“Come and Enjoy One of Toronto’s Most Beautiful Patios. . . Owner Biagio Vinci has brought a little piece of Italy to the heart of downtown Toronto for over 30 years,” so it says on the Destination Toronto website. From personal experience I can’t argue with the review. Mr. Vinci and his food are well …
“Let the children come to me,” said Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. But where are the children? That’s a common question today, not only in our missions, but in big city parishes too. Children represent the future, hope, life energy. In baptism parents play a major role in being the first teachers of faith. If parents …
Among steep cliffs on the eastern shore of the Great Northern Peninsula (GNP) of Newfoundland are fishing villages with long histories. It’s been many years since I last visited ‘the Rock’. Bishop Bart van Rojien asked if I could help with Easter celebrations in his Diocese of Corner Brook and Labrador. I would be assisting …
Newfoundland Revisited: A Changed Life on the Rock Read More »
With Papal Nuncio Ivan Jurkovic and Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine of Montreal present along with 60 bishops, his Grace Francis Leo was installed as the new Archbishop of Toronto in the beautifully renovated St. Michael’s Basilica Cathedral. It was by invitation only and I was sitting at the far back of the clergy section. Peter Stockland …
CMIC’s Awareness Campaign is one of three major campaigns in our strategic plan, along with Fundraising and Education. Awareness is exactly that – letting people know we exist, who we are and what we do. The pandemic interrupted this for the last two years. A tremendous amount of momentum had been built prior to the …
The mass of digital technology has been recognized as a dehumanizing factor in modern society. Being on the verge of artificial intelligence, we stand on the edge of a wedge whose downslope is the loss of the most humanizing element – the soul. Our soul is what makes us God-like since we are “made in the …
One of the periodicals to which I subscribe recently featured the theme of ‘friendship,’ making me think about this in my life. I have friends whom I see only periodically, but when we meet up it’s like carrying on from the last time because we feel so comfortable with each other. We hold each other …
Periodically I get inquiries about volunteering for mission work. It’s understandable since we are an organization concerned with evangelization. From a practical point of view, we make people aware of and raise funds for home missions, but we don’t place missionaries. That’s the jurisdiction of bishops. It would be great if there was an agency …
The Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Praedicate evangelium, came into effect on the Solemnity of Pentecost. Significant to our interest is the unification of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization into the Dicastery for Evangelization. The heads of both are now pro-prefects, reporting directly to …
I was back in northern BC, running between 5 churches for 6 weeks beginning in June. Whitehorse is the only northern diocese where one can drive to all 23 missions, with no fly-in communities to worry about. Bishop Hector Vila placed me at St. Ann’s church in Watson Lake, just above the BC border. When …