Pope Benedict XVI has met privately with a delegation of Canadian native people to express his sorrow for the abuse suffered by indigenous children in Canadian residential schools. The meeting took place at the end of last week.

A Canadian author is encouraging parents and children in North America to put human relationships ahead of seasonal "shopaholism".

Church leaders in Canada want action to follow a public apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to victims of a situation where aboriginal children were placed in residential schools run by churches in a policy of enforced assimilation.

The Canadian Government has followed churches and apologised for forcing 150,000 aboriginal children to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools aimed at assimilating them.

A Canadian church magazine has become the first North American sponsor of a travelling exhibit of the life and work of natural scientist Charles Darwin, which opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on 8 March and will come to Britain.

Two major religious organizations, one Jewish and the other Muslim, have unveiled a shared interfaith dialogue project which is intended to reach hundreds of thousands of their members across the United States and Canada.

Anglicans in Canada and the United States are pushing ahead with local procedures for blessing lesbian and gay people in the church. The US Episcopal Diocese of California has authorised the use of three trial rites for same-sex unions.

A Canadian Catholic priest is urging Quebec to move towards a model of "open secularism" that respects both religious and non-religious contributions to society without imposing the beliefs of any one group.

The arrest last month of a US humanitarian worker entering Canada with 12 Haitian asylum seekers has serious implications for church groups and organizations that help refugees, says Mennonite Central Committee Canada’s refugee coordinator.

The head of the United Church of Canada has written to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging his government urgently and immediately to resume financial support to the Palestinian Unity Government - in the face of a wide boycott.