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TORONTO - With Christmas coming, it������Ƶapp socks, not Christmas stockings, that the Sisters of St. Joseph are hoping will come by way of gifts for people living on the streets.

“On Holy Thursday, when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet and said, ‘Do likewise,’ it������Ƶapp always a privilege for us to do that. It reminds us of who we’re called to be,” said Sr. Gwen Smith, director at Mustard Seed, the Sisters’ ministry to help the homeless and individuals at risk.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - Amid the sights and smells of death and tragedy, volunteers from the Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board found hope and resilience in the people they met in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Maria Masucci told The Catholic Register that the volunteer trips by a team of teachers, university students, plus a doctor and dentist from Woodbridge������Ƶapp St. Peter������Ƶapp parish to Haiti in April and then again in July were inspired by the Gospel of Matthew about feeding and clothing the poor, welcoming strangers and visiting prisoners. They were helping in the aftermath of the January earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left millions homeless.

TORONTO - The new ad campaign from the atheist group behind last year������Ƶapp “there������Ƶapp probably no God” campaign suggests that Christ and Allah have the same amount of credibility as UFOs, Big Foot, psychics, Zeus and homeopathy.

“Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” reads the new campaign poster set to run on TTC vehicles in Toronto. While the ads are still pending approval, they are expected to make their debut on streetcars in January, said Justin Trottier, national executive director of the , the group behind the campaign. If all goes according to plan, Trottier said the ads will then run in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal.

“Broadening our focus from just God, we’ll now call for skepticism and rational inquiry into any conceivable extraordinary claim,” said Trottier.

TORONTO - For the sixth year in a row, vandals have taken a shot at the Christmas creche in front of Old City Hall in downtown Toronto.

Passersby noticed the plexiglass window which encases the statues of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus had been smashed on Dec. 5. Suresh Dominic of Campaign Life Coalition's Catholic wing was preparing to replace the broken pane on Dec. 8.

TORONTO - Long-time special education advocate Ashleigh Molloy credits Jean Vanier with showing him the way.

It is Vanier, the founder of the worldwide movement, and his message that working with people with special needs is a blessing, not a burden, that Molloy has carried throughout his more than two decades of work as a Catholic school teacher and father of a daughter with Down Syndrome.

TORONTO - Spurred by the exodus of Iraqi Christians, the archdiocese of Toronto doubled the number of Iraqi refugee families it sponsored in 2010 to 190.

The boom in Iraqi refugee sponsorships was fueled by 40 new refugee sponsorship committees or initiatives aimed at rescuing Iraqi refugees. The Office of Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto is currently handling sponsorship files for  approximately 250 refugees from around the world.

TORONTO - Christian-Jewish dialogue isn’t just about Christians and Jews. It������Ƶapp about how human beings should conduct themselves, how we secure a future of peace, how we know God and how we repair the world, said one of the pioneers of religious dialogue in Canada.

, along with the Canadian Jewish Congress, put on a gala dinner to honour Rabbi Erwin Schild and his wife Laura Schild at the Liberty Grand banquet hall in Toronto Nov. 24. Bishops, rabbis, reverend doctors and theologians were among those gathered to honour him

The Flynn family needed help. They were paying $1,000 every month for bariatric diapers for their daughter Jennifer who has a rare chromosome disorder, making her one of 40 such cases in the world. So Julie Flynn, Jennifer������Ƶapp mother, asked for help — and she received.

“My husband has had to give up his job to take care of her,” said Flynn, who lives in Orangeville, Ont. “We’re a one-income family and we’re paying $1,000 every month for diapers. And we were thinking and in desperation I wrote to every service club in the Orangeville area. The Knights of Columbus responded and it just went from there.”

TORONTO - The only sound to be heard at a vigil for the unborn at an otherwise silent St. Michael������Ƶapp Cathedral was the cry of an infant. This child������Ƶapp parents had chosen life.

On Nov. 27, a crowd gathered at St. Michael������Ƶapp Cathedral for the worldwide Prayer Vigil for All Nascent Human Life at the request of Pope Benedict XVI. It was one of countless parishes, homes and religious communities across the globe that stopped to pray and reflect on the sanctity of all human life.

The service marked the eve of the new liturgical year and the Advent season, a season of expectation, according to Archbishop Thomas Collins, who presided over the vigil at St. Michael������Ƶapp. The time we await Jesus, he said, is much like the time we await the coming of any child.

“This time of expectancy is also a time of vulnerability,” said Collins.

RICHMOND HILL, ONT. - World famous Catholic author Fr. Henri Nouwen has a new resting place, in an Anglican cemetery.

In July Nouwen������Ƶapp remains were moved from the Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery in King City north of Toronto to St. John������Ƶapp Anglican Cemetery in Richmond Hill. The author of The Wounded Healer, The Inner Voice and The Return of the Prodigal Son had been buried at Sacred Heart in 1996 after his sudden death while visiting his native Holland.