Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Toronto leader sponsors Iraqi refugee family

byStaff writers
29 August 2010
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

TORONTO (CNS): For Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins, the fate of Iraqi Christians trapped in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon is not just another tough case in an unfair world full of too much heartbreak. For him, the situation is personal.

Archbishop Collins has written to his fellow bishops across Canada about the fate of Iraqi Christian refugees, asking them to encourage refugee sponsorship in their dioceses. He has urged pastors in Toronto to get their parishes involved in sponsoring refugees.

He is also personally sponsoring a refugee family.
“Helping refugees is important in this world in which so many people are suffering, and I want personally to assist in this,” Archbishop Collins told The Catholic Register, a Canadian weekly, in an email.

Archbishop Collins – like any parish sponsoring a refugee family – will wait months before he gets to meet the family picked out for him by the archdiocesan Office for Refugees. However, wait times for Iraqis are among the shortest for privately sponsored refugees.

As a Christian community, the Catholic Church in Toronto should feel a special bond with Christian refugees from Iraq, the archbishop said.

“We should always seek to help any people who are suffering, and the people of our archdiocese have always done so,” Archbishop Collins wrote. “But at this time, many Christians are suffering because of their faith, and we need in a particular way to reach out to them.”

The archbishop created the Office for Refugees not long after becoming Archbishop of Toronto. Last year he set a goal of doubling the number of refugees sponsored by parishes and religious communities in the archdiocese.

The refugee office’s executive director Martin Mark said the archbishop’s example has made it easier to persuade parishes to be involved.

Given the number of Catholics in Toronto who were refugees themselves or were descended from refugees, it was not a tough sell, Mr Mark said.

“In the Lithuanian Martyrs Parish, which has nothing to do with Iraq, they understood years ago that regardless of whether (the refugees) are Lithuanian, if they are persecuted and we have the means to help, why not?” he said.

Related Stories

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

Mr Mark spent all of July in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, interviewing refugee families and choosing 200 for future sponsorship through the Office for Refugees.

He is also in talks with Citizenship and Immigration Canada on ways of speeding up the sponsorship process.

 

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Telling tale of an obnoxious movie genius

Next Post

Rising sea levels force 1700 Carteret Islanders from their homes

Staff writers

Related Posts

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”
News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village
News

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village
News

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

24 May 2022
Next Post

Rising sea levels force 1700 Carteret Islanders from their homes

Soldier prayers

Sisters celebrate in spirit of Mother Teresa

Popular News

  • From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Catholic environmentalist says Australia has failed as God’s caretakers of earth following interim report

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”
News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

by Mark Bowling
24 May 2022
0

BRISBANE Archbishop Mark Coleridge has used the feast day of Our Lady, Help of Christians to call...

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

24 May 2022
Life ‘is always sacred and inviolable’, Pope Francis says

Life ‘is always sacred and inviolable’, Pope Francis says

23 May 2022

From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

23 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping