CNA Staff, Nov 27, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- A new archbishop took the helm in the Canadian archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth Friday.
The Vatican announced Nov. 27 that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation by Archbishop Anthony Mancini on his 75th birthday.
Mancini is succeeded by Archbishop Brian Dunn, who has served as coadjutor archbishop since April 2019.
Dunn was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1955. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1980, he was assigned to parishes in the Diocese of Grand Falls. He moved to Ottawa in 1988 to complete his doctoral studies at Saint Paul University.
In 1991, he was assigned to parish ministry, serving also as vice-chancellor and chancellor of Grand Falls diocese. He became a faculty member at St. Peter’s Seminary in London, Ontario, in 2002 and dean of studies three years later.
Pope Benedict XVI named Dunn auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie in Ontario in July 2008.
Benedict XVI named him the bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, a year later, replacing Raymond Lahey, who was charged with the importation of child pornography in 2009 and dismissed from the clerical state in 2012. Dunn was installed as bishop of Antigonish on Jan. 25 2010.
Dunn took part in the 2012 Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization in Rome.
He spoke at the synod of the need to evangelize victims of clerical abuse. He also called for “a deliberate and systematic involvement and leadership of women at all levels of Church life, e.g., permitting women to be instituted as lectors and acolytes and the institution of the ministry of catechist.”
On April 13, 2019, Pope Francis appointed Dunn as the coadjutor archbishop of the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth. He continued to serve as apostolic administrator of Antigonish diocese until a new bishop was appointed in Dec. 2019.
Mancini was born in Mignano Monte Lungo, Italy, on Nov. 27, 1945, and emigrated to Canada with his family.
He was ordained to the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Montréal in 1970 and appointed as an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese on Feb. 18, 1999.
Mancini was mentioned in a report published this week by Pepita G. Capriolo, a former Quebec Superior Court justice, on the Church’s response to complaints against the clerical abuser Brian Boucher, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in March 2019.
Mancini was appointed to lead the archdiocese of Halifax and serve as apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Yarmouth on Oct. 18, 2007. The two dioceses were merged later to form the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth.
Mancini also served as apostolic administrator of Antigonish diocese on Sept. 26-Nov. 21, 2009, after Lahey’s resignation and before Dunn’s appointment as ordinary of the diocese.
A Mass of thanksgiving for Mancini’s ministry and Dunn’s succession was due to take place Nov. 27 at St. Mary’s Cathedral Basilica, Halifax, at 12:15 pm local time. The archdiocese said that the Mass would be livestreamed for those unable to attend because of coronavirus restrictions.
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Members of the Sts’ailes First Nation at Holy Rosary Cathedral last year for the first Mass to integrate a First Nation language. A Cardus report presents the voices of Indigenous Canadians speaking about their faith and distinguishing it from the traditional spirituality they’re often associated with. / Photo courtesy Nicholas Elbers, 2022
Vancouver, Canada, May 17, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
A groundbreaking report published by the Ottawa-based Cardus Institute has given voice to Indigenous Canadians who are frustrated by secular society’s unawareness of — or unwillingness to accept — the fact that almost half of them are Christian.
“I find that insulting to Indigenous people’s intelligence and freedom,” Catholic priest Father Cristino Bouvette said of the prejudice he regularly encounters.
Bouvette, who has mixed Cree-Métis and Italian heritage and now serves as vicar for vocations and Young Adults in the Diocese of Calgary, was one of 12 individuals interviewed by Cardus for the report “Indigenous Voices of Faith.”
Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, left, leads a post-production discussion by Indigenous Voices of Faith participants. Photo courtesy of Cardus
Prejudice against Indigenous Christians has become so strong, even inside some Indigenous communities, “that Indigenous Christians in this country right now are living in the time of new martyrdom,” Bouvette said.
Although that martyrdom may not cost them their lives, “they are ostracized and humiliated sometimes within their own communities if they openly express their Christian or Catholic faith.”
