of Toronto executive director.

“We stand united in breaking the silence that accompanies this issue,” she said.

Women should never be told to be obedient and pray in the face of violence, said Furgiuele.

“Our Church teaches that women should leave abusive situations that persist,” she said.

Prayer is not irrelevant, said Wybrow.

“Prayer can be accompanied by concrete action as well and help make sure action is appropriate as possible,” she said.

TORONTO - ������Ƶapp 300 people from the pro-life community filled a banquet hall at Spirale Restaurant Oct. 18 to honour Fr. Alphonse de Valk, the recently retired editor of Catholic Insight magazine.

“He was ahead of his time with his warning of legalizing abortion,” said Steve Jalsevac, managing director of LifeSiteNews. “In all the years I’ve known Fr. de Valk he������Ƶapp been faithful, faithful, faithful.”

Jalsevac first got to know de Valk in 1984 when the Basilian priest moved to Toronto from the Prairies, where his pro-life journalism began shortly after penning Morality and Law in Canadian Politics: The Abortion Controversy. Both members of Campaign Life Coalition, which de Valk joined in 1978 while principal of St. Joseph������Ƶapp College at the University of Edmonton, the two were always able to look past their personal differences in the name of life.

“Both being Dutchmen, actually I’m only half Dutch, we’ve had our differences,” said Jalsevac at The Testimonial Dinner for Fr. Alphonse de Valk, which was sponsored by a number of pro-life organizations. “But I prefer a man who isn’t lukewarm.”

As a post-secondary educator in both Saskatoon and Edmonton during 1970s and early ’80s, de Valk published more than 200 articles addressing abortion issues in papers which circulated on the campus. These writings helped to recruit young pro-life support.

While living in Edmonton de Valk had gathered enough supporters to begin publishing booklets, 12to 24-pages long, focusing on issues facing the pro-life movement. The group produced 36 editions over a 15-year period before de Valk moved eastward and joined Campaign Life Coalition fulltime.

“It was a wonderful thing to find a group of people whom we could associate with and who shared the value of human life, who shared the teachings of the Church,” said de Valk.

He also began writing for The Interim, a Toronto-based pro-life newspaper, that same year and eventually became editor, a position de Valk held from 1987 to 1992.

As a reporter, de Valk made the transition from advocate to activist when, in 1985, he was arrested for chaining himself to the Morgentaler Clinic������Ƶapp gate. One night in the Don Jail was all de Valk served thanks to the province������Ƶapp Attorney General withdrawing the charges after hearing a priest was imprisoned.

The arrest didn’t scare off de Valk who continued to be a regular, slightly less radical, picketer outside the clinic every Friday for almost five years — even after the 1989 injunction prohibiting such protests. Over these years he was arrested another eight times and fined $750 or two weeks in jail for trespassing — a fine he hasn’t paid, jail time he has not served.

“Fr. de Valk could always be counted on to state the blunt truth about controversial goings on,” Jalsevic wrote in the evening������Ƶapp program.

De Valk continued to do just that after leaving The Interim with the launch of Catholic Insight in 1993.

Following a stroke, and his 80th birthday this March, de Valk decided that Catholic Insight������Ƶapp publisher, the Board of Directors of Life Ethics Information Centre, should seek a new editor.

Although no longer a member of the editorial team, de Valk continues to sit on both the advisory and publishing boards of Catholic Insight.

“God������Ƶapp grace has allowed us to withstand the sexual revolution,” de Valk said during the dinner������Ƶapp closing speech.

“Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being. Do it for the Lord rather than for me since you know fully well that you will receive an inheritance from Him as your reward.”