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Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Week of March 8, 1999

Canadian and Foreign News Highlights

Turcotte defends religious orders implicated in 'Duplessis orphans' scandal:

Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montreal defended seven religious orders implicated in a child abuse scandal involving Catholic-run institutions in Quebec. He also challenged the "Duplessis orphans" to provide proof of their allegations and invited each one to formally ask the religious orders implicated to investigate their complaints. In early March the orphans' committee held a press conference at which members presented medical records to support their claims of abuse.

Mother Teresa's sainthood process allowed to begin:

After an outpouring of requests from all over the world, Pope John Paul has lifted the standard five-year waiting period for investigating the sainthood cause of Mother Teresa. The move allows a diocesan investigation into Mother Teresa's life to begin immediately.

Vatican continues to oppose Beijing conference agenda:

The Vatican served notice at the United Nations March 1 that it will continue to oppose the approach to ``reproductive health'' endorsed at the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women. In a statement delivered at the UN headquarters in New York, Ellen Lukas of the Vatican's UN mission said the Beijing Plan of Action ``emphasized reproductive health to the detriment of other very pressing health problems suffered by women and girls.''

Group seeks Pinochet's extradition:

The Holy See's intervention in the case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet isn't sitting well with the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America (ICCHRLA). Vatican officials confirmed recently that the Church had written to the British government at Chile's request, asking that Pinochet be returned to his homeland for trial rather than be extradited to Spain to face trial on human rights charges. "I find this quite disturbing, to say the least," said Bill Fairbairn, spokesperson for ICCHRLA, a Canadian church coalition that includes the Catholic Church in Canada.

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