Survivors of a Canadian system that forced generations of indigenous children into mainly Catholic-run boarding schools won’t be getting an apology from Pope Francis. The Canadian Council of Bishops (CCB) said last week “after carefully considering the request” for an apology, Francis “felt that he could not personally respond”. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed Read more
A Catholic sex-education curriculum that questions the importance of “sexual consent” in marriage is causing a row in Canada. The curriculum, which is being developed for students from kindergarten to Grade 12 in Alberta, Canada, is being rejected by the province’s Premier Rachel Notley. Describing the curriculum as “dangerous”, Notley says it “will never be Read more
An apology from the Catholic Church to indigenous Canadians is important, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Pope Francis in an audience this week. There is much to apologise to Canada’s indigenous community for, Trudeau indicated. He told Francis about a third (150,000) of indigenous Canadians were forcibly removed from their families and put into residential Read more
A Canadian archbishop has said that priests should not give the sacrament of anointing of the sick to a person who is intending to die by assisted suicide. Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa said it is inappropriate for a person intent on assisted suicide to request this sacrament. “Asking your priest to be present to Read more
A 91-year-old man diagnosed with cancer has confessed to killing a woman nearly 70 years ago. The elderly man, living in a care home in Canada, told police he had shot a prostitute called Margaret Cook, aged 26, in Carnaby Street in London in 1946, after a dispute about money. It is believed the man Read more
Students at Catholic schools in Saskatoon in Canada will no longer be able to buy a bottle of water at school. Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools (GSCS) is eliminating plastic bottled water from vending machines, cafeterias, school-related events and meetings. The reasons given are environmental consciousness and solidarity with people in the world who lack clean Read more
Canadian cities must put an end to prayers during council meetings, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. The court said such prayers go against freedom of religion and conscience, as laid out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and the Quebec Charter. In a unanimous decision and in the name of neutrality Read more
Eulogies have been banned during Catholic funeral Masses in Ottawa in Canada. A February 2 decree from Archbishop Terrence Prendergast states Catholics gather at funerals “not to praise the deceased, but to pray for them”. Contrary to popular belief, eulogies “are not part of the Catholic funeral rites, particularly in the context of a funeral Read more
The bishops’ conference of Canada is redoubling its efforts to inform and educate about the issues related to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The conference posted a new section on its website about euthanasia and assisted suicide. The site comes as a bill in Quebec aims to allow physicians to administer “terminal palliative sedation” or “medial Read more
By May of this year, Jacob Barnett had wrung everything he could get out of the university he had been attending for four years in his home state of Indiana. He had taken every undergraduate course on mathematics and physics, and a bunch of graduate-level courses too. None of it had even slowed Jacob down. Read more