Everyday For Life Canada: October 2014

Director's article: Catholic education or just an exercise in image management?

We want to share with our readers a letter that we recently sent to The Catholic Register, the weekly newspaper owned by the Archdiocese of Toronto. First, we thank the editor for publishing it. However, the letter was greatly edited and the middle paragraph was completely removed. We don't know the reason why, but we can only assume it was done so as not to offend anyone. Toronto must be an "inclusive and equitable" society. We are concerned about this trend to avoid the truth in secular publications but this shouldn't happen with a Catholic newspaper that the faithful help to pay for with their donations.

Oct

Toronto Catholic trustees: status-quo is re-elected, what happened?

Ontario's Municipal election 2014 is over and the results have been recorded. Most people in Toronto and the media are talking about John Tory and his victory as the new mayor, and that the majority of the incumbent councillors were re-elected. We, however, are concerned with the fact that at Toronto Catholic District School Board little has changed. Mike Del Grande was elected and will replace his son John. Joseph Martino will also be a new face at the board.

Oct

TECT endorses anti-Catholic candidates

Toronto Elementary Catholic Teachers’ union, TECT, has posted on their website a list of trustee candidates they endorse and made robocalls to tell teachers to vote for these candidates.

What they don’t tell teachers is that union funds are being used in an attempt to sway the vote toward candidates that the TECT believes will or have voted against Catholic teaching in the past four years.

Oct

Euthanasia will further solidify Canada's culture of death

If we don’t speak up loud and clear that we are against euthanasia and assisted-suicide, the same horrific tragedy that has gripped Canada with abortion through the “legalized” killing of the unborn for 45 years, will replay itself with euthanasia. Killing has become big business with huge profits. But most importantly it has killed the nation's conscience.

Oct

Remembering Saint John Paul II's faith message to Canada

With apologies to St. John of Capistrano whose memorial we celebrate today, we want to continue the last entry on Saint John Paul II and look at the important faith message he gave to Canadians back in 1987. You may remember that the pope had been in Canada in 1984, but his plane could not make a landing in the North because of heavy fog. The visit had to be postponed.

Oct

Celebrating a modern day giant of the faith: Saint John Paul II

Today the universal Church remembers and celebrates in the liturgy the life and pontificate of Saint John Paul II. We want to mark this special day by quoting from Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World) that came out on December 8, 1975, ten years after the second Vatican Council. This was just three years before Saint John Paul II become pope.

Oct

The time has come to ask the faith question

What have we done of late to live, defend and promote the faith? Come next Tuesday we will be voting in the Municipal election 2014.

Oct

Look to the Catechism, not the secular media, for the family's vocation

In the last couple of weeks there has been a great deal of media coverage about the Synod on the Family in Rome. Much of it has been confusing and concerning for the faithful. Sadly, too may of the faithful rely on the secular media to tell them what they believe or do not believe. As baptized Christians, we must not let journalists mislead us about the faith. We should take the initiative to be informed ourselves.

Oct

Understanding our fractious times even in the Church: find the common denominator

Think back to the time we learned to add fractions that didn't have a common denominator. For me it was a Eureka moment, learning that one could find the common denominator of such fractions and then easily add them up. An arithmetic operation that at first appeared to be complicated suddenly became so easy. I think the analogy aptly applies to what has been happening in Rome as the Synod of Bishops on the Family unfolds.

Oct

The important language lesson most of us never got in school

Do you remember what you learned about language in school? No doubt we recall our literature classes and if you're old enough like me you also had to take grammar and composition classes. Today students are just taught literature courses. Writing and grammar have been integrated with the literature course or not given at all. I'm sure that there were good intentions to teach us what's most important about learning a language and literature.