Michael Swan

Back in Canada for the first time since receiving the red hat from Pope Francis in 2019, Cardinal Michael Czerny told the theology faculty and students at Toronto’s Regis College they must take up the neglected renewal of theology called for by the Second Vatican Council, St. Pope Paul VI and St. Pope John Paul II.

As Indigenous elders, youth, knowledge keepers and residential school survivors prepare for their historic meetings with Pope Francis Dec. 17-20, Regina Archbishop Don Bolen is inviting Canadians to journey with them spiritually.

At 9 a.m. the line up for the St. Ann’s Church Food Bank in downtown Toronto stretches around the corner and back up to Gerrard Street. At 9:30 they’ve run out of milk and yogurt. At 10 more bags of pre-packed groceries are headed upstairs from the basement to restock tables where food bank patrons pick up their allotment for the week.

A Filipino Fiesta can go on a long time, and then into overtime. But given that Filipinos have been Christian for 500 years, it’s no surprise that the quincentennial celebrations in Toronto have stretched out longer than the original plan.

Indigenous delegates to Rome will have at least three hours of direct, face-to-face conversation with Pope Francis spread over four days, topped off with their presence at an hour-long general audience.

The homilies are getting shorter at The Visitation of the Virgin Mary Parish in Campbellford, Ont., but the Masses are probably longer. That’s because pastor Fr. William Moloney is not going to do all the talking right after reading the Gospel.

In the suburbs north of Toronto, faith communities are still banding together to provide emergency shelter to the homeless this winter.

There are 20 million people in dire need in Ethiopia, a civil war is raging, drought is devouring crops and funding from donor nations to the United Nations humanitarian response has so far fallen $1.3 billion (U.S.) short, but Development and Peace is not giving up.

Wearing the red of martyrs, St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica once again stood up for persecuted Christians — one of dozens of cathedrals around the world illuminated for Red Wednesday.

Disappointment and even anger at the end of the Glasgow climate summit is not the end of hope for Catholic climate action, said Laudato Si’ Movement - Canada co-ordinator Agnes Richard.