In their upcoming plenary Oct. 15-19, Canada’s bishops will focus their national activities to have more impact and will consider new communications strategies.

The bishops will debate reducing the number of national episcopal commissions from six to three, and the possible creation of standing committees that would include lay experts, said the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) General Secretary Msgr. Mario Paquette.

The bishops will also put evangelization front and centre during the public portion of the week-long gathering in Cornwall, Ont. On opening day, sociologist Reginald Bibby will present an array of social data on Canadian attitudes towards religious faith. The next day Halifax Auxiliary Bishop Claude Champagne will lay out the theological and teaching dimensions.

The bishops, however, must find a way to accomplish their mission with fewer resources.
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On September 21, the International Day of Peace, musicians from Saskatoon will hold a special festival entitled “Musicians for Peace.” You are invited to join them at one or both of the following venues. Buy a festival pass and visit both venues. These are a short walk from each other, just off Broadway. All proceeds from the event will be donated to the Saskatoon Refugee Coalition and Oxfam.
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A groundbreaking survey of more than 6,000 American congregations reveals that churches spend a significant amount of time, energy and money in the ministries of health care. According to the survey, about 70 percent of responding churches provide direct health services, with 65 percent offering health education programs within their community. The survey defines direct services as provision of medical care to individuals by trained health care professionals.
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Evangelical theology stresses the importance of a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ and sees the transformation of individuals as an important part of the transformation of the world. However, the notion of a purely privatized faith in which the gospel only affects individual, personal or family life but has no wider implications for society must be rejected as inadequate.
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An agreed statement entitled “Growing Together in Unity & Mission” was released today by the Anglican Communion Office and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The statement attempts to foster discussion and reflection on the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) over the past 40 years. However, the statement insists, “it is more than this: it is a call for action, based upon an honest appraisal of what has been achieved in our dialogue. Despite our present ‘imperfect communion’, there is, we feel, enough common ground to take seriously how we work together.”
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This past summer, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a statement entitled “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church.” This document immediately attracted attention, comment, spin, appreciation, and criticism from around the world. The document contains five questions and the responses of the CDF, with very little additional comment. The focus of the questions is the meaning of the word “subsists” as it appears in Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), article 8. The council declared that the one Church of Christ “constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.”

Much of the criticism of the document has come from within the Catholic community, although notable critiques have also been issued by ecumenical partners. The criticism has addressed the exclusivity with which the new CDF document interprets the word “subsists”, and the insistence of the CDF that other churches are thereby deficient. The responses to the document were more careful and nuanced than those made in 2000 to Dominus Iesus, but many observers connected the two documents, seeing the new text as little more than a re-articulation of the earlier problematic statements.

After considerable thought about whether there was anything further productive to say about the document and the controversy stirred up this summer, I have decided to share some of my initial reflections in the days following the publication of the “responsa.” There are numerous additional perspectives that could be offered, many of which are available online.
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The Vatican has announced the excommunication of certain members of the Army of Mary, a sect in Canada whose teachings have been deemed dangerous and erroneous by church authorities.
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Muslims in Canada today started fasting for the holy month of Ramadan. During the month, from dawn to sunset Muslims around the world abstain from food, drink and marital relations.
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Anyone who thought a look back at 20th-century history through the eyes of prayer would be comforting, uplifting or anodyne might want to begin with the 1919 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Organizers of this early version of the annual week of prayer pulled no punches when they began, “The crowning horror and blasphemy of our divisions is that we shut one another out from the one great Sacrament of Love.”
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