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TORONTO - The mentally ill occupy the streets of Toronto. They sleep there. They beg. They buy drugs. They rave, cry out in pain and frighten people. They pass through drop-ins, shelters, jails and the emergency wards but somehow almost always wind up back on the same little patch of urban territory.

Seeds of Hope Foundation executive director Kimberly Curry thought there must be something we can do for homeless, schizophrenic women. Sr. Susan Moran, co-founder of Out of the Cold program almost 25 years ago, had the same thought. She never thought giving people a mattress in a church basement one night a week fulfilled our Christian duty.

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick is about to join Toronto's team of bishops with the credentials of a lawman. But he's a canon lawyer who has never forgotten that canon law has a purpose.

"Canon law is very pastoral," Kirkpatrick told The Catholic Register  May 18, the day his appointment as auxiliary bishop was announced. "The law of love is supreme. And that's reflected in our canons. The (1983) Code (of Canon Law) is developed from the teachings of the Second Vatican Council."

The 54-year-old Kirkpatrick studied canon law at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, taking his licentiate in 1990. His studies in canon law prepared him for work as  judicial vicar, chancellor of the diocese of St. Catharines and his current job as moderator of the St. Catharines' curia.

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick, a priest of the Ontario diocese of St. Catharines, has been appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Toronto.

Pope Benedict XVI made the announcement May 18. Bishop-designate Kirkpatrick will be ordained to the episcopate in St. Catharines at a date to be determined before commencing his duties with the archdiocese.

TORONTO - Parishes, food banks, shelters and other services to the poor are going to be hit with bills for garbage pickup in Toronto starting July 1.

They're all part of 1,100 entities that were previously exempt from the garbage fees the city charges to businesses. City Hall will raise an extra $2.9 million per year by 2015 when the new fees are fully implemented.

TORONTO - Big families, big dreams, big faith and big love all came together  at St. Michael's Cathedral May 12 for two men chosen from the Catholic faithful for a lifetime of service to the sacraments and the body of Christ.

Francesco Marrone, a 30-year-old originally from Verona, Italy, and Chris Lemieux, a 40-year-old from Georgetown, Ont., received holy orders at the hands of Cardinal Thomas Collins, the archbishop of Toronto, before 1,000 people on a sun-drenched spring Saturday morning.

TORONTO - The long, hard national look at Canada������Ƶapp history of the Indian residential schools comes to Toronto May 31 to June 2.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is supporting a regional event at Toronto������Ƶapp Sheraton Centre Hotel. The three days will give Toronto-area First Nations’ people a chance to learn about the history of residential schools and an opportunity to share personal stories about the residential school experience and how it has affected families.

TORONTO - Africans still want the kind of genuine partnership with Canadians the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has fostered over the last four decades, the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Eastern Africa said — even if CIDA has cancelled funding to every D&P partner in Africa outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"It matters," Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator told The Catholic Register. "It's not only about Canadians giving to Africa. There's an element of mutuality there. It's not just about the money. It is important to keep that contact."

I’m sorry. In writing about a controversial documentary earlier this month (Dramatic Jesus Discovery documentary lacks hard evidence), I never should have brought up the Resurrection in such an offhand way. I should never have imagined the Resurrection could be explained in a single paragraph of a newspaper article.

Simcha Jacobovici������Ƶapp documentary The Jesus Discovery provocatively asked “what if” a tomb now under an apartment complex in Jerusalem actually contains the bones of Jesus and His family. In my review, I took the bait and posed the question to myself.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI named Toronto's Cardinal Thomas Collins a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which supports and guides the work of Catholic schools, universities and seminaries, as well as naming him a member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

The announcement was made April 21 at the Vatican as the Pope gave cardinals created in February their assignments as members of other Vatican congregations and councils.

TORONTO - When Grace Esquega, director of the Blessed Kateri Mission at the Kitchitwa Kateri Anamewgamik parish in Thunder Bay, Ont., heard that her beloved Kateri Tekakwitha was going to become a saint, she cried.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Esquega says. “When somebody else told me, I had to see it for myself on the news.”

Esquega is one of 70 people heading on a pilgrimage to Rome in October organized through St. Ann������Ƶapp parish in Toronto, home of the Native Peoples’ Mission of Canada, for the canonization of the native girl exiled from her home because of her devotion to Jesus Christ.