Statistics Canada reported last year that the 2021 census found that 850,000, or 47%, of Canada’s 1.8-million Indigenous people identify as Christian and that more than a quarter of the total report they are Catholic. Only 73,000, or 4%, of Indigenous people said they adhere to traditional Indigenous spiritual beliefs.
In a new report, Cardus wants to “amplify the voices of Indigenous Canadians speaking for themselves about their religious commitments, which sometimes clash with the typical public presentation of Indigenous spirituality.” Photo courtesy of Cardus
Ukrainian Catholic Deacon Andrew Bennett, program director for Cardus Faith Communities, conducted the interviews for the think tank last fall. He published his report in March at a time when Canadian mainstream media and many political leaders continued to stir division and prejudice through misleading commentary about abandoned cemeteries at Indian Residential Schools.
The purpose of the report, he writes, “is to affirm and to shed light on the religious freedom of Indigenous peoples to hold the beliefs and engage in the practices that they choose and to contextualize their faith within their own cultures.”
Too often, however, “the public narrative implies, or boldly declares, that there’s a fundamental incompatibility between Indigenous Canadians and Christianity or other faiths,” Bennett said. “[M]any Indigenous Canadians strongly disagree with those narratives.”
Father Bouvette is clearly one of those.
“We did not have Christian faith imposed upon us because of [my Indigenous grandmother’s] time in the residential school or her father’s time in the trade school that he was sent to,” Bouvette said. “No, it was because our family freely chose to receive the saving message of Jesus Christ and lived it and had continued to pass it down.”
Bouvette said his “grandmother was not tricked into becoming something that she didn’t want to be, and then tricked into staying that way for 99 years and 11 months of her life. She was a Christian from the day of her birth, and she remained a Christian until the day of her death. And so that was not by the consequence of some imposition.”
Nevertheless, Canadians continue to labor under a prejudice holding the opposite view. “I do believe that probably the majority of Canadians at this time, out of some mistaken notion of guilt for whatever their cultural or ethnic background is, think they are somehow responsible for Indigenous people having had something thrust upon them that they didn’t want,” Bouvette said.
“We did not have Christian faith imposed upon us,” Father Cristino Bouvette says in a Cardus report on Indigenous faith. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“But I would say, give us a little more credit than that and assume that if there is an Indigenous person who continues to persevere in the Christian faith it is because they want to, because they understand why they have chosen to in the first place, and they remain committed to it. We should be respectful of that.”
The executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League, Christian Elia, agrees and says society should grant Indigenous Catholics the respect and personal agency that is due all Canadians.
“Firstly, I am not an Indigenous person, so I cannot speak for our Indigenous brothers and sisters, but neither can non-Indigenous secularists who choose to ignore that Indigenous people in Canada continue to self-identify as Christian, the majority of these Catholic,” Elia said in an interview with The B.C. Catholic.
He said his organization has heard from many Indigenous Catholics who are “growing weary of the ongoing assumption that somehow they have been coerced into the faith, that it is inconceivable that they wish to be Catholic. This condescending attitude must stop.”
Deacon Rennie Nahanee, who serves at St. Paul’s Indian Church in North Vancouver, was another of the 12 whom Bennett interviewed. A cradle Catholic and member of the Squamish First Nation, Deacon Nahanee said there is nothing incompatible with being both an authentic Indigenous person and a Catholic.
“I’m pretty sure we had a belief in the Creator even before the missionaries came to British Columbia,” he said. “And our feelings, our thoughts about creation, the way that we lived and carried out our everyday lives, and the way that we helped to preserve the land and the animals that we used for food, our spirituality and our culture, were similar to the spirituality of the Catholic Church.”
“I believe that’s why our people accepted it. I don’t think anybody can separate themselves from God, even though they say so.”
Interviewed later by The B.C. Catholic, Nahanee said he is not bothered by the sort of prejudice outlined by Bouvette. “People are going to say or do what they want,” he said.
