Fr. Ted essay contest returns for 11th year
Father Ted Colleton
The Interim has been on the pro-life scene for more than 28 years. For 10 of those years the paper has partnered with Niagara Region Right to Life to sponsor a scholarship program for high school level students. Back in 2001 Fr. Ted Colleton was nearing the end of his 80-hour weeks serving the pro-life cause. He was not quite retired, but he would devote more time to praying for the cause of the unborn and less time travelling and speaking. He would continue, for a few more years, to pen a column for the paper, but it was becoming less frequent.
Fr. Ted was a source of inspiration for the many young people and teachers whom he had visited in schools, bringing to them gentility, generosity of spirit, and the truth of the faith and God’s love for His human family.
The staff and board of The Interim considered ways by which the great example of this outstanding pro-life hero could be animated to inspire young people, and from this brainstorming came the genesis of a scholarship program to be created in his name, to honour his life-long contribution to the pro-life cause. Since its inception in the Fall of 2001 more than 500 students have participated in the program, thanks to encouragement from their teachers, parents and peers.
Each year senior high school students are asked to submit applications, including a self-profile and an original essay on a theme set by the scholarship committee.
The Father Ted Colleton Scholarship serves to encourage young people to learn about pro-life issues, the pro-life movement and to become involved in pro-life activities whether in the school setting or in the wider community. Considering that Fr. Ted wrote a column for The Interim for a quarter-century, it was thought that encouraging young people to think and write about some aspect of abortion was a fitting way to honour the pro-life priest.
Niagara Region RTL provides the prize money for the scholarship: $1500 first prize, $800 second prize and $500 third prize. The Interim provides the publicity and promotion of the scholarship program through various means of communications including advertisements, posters, email, and the internet.
The general public can support this program in several ways; they can encourage their teenage children or grandchildren to enroll in the program; and they can contribute financially to the program, by donating to Niagara Region RTL, which will issue tax receipts for such donations.
This is a wonderful initiative for honouring the life and work of Father Ted Colleton and inspiring young people to take up that cause so dear to his heart – respecting human life, defending it, and waging the great struggle to gain legal protection at all stages of its development.
The Interim also produces a curriculum supplement that uses stories in the paper and other materials as a resource for teachers across a wide spectrum of subject disciplines to encourage thinking about life and family issues.
Information regarding the scholarship program or curriculum will appear on www.theinterim.ca and questions may be directed to the program’s administrator at (416) 204-1687 or email dirocco@theinterim.com.
Traditionally the scholarship winners are declared in late January, and the winning entries are published in The Interim in late spring.
The essay topic chosen for this year’s scholarship program calls on students to muse about the following question: “Is there cause for pro-life optimism regarding the abortion issue in Canada?”
Quotables from entrants of the 2011 Fr. Ted Colleton Scholarship Essay contest
Life begins at conception, even before the baby is outside of the womb, God has created them and knows all about them before they are even fully formed. Before abortion became legal, society believed this to be true.
Stephanie Gasbarrino
We must remember that with our rights and our choices come responsibilities, and we can’t take someone else’s rights away to avoid our responsibilities.
Danielle Bandstra
When abortion comes to mind, one should not limit their concerns to children of the future, rather, they should bring into light all those they love (including themselves) and imagine a world without them; abortion is indiscriminate murder and only through this visualization, can one hope to grasp its deadly potential with regards to the future.
Anson Au
Western culture has fallen deeply into the traps of the media ….people have become slaves to the media’s propaganda as they walk mindlessly like sponges absorbing all the misconceptions of television and perverse music.
Ashley Qua
Through abortion, we are killing our friends, our family, and our future by the millions every single year.
Edward Lawlor
Life does not begin or deepen in meaning because of a passage from one room to another, from one stage to the next, as a child to a teenager to an adult.
Stefanie Backs
Dishonest language regarding the origin of life, the beginnings of autonomous personhood, and differentiation of the human from any other biological organism has led to a societal debate on abortion which is unproductive, malevolent, and itself untruthful, and legislation similar in manner results as a consequence thereof, to the detriment of millions of unborn.
Julian Paparella
Abortion is the opposite of love, which is a selfless giving; abortion is a selfish taking. To misunderstand love is to make the first fundamental mistake in realizing the abortion.
Artur Tsurkan
The introduction of new terms such as voluntary interruption of pregnancy and termination of pregnancy is shameful evidence that euphemisms for murder continue to circulate in our society.
Natasha Milavec
Without the truth how does one know what is right and what is wrong.
Kyle Quinlan
Thus use of a euphemism leads to a dishonest debate about what abortion really is and who it hurts.
Taylor Hyatt
When it comes to abortion we make it look as if it is alright to be dishonest. Honesty seems to be such a rare commodity in the world today especially in the world of politics.
Filip Borovsky
A great deal of the population has convinced itself that the dehumanization of a person in the earliest form of development, a stage of growth which every human being to ever exist has had to undergo, is reasonable and just, and Canadian law certainly reflects this frame of mind.
Christian Spillane
The biggest problem with this issue is that people attempt to use dishonest language to be right so that they can do things that they know are wrong.
Brandon Ward
Overall it is necessary for the global community to recognize that using scientific words to distance themselves from guilt and pain is not going to solve anything.
Katie McLaughlin
This “me-centered” society has pushed the public to believe that all that really matters in life is themselves, and lead them to believe that although babies are small when they’re being aborted, it’s small so it’s okay.
Sara Menghesia
How is convincing women they have no other choice except abortion “pro-choice”? There is no freedom in being misled by deceptive language or scarcity of information.
Talina Henseleit
The oversimplification of the issues involved in the abortion debate has worked well for the pro-choice movement, which is interested only in the rights of individual women. Thus, instead of having laws that promote the well-being of society, we have laws that elevate the wishes of one person above all others.
Rosemary Showell
Enter 2011 contest
