Canadian News

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.

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.

While the upcoming delegation of Indigenous leaders and Canadian bishops travelling to Rome next month to meet the Pope in Rome is an “important, outward and public sign of a commitment to healing and reconciliation,” Catholics must look inward to answer the call to true healing, said Cardinal Thomas Collins.

Reconciliation will be the major theme for the annual Cardinal’s Dinner in the Archdiocese of Toronto on Nov. 23.

While 70 per cent of  participants in a recent survey believe God and religion should be completely kept out of public life, a data point suggests a Canada more open to public figures speaking and acting based on their religious beliefs is a possibility.

Canada’s bishops have developed a new palliative care toolkit to educate and empower caregivers and those facing a terminal illness.

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.

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.

Canada’s 28th Governor General David Johnston paid tribute to Cardus as it celebrated its 20th anniversary — one year late, due to the pandemic — by commending the Christian think tank for its servant leadership.