Voices of Indigenous Christianity
Bennett, program director of Cardus Faith Communities, interviewed 12 Indigenous Canadians, most of them Christian, about their religious commitments, “which often clash with the typical public presentation of Indigenous spirituality.” Here is a selection of some of their comments:
Tal James of the Penelakut First Nation in Nanaimo spoke about the relationship between Indigenous culture and his Christian faith:
Tal James and wife Christina. Photo courtesy of Project 620 – James Ministry
“I think … that our [Indigenous] cultures were complete, and in Jesus they’re more complete. I think that’s a big thing and a big step for a lot of us. You’re going to have a lot of non-Indigenous people look at you and question your actions based on your Aboriginal heritage. Don’t take that to heart. They’re the ignorant ones who don’t want you to flourish. Those of you who are Christians, First Nations Christians, you come to the table with the same gifting that non-Aboriginal people have. For them to say, ‘We want to make room for you at the table,’ correct them. You are already at the table, and encourage them to step back and allow your gifts to flourish. Because it’s one in the same spirit.”
Rose-Alma McDonald, a Mohawk from Akwesasne, which borders New York, Ontario, and Quebec, talked about re-embracing her Catholic faith:
Rose-Alma McDonald. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“I surprised everybody, including myself, in terms of embracing Catholicism after 20 years away. So I’ve had a few epiphanies in the sense that this is why my mother made me do so much in the church growing up. When I’m working, volunteering, and doing stuff in the church, I remember that. I keep remembering I’m Catholic and I’m still Catholic. I will stay Catholic because of the way I was raised.”
Jeff Decontie, a Mohawk from the Algonquin First Nations who lives in Ottawa, talked about being a person of faith in a secular world:
Jeff Decontie. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“Secular worldviews can sort of eat up everything around them and accept a whole wide range of beliefs at the same time. For example, you have the prevailing scientific thinking alongside New Age believers, and people in society just accept this, saying, ‘Oh, whatever it is you believe in, all religions lead to the same thing.’ No one questions it. How can these contradictions coexist? … Then we ask an [Indigenous] elder to lead prayer? Any other religion would be a no-no, but you can ask for an elder who’s going to pray a generic prayer to some generic Creator, and it’s not going to ruffle any feathers. I think that’s the danger of secular thought creeping into Canada: It goes unnoticed, it’s perceived as neutral, but at the same time it’s welcoming a whole wide range of beliefs. And it doesn’t just influence Indigenous thought. It’s influencing Christianity.”
Rosella Kinoshameg, a member of the Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, spoke about being Indigenous and Catholic:
Rosella Kinoshameg. Photo courtesy of the Catholic Register
“Well, I can’t change being Indigenous. That’s something that is me. I can’t change that. But to believe in the things that I was taught, the traditional things, the way of life and the meanings of these things, and then in a church, well, those things help one another and they make me feel stronger.”
This article was originally published May 10, 2023, in The B.C. Catholic, a weekly publication serving the Catholic community in British Columbia, Canada, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
The remains of St. George Coptic Orthodox Church, Surrey, BC / St. George Coptic Orthodox Church
Washington D.C., Jul 20, 2021 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
A Coptic Orthodox church in British Columbia was destroyed in a fire on Monday, July 19, just days a… […]
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov 30, 2020 / 05:19 pm (CNA).- Demonstrations were held Saturday throughout Argentina in opposition to a bill that would legalize elective abortion, introduced by President Alberto Fernández earlier this month.
According to organizers, the demonstrations against the bill took place in more than 500 cities Nov. 28.
With messages such as “Legal or illegal abortion kills the just same,” “We are not afraid to defend the truth,” and “There are more of us who defend life, we are the blue majority,” Argentines demonstrated for the protection of the unborn. Blue refers to the light blue neckerchiefs adopted by the prolife movement as the symbol of their cause; abortion advocates have chosen green as their color.
A vote on the bill could be taken as soon as Dec. 10 in the Chamber of Deputies, where it is being fast tracked.
Existing Argentine law allows abortion in cases when the mother’s life or health is in danger, or in cases of rape.
