QUEBEC CITY (CNS) As the Quebec government tightens measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and allows only essential services, the Catholic dioceses of the province have started temporary layoffs affecting hundreds of Catholic employees and priests.
Bishops launch new family office February 20, 2021
OTTAWA A new organization focused on supporting families within the Catholic Church in Canada is now up and running.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ new Office for Family and Life began operations on Feb. 15, “Family Day” in six Canadian provinces. The new office, which in essence replaces the previous Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF), is expected to also work closely with a new CCCB Standing Committee for Family and Life.
“The new office will undertake its mandate to grow the conference’s engagement with diocesan personnel for family and life issues, as well as to cultivate relationships with external organizations and individuals,” a CCCB statement said, adding it will foster “the exchange of ideas, network-building and advocacy focused on the pastoral care of families and the dignity of human life from conception until natural death.”
By Lisa Zengarini
In their Pastoral Message for Advent, the Quebec Catholic Bishops have invited Catholics to continue “to show creativity” as they prepare to celebrate Christmas and the New Year in “unprecedented” ways this year and to consider the present ongoing health constraints as “an opportunity to live and grow in their faith”.
“While we would like to have a good time with family and friends, out of prudence and to protect one another other, we must limit as much as possible these contacts”, Bishop Christian Rodembourg, president of the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops, writes. However the Covid-19 restrictions must not be endured “passively”, he stresses.