One of the participants of the Buenos Aires march was lawmaker Victoria Morales Gorleri. A few days ago, she received a letter from Pope Francis responding to a letter sent by two women from one of the poor neighborhoods in the capital, Villa 31, who were concerned about the abortion bill pushed by Fernández.
“Francis wrote me a letter, addressed to women, where he says that it’s not right to hire a hit man to solve a problem,” Morales said in a video posted by march organizers.
“We have to solve the problem by fighting poverty and creating jobs. There are other ways to go about this, not the elimination of a life … It’s a failure for a nation to legalize the death of a human being.”
“If we legalize deciding on human life to solve a problem, then we will have a very sad end of the year because we’re becoming a people that is moving more and more away from the ethics linked to the human being,” Morales said.
Agustín Laje said in a video posted by march organizers that “life is not only a right but a fundamental right, without which no other right makes sense.”
What every person “needs, first of all, is the right to life in order to exercise any other right. It’s even a question of logic,” he stressed. Laje also warned that “dismissing human rights begins by dismissing the right to life.”
Camila Duro of the Argentine Pro-Life Unity organization explained to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, that the demonstrations took place because the Fernández administration “wants to fast track the legalization of abortion, turning its back on the majority of the Argentine people, and so we want to express our disgust with that move.”
Dr. María José Mancino, president of Doctors for Life Argentina, told ACI Prensa that contrary to what those who support the government’s anti-life law say, “abortion is not a health problem or a priority problem in Argentina. There are many other problems that are not being considered.”
“The Senate already defeated an abortion bill in 2018 in Argentina and the people have taken to the streets now to say that we don’t want abortion. The country does not need to be divided in such a fraught political and economic climate. “
A bill to legalize abortion through the first 14 weeks of gestation narrowly passed the Chamber of Deputies in 2018, but was rejected by the Senate.
Mancino stressed the need to “defend the values, tradition and the family in the country.
Abortion is an issue that divides us all. Those whom they want to kill with this law are future Argentines, compatriots, citizens of our country.”
Raúl Magnasco from Más Vida Argentina told ACI Prensa that “we are going through very difficult times in our country and it’s important that we commit ourselves to the defense of life.”
Magnasco noted that “what citizens are calling for is to respect the will of the people in face of a government that promotes the abortion agenda according to the interests or requirements of the International Monetary Fund, calling them rights or sexual and reproductive health.”
In an email to ACI Prensa, former congresswoman Cynthia Hotton said that by this abortion bill “the national government intends to put [the issue] on the agenda to divide society and distract. The president is hiding the failure of the public health system, poverty and the economy behind this initiative.”
“People are fed up with the lies and the political manipulation of everything: from the pandemic and the land seizures, to the farewell given to Diego Maradona. The outcome is always the same: following the incompetency, the people are the ones who suffer the most. With abortion, the same thing happens. People are tired of the green neckerchief as the panacea to all the problems of women and of society.”
“While the budget is wasted on radical feminists and abortion supporters in all ministries, poverty, insecurity and violence continue to grow; the healthcare system continues to collapse; underpaid doctors are still overwhelmed; pregnant women and unborn babies continue to die in the poorest provinces but also in the city of Buenos Aires,” Hotton lamented.
“The green neckerchief seems to be for Alberto Fernández the only flag left standing,” she stressed.
The abortion bill, entitled “Regulation of access to voluntary interruption of pregnancy and post-abortion care,” was drawn up by the ministries of Health and Women, Gender and Diversity in coordination with the Legal and Technical Secretariat of the Presidency.
Along with that bill, Fernández also introduced the “Comprehensive health and care during pregnancy and early childhood,” which was drafted by the Social Development department.
Discussion of both bills will begin in parallel in online sessions starting next week.
So far, two days have been allocated for between 30 and 60 presenters from the scientific, health, ethical-religious and judicial areas, each having seven minutes.
The apparent goal is to discuss the bills in December so that once voted on in the full session of the Chamber of Deputies, and if passed, they would be sent to the Senate for debate.
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